Glimpse

0:00Welcome to the Emerging Brands podcast. Sharing the stories behind brands you'll want to shop next. I'm your host, Kelly Bennett. I am a New York City-based brand strategist for CPG Food and Beverage Brands. In each episode, I'll take you behind the scenes of founders that are building better-for-you products and bringing them to market. it.

0:22Merry Nebiyu:Also, I talk to brand builders, retailers, industry experts, and tastemakers who help bring those cool products to your shopping cart. You will hear stories of real-life founders, their launch strategies, and practical advice you could use to grow your own brand or simply discover what's next on shelf. And the best part is you could shop all the brands featured on the show. This podcast is brought to you by Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds is the go-to platform built for creator-powered retail activations. They're connecting everyday creators with CPG brands to generate shelf-level awareness, drive in-store momentum, and generate authentic content in markets that matter the most.

1:09Go to hummingbirds.com for all the details and let them know I sent you. This podcast is brought to you by Glimpse. Glimpse is an AI-powered deduction management tool that disputes and recovers invalid deductions. Winning brands thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours back to founders so that they can focus on what really matters most. If you're a brand selling in retail, go to tryglimpse.com backslash trial for 30 days free and let them know I sent you. Now let's dive into the new episode. Hi everyone. Welcome back to a new episode of Emerging Brands Podcast with Kelly Bennett. Today I have a special guest who is the events and community lead of Glimpse.

2:02This is our newest sponsor of the podcast, and they are doing something incredibly important for CPG brands. So Mary Nebedou, she is on the podcast today. And thank you so much for coming on to explain Glimpse and how this could help CPG brands. Hi.

2:24Merry Nebiyu:Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm a longtime fan of the podcast, so I'm really happy to be on and even more happy to like be a supporter of the podcast. I'm really excited. Yes, this is so cool. And I really appreciate you. And I love how Glimpse has an events and community lead to really integrate that into a space where it could feel really intimidating and working on the operational side of a brand that could feel just super overwhelming. And I love how you all are building this brand. So I'm really excited to get into what is Glimpse and really how you're building community around it? Yeah.

3:06Merry Nebiyu:Honestly, it's funny. When I first joined the team, I really didn't know what to expect. I've had this role before at other companies, but I think this is the first place where we really embody wanting to be the connector and the connective tissue for brands. We kind of sit in this like interesting space in the tech world where we are consumer tech, we're a tech startup very early on, but we're here for, to support the brands. So ultimately like, you know, we've entered an era where D2C no longer cuts it for brands. Omnichannel is the way forward. It's honestly a non-negotiable for CPG founders now.

3:47Merry Nebiyu:And when brands either transition out of D2C into retail or launch into retail, a lot of first-time founders are hit with tons of hidden fees and chargebacks from the distributors. And so our founders originally started the company as an Airbnb product placement company, which is really random. But then they were like actually, you know, in the weeds talking to founders every single day and realized, oh, wait, what's really killing these founders is not more, you know, marketing that they need. It's these chargebacks that are taking away the margins that they need to like be successful in a raise.

4:23and be sustainable to make payroll and cover the cost of producing a product. It gets so granular, right? Especially in the time of growth when you're going into retail and you think, okay, more doors, that means more money, but there also comes more costs. So can you back up a little bit and just explain to people what is Glimpse?

4:48Merry Nebiyu:Yes. So based off of like all of those conversations that our founders had, they realized oh wait you know these chargebacks are what's really killing the brands and so they created a product that actually automates validating and making sure those charges are one correct because some of these distributors will just randomly charge you for stuff when it's like not even true and then on top of actually making sure that like it's accurate they actually we have a product that goes in and disputes those charges and wins the money back for you. So we are like a revenue recovery tool and founders can get both time and money back because you know, in this day and age, in this market, every single dollar counts.

5:28Merry Nebiyu:And if you're getting, you know, two, three, 4 % of your top line revenue back, that's pretty freaking meaningful. That's huge. And also it's, it may sound small to someone who's not in this industry, but that's a huge percentage of top line revenue and also your time and your bandwidth. Like if you are building a CPG brand, every minute of your day is accounted for. And so giving people that peace of mind and really relieving, giving relief to that stress is huge. And that was something that really caught my attention with Glimpse. Yeah. I mean, I speak to founders every single day, you know, in my role and like hearing founders who have these schedules where they're going to three, four meetings or three, four events, excuse me, a day on top of all of the operational meetings that they have on top of like trying to get into a new retailer, trying to continue to raise money, like every single minute counts and every dollar counts.

6:25Merry Nebiyu:And we've even seen with the companies that we work with that at the end of the day, like those hours and minutes that they're getting back are sometimes even more meaningful than the revenue itself. So. Absolutely. So walk us through your role. I love events. I love community building. I think that's such an important piece of a brand. I've always worked in more consumer brands. What does that look like at a tech company? How are you building events and community? Yeah. So I got into CPG and like this tech world as well in a super roundabout way. I actually like started in politics, was born and raised in D.C.

7:06Merry Nebiyu:and was preparing to go to law school. And I realized very quickly that is not for me. Interesting. Yeah, but it was my first exposure into media and comms, like working on campaigns and for Congress and all that. I bounced around a lot after that. I was in TV and entertainment and SNL for a little bit. And then I went into a couple other startups and landed at the last company I was at, which was InSoftware. And it was the first time I was doing events in community. That is what I came there to do. But, you know, tech companies now, like a lot of them are like trying to run this events playbook.

7:42Merry Nebiyu:They're trying to like bring in community leaders because they're realizing, oh wait, like traditional selling models no longer work. Right. But operationally, that's a super difficult thing to do. Like you need to have a lot of trust in your team because a lot of the stuff that we're doing is like not trackable in the traditional sense. the ROI isn't overnight and you're just, you're, you're driven as a founder, as a company by chasing your next fundraising goal or impressing investors. And I mean, you see this on like LinkedIn and stuff, like there's so many vanity metrics that these founders are chasing.

8:16Merry Nebiyu:So it's not easy to justify not only like hiring someone, but also investing in someone for these tech founders. So when I left that company, I was planning on taking a bit of a break, but then I met Akash, our CEO at Glimpse and learned what he was building. At the time, it was like six or seven people, but they were about to hit like a huge growth inflection point. And I was immediately attracted to two things. One was that him and his co-founders were building Glimpse in response to the market. So like I mentioned, seeing what other founders needed and building for them, not the other way around, which is like what a lot of tech founders do.

8:57Merry Nebiyu:Right. And the other thing is that he was really, really bought into the idea of events, partnerships, and building community as the function that would propel the company. You know, that takes a lot of trust from a CEO to know that we have incredible growth goals and still invest in community in this way. So since then we've hosted, that was in July of this year. And since then we've hosted 50 events. Wait, since July, you've hosted 50 events? Yes. Yeah. In like seven cities. Wow. Okay. Walk us through that. How is it? How are you doing this? A lot of teamwork. A lot of partners. Our partners are huge in this.

9:39Merry Nebiyu:People like yourself, people who were like, you know, willing to like make the long drive in the middle of the night to make sure we get to the next place or, you know, donate products that people are trying new samples all the time. And it's been, you know, incredibly successful for us as a business, but more importantly, it's been successful for all of the brands that we're able to support, both with using our platform, but most importantly, like, you know, being able to be that resource for early stage founders and emerging brands and like connecting them to this ecosystem that we're building of like operators, founders, and VCs.

10:15Merry Nebiyu:Like our events are not only for founders because we want to ensure that like people are getting, you know, exactly what they need. We're here to prove, I think, like I'm really here to help prove that ultimately you can scale vibes, you know, you can scale the halo effect of like being everywhere all the time. And it's a science too. Like that can be a science. It's not just like a nice to have for companies anymore. So I think like, you know, ultimately that is our goal. And we have been able to do that because now we sit at this intersection of like doing cool stuff and bringing cool people together.

10:53I am loving every single word that you're saying. I've been building brands and working with founders for 15 plus years. And I've always believed in community building and especially events. I think it's just one of those most powerful ways, even if it's like 20 people in a room, there's so much power in that. So everything that you're saying, I am so happy to hear that this is in the forefront of what Glimpse is doing. And also something that really caught my attention of being aligned of that passion of bringing people together and exactly what you were saying of founders, VCs, operators. I think a lot of communities could get really focused on one vertical of that larger community, but there's so much power in bringing people from all different perspectives together into a shared experience.

11:50Merry Nebiyu:A hundred percent. And like, that is why I feel like people ask me all the time, like, what is your job? Like, what is your title? And it's like a little bit of everything. Like you You have to be in the partnerships world. You have to be on the sales side. You have to be in the event space. But like, most importantly, like you have to be online. You have to be understanding, like, where is the community that you're trying to reach? How can I, you know, talk to people who know what they're talking about? Because, you know, we're a really young company. We are establishing ourselves and we brought in experts into the fold in order to do that.

12:23Merry Nebiyu:But at the end of the day, we want our founders to receive expertise, you know, get advice from people who've been there before and done this. So we connect people to exited founders. You connect people to, you know, VCs who've been doing this for a long time. And ultimately what we found is like, okay, like this is how you sell in 2025. You know, it's not, it's not like founder led sales anymore. It's, it's like ultimately at the end of the day, like we know our product is good. We're not here to really like come to you and be like, come buy this piece of software, right? We know at the end of the day that like what's most important is having a tech company, a resource for you beyond just the product.

13:04Merry Nebiyu:And I think that's the future of software. A thousand percent. A thousand percent. So walk me through what an event is like. I know that you have one coming up on Friday, which I have on my calendar. What is the experience that you really have been working on in curating these events? Yeah, it's a great question. And I'm very excited to see you. So it really depends. I think one thing I when I came into this role, I was like, I don't want to just do dinners all the time. I don't want to just do happy hours all the time. Like you're in New York, you know how many of those exist? Yes. So we're trying to do something different all the time um we've done spa events we've done pilates classes we've done you know we have a huge office previously martha stewart's old office for her company um and it has like a full r &d kitchen so we like try to do like cool stuff in there super cool yeah and that's actually where our event will be on on friday and like okay we'll have um that's like a morning time event where we're bringing like vcs together with founders talking about what they're excited about in 2026, but mostly just like, you know, creating connections.

14:19Merry Nebiyu:And I think ultimately we want to do cool stuff. We don't want to do what everybody else is doing. So next year we're going to be like really, really tripling down on like expanding into different cities. We'll be like in Minneapolis, we'll be in Austin, San Francisco and then also doing stuff that like, you know, hopefully are appealing to the people that we're trying to reach. So just bigger and like crazier events, something that's not a dinner. I don't want to do a dinner anymore. I support you. And I'm looking forward to coming to your event on Friday and just really seeing how, again, your brand is activating.

14:56I think it's really clever. To give someone an overview of the nuts and bolts of just like high level, how someone could try Glimpse, can you just walk us through? I know you have a 30-day free trial, which is amazing. Can you just walk someone through how to take advantage of that?

15:17Merry Nebiyu:Yeah, of course. So I'll give you like the link and maybe you can put in the show notes. Yeah, I'll put it in the show notes for sure. Okay, perfect. Yeah. And then anyone can also go to triglimps.com and there will be a free trial link there as well. Ultimately, like this product is for founders who have either are about to enter their first large distributor or retailer. So if you're distributing via Unify, KHE, if you're going into Target or Walmart, you know, it's a great time. If you want data on how your products are doing in specific retailers, we can also now support that need as well.

15:53Merry Nebiyu:And ultimately, like, if you want to save dollars, if you want to save time, like, and you have products on shelves, like that's what we're here to do. We'll be launching Sephora and Ulta next year pretty soon. So beauty brands will be in the mix. Ooh, that's exciting too. I'm very, very excited about that. I've been pushing for that internally a lot. Incredible. So it's food, beverage, beauty. Yes. Anything that sits on a shelf, if you are in Target, in Walmart, KHE Unify, Amazon, we're here to help. The other thing I think that was really attractive to me when I first joined the team was the way that our pricing is intensive aligned and not to get like too nitty gritty into that.

16:41Merry Nebiyu:But it's really cool because we do like have a really small fee and like it's all commission based. So like if we're not proving that our product works, like no one like stays on the platform. And it's awesome because then I know that like we're delivering real value to people. So yeah, it's really exciting to be somewhere that people know that they're getting value out of like the product that they're using every single day. And that must be so fulfilling too, because it's so, it makes such a difference of when you're working on something that you know is solving a real problem and is adding value and you feel good promoting and getting the word out.

17:22That makes a world of a difference. Oh my God, 100%.

17:25Merry Nebiyu:I mean, I know I got like just super salesy five seconds ago, but like that's the only time I would ever want to be working somewhere or sorry. The only time I would want to be like super salesy or promote something like that is if I really believed in the product. Same. Same. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and breaking this down and also just sharing some behind the scenes. For anyone interested in trying Glimpse and also joining an event, where is the best place for someone to go? Yeah. For the free trial, I know there's going to be a link in the show notes. Yes. For events, you can go on our LinkedIn and we have our calendar there, but I can also give you our calendar link so you can put that in.

18:17Merry Nebiyu:the show. Perfect. I will link everything. I'll see you on Friday, IRL. So excited. My fave. And thank you everyone for listening. Go check out Glimpse. And thank you again for supporting the Emerging Brands podcast. It means the world to me. So thank you for making that happen. Of course. Thank you for supporting this ethos. I love that there are people out there who are wanting to ensure emerging brands are getting the attention they deserve. Yes, a thousand percent. Well, thank you everyone for listening and I'll see you on the next episode. This podcast is brought to you by Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds is the go-to platform built for creator-powered retail activations.

19:01They are connecting everyday creators with CPG brands to generate shelf-level awareness, drive in-store momentum, and generate authentic content in markets that matter the most. Go to hummingbirds.com for all the details and let them know I sent you. This episode was brought to you by Glimpse. As we know, building a brand is not as sexy and glamorous as it looks on social media at times. A lot of those unsexy problems come into play when brands start to scale in retail distribution. Founders are always incredibly excited to see their products on shelves at major retail chains, but they don't realize all the hard work that starts to begin.

19:50Retailers and distributors are known for their processes of deducting amounts from invoices. Most of the time, those are totally valid. Promos, slotting fees, free fills, and all the things that brands agree to to be part of the retail experience. But sometimes those deductions are invalid, costing brands thousands to millions in fees. Actually finding those needles in the haystack though and fighting to win back lost revenue, it's a costly, manual, and time-consuming issue. And that's where Glimpse comes in. Glimpse is an AI-powered deduction management tool that disputes and recovers invalid deductions.

20:38winning brands thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours back to founders so that they can focus on what really matters most, scaling their businesses. With a team of in-house deduction experts who come from some of the most successful and profitable CPG companies and custom-built AI with 100 % accuracy and precision, You'll recover money that you never should have had leaked in the first place. If you're a brand selling in retail, go to tryglimpse.com backslash trial for 30 days free and let them know I sent you. Thank you again for listening to this episode of the Emerging Brands Podcast. It really means so much to me that you listen to this show, share it with your friends and support it.

21:33If you are a CPG food and beverage founder and you're ready to launch a brand, people want to shop, head to withkellybennett.com for the details. And as always, thank you so much for listening, shopping the brands featured on the show and following brands I'm working with. It means so much. See you on the next episode.