Brand Fortress HQ: Amazon FBA Success Strategies
Welcome to the Brand Fortress HQ Podcast, the ultimate resource for mastering Amazon FBA success. Dive deep into the world of e-commerce with your hosts, Jon Stojan, Mike Kaufman, and Matt Atkins—three seasoned Amazon brand owners who have seen it all and are ready to unveil the secrets of their success.
Your hosts each and every week are Jon Stojan, Mike Kaufman, and Matt Atkins. Jon is a former predictive analyst for the Air Force and brings his analytical prowess to the e-commerce battleground. After establishing his own 6-figure brand on Amazon, he founded First North Marketing, a beacon for brands aiming to conquer the Amazon marketplace.
Mike Kaufman is an e-commerce pioneer, having been navigating the online sales sphere for over three decades. His expertise has not only led to the creation of a mid 7-figure brand on Amazon but also birthed invaluable tools and resources to bolster other aspiring brands.
Matt is the jack-of-all-trades in the e-commerce arena, from building a 7 figure meal prep brand, multiple Amazon brands, coaching new brand builders, to helping brands of all sizes grow at Canopy Management. His passion lies in fostering a community of entrepreneurs, offering them the wisdom and connections needed to thrive.
Join us for Tactics Tuesdays, where Jon, Mike, and Matt dissect the real-life strategies propelling their own brands and companies forward. Plus, tune in every Thursday for enlightening interviews with the brightest minds in FBA—transparent leaders and business owners who are shaping the present and future of e-commerce.
With two episodes every week, the Brand Fortress HQ Podcast is your stronghold for insider knowledge, innovative tactics, and inspiring stories. Whether you’re an established seller or just starting your FBA journey, our hosts are here to guide you through the intricacies of the Amazon marketplace. Unlock your brand’s potential and build your own fortress with us at Brand Fortress HQ.
Brand Fortress HQ: Amazon FBA Success Strategies
056: Mastering Brand Building Strategies & Retail Success with Irena Todd
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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Welcome everyone to the Brand Fortress HQ podcast. I'm your host, jon Stojan, along with my co-hosts Matt Atkins and Mike Kaufman, and today 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 brands building clean and natural personal care products. She's got a handful of brands and her company was selected for the Telluride Venture Accelerator. Burt's Bees Launchpad has been featured on CNBC, fast Company and the Wall Street Journal, among others, along with a bunch of other accomplishments. Irina, thank you so much for being on the podcast and I know that was just a quick overview of a lot of different things that you do. If you could give a little bit of background as to how you got into having a house of brands and kind of your experiences that have led up to this point.
Speaker 2:Hi, john and everyone, thanks for having me. I'll try to do it briefly, but the journey has been 10 years long already. I'll start with a little bit of a step back. My background is in consumer packaged goods. I got my training in the bulk of my career at Unilever, running really large personal care brands. My first brand was Degree Men and then Degree Women Now co-founder and I actually launched Axe Hair together when men's hair care didn't exist in stores. I also was part of the M&A team that brought on Tresemme to Unilever and managed Tresemme for a couple years locally and globally. So kind of the crux of my background and kind of the start of the story is that I love building brands and love the idea of building a product around an emotional insight and then connecting with an audience in a meaningful way, and emotional insight and then connecting with an audience in a meaningful way.
Speaker 2:Our company started with kind of the standard founder problem. You want to come up with a solution using your skill sets and background. My co-founder and I were both having kids and felt like as well as new kind of on the insider track, that big companies were not paying attention to the kids segment, in particular in personal care, you have a huge baby set, huge adult set, but kids is kind of lost in the middle and there are really no brands that cater to that segment. And yet it's six times bigger than maybe. And so we felt like, you know, we were searching for brands on our own and didn't want to use Unilever products on our kids, and so we felt like, okay, this seems like a good opportunity. It's a little bit under the radar and feels like a good territory to develop a brand that really connects to consumers and kids in particular. That segment is really special. That's how we started. With just that idea.
Speaker 2:We went to an accelerator program in Telluride. We moved there for five months and that can be an episode in its own. It was really fun and also a great way to start a company, because not only did it make us quit our regular jobs to go start a company, but also it ends with a big demo day where we presented to almost a hundred investors and got our funding and just got things off the ground. It was a really great way to start a company. Anyhow, that was the beginning and the idea was how do we launch this kids personal care brand? The brand is called Fresh Monster.
Speaker 2:A year after the program we launched it and the idea is again to be the head to toe personal care brand for your kids as they go through different stages, you know, when they started getting dirty and messy. Our products deliver, and the kind of foundation of the brand it's not just how do we connect kids in that segment, but also how do the products meet their needs, and so our product philosophies are basically very clean, natural products that also work really well kind of pulling from the Unilever background of products have to work. So yeah, that was kind of the beginning. I'll stop here just to see where you want to go and I can tell you how the journey continued. But that was really the impetus. We started with one particular segment, one brand, and went from there.
Speaker 3:If you wouldn't mind, I have just kind of a question before John digs in here, and that is we really like. I mean, our focus very much is on trying to convince Amazon sellers that they really need to focus on that branding aspect of things. It's been for a long time. You know, it was pretty easy to just kind of throw products up on Amazon and sell them and make money, and so there's a lot of people in this space who that's kind of what they did. To be honest, in some ways it's kind of what I did.
Speaker 3:I kind of fell into a brand, you know, and it just kind of materialized. But you know that idea of kind of building that brand and building that brand recognition and that loyalty and that sort of thing, that brand recognition and that loyalty and that sort of thing what if you could kind of put that a little bit into a nutshell in terms of that process? You know, like, let's say you don't really have a brand. You know, maybe you have a product but you don't have a brand, like what would you do with that? Like what? What thinking process should you walk through to figure out what that brand might look like?
Speaker 2: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 topic and obviously you know what a lot of the MBA programs teach you, as well as Unilever training, and really, at the base of it, all these think about the brands that you know and even when you look at their P&L and balance sheets, the brand has a value, like a monetary value, and there's a reason for that right. The reason for that is that if you have a brand and loyalty, that means you're not constantly battling it out for new customers and you're not constantly thinking about how is somebody going to undercut me and how am I going to survive? Building a brand is just a long-term proposition to connect to consumers on an emotional level. 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 when companies try to build a brand, they think about yes, there's a problem we're trying to solve, but beyond that, what is this value proposition? Why am I existing? How am I going to connect to the consumers? What is this emotional hook that I'm going to have, where people are going to feel like I have space as a brand in their lives and they're not going to keep 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 of work that's done around consumer insight and that's essentially what you know. What am I satisfying, what's the problem I'm solving for, but also what's the emotional hook I'm trying to create with this consumer.
Speaker 2:For us in particular, we were really building a brand around the fact that kids kidhood is kind of like this messy, awkward period, right, and so if we went about building a brand just around product solution, then we'd be like, okay, kids are really dirty, they have tingly hair, let's create a product that solves that, and we would look like probably anybody on there and we would be duking it out on price forever and probably wouldn't be around anymore. Instead, what we try to do is think about okay, how do we create something meaningful in their lives and what are some of these emotional thoughts? For us, that meant oops, we're a little frozen.
Speaker 3:Oh, you're fine, You're good, you're still here.
Speaker 2:So I'll give you an example of what that looked like for us. We thought about kidhood as this age of awkwardness and really caring about what other kids maybe think, and being very influenced by media and by all these stereotypical ideas of what a girl should be, what a boy should be, what kidhood should look like, and so we really wanted to create something that was disrupting that and, in essence, disrupt disrupting some of these traditional 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 fresh monsters, our monsters in the packaging are weird and quirky and they're missing teeth and eyes and they just look. You know, they look all different and weird and cool, and that's what we wanted to represent. We wanted to represent that kidhood and that kind of emotional pool of be who you are right, be the awkward, quirky kids that you are and be proud of that.
Speaker 2:And so if you think of it that way, all of a sudden it's like, wow, like I'm you know, I'm feeling emotional about it because I want my kids to be who they are.
Speaker 2:I don't want them to, you know, just wear princess outfits and just be into kind of the stereotypical stuff that the big media and you know that we're getting bombarded by, and so that felt like a really unique emotional space. Long answer, but essentially what I'm trying to say is it takes some time to build that connection and figure out why is my brand important and what am I trying to say above and beyond the product and what the product delivers?
Speaker 3:Sorry, go ahead John.
Speaker 1:Well, I was just going to ask because I think that that's such a powerful concept and, mike, I'm so glad you asked that question when you guys were building Fresh, monster and even the brands beyond that that you guys work on now what are some of the indicators that you look for that that brand message is really resonating as you build your brand and target that audience?
Speaker 2:When we started building Fresh Monster, we started with a few concepts and the concepts that were around these emotional territories that felt 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 be eventually using your products and loving your brand and just test a few territories. There's some tools you can use around different emotional drivers. You can just Google them and you'll see there's different ways you can go about developing these concepts. But we started with three and you know I remember another one that was all around super me.
Speaker 2:So you know celebrating kind of the doing your best as a kid and you know completely different space, more about empowerment and going for it versus kind of this. You know authenticity and being yourself 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 lot of moms, a ton of them, and just saw what resonated. So, before we even started talking about brand name or anything really, that's where we started. That was kind of the first blueprint of where the brand was going to go. And's where we started. That was kind of the first blueprint of where the brand was going to go.
Speaker 2:And then, once we've gotten kind of this pulse on, oh wow, this seems like a really rich territory. Then we did a few other thought processes around okay, can this come to life? Can this come to life in a brand name, in packaging? Can this be advertised? Can this be? Does this have legs, you know, in the commerce space? Could this be translated to something that is also products? And then from there, obviously you now have guardrails right and then you keep building the brain based on those.
Speaker 4:One of the challenges that Amazon sellers that we see a lot of them fall into is using these tools to look for search volume on Amazon to see how many products have this many reviews and are doing X amount of revenue.
Speaker 4:And the challenge with that is that I personally, in coaching roles, have had students 12 of them come to me with the exact same product because they were using the exact same tools and the exact same filters.
Speaker 4:What you've described and this is what I tried to get to them, you said it so much more eloquently is, instead of choosing a product based on a filter, choose a person first.
Speaker 4:And once you choose a person, in most 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 of the consumer and to ask the question what is a product that can not only enhance my life but solve a problem for me? And building a brand around a person as opposed to a product is so much easier and and you, you so many things that you said because you were able to take that to a group of moms and ask like does this resonate with you? So for me, there was a Facebook group that had a whole bunch of barbecue like aficionados not just guys that were grilling for their kids on the weekend, like these are the guys that are out checking their brisket at two o'clock in the morning and I had this group of people that I could ask these questions to, and it was because I was focused on that person as opposed to an individual product, and I resonated a lot with what you were talking about, with what you did with the moms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's not to say you shouldn't be using product explorer and all that stuff to figure out you know how many people are searching what you're doing. But you're right, that's kind of that's later on. That's your go-to market strategy, right? Versus? Here's a product that has room in the world because it needs a. You know it meets a need and that's where you start. And then you then you figure out what channel makes sense for me and maybe Amazon doesn't, right, and maybe it does.
Speaker 2:I would say in general, amazon is great for you know, products that are already searched and somehow you have found a way to connect in a different way or a more meaningful way or have some benefit to offer that's not existing already. Otherwise, you'll be just duking it out on price For products that are new to the world. Amazon's not great for that because then you need to generate demand, and generating demand on Amazon is not. That's really not what the channel is for. Then you may want to consider building out your brand, I don't know through independent channel, retail channel or through your own website, if the financials make sense. So really you start with the idea and then channel is kind of, you know, the go-to-market strategy and not the actual starting point.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's really hard to educate a consumer on Amazon, that's for sure.
Speaker 3:Well, and that's such a valuable point, right, Because, you know, I do think there's maybe almost this dichotomy, like you've got. You've got the individuals who are just using the tools to figure out you know what products could I sell, that there's space, you know and not really paying attention to, you know having an actual, you know target customer avatar and things like that. But then you've also got people who maybe they have an idea for a very, you know, very new product. You know that really doesn't exist out there, which there's nothing wrong with that. That's great, it's risky, but it's a thing.
Speaker 3:But, as you said, Amazon typically is not going to be the place where you want to do that, unless it's kind of a new product right, there is a template for it over here. I'm just making a really different version of it that people might like better. But if this is a brand new thing that nobody even knows that they might need, Amazon is not the place for that. And if that's what you're doing, like if you're watching this podcast and you're like, hey, I got this great idea and I think Amazon's a wonderful place to sell it, Cause there's so many people, be careful with that, because you could lose your shirt, Because the only way that you're going to educate people on Amazon is with a massive amount of money, because it's all ads and you don't even know what keywords to target. You know like it. Just it's kind of a mess.
Speaker 1:I'm curious, going back to this, you know, because this idea of understanding kind of that emotional connection with brands. So when you guys were doing whether it's with Fresh Monster or some of the other brands that you've worked with is there an example that stands out in your head of a time where you know there was part of that emotional connection that you guys had kind of a hunch on that, where you ended up where it ended up, not panning out?
Speaker 2:Maybe our Mighty Mutt brand. I'll share a little bit about that one. Essentially, we launched a furry kids brand about four years ago so some five years into running the business and it came again from from consumer demand. We parents were saying I want something like this for my furry kids. I'm using it on my kids. Can you please create something that's as safe and efficacious for my pets? And the hunch for us was to kind of follow that insight. And we followed that insight and launched a brand around it and it was good. But it wasn't quite as deep of a connection as we found with Fresh Monster from the beginning and so we did it again, we kept talking to dog owners, pet parents.
Speaker 2:We call them and asking again what role can we play? What are the emotional hooks that we can have? And instead of this you know our brand is called Mighty Mutt and it's all around. You know, again, treating your dogs like kids and using products that are just as safe, just as you would for your own kids we started landing on consumers again, telling us well, we're really struggling with is doing this really quickly, I don't have time. Your products are amazing, they're doing all these things, and I love that you're celebrating my dog, but I just don't have time doing all these things. And I love that you're celebrating my dog, but I just don't have time. And so that kept us thinking okay, well, can we play a role where we're really an ally and how do we help our dog parents, not just, you know, celebrating their dogs, but also how do we help them clean their dogs really quickly? And that's when we came up with the idea of our dry shampoo for dogs, and then a paw cleaner. That's a dry shampoo. Now we're looking for a leave-in conditioner.
Speaker 2:All of a sudden, the brand is actually evolving into something different than we originally thought. It's becoming more on the how do I make your life easier? And then how do the products meet that need in particular? And so it's a living, breathing thing. A brand is not something you write on paper and it's forever like that it could be. I'd say. Fresh Monster is pretty, pretty close to what it is, what we imagined 10 years ago, but sometimes it's not, and with Mighty Mud in particular, we're seeing it evolve especially as kind of the dog. Parents are guiding us that way and just listening. How do you fit into their lives and how do you connect to what is the root of the problem and where they're going to feel like, oh my gosh, this brand makes so much sense for me. How did that?
Speaker 3:change. So, with this Mighty, as your focus began to change on creating more products that made their life easier, how did that change your product lineup? So, in other words, you already had products in the brand that you were already selling, but they weren't that which, at the time, I would expect, you kind of looked at as or at least some of them, as your kind of hero products, right, but then you shifted over to this kind of other dimension. That really is going well. So how did your SKU list change? Did products fall off or did they just become kind of more complimentary products now? How did that change things?
Speaker 2:All of that. Yes, it changed in how we are presenting the brand, it changed the communication. It changed product heroes, the kind of the staples we had before. They're still there, but they're really kind of supporting actors and ultimately not the ones that we're spending money on or you know, building out and so it's, you know, maybe even sunset them at some point, but really that's not to say they're not amazing products. They're actually really great products, but it's not where we want our brand to go and it's truly not a way to win.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, I always think, you know, the products have to have a meaningful role, and if there's 10 others that are doing the same thing or consumers are saying, okay, that's great, but my bigger problem is here. Then again, I'd much rather go to where we think, kind of the long-term connection is going to be. And so, yes, the innovation has changed. How we're thinking about what's next also is changing. As well as channels, I'm thinking about go-to-market differently as well. Some of them are new categories. Therefore they're not going to do great on Amazon. So I'm thinking about, okay, how do I, you know, how do I meet my consumer where they're at? And in this instance, it's probably going to be the independent, you know pet boutiques and smaller stores.
Speaker 3:You know it's interesting that whole Mighty Mutt thing, and I think you also have something like Mighty Meow or something like that too, right, like for cats.
Speaker 3:But what strikes me about that is I have somebody that I've been consulting with, for they want to start.
Speaker 3:It's a pet brand and they have one product right now that they want to focus on and they have some ideas about some other supporting products that they want to bring out.
Speaker 3:But the mechanism that we're looking at using for them they want to eventually sell on Amazon, but social is really where we're putting a lot of emphasis. They want to eventually sell on Amazon, but social is really where we're putting a lot of emphasis in terms of where they're starting. Because and this is, I wonder, this a little bit about your Mighty Butt and Mighty Meow is that you know people, people spend so much time, like the number of Facebook groups that surround you, know a particular breed or you know pets or you know whatever, and you know people love watching these videos, these funny videos of dogs and cats and things like that, and so it strikes me that when you're in that category with pets, that there is maybe a lot of opportunity on social, you know, to generate kind of that community aspect of the brand, and then you know you can funnel that wherever you want in terms of the sales channel.
Speaker 2:But yes, completely. I mean same for kids too, right, there's just a lot of passionate parents, a lot of passionate dog parents. Ugc does really well for that. And in general, yes, engagement in social media is super helpful. And again it goes back to how do I present the brand and connect with where the consumers are, and so yes, if to how do I present the brand and connect with where the consumers are? And so yes, if they're spending a lot of time watching dog videos which they are then TikTok makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:I will also say dog owners still really love their local pet store. They really do. They trust them, they go for recommendations. There's a human they can help them figure out what's happening. Why is their dog itching so much? It's just a different kind of consumer journey, and so meeting them where they are is all of it, right, and so that's why, back to what Matt was saying, if you start with that consumer and then think about where are they shopping, what are they doing, Then you can think about thoughtfully how do I intersect my brain in those moments and make sure that I'm relevant to their life thoughtfully how do I intersect my brain in those moments and make sure that I'm relevant to their life?
Speaker 4:And now that you have your audiences pretty much dialed in, where does the decision on what channel to sell a particular product idea? Where does that come into the mix for you? Is it at the beginning? Do you think of the channel first? Do you think of the product first and then try to pick the perfect channel for it? How does that work for you?
Speaker 2:Channel is further down the line, from here's who I'm going after, here's my consumer, 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 biggest one is just price. That's kind of the basic one. But if you're a very high priced item, then you're kind of universe of marketplaces, retail stores. Smaller If you're a value price item, very different. Also, if you have a specific category that plays really well in independent channel, like pet category, right, then you'd consider that. And again, price is a big one. If you're, you know, very value price, well maybe the mass channels are going to be really hard for you because there's so many others that are much bigger and have much bigger budgets. So there's price. For me is always one of the big ones is which channel makes sense and obviously figuring out what the competition is doing. That's kind of the first one. And then from there you know we think about okay, can we win in that channel with this price point in our proposition, can we win?
Speaker 2:And for a small company, we look at profitability very closely. And so retail channel in particular is an expensive one. I mean not that Amazon is not, but retail is sneaky expensive because you know there's so many fees that you don't even know are going to slam you until you're there and to get into retail. There's just so much cash needed to build up the inventory and prepare for everything Sometimes slotting beverage for sure. Right, there's just so much cash upfront and then you get into retail and then you realize, oh wow, this is, you know, so expensive, makes Amazon look good, so that you know there's kind of that thought process for a smaller company who's profit driven or really careful about profitability. There's definitely brands that don't care about that and all they're going for is market share. And if that's the case then you need to have deep pockets or investors behind you and that's a way to gain market share and then hopefully get the profitability eventually. But we know in today's world that's really hard and probably not a path for most.
Speaker 1:Well, and you mentioned profitability, and especially for brands that, like you said, don't have deep pockets. It's so important where they have to strike that balance of not only being competitive but also growing the brand. You know, from an inventory standpoint, product development and a lot of other things. What are some of those kind of key performance indicators that you're looking for from a systematic approach in order to be profitable with a brand as it grows?
Speaker 2:I'd say we're pretty focused on data and metrics. That's a big one. So being really thoughtful about every element of the P&L but also the cashflow, so just having a careful eye on all of those and actually having that information. A lot of people kind of fudge it and think they know what they're making or where their money is going, but it's really, you know, it requires kind of thoughtful process and then diligence to make sure you're actually collecting all the data. It's a big one, right, because if you can be thoughtful about that even before you launch your products, then you're just better set up to succeed when things get rolling, versus you've already launched and then now 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. That's a much more stressful approach, but even still, I would say at any point in your journey of launching products, running products, you know building brands. Your journey of launching products, running products, you know building brands, having that knowledge of what is my individual item making and exactly what is happening in every channel for that particular item to the dollar, that's kind of the ultimate right, because you can. Then you've know truly what, what is my potential with this item, and that changes, right If you're selling on Amazon versus if you're selling on another marketplace, on your Shopify or in a retail store.
Speaker 2:So we have detailed P&Ls by item, by channel, with every little bucket filled out, including, you know, the shrink wrap that 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 really it's empowering, because then you can say, all right, I understand 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 can fix that maybe is not going to hurt the brand, or you can see opportunities. Wow, this product is crushing. This margin is amazing. If we can double this one, our cashflow is going to double right, so just having those levers and that are, you know, based on what money you're bringing in, is just pretty empowering.
Speaker 3:And I know, when you started each of these individual brands, did you start with an end point in mind in terms of you know, okay, we really want to get this product to retail, or we really want to get this product to you know XYZ, but this is the pathway to get there. Like, maybe we can't go there yet, 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 is my price point going to be and what profitability level do I need to be at in order to be able to accomplish that?
Speaker 2:That's such a good question and one that I think everybody should be thinking about as they're thinking about launching anything, and, in particular, around price.
Speaker 2:So originally when we built the brand like I said once, we've kind of had the basics of it the next biggest question was price, and price was in the context of where is this going to be, both from the mission of how far do 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, and so from the beginning, we said we want it to be a household name and we wanted our pricing to be affordable for that particular reason, so we can be in as many places as possible, and that was the prototype around.
Speaker 2:Okay, can we make this happen given the product brief that we have? Can we be at this bright spot and also offer supernatural clean products that work really well? That was kind of the crux of it all. 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 Unilever training too, you know, like growing fast. The fastest way is to go into mass retail and about 80% of all personal care is done in like three retailers mass- retail.
Speaker 2:So that was always on the map and we did. We tested with both the target and Walmart. They were both very intrigued with 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 do eventually and hopefully maybe when we sell you know Unilever can do that because they already infrastructure what we found was that it was incredibly expensive. We did not anticipate all the costs.
Speaker 2:That actually came Again same kind of thought around oh, you just plop it into retail, right, it's going to be. You know, I've done the calculation, the margins are good, we're going to make this work, but we found that, no, it's actually really expensive. And we either had to keep fundraising to subsidize that kind of retail growth, which meant all kinds of implications right, if you keep fundraising, that's a very stressful journey or we can focus on more profitable channels for now, because we are a small brand and kind of grow the snowball a little bit slower, and then maybe leave the retail as meat on the bone for eventually, when we sell or when we get big enough and our budget is big enough that we can actually tackle. So it's great to start with it, right, with some thoughts around it, but some of it is you just don't know, like until you're in there and figuring out that, okay, whatever this profit margin I thought it was at the beginning really it's a lot thinner or non-existent at all.
Speaker 3:And do you feel then, in terms of that initial attempt at retail and then kind of the pulling back on that, do you feel that there?
Speaker 3:I feel like there's somewhat of a dichotomy there, in the sense that there's this decision of we want to be a household name and so therefore we want to be a fairly affordable brand, because otherwise we're only going to be, you know, on the shelves of people who have considerable resource. But by doing so you do put yourself in a position where moving into retail is a much more difficult path forward, because the profitability on the product is smaller, obviously, than on a higher price product, and so you don't have as much room to do the discounting that retailers are normally going to be expecting and to, as you indicated, have the cash reserves and resources to address all of those additional fees and things that come down the pipe that you don't even know are coming. So how do you feel about that at this point in time? Would you go back and change the pricing models to make it easier to get on retail? Do you feel like you wouldn't? How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2:I think that retail is important to crack for us. Eventually, the way we go about it has changed. I mean, as we were doing retail, we were also on Amazon and we just I mean that's also where general population is right and so, being price where we're at and building the brand that we have we got tons of traction and have had since the beginning, we've been growing year over year pretty significantly, which you know it makes us feel like, yes, we're building a household name anyways. Now there's you know what does that mean for retail? We did stick around in retailers that were willing to play ball right, that were willing to not force us to do certain things like promotions and deep discounts and things like that.
Speaker 2:We stayed with those retailers and those are the kinds of retailers we're, you know, always open to talking to. I'm referring to more bigger box targets, walmarts of the world, where you don't have that kind of negotiating power because you're teeny, tiny and generally you're competing with, you know, massive brands who have, you know, such deep relationships that probably those brands are building out the shelf for the retailer, like we did at Genoever, like sometimes we were category captains and we were designing the entire shelf. It's very hard to you know as a teeny little brand. How are you going to come in?
Speaker 3:and say how about me? Me too right.
Speaker 2:And you know the answer. Going higher pricing is often the wrong answer because then it makes it even harder to compete. How are you going to compete with? You know, household names that are half your price. It's very hard. So you know being at the right price point is critical. I don't think you can mess with that Really. You just need to think about can I deliver, can my go-to-market strategy deliver to that and still be profitable? What are the conditions? And maybe the conditions are certain retailers really want to develop the segment and are willing to bet on me and are willing to waive some of the crazy fees. Right?
Speaker 1:Well, I think what's really interesting about kind of your journey that you were talking about there to me is that you know one of the things we talk about obviously you know a lot of our listeners are Amazon and looking at other channels as Amazon gets more crowded, gets more expensive and that type of things.
Speaker 1:And then the other thing, circling back to what we talked about at the beginning of this episode, which is if we're really focusing on building a brand, that means that Amazon can be a good place to start for some brands, but it's not the finishing line and it's looking at other channels in order to continue to grow the brand and those types of things.
Speaker 1:What I find just really interesting about what you said was so it sounds like you were in Target and Walmart. Some of those big box stores didn't work out based on what you saw from the numbers and so you pivoted your strategy and then but also just based on your background and experience know that you know further down the line there'll be another opportunity for that, because I feel like there's a lot of fear around like, oh well, if I don't make this my one big shot with Target or Walmart or whatever that big box store is work, then I'm never going to have this shot again. So I'm curious you know if there's any of that, you know what that looked like or how you think about that discussion for your situation, and how do you think brands should think about that as they test out other? You know channels like whether it be big box stores or other retail channels.
Speaker 2:Well, I will say that selling into retail is the easiest job ever. Like, getting on shelf is really easy, but making money on shelf is really really hard. That's kind of the crux of it all. Right, the way these big retailers work is they have very young buyers. They're usually in their 20s and they're, you know, making decisions on a certain desk. Say, they're in hair care for a couple of years and then they move on to the next category maybe baby, maybe apparel, whatever and so the shelf life of a buyer is really fast, and so the opportunity to sell in is always there. It just requires somebody who really gets what you're doing. And, more importantly, when the retailer is focusing on your category, if they're saying, I really want to develop this pool category and have some more premium offerings, well, that's a really good match, right? So if the retailer strategy is matching yours, that's excellent, and that's sometimes time and luck right.
Speaker 2:Like you just don't know what the corporate initiatives are, what they're, you know what they're doing, and so I always say stay in touch, always be in touch with the buyers, be in touch with what they're doing, what their priorities are, and you know, keep checking in and you know once there's a match between their initiatives, their priorities, what you deliver, then you can negotiate right. Then you have a better chance at creating the conditions that you need to be successful in retail. And then I'll say if you have time to build up your brand again, if you're going into mass and you're an unknown brand, that's going to be really hard. How are people going to find you, unless you have big budgets right To advertise or to have a big social media campaign, it's going to be really hard for people to find you and therefore your velocities are not going to be high enough and Target is going to kick you out in three months, right. But if you maybe start smaller, start with retailers again that get you and prove yourself out and build your brand on Amazon and other marketplaces and all of a sudden people have heard of you and you have a social media presence in the community, then it becomes a little bit easier.
Speaker 2:I just think it's so tough to resist the siren call of mass retail because in a jiffy you get massive volumes. But learn from my experience, right. What matters is what are you going to bring home? The big revenue is not really that relevant. What's more relevant is how much money are you actually going to make and is this sustainable, in particular, if you're building something to stick around right, like if you're trying to build something that's going to be around for a while and brands just take time. You cannot build a brand in two months.
Speaker 3:I like that. You point out that timing matters and but also that if you miss it this time around, there's always another opportunity, because those buyers are always moving on. I mean, you sell in a particular category, that buyer who maybe you screwed this particular opportunity up. They're going to move on. In a couple of years they're not even going to be there, somebody else is going to move in. They have no idea that that interaction even happened. So you have that opportunity again. And also, as you said, the strategy of the company themselves, or of that division of the company, is going to change over time and so maybe at this point they don't want a premium product on the shelf and two years from now maybe that's exactly what they want on the shelf. So there's always that opportunity that's going to come back around, as long as you're willing to wait for it and keep looking for it.
Speaker 4:And a quick question for you. I'm looking to get into a category now that it's not Amazon native, like every other brand that I've created, every other physical product brand that I've created. I'm looking to get into the beverage category, which we've already talked about, is about as cutthroat as you can get. What are some other places? I mean, we already know that non-alcohol beverages are a trend right now. We also know that functional beverages are a trend. We're kind of combining those two, which we feel something that not really a lot of people are doing. But we feel like that because of some things that we've done.
Speaker 4:But I like to make decisions more based on data than a feeling. So what are some places that brands that aren't necessarily looking to launch on Amazon right now, because we already know which tools we can look at to look at kind of search demand? What are some other places that brands can go look to see what kind of consumer trends are? What are people buying at the grocery stores, what are people buying at natural grocers and things like that? Is there a place, is there a data store that you can go look at?
Speaker 2: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 into that and they're usually pretty protected. So Nielsen is a really big one and those are really expensive. And then spins report in particular. That's for natural channel. That's a really good one as well, and both of those will tell you exactly what you're looking for how big is the category or the players, velocities, icing. They'll give you the data landscape of what's happening. You can probably figure some of the stuff out on your own too, just by going to I don't know, five sprouts and five vitamin cottage and, like you know, go to the natural channel first and you'll see what they're stocking, at what price point and what's shelved fully and what's actually turning right. Like that's kind of a good sense of you know, here's the category, here's a non-al category. Are all of them fully stocked? Are there some brands that are actually like really selling through? Are all of them on deal all the time? Right?
Speaker 2:There's kind of it's data. It's a little bit less of a spreadsheet analysis kind of data, but it's hardcore data, like you're seeing actually what's selling or what's not selling and why it's on deal all the time and not, you know, not needing to replenish, not selling, and why it's on deal all the time and not, you know, not needing to replenish. And then you know, in general with beverage it's all about test and trial versus you know, kind of really honing in and figuring out what am I velocity is going to be before you can run. And that means partnering with you know a smaller store that maybe has 10 doors and then just figuring out where should I be in store and what are my velocities looking like, because if you can crack that then it's much easier to run.
Speaker 2: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 and they charge you for slotting, so it's really expensive to test and learn. So, yeah, I would start small and then the big one with food and beverage in particular, sampling. You just gotta get it to people and have them try, and maybe that means going into coffee shops to start with and just getting tons of data on that way, figuring out are people loving this? And obviously coffee shop is a channel in its own, but just easier to get the data before you have to pay those big sliding bills.
Speaker 1:Cool, good tips. So, Adrena, we've covered a lot on brand and different channels and that type of stuff. I guess, as we kind of wrap up here, is there anything around brand that you know, especially listeners, that maybe you know they're selling six to seven figures on Amazon. Maybe they've tested some different channels. They really want to invest in this brand piece. Are there anything else that we haven't covered so far that you think would be really important for them to maybe think about or maybe know, as they think about really building out that brand that's going to emotionally connect with their customers?
Speaker 2:Maybe the only other thing that's worth mentioning is having a deep innovation pipeline. We haven't talked about that yet, but if you have a mission like ours to be the head-to-toe personal care brand for kids or snout-to-tail if you have that kind of vision my brain is going to be the go-to place for this then there has to be a pretty robust innovation pipeline, and then innovation pipeline kind be a pretty robust innovation pipeline, and then innovation pipeline kind of goes back to the basics. What are my consumers looking for? What need am I meeting? How am I probably going to deliver this better than the competition? How does it fit into my overall portfolio? That's probably another big one, and innovation takes time to develop. For us in particular, we test the 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.
Speaker 2:So doing that work ahead of time is really, really helpful. So having that innovation pipeline I'd say like three-year pipeline and constantly revising and testing and working on it, is part of fueling that growth, in particular, as you'll see opportunities in some channels that maybe don't fit Amazon but maybe fit some other channels, and so having the innovation pipeline is helpful with that, because then you can deploy different products to different channels as well. It just opens up your arsenal of things you can do and how you can grow. If you have a robust kind of roadmap of what else we want to develop that fits into everything that we're doing Okay.
Speaker 1:Well, I think in that combination with our conversation around channels and brands, gives a lot for our listeners to think about. I just want to thank you so much for being on the podcast and in your time and really enjoyed the conversation today.
Speaker 2:Good to talk to you all and good luck with the beverage brand Matt.
Speaker 4:Thank you, elena, thank you so much.
