Blair Trustee Ashley Thompson ’08 has spent the last decade revolutionizing the grab-and-go breakfast game. Now a nationwide brand, MUSH expects to sell its 200-millionth cup of oats this year, marking 10 years of business. On the Today Show’s “She Made It” series, MUSH founder and CEO Ashley sat down with host Jill Martin in July to share her journey of transforming her childhood breakfast favorite into a household name.

Ashley cofounded MUSH in 2015 with the conviction that easy, delicious and nutritious food can elevate the world in powerful ways. After receiving a degree in economics and mathematics from Columbia University, she started her career as a trading analyst at Goldman Sachs. Ashley was struck by the surprising lack of access to nutritious food, even on Wall Street. In an attempt to reconcile her strong beliefs with what she found unacceptable, she discovered an unmet need in the market. She quickly set out to create a healthy, delicious, convenient food product, inspired by her favorite hack as a kid: cereal and oatmeal soaked in milk. She quit her job and got to work.

Ashley began selling small, homemade batches at local farmers’ markets, using customer feedback to refine the product. The company’s turning point came in 2017, when MUSH appeared on Shark Tank and landed a deal with investor Mark Cuban. “We got 10,000 orders in the first couple days post-airing,” Ashley recalls during the interview, “and we had never shipped a single cup of oatmeal directly to a consumer before.”

MUSH’s first product—plant-based, ready-to-eat oats— hit the sweet spot of being both good for you and easy to grab on the go. From the start, Ashley believed that eating well should be simple and accessible, and that belief shaped everything from the flavors and portion sizes to the pricing. Named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in 2020, she’s a big believer in the idea that when you eat well, you feel better—and when you feel better, you do better. That mindset fuels her mission to get MUSH into as many hands as possible. She’s always thinking about how food impacts the way we live, and it drives her to keep improving and expanding what MUSH offers. Today, in addition to overnight oats, you can find MUSH protein bars in refrigerated sections of stores across the country.

When it comes to advice for other entrepreneurs, particularly females, Ashley tells Today Show viewers: “You don’t have to have all the answers upfront. No one does. To pretend would be a disservice to the journey, so keep pushing.”