Mayssa Chehata is a self-proclaimed ‘sugar fiend’, but growing up with a diabetic father meant sweet treats and junk food were a rarity in her health conscious home. Birthday parties and friends’ houses were her one shot to consume as much candy as she possibly could.
When Mayssa landed a role as Uber’s Marketing Manager, her childhood dreams were answered: an office with an unlimited supply of snacks, candy, and sugar. After two years at Uber (and a whole lot of sugar crashes later), she transitioned into a role at the plant-based meal delivery service, Daily Harvest. While working in the health space, Mayssa was thrilled to learn there were better alternatives out there for so many of her favorite foods... well, except for candy. Knowing that restricting herself of candy, the treat that’s brought her joy since childhood would never work for her, she thought, “Maybe there’s a better way.”
Committed to creating something to satisfy her sweet tooth, Mayssa partnered with celebrity chef Elizabeth Falkner to formulate low-sugar gummy bears made with monk fruit that taste just as good as her childhood favorites. In August 2020, Mayssa Chehata officially launched BEHAVE, a better for you candy brand that promises to be “good so you don’t have to be.”
Who were you at twenty?
At twenty I was in my senior year in college, and I was constantly somewhere in between having the time of my life with my friends enjoying the final days of freedom, and being extremely stressed out about figuring out what I was going to do after school. Ultimately I landed in my dream job, but before then I was obsessively researching and interviewing in so many different industries because I frankly had no idea what I wanted to do.
How have you evolved since?
I've learned to have faith and trust the process. I don't get so frantic worrying about "if things will work out", I try to just believe that things are in a constant state of working out, and that whatever happens or is happening is things "working out". This mindset has helped me a lot to reduce anxiety and fear, especially in such an uncertain journey as launching a business.
On how working in wellness led to a lifestyle and mindset shift
When I was working at Uber, it was very much this ‘work hard, play hard’ mentality. The corporate office is full of snacks and literally candy in jars everywhere. We were working really hard and burning ourselves out, and basically snacking on gummy bears all day to keep going.
When I transitioned from Uber to Daily Harvest, I was still working in a business development role, but it was such a 360 lifestyle shift for me. At Daily Harvest, the entire brand ethos is around wellness and eating clean and healthy to fuel your body. I’ve never been someone to restrict myself and I don’t think I’ll ever be someone to say, “I’m never touching sugar again,” it just doesn’t work for me and it’s not enjoyable. But working in the health and wellness sector definitely triggered my personal health journey and thinking about how I could be kinder to my body. I started considering what other alternatives could be out there for the foods I love.
I was finding a lot of great options, like you know switching to chickpea pasta or Halo Top Ice Cream. There were ‘better for you’ alternatives in a lot of food categories except for candy. It just became so clear to me that candy was this one section of the store that had not progressed in decades, if not centuries. All the products were full of sugar and artificial flavors, and even the branding was super outdated. And while I love all that candy I grew up on in the ‘90s, it just no longer fit my lifestyle to sit there and eat an entire bag or two in one sitting.
On creating BEHAVE & partnering with a chef instead of food scientists
With everything I was feeling, I thought maybe this was an opportunity from a business perspective. First and foremost, the question was, “Can we make this product and can we make it taste amazing.” And I knew, getting into a category like candy, even if you’re going ‘better for you’ and even if you’re going to have all these benefits that make the product so much cleaner and healthier than the traditional options, it still was going to have to taste great. At the end of the day, people reach for candy because it brings them joy. If it tastes like green juice or spinach, it’s not a good alternative and pretty much defeats the purpose.
Knowing I couldn’t and didn’t want to compromise taste, that’s what led me to want to partner with a chef, ideally someone with a background in pastries. I connected with Elizabeth Falkner and she was really excited about the idea and the project. We literally ordered ingredients off of Amazon, got in the kitchen and started recipe testing. That’s how we landed on our initial prototype, formula, and flavors– we really went through that together.
On BEHAVE’s core message of ‘more’
I worked with an amazing agency called Gander and they really helped distill all the thoughts in my head into an actual brand. We knew that while we are a better for you, low-sugar brand with a clean label, it was also very important to us that we are not a diet brand. At BEHAVE, we don’t push diet culture and I’ve never even been a dieter myself, so that just wouldn’t have felt authentic to me. I knew that I didn’t want the message to be about eating less sugar or restricting your eating. The message always needed to be about more– like more fun, more joy, eat more bags of candy, and also like eat candy with sugar in it, eat birthday cake... Essentially the message that we really wanted to convey is don’t let anyone tell you how to behave, that’s why our name BEHAVE is crossed off on our logo.
On BEHAVE’s rotational charity initiative
We donate 1% of our total online sales to different organizations. We created the program in a way where it can give us flexibility, so a partnership with a charity could run anywhere from one month to five months. When we first launched it was the end of the summer, which was obviously such an important time with the Black Lives Matter movement, so we decided to support the Equal Justice Initiative at that moment. We’re always kind of prompting our audience and community to find out what initiatives and causes are near and dear to them and what organizations they would like to see us work with.
What advice would you give to yourself at twenty?
Trust your gut. It will lead you to exactly where you're supposed to go. You know what to do, listen to yourself and your body.
What would you say to a twenty-something year old about finding her place in the world?
Feeling weird, out of place, lonely, off-balance, ungrounded, stressed, frantic, and all the other things we feel as human beings, is completely normal. Welcome these feelings, but move through them. They're always temporary, and you come to the other side eventually, where you find peace, happiness, joy, laughter, great friendships, and all the good things.