September 26, 2024 • 38 mins
Ever wondered how to turn a simple idea into a thriving brand? Join us as we unpack the secrets of brand building with Irena Todd, the visionary co-founder and CEO of Blue Zebra Brands. Irina's journey from managing giants like Degree and Tresemme at Unilever to founding a house of clean, natural personal care brands is nothing short of inspiring. Together, we explore her strategic moves, such as participating in the Telluride Venture Accelerator and creating Fresh Monster to fill a crucial gap in the kids' personal care market.
Discover the emotional elements that make a brand resonate deeply with consumers and how Irena emphasizes starting with the right emotional territories. Learn how real user feedback trumps relying solely on Amazon search tools, which often lead to market saturation. Irina also shares the importance of choosing strategic sales channels and the pitfalls of depending exclusively on Amazon for new products. We dive into the pet product industry, discussing how social media and local pet stores can play a pivotal role in fostering community and driving sales.
Finally, we tackle the multifaceted challenges of entering the retail market. Irina provides invaluable insights on pricing models, the intricacies of working with large retailers, and the essential go-to-market strategies for sustained profitability and growth. From the importance of timing and buyer relationships to maintaining an innovation roadmap, this episode is packed with practical advice for anyone looking to build and scale a successful brand. Tune in for a wealth of knowledge on navigating the complex world of retail and branding.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to the Brand Fortress HQ podcast.
I'm your host, jon Stojan,along with my co-hosts Matt
Atkins and Mike Kaufman, andtoday we have another Brand
Builder episode for you.
Our guest today is Irina Todd,co-founder and CEO of Blue Zebra
Brands, a house of brandsbuilding clean and natural
personal care products.
She's got a handful of brandsand her company was selected for
(00:21):
the Telluride VentureAccelerator.
Burt's Bees Launchpad has beenfeatured on CNBC, fast Company
and the Wall Street Journal,among others, along with a bunch
of other accomplishments.
Irina, thank you so much forbeing on the podcast and I know
that was just a quick overviewof a lot of different things
that you do.
If you could give a little bitof background as to how you got
(00:44):
into having a house of brandsand kind of your experiences
that have led up to this point.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Hi, john and everyone , thanks for having me.
I'll try to do it briefly, butthe journey has been 10 years
long already.
I'll start with a little bit ofa step back.
My background is in consumerpackaged goods.
I got my training in the bulkof my career at Unilever,
running really large personalcare brands.
My first brand was Degree Menand then Degree Women Now
(01:12):
co-founder and I actuallylaunched Axe Hair together when
men's hair care didn't exist instores.
I also was part of the M&A teamthat brought on Tresemme to
Unilever and managed Tresemmefor a couple years locally and
globally.
So kind of the crux of mybackground and kind of the start
(01:33):
of the story is that I lovebuilding brands and love the
idea of building a productaround an emotional insight and
then connecting with an audiencein a meaningful way, and
emotional insight and thenconnecting with an audience in a
meaningful way.
Our company started with kind ofthe standard founder problem.
You want to come up with asolution using your skill sets
(01:53):
and background.
My co-founder and I were bothhaving kids and felt like as
well as new kind of on theinsider track, that big
companies were not payingattention to the kids segment,
in particular in personal care,you have a huge baby set, huge
adult set, but kids is kind oflost in the middle and there are
really no brands that cater tothat segment.
(02:14):
And yet it's six times biggerthan maybe.
And so we felt like, you know,we were searching for brands on
our own and didn't want to useUnilever products on our kids,
and so we felt like, okay, thisseems like a good opportunity.
It's a little bit under theradar and feels like a good
territory to develop a brandthat really connects to
consumers and kids in particular.
(02:35):
That segment is really special.
That's how we started.
With just that idea.
We went to an acceleratorprogram in Telluride.
We moved there for five monthsand that can be an episode in
its own.
It was really fun and also agreat way to start a company,
because not only did it make usquit our regular jobs to go
start a company, but also itends with a big demo day where
(02:57):
we presented to almost a hundredinvestors and got our funding
and just got things off theground.
It was a really great way tostart a company.
Anyhow, that was the beginningand the idea was how do we
launch this kids personal carebrand?
The brand is called FreshMonster.
A year after the program welaunched it and the idea is
(03:20):
again to be the head to toepersonal care brand for your
kids as they go throughdifferent stages, you know, when
they started getting dirty andmessy.
Our products deliver, and thekind of foundation of the brand
it's not just how do we connectkids in that segment, but also
how do the products meet theirneeds, and so our product
philosophies are basically veryclean, natural products that
(03:41):
also work really well kind ofpulling from the Unilever
background of products have towork.
So yeah, that was kind of thebeginning.
I'll stop here just to seewhere you want to go and I can
tell you how the journeycontinued.
But that was really the impetus.
We started with one particularsegment, one brand, and went
from there.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
If you wouldn't mind, I have just kind of a question
before John digs in here, andthat is we really like.
I mean, our focus very much ison trying to convince Amazon
sellers that they really need tofocus on that branding aspect
of things.
It's been for a long time.
You know, it was pretty easy tojust kind of throw products up
(04:24):
on Amazon and sell them and makemoney, and so there's a lot of
people in this space who that'skind of what they did.
To be honest, in some ways it'skind of what I did.
I kind of fell into a brand, youknow, and it just kind of
materialized.
But you know that idea of kindof building that brand and
building that brand recognitionand that loyalty and that sort
of thing, that brand recognitionand that loyalty and that sort
(04:47):
of thing what if you could kindof put that a little bit into a
nutshell in terms of thatprocess?
You know, like, let's say youdon't really have a brand.
You know, maybe you have aproduct but you don't have a
brand, like what would you dowith that?
Like what?
What thinking process shouldyou walk through to figure out
what that brand might look like?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I love this question and, again, it could be a
podcast on its own, absolutely,because it's, you know, a very
meaningful topic, meaty topicand obviously you know what a
lot of the MBA programs teachyou, as well as Unilever
training, and really, at thebase of it, all these think
about the brands that you knowand even when you look at their
P&L and balance sheets, thebrand has a value, like a
(05:25):
monetary value, and there's areason for that right.
The reason for that is that ifyou have a brand and loyalty,
that means you're not constantlybattling it out for new
customers and you're notconstantly thinking about how is
somebody going to undercut meand how am I going to survive?
Building a brand is just along-term proposition to connect
(05:45):
to consumers on an emotionallevel.
The products have to deliver,but really it's an emotional
connection and, in a nutshell,when we thought about building a
brand and generally whencompanies try to build a brand,
they think about yes, there's aproblem we're trying to solve,
but beyond that, what is thisvalue proposition?
(06:06):
Why am I existing?
How am I going to connect tothe consumers?
What is this emotional hookthat I'm going to have, where
people are going to feel like Ihave space as a brand in their
lives and they're not going tokeep shopping for whatever the
cheaper item is next time around, and so that can be so many
different things.
There's like a whole stream ofwork that's done around consumer
(06:29):
insight and that's essentiallywhat you know.
What am I satisfying, what'sthe problem I'm solving for, but
also what's the emotional hookI'm trying to create with this
consumer.
For us in particular, we werereally building a brand around
the fact that kids kidhood iskind of like this messy, awkward
period, right, and so if wewent about building a brand just
around product solution, thenwe'd be like, okay, kids are
(06:52):
really dirty, they have tinglyhair, let's create a product
that solves that, and we wouldlook like probably anybody on
there and we would be duking itout on price forever and
probably wouldn't be aroundanymore.
Instead, what we try to do isthink about okay, how do we
create something meaningful intheir lives and what are some of
these emotional thoughts?
For us, that meant oops, we'rea little frozen.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Oh, you're fine, You're good, you're still here.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So I'll give you an example of what that looked like
for us.
We thought about kidhood asthis age of awkwardness and
really caring about what otherkids maybe think, and being very
influenced by media and by allthese stereotypical ideas of
what a girl should be, what aboy should be, what kidhood
should look like, and so wereally wanted to create
(07:42):
something that was disruptingthat and, in essence, disrupt
disrupting some of thesetraditional beauty standards for
kids and girls in particular,but also generally thinking
about kidhood as this wonderful,magical time where kids can be
who they are.
So when you look at our freshmonsters, our monsters in the
packaging are weird and quirkyand they're missing teeth and
(08:02):
eyes and they just look.
You know, they look alldifferent and weird and cool,
and that's what we wanted torepresent.
We wanted to represent thatkidhood and that kind of
emotional pool of be who you areright, be the awkward, quirky
kids that you are and be proudof that.
And so if you think of it thatway, all of a sudden it's like,
(08:22):
wow, like I'm you know, I'mfeeling emotional about it
because I want my kids to be whothey are.
I don't want them to, you know,just wear princess outfits and
just be into kind of thestereotypical stuff that the big
media and you know that we'regetting bombarded by, and so
that felt like a really uniqueemotional space.
Long answer, but essentiallywhat I'm trying to say is it
(08:47):
takes some time to build thatconnection and figure out why is
my brand important and what amI trying to say above and beyond
the product and what theproduct delivers?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Sorry, go ahead John.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Well, I was just going to ask because I think
that that's such a powerfulconcept and, mike, I'm so glad
you asked that question when youguys were building Fresh,
monster and even the brandsbeyond that that you guys work
on now what are some of theindicators that you look for
that that brand message isreally resonating as you build
your brand and target thataudience?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
When we started building Fresh Monster, we
started with a few concepts andthe concepts that were around
these emotional territories thatfelt resonant to us as moms.
So we are the audience.
If you aren't the audience,you'd want to do this work with
people who actually would beeventually using your products
and loving your brand and justtest a few territories.
There's some tools you can usearound different emotional
(09:41):
drivers.
You can just Google them andyou'll see there's different
ways you can go about developingthese concepts.
But we started with three andyou know I remember another one
that was all around super me.
So you know celebrating kind ofthe doing your best as a kid and
you know completely differentspace, more about empowerment
(10:02):
and going for it versus kind ofthis.
You know authenticity and beingyourself and being okay, being
strange and weird and cool.
Totally different territory,right, so you can play with
different territories.
And then we showed it to a lotof moms, a ton of them, and just
saw what resonated.
So, before we even startedtalking about brand name or
(10:22):
anything really, that's where westarted.
That was kind of the firstblueprint of where the brand was
going to go.
And's where we started.
That was kind of the firstblueprint of where the brand was
going to go.
And then, once we've gotten kindof this pulse on, oh wow, this
seems like a really richterritory.
Then we did a few other thoughtprocesses around okay, can this
come to life?
Can this come to life in abrand name, in packaging?
Can this be advertised?
Can this be?
(10:42):
Does this have legs, you know,in the commerce space?
Could this be translated tosomething that is also products?
And then from there, obviouslyyou now have guardrails right
and then you keep building thebrain based on those.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
One of the challenges that Amazon sellers that we see
a lot of them fall into isusing these tools to look for
search volume on Amazon to seehow many products have this many
reviews and are doing X amountof revenue.
And the challenge with that isthat I personally, in coaching
roles, have had students 12 ofthem come to me with the exact
same product because they wereusing the exact same tools and
(11:19):
the exact same filters.
What you've described and thisis what I tried to get to them,
you said it so much moreeloquently is, instead of
choosing a product based on afilter, choose a person first.
And once you choose a person, inmost cases I am the person that
I end up selling products to,and what makes that easy for me
is to put myself in the shoes ofthe consumer and to ask the
(11:40):
question what is a product thatcan not only enhance my life but
solve a problem for me?
And building a brand around aperson as opposed to a product
is so much easier and and you,you so many things that you said
because you were able to takethat to a group of moms and ask
like does this resonate with you?
So for me, there was a Facebookgroup that had a whole bunch of
barbecue like aficionados notjust guys that were grilling for
(12:03):
their kids on the weekend, likethese are the guys that are out
checking their brisket at twoo'clock in the morning and I had
this group of people that Icould ask these questions to,
and it was because I was focusedon that person as opposed to an
individual product, and Iresonated a lot with what you
were talking about, with whatyou did with the moms.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, that's not to say you shouldn't be using
product explorer and all thatstuff to figure out you know how
many people are searching whatyou're doing.
But you're right, that's kindof that's later on.
That's your go-to marketstrategy, right?
Versus?
Here's a product that has roomin the world because it needs a.
You know it meets a need andthat's where you start.
And then you then you figureout what channel makes sense for
(12:41):
me and maybe Amazon doesn't,right, and maybe it does.
I would say in general, amazonis great for you know, products
that are already searched andsomehow you have found a way to
connect in a different way or amore meaningful way or have some
benefit to offer that's notexisting already.
Otherwise, you'll be justduking it out on price For
(13:02):
products that are new to theworld.
Amazon's not great for thatbecause then you need to
generate demand, and generatingdemand on Amazon is not.
That's really not what thechannel is for.
Then you may want to considerbuilding out your brand, I don't
know through independentchannel, retail channel or
through your own website, if thefinancials make sense.
So really you start with theidea and then channel is kind of
(13:25):
, you know, the go-to-marketstrategy and not the actual
starting point.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Yeah, it's really hard to educate a consumer on
Amazon, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Well, and that's such a valuable point, right,
Because, you know, I do thinkthere's maybe almost this
dichotomy, like you've got.
You've got the individuals whoare just using the tools to
figure out you know whatproducts could I sell, that
there's space, you know and notreally paying attention to, you
know having an actual, you knowtarget customer avatar and
things like that.
But then you've also got peoplewho maybe they have an idea for
a very, you know, very newproduct.
You know that really doesn'texist out there, which there's
(13:59):
nothing wrong with that.
That's great, it's risky, butit's a thing.
But, as you said, Amazontypically is not going to be the
place where you want to do that, unless it's kind of a new
product right, there is atemplate for it over here.
I'm just making a reallydifferent version of it that
people might like better.
But if this is a brand newthing that nobody even knows
(14:20):
that they might need, Amazon isnot the place for that.
And if that's what you're doing, like if you're watching this
podcast and you're like, hey, Igot this great idea and I think
Amazon's a wonderful place tosell it, Cause there's so many
people, be careful with that,because you could lose your
shirt, Because the only way thatyou're going to educate people
on Amazon is with a massiveamount of money, because it's
all ads and you don't even knowwhat keywords to target.
You know like it.
(14:40):
Just it's kind of a mess.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I'm curious, going back to this, you know, because
this idea of understanding kindof that emotional connection
with brands.
So when you guys were doingwhether it's with Fresh Monster
or some of the other brands thatyou've worked with is there an
example that stands out in yourhead of a time where you know
there was part of that emotionalconnection that you guys had
kind of a hunch on that, whereyou ended up where it ended up,
(15:05):
not panning out?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Maybe our Mighty Mutt brand.
I'll share a little bit aboutthat one.
Essentially, we launched afurry kids brand about four
years ago so some five yearsinto running the business and it
came again from from consumerdemand.
We parents were saying I wantsomething like this for my furry
kids.
I'm using it on my kids.
Can you please create somethingthat's as safe and efficacious
(15:30):
for my pets?
And the hunch for us was tokind of follow that insight.
And we followed that insightand launched a brand around it
and it was good.
But it wasn't quite as deep ofa connection as we found with
Fresh Monster from the beginningand so we did it again, we kept
talking to dog owners, petparents.
(15:51):
We call them and asking againwhat role can we play?
What are the emotional hooksthat we can have?
And instead of this you knowour brand is called Mighty Mutt
and it's all around.
You know, again, treating yourdogs like kids and using
products that are just as safe,just as you would for your own
kids we started landing onconsumers again, telling us well
(16:13):
, we're really struggling withis doing this really quickly, I
don't have time.
Your products are amazing,they're doing all these things,
and I love that you'recelebrating my dog, but I just
don't have time doing all thesethings.
And I love that you'recelebrating my dog, but I just
don't have time.
And so that kept us thinkingokay, well, can we play a role
where we're really an ally andhow do we help our dog parents,
(16:37):
not just, you know, celebratingtheir dogs, but also how do we
help them clean their dogsreally quickly?
And that's when we came up withthe idea of our dry shampoo for
dogs, and then a paw cleaner.
That's a dry shampoo.
Now we're looking for aleave-in conditioner.
All of a sudden, the brand isactually evolving into something
different than we originallythought.
It's becoming more on the howdo I make your life easier?
And then how do the productsmeet that need in particular?
(17:02):
And so it's a living, breathingthing.
A brand is not something youwrite on paper and it's forever
like that it could be.
I'd say.
Fresh Monster is pretty, prettyclose to what it is, what we
imagined 10 years ago, butsometimes it's not, and with
Mighty Mud in particular, we'reseeing it evolve especially as
kind of the dog.
Parents are guiding us that wayand just listening.
(17:23):
How do you fit into their livesand how do you connect to what
is the root of the problem andwhere they're going to feel like
, oh my gosh, this brand makesso much sense for me.
How did that?
Speaker 3 (17:32):
change.
So, with this Mighty, as yourfocus began to change on
creating more products that madetheir life easier, how did that
change your product lineup?
So, in other words, you alreadyhad products in the brand that
you were already selling, butthey weren't that which, at the
(17:55):
time, I would expect, you kindof looked at as or at least some
of them, as your kind of heroproducts, right, but then you
shifted over to this kind ofother dimension.
That really is going well.
So how did your SKU list change?
Did products fall off or didthey just become kind of more
complimentary products now?
How did that change things?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
All of that.
Yes, it changed in how we arepresenting the brand, it changed
the communication.
It changed product heroes, thekind of the staples we had
before.
They're still there, butthey're really kind of
supporting actors and ultimatelynot the ones that we're
spending money on or you know,building out and so it's, you
(18:36):
know, maybe even sunset them atsome point, but really that's
not to say they're not amazingproducts.
They're actually really greatproducts, but it's not where we
want our brand to go and it'struly not a way to win.
At the end of the day, I alwaysthink, you know, the products
have to have a meaningful role,and if there's 10 others that
are doing the same thing orconsumers are saying, okay,
(18:57):
that's great, but my biggerproblem is here.
Then again, I'd much rather goto where we think, kind of the
long-term connection is going tobe.
And so, yes, the innovation haschanged.
How we're thinking about what'snext also is changing.
As well as channels, I'mthinking about go-to-market
differently as well.
Some of them are new categories.
(19:17):
Therefore they're not going todo great on Amazon.
So I'm thinking about, okay,how do I, you know, how do I
meet my consumer where they'reat?
And in this instance, it'sprobably going to be the
independent, you know petboutiques and smaller stores.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
You know it's interesting that whole Mighty
Mutt thing, and I think you alsohave something like Mighty Meow
or something like that too,right, like for cats.
But what strikes me about thatis I have somebody that I've
been consulting with, for theywant to start.
It's a pet brand and they haveone product right now that they
want to focus on and they havesome ideas about some other
(19:51):
supporting products that theywant to bring out.
But the mechanism that we'relooking at using for them they
want to eventually sell onAmazon, but social is really
where we're putting a lot ofemphasis.
They want to eventually sell onAmazon, but social is really
where we're putting a lot ofemphasis in terms of where
they're starting.
Because and this is, I wonder,this a little bit about your
Mighty Butt and Mighty Meow isthat you know people, people
(20:14):
spend so much time, like thenumber of Facebook groups that
surround you, know a particularbreed or you know pets or you
know whatever, and you knowpeople love watching these
videos, these funny videos ofdogs and cats and things like
that, and so it strikes me thatwhen you're in that category
with pets, that there is maybe alot of opportunity on social,
(20:34):
you know, to generate kind ofthat community aspect of the
brand, and then you know you canfunnel that wherever you want
in terms of the sales channel.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
But yes, completely.
I mean same for kids too, right, there's just a lot of
passionate parents, a lot ofpassionate dog parents.
Ugc does really well for that.
And in general, yes, engagementin social media is super
helpful.
And again it goes back to howdo I present the brand and
connect with where the consumersare, and so yes, if to how do I
(21:02):
present the brand and connectwith where the consumers are?
And so yes, if they're spendinga lot of time watching dog
videos which they are thenTikTok makes a lot of sense.
I will also say dog owners stillreally love their local pet
store.
They really do.
They trust them, they go forrecommendations.
There's a human they can helpthem figure out what's happening
.
Why is their dog itching somuch?
It's just a different kind ofconsumer journey, and so meeting
(21:25):
them where they are is all ofit, right, and so that's why,
back to what Matt was saying, ifyou start with that consumer
and then think about where arethey shopping, what are they
doing, Then you can think aboutthoughtfully how do I intersect
my brain in those moments andmake sure that I'm relevant to
their life thoughtfully how do Iintersect my brain in those
moments and make sure that I'mrelevant to their life?
Speaker 4 (21:45):
And now that you have your audiences pretty much
dialed in, where does thedecision on what channel to sell
a particular product idea?
Where does that come into themix for you?
Is it at the beginning?
Do you think of the channelfirst?
Do you think of the productfirst and then try to pick the
perfect channel for it?
How does that work for you?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Channel is further down the line, from here's who
I'm going after, here's myconsumer, here's my audience,
here's my value proposition.
And then channel.
It's a function of many things.
First one, I'd say the biggestone is just price.
That's kind of the basic one.
But if you're a very highpriced item, then you're kind of
(22:24):
universe of marketplaces,retail stores.
Smaller If you're a value priceitem, very different.
Also, if you have a specificcategory that plays really well
in independent channel, like petcategory, right, then you'd
consider that.
And again, price is a big one.
If you're, you know, very valueprice, well maybe the mass
(22:45):
channels are going to be reallyhard for you because there's so
many others that are much biggerand have much bigger budgets.
So there's price.
For me is always one of the bigones is which channel makes
sense and obviously figuring outwhat the competition is doing.
That's kind of the first one.
And then from there you know wethink about okay, can we win in
that channel with this pricepoint in our proposition, can we
(23:14):
win?
And for a small company, we lookat profitability very closely.
And so retail channel inparticular is an expensive one.
I mean not that Amazon is not,but retail is sneaky expensive
because you know there's so manyfees that you don't even know
are going to slam you untilyou're there and to get into
retail.
There's just so much cashneeded to build up the inventory
and prepare for everythingSometimes slotting beverage for
(23:35):
sure.
Right, there's just so muchcash upfront and then you get
into retail and then you realize, oh wow, this is, you know, so
expensive, makes Amazon lookgood, so that you know there's
kind of that thought process fora smaller company who's profit
driven or really careful aboutprofitability.
There's definitely brands thatdon't care about that and all
(23:58):
they're going for is marketshare.
And if that's the case then youneed to have deep pockets or
investors behind you and that'sa way to gain market share and
then hopefully get theprofitability eventually.
But we know in today's worldthat's really hard and probably
not a path for most.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Well, and you mentioned profitability, and
especially for brands that, likeyou said, don't have deep
pockets.
It's so important where theyhave to strike that balance of
not only being competitive butalso growing the brand.
You know, from an inventorystandpoint, product development
and a lot of other things.
What are some of those kind ofkey performance indicators that
you're looking for from asystematic approach in order to
(24:38):
be profitable with a brand as itgrows?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I'd say we're pretty focused on data and metrics.
That's a big one.
So being really thoughtfulabout every element of the P&L
but also the cashflow, so justhaving a careful eye on all of
those and actually having thatinformation.
A lot of people kind of fudgeit and think they know what
they're making or where theirmoney is going, but it's really,
you know, it requires kind ofthoughtful process and then
(25:11):
diligence to make sure you'reactually collecting all the data
.
It's a big one, right, becauseif you can be thoughtful about
that even before you launch yourproducts, then you're just
better set up to succeed whenthings get rolling, versus
you've already launched and thennow you're figuring out where's
my money?
You know, like, where did it go?
Why didn't I get this?
You know they just that's.
(25:31):
That's a much more stressfulapproach, but even still, I
would say at any point in yourjourney of launching products,
running products, you knowbuilding brands.
Your journey of launchingproducts, running products, you
know building brands, havingthat knowledge of what is my
individual item making andexactly what is happening in
every channel for thatparticular item to the dollar,
(25:54):
that's kind of the ultimateright, because you can.
Then you've know truly what,what is my potential with this
item, and that changes, right Ifyou're selling on Amazon versus
if you're selling on anothermarketplace, on your Shopify or
in a retail store.
So we have detailed P&Ls by item, by channel, with every little
bucket filled out, including,you know, the shrink wrap that
(26:16):
your, you know, 3pl is putting,or the extra box they're putting
in.
Whatever it is, it's on there,and so once you have the
visibility, it's just reallyit's empowering, because then
you can say, all right, Iunderstand that these particular
products might have a problem.
Right, I'm actually.
It's a leaky bucket.
How can we fix this?
What's in this P&L that we canfix that maybe is not going to
(26:38):
hurt the brand, or you can seeopportunities.
Wow, this product is crushing.
This margin is amazing.
If we can double this one, ourcashflow is going to double
right, so just having thoselevers and that are, you know,
based on what money you'rebringing in, is just pretty
empowering.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
And I know, when you started each of these individual
brands, did you start with anend point in mind in terms of
you know, okay, we really wantto get this product to retail,
or we really want to get thisproduct to you know XYZ, but
this is the pathway to get there.
(27:14):
Like, maybe we can't go thereyet, but this is the path to get
there.
And whether you did or didn't,did any of that play a role into
making decisions about what ismy price point going to be and
what profitability level do Ineed to be at in order to be
able to accomplish that?
Speaker 2 (27:36):
That's such a good question and one that I think
everybody should be thinkingabout as they're thinking about
launching anything, and, inparticular, around price.
So originally when we built thebrand like I said once, we've
kind of had the basics of it thenext biggest question was price
, and price was in the contextof where is this going to be,
(27:56):
both from the mission of how fardo we want this brand to go,
how big do we want it to get,how meaningful do we want it to
be in people's households, andso from the beginning, we said
we want it to be a householdname and we wanted our pricing
to be affordable for thatparticular reason, so we can be
in as many places as possible,and that was the prototype
(28:16):
around.
Okay, can we make this happengiven the product brief that we
have?
Can we be at this bright spotand also offer supernatural
clean products that work reallywell?
That was kind of the crux of itall.
We had to crack all of that.
And as part of the mass pricing, yes, we thought, okay, retail
has got to be part of it.
Some of it is our Unilevertraining too, you know, like
growing fast.
The fastest way is to go intomass retail and about 80% of all
(28:43):
personal care is done in likethree retailers mass- retail.
So that was always on the mapand we did.
We tested with both the targetand Walmart.
They were both very intriguedwith this idea of wow we don't
have a kid segment.
And we found that, you know,while that's definitely still
something we want to doeventually and hopefully maybe
when we sell you know Unilevercan do that because they already
(29:06):
infrastructure what we foundwas that it was incredibly
expensive.
We did not anticipate all thecosts.
That actually came Again samekind of thought around oh, you
just plop it into retail, right,it's going to be.
You know, I've done thecalculation, the margins are
good, we're going to make thiswork, but we found that, no,
it's actually really expensive.
And we either had to keepfundraising to subsidize that
(29:29):
kind of retail growth, whichmeant all kinds of implications
right, if you keep fundraising,that's a very stressful journey
or we can focus on moreprofitable channels for now,
because we are a small brand andkind of grow the snowball a
little bit slower, and thenmaybe leave the retail as meat
on the bone for eventually, whenwe sell or when we get big
(29:51):
enough and our budget is bigenough that we can actually
tackle.
So it's great to start with it,right, with some thoughts
around it, but some of it is youjust don't know, like until
you're in there and figuring outthat, okay, whatever this
profit margin I thought it wasat the beginning really it's a
lot thinner or non-existent atall.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
And do you feel then, in terms of that initial
attempt at retail and then kindof the pulling back on that, do
you feel that there?
I feel like there's somewhat ofa dichotomy there, in the sense
that there's this decision of wewant to be a household name and
so therefore we want to be afairly affordable brand, because
(30:32):
otherwise we're only going tobe, you know, on the shelves of
people who have considerableresource.
But by doing so you do putyourself in a position where
moving into retail is a muchmore difficult path forward,
because the profitability on theproduct is smaller, obviously,
than on a higher price product,and so you don't have as much
(30:54):
room to do the discounting thatretailers are normally going to
be expecting and to, as youindicated, have the cash
reserves and resources toaddress all of those additional
fees and things that come downthe pipe that you don't even
know are coming.
So how do you feel about thatat this point in time?
Would you go back and changethe pricing models to make it
(31:14):
easier to get on retail?
Do you feel like you wouldn't?
How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I think that retail is important to crack for us.
Eventually, the way we go aboutit has changed.
I mean, as we were doing retail, we were also on Amazon and we
just I mean that's also wheregeneral population is right and
so, being price where we're atand building the brand that we
have we got tons of traction andhave had since the beginning,
(31:39):
we've been growing year overyear pretty significantly, which
you know it makes us feel like,yes, we're building a household
name anyways.
Now there's you know what doesthat mean for retail?
We did stick around inretailers that were willing to
play ball right, that werewilling to not force us to do
certain things like promotionsand deep discounts and things
like that.
(32:00):
We stayed with those retailersand those are the kinds of
retailers we're, you know,always open to talking to.
I'm referring to more biggerbox targets, walmarts of the
world, where you don't have thatkind of negotiating power
because you're teeny, tiny andgenerally you're competing with,
you know, massive brands whohave, you know, such deep
relationships that probablythose brands are building out
(32:21):
the shelf for the retailer, likewe did at Genoever, like
sometimes we were categorycaptains and we were designing
the entire shelf.
It's very hard to you know as ateeny little brand.
How are you going to come in?
Speaker 3 (32:34):
and say how about me?
Me too right.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
And you know the answer.
Going higher pricing is oftenthe wrong answer because then it
makes it even harder to compete.
How are you going to competewith?
You know, household names thatare half your price.
It's very hard.
So you know being at the rightprice point is critical.
I don't think you can mess withthat Really.
You just need to think aboutcan I deliver, can my
go-to-market strategy deliver tothat and still be profitable?
(32:57):
What are the conditions?
And maybe the conditions arecertain retailers really want to
develop the segment and arewilling to bet on me and are
willing to waive some of thecrazy fees.
Right?
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Well, I think what's really interesting about kind of
your journey that you weretalking about there to me is
that you know one of the thingswe talk about obviously you know
a lot of our listeners areAmazon and looking at other
channels as Amazon gets morecrowded, gets more expensive and
that type of things.
And then the other thing,circling back to what we talked
about at the beginning of thisepisode, which is if we're
really focusing on building abrand, that means that Amazon
(33:35):
can be a good place to start forsome brands, but it's not the
finishing line and it's lookingat other channels in order to
continue to grow the brand andthose types of things.
What I find just reallyinteresting about what you said
was so it sounds like you werein Target and Walmart.
Some of those big box storesdidn't work out based on what
you saw from the numbers and soyou pivoted your strategy and
(33:59):
then but also just based on yourbackground and experience know
that you know further down theline there'll be another
opportunity for that, because Ifeel like there's a lot of fear
around like, oh well, if I don'tmake this my one big shot with
Target or Walmart or whateverthat big box store is work, then
I'm never going to have thisshot again.
So I'm curious you know ifthere's any of that, you know
(34:21):
what that looked like or how youthink about that discussion for
your situation, and how do youthink brands should think about
that as they test out other?
You know channels like whetherit be big box stores or other
retail channels.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Well, I will say that selling into retail is the
easiest job ever.
Like, getting on shelf isreally easy, but making money on
shelf is really really hard.
That's kind of the crux of itall.
Right, the way these bigretailers work is they have very
young buyers.
They're usually in their 20sand they're, you know, making
decisions on a certain desk.
(34:58):
Say, they're in hair care for acouple of years and then they
move on to the next categorymaybe baby, maybe apparel,
whatever and so the shelf lifeof a buyer is really fast, and
so the opportunity to sell in isalways there.
It just requires somebody whoreally gets what you're doing.
And, more importantly, when theretailer is focusing on your
category, if they're saying, Ireally want to develop this pool
(35:21):
category and have some morepremium offerings, well, that's
a really good match, right?
So if the retailer strategy ismatching yours, that's excellent
, and that's sometimes time andluck right.
Like you just don't know whatthe corporate initiatives are,
what they're, you know whatthey're doing, and so I always
say stay in touch, always be intouch with the buyers, be in
(35:46):
touch with what they're doing,what their priorities are, and
you know, keep checking in andyou know once there's a match
between their initiatives, theirpriorities, what you deliver,
then you can negotiate right.
Then you have a better chanceat creating the conditions that
you need to be successful inretail.
And then I'll say if you havetime to build up your brand
(36:06):
again, if you're going into massand you're an unknown brand,
that's going to be really hard.
How are people going to findyou, unless you have big budgets
right To advertise or to have abig social media campaign, it's
going to be really hard forpeople to find you and therefore
your velocities are not goingto be high enough and Target is
going to kick you out in threemonths, right.
But if you maybe start smaller,start with retailers again that
get you and prove yourself outand build your brand on Amazon
(36:30):
and other marketplaces and allof a sudden people have heard of
you and you have a social mediapresence in the community, then
it becomes a little bit easier.
I just think it's so tough toresist the siren call of mass
retail because in a jiffy youget massive volumes.
But learn from my experience,right.
(36:52):
What matters is what are yougoing to bring home?
The big revenue is not reallythat relevant.
What's more relevant is howmuch money are you actually
going to make and is thissustainable, in particular, if
you're building something tostick around right, like if
you're trying to build somethingthat's going to be around for a
while and brands just take time.
You cannot build a brand in twomonths.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
I like that.
You point out that timingmatters and but also that if you
miss it this time around,there's always another
opportunity, because thosebuyers are always moving on.
I mean, you sell in aparticular category, that buyer
who maybe you screwed thisparticular opportunity up.
(37:39):
They're going to move on.
In a couple of years they'renot even going to be there,
somebody else is going to movein.
They have no idea that thatinteraction even happened.
So you have that opportunityagain.
And also, as you said, thestrategy of the company
themselves, or of that divisionof the company, is going to
change over time and so maybe atthis point they don't want a
(37:59):
premium product on the shelf andtwo years from now maybe that's
exactly what they want on theshelf.
So there's always thatopportunity that's going to come
back around, as long as you'rewilling to wait for it and keep
looking for it.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
And a quick question for you.
I'm looking to get into acategory now that it's not
Amazon native, like every otherbrand that I've created, every
other physical product brandthat I've created.
I'm looking to get into thebeverage category, which we've
already talked about, is aboutas cutthroat as you can get.
What are some other places?
I mean, we already know thatnon-alcohol beverages are a
trend right now.
(38:29):
We also know that functionalbeverages are a trend.
We're kind of combining thosetwo, which we feel something
that not really a lot of peopleare doing.
But we feel like that becauseof some things that we've done.
But I like to make decisionsmore based on data than a
feeling.
So what are some places thatbrands that aren't necessarily
(38:50):
looking to launch on Amazonright now, because we already
know which tools we can look atto look at kind of search demand
?
What are some other places thatbrands can go look to see what
kind of consumer trends are?
What are people buying at thegrocery stores, what are people
buying at natural grocers andthings like that?
Is there a place, is there adata store that you can go look
at?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
There are ways to get all that data.
It's not free, unfortunately,and there are no third-party
apps that can hack your way intothat and they're usually pretty
protected.
So Nielsen is a really big oneand those are really expensive.
And then spins report inparticular.
That's for natural channel.
That's a really good one aswell, and both of those will
tell you exactly what you'relooking for how big is the
category or the players,velocities, icing.
(39:33):
They'll give you the datalandscape of what's happening.
You can probably figure some ofthe stuff out on your own too,
just by going to I don't know,five sprouts and five vitamin
cottage and, like you know, goto the natural channel first and
you'll see what they'restocking, at what price point
and what's shelved fully andwhat's actually turning right.
Like that's kind of a goodsense of you know, here's the
(39:57):
category, here's a non-alcategory.
Are all of them fully stocked?
Are there some brands that areactually like really selling
through?
Are all of them on deal all thetime?
Right?
There's kind of it's data.
It's a little bit less of aspreadsheet analysis kind of
data, but it's hardcore data,like you're seeing actually
what's selling or what's notselling and why it's on deal all
the time and not, you know, notneeding to replenish, not
(40:19):
selling, and why it's on dealall the time and not, you know,
not needing to replenish.
And then you know, in generalwith beverage it's all about
test and trial versus you know,kind of really honing in and
figuring out what am I velocityis going to be before you can
run.
And that means partnering withyou know a smaller store that
(40:40):
maybe has 10 doors and then justfiguring out where should I be
in store and what are myvelocities looking like, because
if you can crack that then it'smuch easier to run.
But until you crack that part,that's that's the hardest part
with with food in particular,because there's just so much
churn and so much innovation andthey charge you for slotting,
so it's really expensive to testand learn.
So, yeah, I would start smalland then the big one with food
(41:03):
and beverage in particular,sampling.
You just gotta get it to peopleand have them try, and maybe
that means going into coffeeshops to start with and just
getting tons of data on that way, figuring out are people loving
this?
And obviously coffee shop is achannel in its own, but just
easier to get the data beforeyou have to pay those big
sliding bills.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Cool, good tips.
So, Adrena, we've covered a loton brand and different channels
and that type of stuff.
I guess, as we kind of wrap uphere, is there anything around
brand that you know, especiallylisteners, that maybe you know
they're selling six to sevenfigures on Amazon.
Maybe they've tested somedifferent channels.
They really want to invest inthis brand piece.
(41:44):
Are there anything else that wehaven't covered so far that you
think would be really importantfor them to maybe think about
or maybe know, as they thinkabout really building out that
brand that's going toemotionally connect with their
customers?
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Maybe the only other thing that's worth mentioning is
having a deep innovationpipeline.
We haven't talked about thatyet, but if you have a mission
like ours to be the head-to-toepersonal care brand for kids or
snout-to-tail if you have thatkind of vision my brain is going
to be the go-to place for thisthen there has to be a pretty
(42:19):
robust innovation pipeline, andthen innovation pipeline kind be
a pretty robust innovationpipeline, and then innovation
pipeline kind of goes back tothe basics.
What are my consumers lookingfor?
What need am I meeting?
How am I probably going todeliver this better than the
competition?
How does it fit into my overallportfolio?
That's probably another big one, and innovation takes time to
(42:40):
develop.
For us in particular, we testthe heck out of it before we
launch anything, in particular,because once there's reviews,
there's no.
Oh, oopsies, let me go fix it.
So doing that work ahead of timeis really, really helpful.
So having that innovationpipeline I'd say like three-year
pipeline and constantlyrevising and testing and working
on it, is part of fueling thatgrowth, in particular, as you'll
see opportunities in somechannels that maybe don't fit
(43:02):
Amazon but maybe fit some otherchannels, and so having the
innovation pipeline is helpfulwith that, because then you can
deploy different products todifferent channels as well.
It just opens up your arsenalof things you can do and how you
can grow.
If you have a robust kind ofroadmap of what else we want to
develop that fits intoeverything that we're doing Okay
.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Well, I think in that combination with our
conversation around channels andbrands, gives a lot for our
listeners to think about.
I just want to thank you somuch for being on the podcast
and in your time and reallyenjoyed the conversation today.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Good to talk to you all and good luck with the
beverage brand Matt.
Speaker 4 (43:39):
Thank you, elena, thank you so much.
Welcome everyone to the Brand Fortress HQ podcast.
I'm your host, jon Stojan,along with my co-hosts Matt
Atkins and Mike Kaufman, andtoday we have another Brand
Builder episode for you.
Our guest today is Irina Todd,co-founder and CEO of Blue Zebra
Brands, a house of brandsbuilding clean and natural
personal care products.
She's got a handful of brandsand her company was selected for
(00:21):
the Telluride VentureAccelerator.
Burt's Bees Launchpad has beenfeatured on CNBC, fast Company
and the Wall Street Journal,among others, along with a bunch
of other accomplishments.
Irina, thank you so much forbeing on the podcast and I know
that was just a quick overviewof a lot of different things
that you do.
If you could give a little bitof background as to how you got
(00:44):
into having a house of brandsand kind of your experiences
that have led up to this point.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Hi, john and everyone , thanks for having me.
I'll try to do it briefly, butthe journey has been 10 years
long already.
I'll start with a little bit ofa step back.
My background is in consumerpackaged goods.
I got my training in the bulkof my career at Unilever,
running really large personalcare brands.
My first brand was Degree Menand then Degree Women Now
(01:12):
co-founder and I actuallylaunched Axe Hair together when
men's hair care didn't exist instores.
I also was part of the M&A teamthat brought on Tresemme to
Unilever and managed Tresemmefor a couple years locally and
globally.
So kind of the crux of mybackground and kind of the start
(01:33):
of the story is that I lovebuilding brands and love the
idea of building a productaround an emotional insight and
then connecting with an audiencein a meaningful way, and
emotional insight and thenconnecting with an audience in a
meaningful way.
Our company started with kind ofthe standard founder problem.
You want to come up with asolution using your skill sets
(01:53):
and background.
My co-founder and I were bothhaving kids and felt like as
well as new kind of on theinsider track, that big
companies were not payingattention to the kids segment,
in particular in personal care,you have a huge baby set, huge
adult set, but kids is kind oflost in the middle and there are
really no brands that cater tothat segment.
(02:14):
And yet it's six times biggerthan maybe.
And so we felt like, you know,we were searching for brands on
our own and didn't want to useUnilever products on our kids,
and so we felt like, okay, thisseems like a good opportunity.
It's a little bit under theradar and feels like a good
territory to develop a brandthat really connects to
consumers and kids in particular.
(02:35):
That segment is really special.
That's how we started.
With just that idea.
We went to an acceleratorprogram in Telluride.
We moved there for five monthsand that can be an episode in
its own.
It was really fun and also agreat way to start a company,
because not only did it make usquit our regular jobs to go
start a company, but also itends with a big demo day where
(02:57):
we presented to almost a hundredinvestors and got our funding
and just got things off theground.
It was a really great way tostart a company.
Anyhow, that was the beginningand the idea was how do we
launch this kids personal carebrand?
The brand is called FreshMonster.
A year after the program welaunched it and the idea is
(03:20):
again to be the head to toepersonal care brand for your
kids as they go throughdifferent stages, you know, when
they started getting dirty andmessy.
Our products deliver, and thekind of foundation of the brand
it's not just how do we connectkids in that segment, but also
how do the products meet theirneeds, and so our product
philosophies are basically veryclean, natural products that
(03:41):
also work really well kind ofpulling from the Unilever
background of products have towork.
So yeah, that was kind of thebeginning.
I'll stop here just to seewhere you want to go and I can
tell you how the journeycontinued.
But that was really the impetus.
We started with one particularsegment, one brand, and went
from there.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
If you wouldn't mind, I have just kind of a question
before John digs in here, andthat is we really like.
I mean, our focus very much ison trying to convince Amazon
sellers that they really need tofocus on that branding aspect
of things.
It's been for a long time.
You know, it was pretty easy tojust kind of throw products up
(04:24):
on Amazon and sell them and makemoney, and so there's a lot of
people in this space who that'skind of what they did.
To be honest, in some ways it'skind of what I did.
I kind of fell into a brand, youknow, and it just kind of
materialized.
But you know that idea of kindof building that brand and
building that brand recognitionand that loyalty and that sort
of thing, that brand recognitionand that loyalty and that sort
(04:47):
of thing what if you could kindof put that a little bit into a
nutshell in terms of thatprocess?
You know, like, let's say youdon't really have a brand.
You know, maybe you have aproduct but you don't have a
brand, like what would you dowith that?
Like what?
What thinking process shouldyou walk through to figure out
what that brand might look like?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I love this question and, again, it could be a
podcast on its own, absolutely,because it's, you know, a very
meaningful topic, meaty topicand obviously you know what a
lot of the MBA programs teachyou, as well as Unilever
training, and really, at thebase of it, all these think
about the brands that you knowand even when you look at their
P&L and balance sheets, thebrand has a value, like a
(05:25):
monetary value, and there's areason for that right.
The reason for that is that ifyou have a brand and loyalty,
that means you're not constantlybattling it out for new
customers and you're notconstantly thinking about how is
somebody going to undercut meand how am I going to survive?
Building a brand is just along-term proposition to connect
(05:45):
to consumers on an emotionallevel.
The products have to deliver,but really it's an emotional
connection and, in a nutshell,when we thought about building a
brand and generally whencompanies try to build a brand,
they think about yes, there's aproblem we're trying to solve,
but beyond that, what is thisvalue proposition?
(06:06):
Why am I existing?
How am I going to connect tothe consumers?
What is this emotional hookthat I'm going to have, where
people are going to feel like Ihave space as a brand in their
lives and they're not going tokeep shopping for whatever the
cheaper item is next time around, and so that can be so many
different things.
There's like a whole stream ofwork that's done around consumer
(06:29):
insight and that's essentiallywhat you know.
What am I satisfying, what'sthe problem I'm solving for, but
also what's the emotional hookI'm trying to create with this
consumer.
For us in particular, we werereally building a brand around
the fact that kids kidhood iskind of like this messy, awkward
period, right, and so if wewent about building a brand just
around product solution, thenwe'd be like, okay, kids are
(06:52):
really dirty, they have tinglyhair, let's create a product
that solves that, and we wouldlook like probably anybody on
there and we would be duking itout on price forever and
probably wouldn't be aroundanymore.
Instead, what we try to do isthink about okay, how do we
create something meaningful intheir lives and what are some of
these emotional thoughts?
For us, that meant oops, we'rea little frozen.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Oh, you're fine, You're good, you're still here.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So I'll give you an example of what that looked like
for us.
We thought about kidhood asthis age of awkwardness and
really caring about what otherkids maybe think, and being very
influenced by media and by allthese stereotypical ideas of
what a girl should be, what aboy should be, what kidhood
should look like, and so wereally wanted to create
(07:42):
something that was disruptingthat and, in essence, disrupt
disrupting some of thesetraditional beauty standards for
kids and girls in particular,but also generally thinking
about kidhood as this wonderful,magical time where kids can be
who they are.
So when you look at our freshmonsters, our monsters in the
packaging are weird and quirkyand they're missing teeth and
(08:02):
eyes and they just look.
You know, they look alldifferent and weird and cool,
and that's what we wanted torepresent.
We wanted to represent thatkidhood and that kind of
emotional pool of be who you areright, be the awkward, quirky
kids that you are and be proudof that.
And so if you think of it thatway, all of a sudden it's like,
(08:22):
wow, like I'm you know, I'mfeeling emotional about it
because I want my kids to be whothey are.
I don't want them to, you know,just wear princess outfits and
just be into kind of thestereotypical stuff that the big
media and you know that we'regetting bombarded by, and so
that felt like a really uniqueemotional space.
Long answer, but essentiallywhat I'm trying to say is it
(08:47):
takes some time to build thatconnection and figure out why is
my brand important and what amI trying to say above and beyond
the product and what theproduct delivers?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Sorry, go ahead John.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Well, I was just going to ask because I think
that that's such a powerfulconcept and, mike, I'm so glad
you asked that question when youguys were building Fresh,
monster and even the brandsbeyond that that you guys work
on now what are some of theindicators that you look for
that that brand message isreally resonating as you build
your brand and target thataudience?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
When we started building Fresh Monster, we
started with a few concepts andthe concepts that were around
these emotional territories thatfelt resonant to us as moms.
So we are the audience.
If you aren't the audience,you'd want to do this work with
people who actually would beeventually using your products
and loving your brand and justtest a few territories.
There's some tools you can usearound different emotional
(09:41):
drivers.
You can just Google them andyou'll see there's different
ways you can go about developingthese concepts.
But we started with three andyou know I remember another one
that was all around super me.
So you know celebrating kind ofthe doing your best as a kid and
you know completely differentspace, more about empowerment
(10:02):
and going for it versus kind ofthis.
You know authenticity and beingyourself and being okay, being
strange and weird and cool.
Totally different territory,right, so you can play with
different territories.
And then we showed it to a lotof moms, a ton of them, and just
saw what resonated.
So, before we even startedtalking about brand name or
(10:22):
anything really, that's where westarted.
That was kind of the firstblueprint of where the brand was
going to go.
And's where we started.
That was kind of the firstblueprint of where the brand was
going to go.
And then, once we've gotten kindof this pulse on, oh wow, this
seems like a really richterritory.
Then we did a few other thoughtprocesses around okay, can this
come to life?
Can this come to life in abrand name, in packaging?
Can this be advertised?
Can this be?
(10:42):
Does this have legs, you know,in the commerce space?
Could this be translated tosomething that is also products?
And then from there, obviouslyyou now have guardrails right
and then you keep building thebrain based on those.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
One of the challenges that Amazon sellers that we see
a lot of them fall into isusing these tools to look for
search volume on Amazon to seehow many products have this many
reviews and are doing X amountof revenue.
And the challenge with that isthat I personally, in coaching
roles, have had students 12 ofthem come to me with the exact
same product because they wereusing the exact same tools and
(11:19):
the exact same filters.
What you've described and thisis what I tried to get to them,
you said it so much moreeloquently is, instead of
choosing a product based on afilter, choose a person first.
And once you choose a person, inmost cases I am the person that
I end up selling products to,and what makes that easy for me
is to put myself in the shoes ofthe consumer and to ask the
(11:40):
question what is a product thatcan not only enhance my life but
solve a problem for me?
And building a brand around aperson as opposed to a product
is so much easier and and you,you so many things that you said
because you were able to takethat to a group of moms and ask
like does this resonate with you?
So for me, there was a Facebookgroup that had a whole bunch of
barbecue like aficionados notjust guys that were grilling for
(12:03):
their kids on the weekend, likethese are the guys that are out
checking their brisket at twoo'clock in the morning and I had
this group of people that Icould ask these questions to,
and it was because I was focusedon that person as opposed to an
individual product, and Iresonated a lot with what you
were talking about, with whatyou did with the moms.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, that's not to say you shouldn't be using
product explorer and all thatstuff to figure out you know how
many people are searching whatyou're doing.
But you're right, that's kindof that's later on.
That's your go-to marketstrategy, right?
Versus?
Here's a product that has roomin the world because it needs a.
You know it meets a need andthat's where you start.
And then you then you figureout what channel makes sense for
(12:41):
me and maybe Amazon doesn't,right, and maybe it does.
I would say in general, amazonis great for you know, products
that are already searched andsomehow you have found a way to
connect in a different way or amore meaningful way or have some
benefit to offer that's notexisting already.
Otherwise, you'll be justduking it out on price For
(13:02):
products that are new to theworld.
Amazon's not great for thatbecause then you need to
generate demand, and generatingdemand on Amazon is not.
That's really not what thechannel is for.
Then you may want to considerbuilding out your brand, I don't
know through independentchannel, retail channel or
through your own website, if thefinancials make sense.
So really you start with theidea and then channel is kind of
(13:25):
, you know, the go-to-marketstrategy and not the actual
starting point.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Yeah, it's really hard to educate a consumer on
Amazon, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Well, and that's such a valuable point, right,
Because, you know, I do thinkthere's maybe almost this
dichotomy, like you've got.
You've got the individuals whoare just using the tools to
figure out you know whatproducts could I sell, that
there's space, you know and notreally paying attention to, you
know having an actual, you knowtarget customer avatar and
things like that.
But then you've also got peoplewho maybe they have an idea for
a very, you know, very newproduct.
You know that really doesn'texist out there, which there's
(13:59):
nothing wrong with that.
That's great, it's risky, butit's a thing.
But, as you said, Amazontypically is not going to be the
place where you want to do that, unless it's kind of a new
product right, there is atemplate for it over here.
I'm just making a reallydifferent version of it that
people might like better.
But if this is a brand newthing that nobody even knows
(14:20):
that they might need, Amazon isnot the place for that.
And if that's what you're doing, like if you're watching this
podcast and you're like, hey, Igot this great idea and I think
Amazon's a wonderful place tosell it, Cause there's so many
people, be careful with that,because you could lose your
shirt, Because the only way thatyou're going to educate people
on Amazon is with a massiveamount of money, because it's
all ads and you don't even knowwhat keywords to target.
You know like it.
(14:40):
Just it's kind of a mess.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I'm curious, going back to this, you know, because
this idea of understanding kindof that emotional connection
with brands.
So when you guys were doingwhether it's with Fresh Monster
or some of the other brands thatyou've worked with is there an
example that stands out in yourhead of a time where you know
there was part of that emotionalconnection that you guys had
kind of a hunch on that, whereyou ended up where it ended up,
(15:05):
not panning out?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Maybe our Mighty Mutt brand.
I'll share a little bit aboutthat one.
Essentially, we launched afurry kids brand about four
years ago so some five yearsinto running the business and it
came again from from consumerdemand.
We parents were saying I wantsomething like this for my furry
kids.
I'm using it on my kids.
Can you please create somethingthat's as safe and efficacious
(15:30):
for my pets?
And the hunch for us was tokind of follow that insight.
And we followed that insightand launched a brand around it
and it was good.
But it wasn't quite as deep ofa connection as we found with
Fresh Monster from the beginningand so we did it again, we kept
talking to dog owners, petparents.
(15:51):
We call them and asking againwhat role can we play?
What are the emotional hooksthat we can have?
And instead of this you knowour brand is called Mighty Mutt
and it's all around.
You know, again, treating yourdogs like kids and using
products that are just as safe,just as you would for your own
kids we started landing onconsumers again, telling us well
(16:13):
, we're really struggling withis doing this really quickly, I
don't have time.
Your products are amazing,they're doing all these things,
and I love that you'recelebrating my dog, but I just
don't have time doing all thesethings.
And I love that you'recelebrating my dog, but I just
don't have time.
And so that kept us thinkingokay, well, can we play a role
where we're really an ally andhow do we help our dog parents,
(16:37):
not just, you know, celebratingtheir dogs, but also how do we
help them clean their dogsreally quickly?
And that's when we came up withthe idea of our dry shampoo for
dogs, and then a paw cleaner.
That's a dry shampoo.
Now we're looking for aleave-in conditioner.
All of a sudden, the brand isactually evolving into something
different than we originallythought.
It's becoming more on the howdo I make your life easier?
And then how do the productsmeet that need in particular?
(17:02):
And so it's a living, breathingthing.
A brand is not something youwrite on paper and it's forever
like that it could be.
I'd say.
Fresh Monster is pretty, prettyclose to what it is, what we
imagined 10 years ago, butsometimes it's not, and with
Mighty Mud in particular, we'reseeing it evolve especially as
kind of the dog.
Parents are guiding us that wayand just listening.
(17:23):
How do you fit into their livesand how do you connect to what
is the root of the problem andwhere they're going to feel like
, oh my gosh, this brand makesso much sense for me.
How did that?
Speaker 3 (17:32):
change.
So, with this Mighty, as yourfocus began to change on
creating more products that madetheir life easier, how did that
change your product lineup?
So, in other words, you alreadyhad products in the brand that
you were already selling, butthey weren't that which, at the
(17:55):
time, I would expect, you kindof looked at as or at least some
of them, as your kind of heroproducts, right, but then you
shifted over to this kind ofother dimension.
That really is going well.
So how did your SKU list change?
Did products fall off or didthey just become kind of more
complimentary products now?
How did that change things?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
All of that.
Yes, it changed in how we arepresenting the brand, it changed
the communication.
It changed product heroes, thekind of the staples we had
before.
They're still there, butthey're really kind of
supporting actors and ultimatelynot the ones that we're
spending money on or you know,building out and so it's, you
(18:36):
know, maybe even sunset them atsome point, but really that's
not to say they're not amazingproducts.
They're actually really greatproducts, but it's not where we
want our brand to go and it'struly not a way to win.
At the end of the day, I alwaysthink, you know, the products
have to have a meaningful role,and if there's 10 others that
are doing the same thing orconsumers are saying, okay,
(18:57):
that's great, but my biggerproblem is here.
Then again, I'd much rather goto where we think, kind of the
long-term connection is going tobe.
And so, yes, the innovation haschanged.
How we're thinking about what'snext also is changing.
As well as channels, I'mthinking about go-to-market
differently as well.
Some of them are new categories.
(19:17):
Therefore they're not going todo great on Amazon.
So I'm thinking about, okay,how do I, you know, how do I
meet my consumer where they'reat?
And in this instance, it'sprobably going to be the
independent, you know petboutiques and smaller stores.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
You know it's interesting that whole Mighty
Mutt thing, and I think you alsohave something like Mighty Meow
or something like that too,right, like for cats.
But what strikes me about thatis I have somebody that I've
been consulting with, for theywant to start.
It's a pet brand and they haveone product right now that they
want to focus on and they havesome ideas about some other
(19:51):
supporting products that theywant to bring out.
But the mechanism that we'relooking at using for them they
want to eventually sell onAmazon, but social is really
where we're putting a lot ofemphasis.
They want to eventually sell onAmazon, but social is really
where we're putting a lot ofemphasis in terms of where
they're starting.
Because and this is, I wonder,this a little bit about your
Mighty Butt and Mighty Meow isthat you know people, people
(20:14):
spend so much time, like thenumber of Facebook groups that
surround you, know a particularbreed or you know pets or you
know whatever, and you knowpeople love watching these
videos, these funny videos ofdogs and cats and things like
that, and so it strikes me thatwhen you're in that category
with pets, that there is maybe alot of opportunity on social,
(20:34):
you know, to generate kind ofthat community aspect of the
brand, and then you know you canfunnel that wherever you want
in terms of the sales channel.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
But yes, completely.
I mean same for kids too, right, there's just a lot of
passionate parents, a lot ofpassionate dog parents.
Ugc does really well for that.
And in general, yes, engagementin social media is super
helpful.
And again it goes back to howdo I present the brand and
connect with where the consumersare, and so yes, if to how do I
(21:02):
present the brand and connectwith where the consumers are?
And so yes, if they're spendinga lot of time watching dog
videos which they are thenTikTok makes a lot of sense.
I will also say dog owners stillreally love their local pet
store.
They really do.
They trust them, they go forrecommendations.
There's a human they can helpthem figure out what's happening
.
Why is their dog itching somuch?
It's just a different kind ofconsumer journey, and so meeting
(21:25):
them where they are is all ofit, right, and so that's why,
back to what Matt was saying, ifyou start with that consumer
and then think about where arethey shopping, what are they
doing, Then you can think aboutthoughtfully how do I intersect
my brain in those moments andmake sure that I'm relevant to
their life thoughtfully how do Iintersect my brain in those
moments and make sure that I'mrelevant to their life?
Speaker 4 (21:45):
And now that you have your audiences pretty much
dialed in, where does thedecision on what channel to sell
a particular product idea?
Where does that come into themix for you?
Is it at the beginning?
Do you think of the channelfirst?
Do you think of the productfirst and then try to pick the
perfect channel for it?
How does that work for you?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Channel is further down the line, from here's who
I'm going after, here's myconsumer, here's my audience,
here's my value proposition.
And then channel.
It's a function of many things.
First one, I'd say the biggestone is just price.
That's kind of the basic one.
But if you're a very highpriced item, then you're kind of
(22:24):
universe of marketplaces,retail stores.
Smaller If you're a value priceitem, very different.
Also, if you have a specificcategory that plays really well
in independent channel, like petcategory, right, then you'd
consider that.
And again, price is a big one.
If you're, you know, very valueprice, well maybe the mass
(22:45):
channels are going to be reallyhard for you because there's so
many others that are much biggerand have much bigger budgets.
So there's price.
For me is always one of the bigones is which channel makes
sense and obviously figuring outwhat the competition is doing.
That's kind of the first one.
And then from there you know wethink about okay, can we win in
that channel with this pricepoint in our proposition, can we
(23:14):
win?
And for a small company, we lookat profitability very closely.
And so retail channel inparticular is an expensive one.
I mean not that Amazon is not,but retail is sneaky expensive
because you know there's so manyfees that you don't even know
are going to slam you untilyou're there and to get into
retail.
There's just so much cashneeded to build up the inventory
and prepare for everythingSometimes slotting beverage for
(23:35):
sure.
Right, there's just so muchcash upfront and then you get
into retail and then you realize, oh wow, this is, you know, so
expensive, makes Amazon lookgood, so that you know there's
kind of that thought process fora smaller company who's profit
driven or really careful aboutprofitability.
There's definitely brands thatdon't care about that and all
(23:58):
they're going for is marketshare.
And if that's the case then youneed to have deep pockets or
investors behind you and that'sa way to gain market share and
then hopefully get theprofitability eventually.
But we know in today's worldthat's really hard and probably
not a path for most.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Well, and you mentioned profitability, and
especially for brands that, likeyou said, don't have deep
pockets.
It's so important where theyhave to strike that balance of
not only being competitive butalso growing the brand.
You know, from an inventorystandpoint, product development
and a lot of other things.
What are some of those kind ofkey performance indicators that
you're looking for from asystematic approach in order to
(24:38):
be profitable with a brand as itgrows?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I'd say we're pretty focused on data and metrics.
That's a big one.
So being really thoughtfulabout every element of the P&L
but also the cashflow, so justhaving a careful eye on all of
those and actually having thatinformation.
A lot of people kind of fudgeit and think they know what
they're making or where theirmoney is going, but it's really,
you know, it requires kind ofthoughtful process and then
(25:11):
diligence to make sure you'reactually collecting all the data
.
It's a big one, right, becauseif you can be thoughtful about
that even before you launch yourproducts, then you're just
better set up to succeed whenthings get rolling, versus
you've already launched and thennow you're figuring out where's
my money?
You know, like, where did it go?
Why didn't I get this?
You know they just that's.
(25:31):
That's a much more stressfulapproach, but even still, I
would say at any point in yourjourney of launching products,
running products, you knowbuilding brands.
Your journey of launchingproducts, running products, you
know building brands, havingthat knowledge of what is my
individual item making andexactly what is happening in
every channel for thatparticular item to the dollar,
(25:54):
that's kind of the ultimateright, because you can.
Then you've know truly what,what is my potential with this
item, and that changes, right Ifyou're selling on Amazon versus
if you're selling on anothermarketplace, on your Shopify or
in a retail store.
So we have detailed P&Ls by item, by channel, with every little
bucket filled out, including,you know, the shrink wrap that
(26:16):
your, you know, 3pl is putting,or the extra box they're putting
in.
Whatever it is, it's on there,and so once you have the
visibility, it's just reallyit's empowering, because then
you can say, all right, Iunderstand that these particular
products might have a problem.
Right, I'm actually.
It's a leaky bucket.
How can we fix this?
What's in this P&L that we canfix that maybe is not going to
(26:38):
hurt the brand, or you can seeopportunities.
Wow, this product is crushing.
This margin is amazing.
If we can double this one, ourcashflow is going to double
right, so just having thoselevers and that are, you know,
based on what money you'rebringing in, is just pretty
empowering.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
And I know, when you started each of these individual
brands, did you start with anend point in mind in terms of
you know, okay, we really wantto get this product to retail,
or we really want to get thisproduct to you know XYZ, but
this is the pathway to get there.
(27:14):
Like, maybe we can't go thereyet, but this is the path to get
there.
And whether you did or didn't,did any of that play a role into
making decisions about what ismy price point going to be and
what profitability level do Ineed to be at in order to be
able to accomplish that?
Speaker 2 (27:36):
That's such a good question and one that I think
everybody should be thinkingabout as they're thinking about
launching anything, and, inparticular, around price.
So originally when we built thebrand like I said once, we've
kind of had the basics of it thenext biggest question was price
, and price was in the contextof where is this going to be,
(27:56):
both from the mission of how fardo we want this brand to go,
how big do we want it to get,how meaningful do we want it to
be in people's households, andso from the beginning, we said
we want it to be a householdname and we wanted our pricing
to be affordable for thatparticular reason, so we can be
in as many places as possible,and that was the prototype
(28:16):
around.
Okay, can we make this happengiven the product brief that we
have?
Can we be at this bright spotand also offer supernatural
clean products that work reallywell?
That was kind of the crux of itall.
We had to crack all of that.
And as part of the mass pricing, yes, we thought, okay, retail
has got to be part of it.
Some of it is our Unilevertraining too, you know, like
growing fast.
The fastest way is to go intomass retail and about 80% of all
(28:43):
personal care is done in likethree retailers mass- retail.
So that was always on the mapand we did.
We tested with both the targetand Walmart.
They were both very intriguedwith this idea of wow we don't
have a kid segment.
And we found that, you know,while that's definitely still
something we want to doeventually and hopefully maybe
when we sell you know Unilevercan do that because they already
(29:06):
infrastructure what we foundwas that it was incredibly
expensive.
We did not anticipate all thecosts.
That actually came Again samekind of thought around oh, you
just plop it into retail, right,it's going to be.
You know, I've done thecalculation, the margins are
good, we're going to make thiswork, but we found that, no,
it's actually really expensive.
And we either had to keepfundraising to subsidize that
(29:29):
kind of retail growth, whichmeant all kinds of implications
right, if you keep fundraising,that's a very stressful journey
or we can focus on moreprofitable channels for now,
because we are a small brand andkind of grow the snowball a
little bit slower, and thenmaybe leave the retail as meat
on the bone for eventually, whenwe sell or when we get big
(29:51):
enough and our budget is bigenough that we can actually
tackle.
So it's great to start with it,right, with some thoughts
around it, but some of it is youjust don't know, like until
you're in there and figuring outthat, okay, whatever this
profit margin I thought it wasat the beginning really it's a
lot thinner or non-existent atall.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
And do you feel then, in terms of that initial
attempt at retail and then kindof the pulling back on that, do
you feel that there?
I feel like there's somewhat ofa dichotomy there, in the sense
that there's this decision of wewant to be a household name and
so therefore we want to be afairly affordable brand, because
(30:32):
otherwise we're only going tobe, you know, on the shelves of
people who have considerableresource.
But by doing so you do putyourself in a position where
moving into retail is a muchmore difficult path forward,
because the profitability on theproduct is smaller, obviously,
than on a higher price product,and so you don't have as much
(30:54):
room to do the discounting thatretailers are normally going to
be expecting and to, as youindicated, have the cash
reserves and resources toaddress all of those additional
fees and things that come downthe pipe that you don't even
know are coming.
So how do you feel about thatat this point in time?
Would you go back and changethe pricing models to make it
(31:14):
easier to get on retail?
Do you feel like you wouldn't?
How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I think that retail is important to crack for us.
Eventually, the way we go aboutit has changed.
I mean, as we were doing retail, we were also on Amazon and we
just I mean that's also wheregeneral population is right and
so, being price where we're atand building the brand that we
have we got tons of traction andhave had since the beginning,
(31:39):
we've been growing year overyear pretty significantly, which
you know it makes us feel like,yes, we're building a household
name anyways.
Now there's you know what doesthat mean for retail?
We did stick around inretailers that were willing to
play ball right, that werewilling to not force us to do
certain things like promotionsand deep discounts and things
like that.
(32:00):
We stayed with those retailersand those are the kinds of
retailers we're, you know,always open to talking to.
I'm referring to more biggerbox targets, walmarts of the
world, where you don't have thatkind of negotiating power
because you're teeny, tiny andgenerally you're competing with,
you know, massive brands whohave, you know, such deep
relationships that probablythose brands are building out
(32:21):
the shelf for the retailer, likewe did at Genoever, like
sometimes we were categorycaptains and we were designing
the entire shelf.
It's very hard to you know as ateeny little brand.
How are you going to come in?
Speaker 3 (32:34):
and say how about me?
Me too right.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
And you know the answer.
Going higher pricing is oftenthe wrong answer because then it
makes it even harder to compete.
How are you going to competewith?
You know, household names thatare half your price.
It's very hard.
So you know being at the rightprice point is critical.
I don't think you can mess withthat Really.
You just need to think aboutcan I deliver, can my
go-to-market strategy deliver tothat and still be profitable?
(32:57):
What are the conditions?
And maybe the conditions arecertain retailers really want to
develop the segment and arewilling to bet on me and are
willing to waive some of thecrazy fees.
Right?
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Well, I think what's really interesting about kind of
your journey that you weretalking about there to me is
that you know one of the thingswe talk about obviously you know
a lot of our listeners areAmazon and looking at other
channels as Amazon gets morecrowded, gets more expensive and
that type of things.
And then the other thing,circling back to what we talked
about at the beginning of thisepisode, which is if we're
really focusing on building abrand, that means that Amazon
(33:35):
can be a good place to start forsome brands, but it's not the
finishing line and it's lookingat other channels in order to
continue to grow the brand andthose types of things.
What I find just reallyinteresting about what you said
was so it sounds like you werein Target and Walmart.
Some of those big box storesdidn't work out based on what
you saw from the numbers and soyou pivoted your strategy and
(33:59):
then but also just based on yourbackground and experience know
that you know further down theline there'll be another
opportunity for that, because Ifeel like there's a lot of fear
around like, oh well, if I don'tmake this my one big shot with
Target or Walmart or whateverthat big box store is work, then
I'm never going to have thisshot again.
So I'm curious you know ifthere's any of that, you know
(34:21):
what that looked like or how youthink about that discussion for
your situation, and how do youthink brands should think about
that as they test out other?
You know channels like whetherit be big box stores or other
retail channels.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Well, I will say that selling into retail is the
easiest job ever.
Like, getting on shelf isreally easy, but making money on
shelf is really really hard.
That's kind of the crux of itall.
Right, the way these bigretailers work is they have very
young buyers.
They're usually in their 20sand they're, you know, making
decisions on a certain desk.
(34:58):
Say, they're in hair care for acouple of years and then they
move on to the next categorymaybe baby, maybe apparel,
whatever and so the shelf lifeof a buyer is really fast, and
so the opportunity to sell in isalways there.
It just requires somebody whoreally gets what you're doing.
And, more importantly, when theretailer is focusing on your
category, if they're saying, Ireally want to develop this pool
(35:21):
category and have some morepremium offerings, well, that's
a really good match, right?
So if the retailer strategy ismatching yours, that's excellent
, and that's sometimes time andluck right.
Like you just don't know whatthe corporate initiatives are,
what they're, you know whatthey're doing, and so I always
say stay in touch, always be intouch with the buyers, be in
(35:46):
touch with what they're doing,what their priorities are, and
you know, keep checking in andyou know once there's a match
between their initiatives, theirpriorities, what you deliver,
then you can negotiate right.
Then you have a better chanceat creating the conditions that
you need to be successful inretail.
And then I'll say if you havetime to build up your brand
(36:06):
again, if you're going into massand you're an unknown brand,
that's going to be really hard.
How are people going to findyou, unless you have big budgets
right To advertise or to have abig social media campaign, it's
going to be really hard forpeople to find you and therefore
your velocities are not goingto be high enough and Target is
going to kick you out in threemonths, right.
But if you maybe start smaller,start with retailers again that
get you and prove yourself outand build your brand on Amazon
(36:30):
and other marketplaces and allof a sudden people have heard of
you and you have a social mediapresence in the community, then
it becomes a little bit easier.
I just think it's so tough toresist the siren call of mass
retail because in a jiffy youget massive volumes.
But learn from my experience,right.
(36:52):
What matters is what are yougoing to bring home?
The big revenue is not reallythat relevant.
What's more relevant is howmuch money are you actually
going to make and is thissustainable, in particular, if
you're building something tostick around right, like if
you're trying to build somethingthat's going to be around for a
while and brands just take time.
You cannot build a brand in twomonths.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
I like that.
You point out that timingmatters and but also that if you
miss it this time around,there's always another
opportunity, because thosebuyers are always moving on.
I mean, you sell in aparticular category, that buyer
who maybe you screwed thisparticular opportunity up.
(37:39):
They're going to move on.
In a couple of years they'renot even going to be there,
somebody else is going to movein.
They have no idea that thatinteraction even happened.
So you have that opportunityagain.
And also, as you said, thestrategy of the company
themselves, or of that divisionof the company, is going to
change over time and so maybe atthis point they don't want a
(37:59):
premium product on the shelf andtwo years from now maybe that's
exactly what they want on theshelf.
So there's always thatopportunity that's going to come
back around, as long as you'rewilling to wait for it and keep
looking for it.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
And a quick question for you.
I'm looking to get into acategory now that it's not
Amazon native, like every otherbrand that I've created, every
other physical product brandthat I've created.
I'm looking to get into thebeverage category, which we've
already talked about, is aboutas cutthroat as you can get.
What are some other places?
I mean, we already know thatnon-alcohol beverages are a
trend right now.
(38:29):
We also know that functionalbeverages are a trend.
We're kind of combining thosetwo, which we feel something
that not really a lot of peopleare doing.
But we feel like that becauseof some things that we've done.
But I like to make decisionsmore based on data than a
feeling.
So what are some places thatbrands that aren't necessarily
(38:50):
looking to launch on Amazonright now, because we already
know which tools we can look atto look at kind of search demand
?
What are some other places thatbrands can go look to see what
kind of consumer trends are?
What are people buying at thegrocery stores, what are people
buying at natural grocers andthings like that?
Is there a place, is there adata store that you can go look
at?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
There are ways to get all that data.
It's not free, unfortunately,and there are no third-party
apps that can hack your way intothat and they're usually pretty
protected.
So Nielsen is a really big oneand those are really expensive.
And then spins report inparticular.
That's for natural channel.
That's a really good one aswell, and both of those will
tell you exactly what you'relooking for how big is the
category or the players,velocities, icing.
(39:33):
They'll give you the datalandscape of what's happening.
You can probably figure some ofthe stuff out on your own too,
just by going to I don't know,five sprouts and five vitamin
cottage and, like you know, goto the natural channel first and
you'll see what they'restocking, at what price point
and what's shelved fully andwhat's actually turning right.
Like that's kind of a goodsense of you know, here's the
(39:57):
category, here's a non-alcategory.
Are all of them fully stocked?
Are there some brands that areactually like really selling
through?
Are all of them on deal all thetime?
Right?
There's kind of it's data.
It's a little bit less of aspreadsheet analysis kind of
data, but it's hardcore data,like you're seeing actually
what's selling or what's notselling and why it's on deal all
the time and not, you know, notneeding to replenish, not
(40:19):
selling, and why it's on dealall the time and not, you know,
not needing to replenish.
And then you know, in generalwith beverage it's all about
test and trial versus you know,kind of really honing in and
figuring out what am I velocityis going to be before you can
run.
And that means partnering withyou know a smaller store that
(40:40):
maybe has 10 doors and then justfiguring out where should I be
in store and what are myvelocities looking like, because
if you can crack that then it'smuch easier to run.
But until you crack that part,that's that's the hardest part
with with food in particular,because there's just so much
churn and so much innovation andthey charge you for slotting,
so it's really expensive to testand learn.
So, yeah, I would start smalland then the big one with food
(41:03):
and beverage in particular,sampling.
You just gotta get it to peopleand have them try, and maybe
that means going into coffeeshops to start with and just
getting tons of data on that way, figuring out are people loving
this?
And obviously coffee shop is achannel in its own, but just
easier to get the data beforeyou have to pay those big
sliding bills.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Cool, good tips.
So, Adrena, we've covered a loton brand and different channels
and that type of stuff.
I guess, as we kind of wrap uphere, is there anything around
brand that you know, especiallylisteners, that maybe you know
they're selling six to sevenfigures on Amazon.
Maybe they've tested somedifferent channels.
They really want to invest inthis brand piece.
(41:44):
Are there anything else that wehaven't covered so far that you
think would be really importantfor them to maybe think about
or maybe know, as they thinkabout really building out that
brand that's going toemotionally connect with their
customers?
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Maybe the only other thing that's worth mentioning is
having a deep innovationpipeline.
We haven't talked about thatyet, but if you have a mission
like ours to be the head-to-toepersonal care brand for kids or
snout-to-tail if you have thatkind of vision my brain is going
to be the go-to place for thisthen there has to be a pretty
(42:19):
robust innovation pipeline, andthen innovation pipeline kind be
a pretty robust innovationpipeline, and then innovation
pipeline kind of goes back tothe basics.
What are my consumers lookingfor?
What need am I meeting?
How am I probably going todeliver this better than the
competition?
How does it fit into my overallportfolio?
That's probably another big one, and innovation takes time to
(42:40):
develop.
For us in particular, we testthe heck out of it before we
launch anything, in particular,because once there's reviews,
there's no.
Oh, oopsies, let me go fix it.
So doing that work ahead of timeis really, really helpful.
So having that innovationpipeline I'd say like three-year
pipeline and constantlyrevising and testing and working
on it, is part of fueling thatgrowth, in particular, as you'll
see opportunities in somechannels that maybe don't fit
(43:02):
Amazon but maybe fit some otherchannels, and so having the
innovation pipeline is helpfulwith that, because then you can
deploy different products todifferent channels as well.
It just opens up your arsenalof things you can do and how you
can grow.
If you have a robust kind ofroadmap of what else we want to
develop that fits intoeverything that we're doing Okay
.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Well, I think in that combination with our
conversation around channels andbrands, gives a lot for our
listeners to think about.
I just want to thank you somuch for being on the podcast
and in your time and reallyenjoyed the conversation today.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Good to talk to you all and good luck with the
beverage brand Matt.
Speaker 4 (43:39):
Thank you, elena, thank you so much.
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