Solving Gut Issues Led to Buying Facebook Groups, Going Viral on TikTok & Taking Over Walmart

Consumer VC #345 with Katie Wilson from BelliWelli

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Hey friends,

I’m delighted to share my conversation with Katie Wilson, Founder/CEO of BelliWelli. is a functional wellness brand focused on gut health, best known for its probiotic snack bars and fiber supplements originally designed for consumers with sensitive stomachs or digestive issues. Big thanks to Nikki Gryll for the introduction.

More below with some of my favorite quotes and takeaways from this one.

Episode chapters:

02:41 How She Became a Celebrity Matchmaker

06:17 What Founders Are Like as Dating Clients

10:03 Getting Hired by Match.com

13:11 The Gut Health Breakdown That Sparked Everything

16:59 Her Husband’s Role in Creating the First Bar

18:08 The Secret Power of Facebook Groups

19:01 How She Bought 20+ Groups to Launch the Brand

21:24 Scaling From Kitchen Bars to 500K+ Customers

24:34 How She Met Her First Investor Through Matchmaking

25:47 What Made an Exec Wire Her $200K

27:12 From “IB Simple” to Rebranding as BelliWelli

31:01 Why Retailers Told Her the Original Brand Would Fail

33:19 Getting Into Sprouts, Then Target

36:40 Why the Protein Bar Aisle Isn’t Ready for Fiber

40:51 The Genius Move to Launch Fiber Powders at Walmart

44:12 How a Gluten-Free Café Introduced Her to Walmart’s Buyer

46:04 Why Walmart Called to Say “What Did You Do?”

47:04 Her Secret Edge as CEO

48:58 Going Viral at Walmart—With No Ad Spend

50:41 Filming Hundreds of Organic Videos in Store

51:08 Driving 1 Billion Walmart Impressions in 7 Months

53:39 What Most Founders Misunderstand About Community

55:33 Why She’s Still in Walmart Every Night

From Matchmaking to Gut Issues

“I actually wanted to be a matchmaker since I was 10, I used to set up my classmates in sixth grade.” – Katie Wilson

After a stint at Hulu sparked a love for startups, Katie landed the job of a lifetime: being a professional matchmaker. She joined Three Day Rule—an early-stage matchmaking company—where she became hooked on startup life. Ironically, it was matchmaking that eventually connected her to her first investor (more on that later).

But it was her health crisis—after food poisoning and multiple rounds of antibiotics—that led her to the idea for BelliWelli.

“My stomach hurt day in and day out. Suddenly, I couldn’t eat dairy or gluten. I went from Oreos and

Better Cheddars to a severely limited diet—and nothing was fixing it.”

Finding Community

As she tried to manage her symptoms, Katie began lurking in gut health and IBS Facebook groups. What she found wasn’t just relatable—it was revelatory.

“I realized I wasn’t alone. All these women—thousands—were struggling with bloating, stomach pain, elimination diets. It hit me: this is a massive, underserved problem.”

It turns out, lots of people have gut issues:

• Approximately two-thirds (around 66%) of American adults experience recurrent digestive symptoms such as gas, bloating, and abdominal pain – PRNewswire (According to Study)

• In a survey that included 71,000 Americans, 61% reported 1+ GI symptoms in the past week – NIH

Her husband Nick offered to make her a treat that fit her restrictions. That evolved into a cookie, then a bar. But the big unlock? Sharing it with the Facebook communities.

“We launched a scrappy Shopify site, called it ‘IB Simple,’ and sold directly to people in those groups. We were making thousands of bars in our kitchen every night and shipping them via UPS the next morning.”

Katie and her husband initially created a snack bar tailored to her restrictive diet: gluten-free, dairy-free, low-FODMAP, and genuinely tasty.

Early Distribution—Then Evolution

Katie doubled down on her Facebook community play—literally. She bought 20 gut-health groups outright, acquiring access to over 500,000 consumers for a few hundred dollars apiece.

“It sounds crazy, but I woke up one night and thought, can I just buy the Facebook groups? And the admins said yes!”

This initial traction was undeniable. However, she quickly realized that branding around a condition (IBS) was limiting.

“A very iconic female founder once told me, ‘The brand won’t work—no one wants to buy something with IBS in the title.’ She was right. It wasn’t aspirational.”

That insight led to a rebrand—BelliWelli, a name brainstormed with her former boss and mentor, Talia, from Three Day Rule.

Competitive Set: Carving Space in Bars and Supplements

Early on, BelliWelli differentiated in the bar aisle by avoiding the protein arms race.

“We were a sparkly pink bar talking about gut health while everyone else was talking about protein.”

Katie recognized that the protein-dominated bar set left room for fiber- and probiotic-forward brands, but it was still a tough education challenge.