Who is Ashley Thompson?
Ashley Thompson was a trader at Goldman Sachs when she started bringing a childhood oatmeal recipe to work to get through long days on the trading floor. In 2015 she and fellow Goldman trader Kat Thomas left the bank to turn it into MUSH, a ready-to-eat overnight oats brand, and moved to San Diego to build the business. MUSH sold about $70,000 in its first year. Thompson and Thomas pitched on Shark Tank in Season 9, asking $300,000 for 10% with $900,000 in projected 2018 sales. Mark Cuban beat Barbara Corcoran with an offer of the full amount plus a line of credit, and the founders accepted.
After the deal, the company scaled production from about 6,000 to 50,000 units a day and passed $5 million in sales by 2020. Thompson took over leadership on her own when Thomas stepped back in 2019. As CEO, she has grown MUSH into a national brand sold at Whole Foods, Costco, Target, Wegmans and Walmart, with more than 12,000 retail doors, and added protein bars and smoothies to the line. She also serves on the board of Blair Academy.
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