Yes, You Can Plan For Breakout Success. Example? Fishwife.

0:10Hey folks, I'm Ray Lateef and you're listening to the number one podcast for the food and beverage industry, Taste Radio. This episode features an interview with Becca Milstein, the co-founder and CEO of Fish Wife, an upstart brand whose stylish and sustainable approach to tin seafood has caught the attention of Whole Foods buyers and Vogue editors alike. Get access to limited swag and exclusive content by becoming a Taste Radio VIP. It's easy for you to join that group of very important people. Just head to tasteradio.com slash VIP and take one minute to sign up. Chic is not typically a word associated with canned fish, but it is an apt way to describe Fish Wife.

0:59A modern super premium brand of tin seafood, Fish Wife is the brainchild of entrepreneurs Becca Milstein and Caroline Goldfarb. Launched in December 2020, the Los Angeles-based company markets ethnically sourced tuna, salmon, trout, and anchovies from fisheries and aquaculture farms in the United States and Europe. Known for its bright and quirky label designs, Fishwife built a thriving direct-to-consumer business out of the gate and gradually introduced distribution to select retailers. Earlier this year, Whole Foods began selling Fishwife at stores in its southern Pacific region and will add the products to its northern California locations this summer.

1:38In the following interview, I spoke with Becca about the lightbulb moment and planning process that led to the development of Fishwife, the impact of its outstanding label design on trial and word-of-mouth marketing, her perspective on scaling a niche concept, and how she navigated and learned from a potentially devastating supply crisis.

2:02hey folks it's ray with taste radio i am in the press room at expo west 2023 and joining with me right now is the one and only becca milstein the founder excuse me co-founder and ceo of fishwife becca so great to see you oh ray so great to see you i'm starstruck i'm nervous but i'm so excited to be here with you there's no reason to be either but uh i am the one who's starstruck, honestly, because Fishwife is just an amazing brand. From the moment I saw your brand, I was just like, wow, this, whoever created this is a genius, number one, and they're going to make a ton of money, number two. A girl can dream, a girl can dream.

2:42Fishwife is quote unquote, a pandemic baby. Yeah. You were in the music industry prior to being in CPG, which is an easy, natural transition for people. It's not obvious on the outside, but honestly, But the skill set that I do have is kind of the one that I developed in the music industry. So when I worked in the music industry, I was doing brand partnerships. So partnerships between musicians and brands. And I was doing creative direction and marketing for musicians, which is perfectly translatable. Like, as you may know, we've launched quite a few products at this point. And putting out a product is a very similar process.

3:19Putting out a Tinfish product is a very similar process to putting out an album. The reason that Becca's laughing is because I have the most quizzical look on my face right now. I'm like, wait, Tinfish, putting out an album, and they have similar processes. So the product itself is very different, obviously. For sure. You've got an album, which is the body of music, recorded music. And Tinfish product is obviously a very material good composed of sourcing fish from one place, can't get another. The product is different. But the process of launching something is quite consistent across. You know, when we develop a product, it's like, OK, what product is it going to be?

4:00So we have the full product development process, which very different from music. But it's like, OK, what world do we want to create around this product? And that's the whole I mean, anyone who spent time in the music industry and it's the same in the CPG industry. It's like the magic is world building. Like obviously we've seen that in, you know, Liquid Death and Fly by Jing and like Diaspora and all these brands that build entire universes around their product. It's so much easier to engage with an entire world that you can really put yourself in. You know, people have a light bulb moment when they are thinking about starting a brand.

4:37I think we're seeing more Tint Fish brands out there nowadays and like they're bringing, everyone's kind of bringing something unique and interesting to the market. But I haven't met too many people who are like, I'm going to start a tin seafood company and then just go do it. And then just going to do it. You don't just go and do it. Like there's a whole process and playing process. When you were thinking about starting Fish Wife, where did you start? Was it the brand? Was it the food itself? Was it the consumer? Yeah, I can tell you exactly because I feel like this is always the most interesting part.

5:06So it was a light bulb moment. It was me and Caroline and my brother John were on a hike during COVID and we were bouncing back and forth business ideas for no reason. I think because I was playing music at that time and I think I was trying to come up with a name for my band. I don't know. I won't bore you with the details. What kind of band did you have? I had a folk band, you know, as one does living in LA. You can't not almost. So like we were on this hike, came up with the idea. We were like Tin Fish because we were like, you know, like cheese puffs, you know, like pickles, whatever, like that kind of conversation.

5:37I'm sure you have them all the time. And there was like Tin Fish. And we were both like, oh my God, this is insane. There's been no innovation in this category ever. Like we came up with the idea on that hike. And on the way down, we were coming up with names. We were like, at first we were going to call it Goldfin or like Goldtin. Those are the two contenders. We were driving home and started calling all of our friends. You're really excited about this idea. Oh, I was, I mean, And wait till we get to the end of the night. You know, we came up with the name. My friend Greer came up with the name.

6:10She's amazing. I'm like so grateful because it's the perfect name. Fish Wife, it means, you know, a loud, brash, bold, swearing woman who's trying to sell fish. Which is amazing because I gave myself permission to swear all the time, which I love to swear. And now it's part of my brand. And if you swear, all we have to do is just like this is a small checkbox on the Apple podcast. Just to let people know that kids maybe, you know, you have to kind of watch out for the kiddos. Watch out, put the little headphones on the kiddos, the baby headphones. So feel free. Okay, amazing. Thank you. So anyway, got the name, locked that.

6:45It was like Fish Wife. That's perfect. Just locked in immediately. And then we started looking for artists to work with. And that's like, that was what I had been doing very much in my career before. Not package designers, artists. No. And I remember I had a conversation with someone who is now a very close peer of mine in the industry. And I remember this person was like, you should work with someone who's done packaging before. Because it's going to be so much work to get through the regulatory, like help them understand the regulatory complexities of designing packaging. And I was just like, I need to find the right voice, like the right person, the right visual language.

7:21And the odds of me finding that in like a packaging designer did not seem, this is not me poo-pooing packaging designers. I mean, now Danny is a packaging designer and he's brilliant. But I think I just didn't want to start from there. It was like, let's find the right person and then we'll figure it out. So found Danny. He was the best friend of a different designer that I had collaborated with several times and actually had brought on to rebrand the startup that I was working at before. So I had had that like company branding experience before and loved it. So found Danny. That locked in right away.

7:55I mean, we like tested a bunch of different illustrators with, you know, friends, family, etc. You know, who people were most attracted to, gravitated towards. And Danny was just, he was the one. Clearly, because, you know, I think that's the thing that stands out immediately, as it should. You know, when people first encounter a product or a brand, they're going to see the label and they're going to decide pretty quickly whether or not they're going to pick it up. And look at it a little bit more, even by the products. in Fish Wife, you know, if I'm picking up, this is your smoked rainbow trout.

8:26And it has like a Wes Anderson kind of vibe to it. It feels really fun and approachable. You know, you just want to learn more. It's maybe hard to read. Like if you see Fish Wife, it may be hard to find out like, okay, what kind of fish is this? But when you pick it up, you're just going to learn more. A hundred percent traceable, packed by hand. All this stuff just starts to pop. And you start to realize, wow, more and more and more. It's just really, really cool. And you use like every inch. We're about to do even more. We're about to do the interiors like flaps. It's going to be a lot. Yeah.

8:57And so when I think about that, your packaging, that is, it makes a lot of sense that, you know, media and press would be really interested because they haven't seen something like this before. Was the package, was that what led your PR strategy? I mean, was it, was that the sort of way in? Was that the foot in the door to get interest from magazines like Vogue in papers like the New York Times, etc. Yeah, totally. The press thing is really interesting. Because your press has been incredible. Your PR strategy seems like exceptional. Yeah, no, we've been super lucky. But I think the thing is, it's like, it's like the product and the timing and being kind of first to market.

9:38Like, I mean, like Scout and us kind of came to market at a similar time. They came a little bit before, but like first to market with a positioning. I think when you're like the first mover in a category, like it's like Imperfect. Like when Imperfect came out, it was like, okay, Imperfect is the first, you know, first market that's upcycling fruits and vegetables, produce. And they're just going to get a ton of press because that's a new concept and it's delicious to dig into. Like there's so much to dig into. And that's kind of how it is with Fish Wife. It's like, okay, everyone knows the canned fish category, but no one has ever approached it in this way with this kind of branding, with this brand positioning.

10:14And I think when that happens, you get really lucky with press because, I mean, there's that piece. And then there's also, there's so much to dig into with each of these products. It's like I could spend three hours talking about each of them, where they come from, you know, what's going on at the fishery or the farm, what's going on at the cannery, and then how we came up with the concept of the packaging. So I think there's just a lot of meat to dig into with the products, which has made journalist jobs very easy. And dare I say, everything you put out is very Instagrammable. It is quite Instagramable.

10:45As a person that fully did not use Instagram more or less before FishWife, and now I'm like all on it, sadly, all the time because I... Well, you have 50 ,000 followers on Instagram. I know. We just hit it. I'm very excited. I'm very excited. 50 ,000 FishWives in the house. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's the other part of this is you have a huge following on Instagram, on social media. Hopefully, folks are buying the product and not just like, you know, looking at your Instagram page. Be careful about that. Yeah. Well, how so? How do you mean? I mean, I think I had a conversation with another founder who said something that I thought was really interesting.

11:20He was like, I think the brand, he was talking about a company he had worked at previously. I think the brand was a lot bigger than the revenue, which I've never really, you know, I'm like, is that possible? Like, can it really happen that a brand can be so outsized and the revenue doesn't follow? I would say that hasn't been an issue for us yet, but it's definitely something I'm super conscious of. I mean, I think the thing that I'm very conscious of is the product has to be as good as the packaging. Like, I mean, it's a classic. I think it should be a classic fear for people to have in this industry.

11:48Like, you never want your packaging to overshadow the product itself. So I feel amazing that we have this gorgeous, sexy, beautiful product that Danny and I literally put days and days and days, cumulatively, hours into designing. but then the project inside is like next level and totally new and different and interesting and so delicious. So, but something to be conscious of. Yeah, for sure. You know, the consumer publications were really interested in the backstory and the product and the packaging and the business and the trade were really interested in hearing about how you were this direct to consumer darling and you guys really came out of the gate strong with a direct to consumer strategy that worked.

12:28What was it about direct to consumer that you guys got right? I think the packaging. I mean, with direct-to-consumer, it's like, that's like, if you don't have gorgeous packaging, because people don't know what it tastes like when they're buying it online. You're not like at a Whole Foods demoing and they taste it and they think, I got to buy this. You need to have beautiful packaging. So I think we did that really right. But I think the voice of the, I mean, I speak a very familiar voice to our customers. And I think that's helpful. I think, you know, when I talk to people about social media and how to do it well, and why it's so hard to hire for like a great social media manager.

13:03It's like you want your company to have a voice. It's like what I'm talking about, the world piece. It's like you want it to be a world and you want it to be a character, like a person or someone you can engage with. And I think people have felt very comfortable with Fishwife as like a friend of theirs from the beginning. And that was something that I was very intent on. And obviously, I mean, I run our Instagram and now I finally have a brilliant young lady named Lauren Murphy who lives in Boston, lives in Newton. I shouldn't say where she lives, but she lives in Boston. Well, our office is in Newton.

13:33So if she's anywhere near, tell her to stop by. You have to hang out. She's amazing. But I, you know, ran our DMs until and ran our whole social media account. I still post all of our social media posts. Yes, it's very distracting sometimes from my daily workflow. But clearly it matters. Well, that's the thing. I mean, I think a lot of founders deal with this. they're like, I shouldn't be posting my own Instagrams. Like I have a freaking business to run. But it's also like, one thing about our business that is notable is that it is so organically driven. Like we basically, we didn't start spending anything on paid advertising until a year and a half after we launched the company, which I'm very happy about that.

14:17And we started spending very, very tiny budgets. We spent 2k as like an experiment month in July last year, and then kind of slowly, gradually built up from that. But we're still spending very, very, very little. And all this to say is like, sometimes I wonder, Becca, should you be spending time posting this Instagram post and like responding to these DMs, even though Lauren manages most of that these days? Thank the Lord for her. But it's like, where does that organic growth come from? Like it comes from people loving your product. And where does like love come from? Love comes from like a deep connection.

14:56I want people to feel that they're deeply connected to our product, which obviously, you know, they have to like it. They like have to like how it tastes. And that's something. But like to drive you to go online, to navigate to our website, to go to your local store and pick up Fish Wife, especially because it's a premium product. Like it is not cheap. And God knows, I wish it wasn't as expensive as it is, but such is sustainable seafood. Well, I do want to talk about the price in a second. But I want to ask, do you sign, do people know, do your followers know that you're the one posting the content?

15:26Do you sign DMs as Becca? I do sometimes now because Lauren does so much of it that now when I do DM people. But honestly, I don't. I was never in the habit of doing it because I was always just the one doing it. So it didn't occur to me to sign my name. It was just like, this is me. Well, I mean, I think that's one of the cool things about interacting with founders is like, wow, I have like a direct line to the person who like created this company, this brand. And it just feels like that genuine connection. I remember when Twitter came out and a good friend of mine was like, this thing is awesome.

15:56I can talk to LeVar Burton anytime I want. I was like, I guess that is kind of cool. Yeah. I mean, social media is amazing. And I will say that as a founder that connects with influencers and celebrities. And I'm like, do you know, like yesterday I was dealing with Hilary Duff. I'm like, I'm like eight year old Becca was like, freak out. I mean, the connection, I would say, as a brand and as a brand founder, the closeness of the connections to powerful, influential people is absolutely mind-blowing. Did you slip and call Hillary Lizzie? Oh, my gosh. I'm just trying to—I'm editing those DMs hard to make sure I don't have any slip-ups.

16:39I say very little because I'm scared of, you know, of fangirling too much. But, I mean, that's amazing. And that, to go back to the D2C question, influencers have been like unbelievably powerful. They're definitely one of the biggest sources of discovery. Like the biggest source of discovery for people is social media. So between our account and just, you know, our posts being shared and influencers talking about us, that is our biggest channel discovery. Is your influencer strategy one of, are you paying these folks or is it a free product? or? No, I mean, I think if we were going to do a paid situation, it would be some like sort of in-depth partnership.

17:18We want people to really love and enjoy the product. And that's sort of like what has gotten us really far is like, I think these influencers, you know, take to the same reason people like it. They feel a connection to it. They think it's beautiful. They think it's tasty and they want to talk about it. So we haven't done paid. I'm trying to think about a situation in which we would, because it's like, we want people to share it because they love it. That's what makes it so special. And people's followers are so smart. It's just I feel like you can often smell the paid from a mile away and it doesn't hit the same.

17:46But if you do it really well, it does. Yeah. Everyone cringes. It's not just me. Everyone cringes when they see like a paid promotion and just be like, oh, you know, I was looking for a quick snack in the middle of the afternoon and Fish Wife hit the spot. It's like, come on. I know. It's like that's not going to make people if we do it not well, like it's going to make people be like, this is whack. Like, why is Fishwife paying this person? Like, it just doesn't make sense. So I think if we really found a person that we wanted to partner with in a deep way and wanted to compensate them for their services, their time that they were putting into, you know, into that partnership, we would explore it.

18:22But I would say, like, on the flip side, it's really challenging because to go into the influencer thing, it's like with a lot of these big name people, it's either like it's going to be free or it's going to be$50 ,000,$100 ,000. dollars. And like, obviously a brand like ours is not in the ballpark of being able to pay some of the people that have just naturally adopted our product because they like it. Right. And they understand that too, which is really, I mean, we've partnered with some amazing influencers and have amazing relationships with them now and they get it. It's like, we're a tiny business.

18:52I think the definition of a small business is below 50 million in revenue. Just like, I don't know if you know that. Well, yeah. I mean, like in our industry, I think the threshold used to be under 10. Okay. And now I think it's under 50 because like if you want to be acquired, if an acquirer is looking for you, they want to see that you're doing about$50 million in business. So it's like, yeah. These are small businesses. And I think that's probably the thing that I, I know that the people that listen to this podcast are in the industry, but I think that's the thing that all of us founders are, you know, kind of faced with time and time again, just people thinking your business is so much bigger than it is.

19:30I have two full-time employees and that's it. And that's like so many of the brands that are out there. Magic Spoon, or not Magic Spoon, Magic Spoon has a lot of employees. Three Wishes. I was talking to the founders the other day. It's like they've got like four employees. It's amazing when you find out how small these companies actually are. And I think I wish more people understood that. Yeah. You brought up Magic Spoon, which is actually a good segue into my next question. Yes, yes. Magic Spoon, I think the average cost of a box, the average price of a box is$10. Is that right? Yep. Okay. So there's this interesting duality between the fact that you have a tinned fish company, a premium tinned fish company, where the average price of your products is...

20:11Like around nine, I mean, five, up to 13 bucks. Okay. Down to$7.99. Yeah. And so typically, you know, you can go buy like a can of sardines or even a premium can of like tuna for, you know, five, six bucks, you know, not so much more than that and less. and it's been around forever. Canned fish, tin fish, huge, huge industries, a multi-billion dollar industry. So on the one hand, you have this premium seafood company, tin seafood company at premium prices. And then on the other, you have this industry where people can go and buy pretty good fish at value prices. So how do you think about scaling from there?

20:52Because there is this subset where you can drive some interest, you can find a community that really loves your product. But can you be this like huge brand, not a small brand anymore, a north of$50 million brand with the positioning that you currently have? Totally. It's a question I ask myself every day, right? No, I mean, it's really tough. And I think that there honestly are a lot of people in my boat because we're all starting better for you, better for you, better for the earth companies. You hear this from founders all the time. Everyone wants everything from you. They want it to be beautiful.

21:29They want it to be extremely high quality. They want it to be extremely sustainable. And they want it to be below$5, whatever. Or below$9.99, which is a lot of our rules because a lot of us built gorgeous premium products that answer the question of sustainability and nutrition and quality. And those things are not cheap, as you know. I mean, there are a couple different ways that I think about it. I think the top line one is it's a really fun space to play in because canned fish is, you know, household item in every house in America. Canned tuna, we all grew up on it. But the product that we're bringing to market, that Scout is bringing to market, that Patagonia is bringing to market, we're not going head to head with Chicken of the Sea.

22:12we're all going head to head with each other but we're also going arm in arm with each other because we need to educate and basically premiumize the industry because it's kind of a new food category premium tin seafood just really hasn't existed I mean like before Scout and I there was maybe one canned trout product in the US and canned trout is so delicious it's absolutely amazing like it's very hard to find people that don't enjoy it, but it just hasn't existed in the U.S. So this is a business that is not going to, we're not going to be in and out in five years. You know, this is like a, it's a bit of a slow burn where we need to continue spreading throughout the concentric circles of society and convincing more and more people that they should care about where their seafood comes from.

23:05You know, who are the people involved in raising it or catching it and how are they being treated and paid, educating people about the quality and convincing them like you're not using this in the way that you use canned tuna. You're not smushing it up with a bunch of, you know, mayonnaise and putting it between two slices of white bread. You're having friends over for dinner and putting it on a plate with a gorgeous baguette and beautiful cultured butter, or you're serving to your kids, you know, mixed into pasta or salads. And that's the new use case. And that's a massively bigger use case than just tuna salad sandwiches.

23:41For sure. And I wonder if it's just as much about bringing new consumers into the fold, the fold of being canned seafood and tin fish, as much as it is creating a brand for existing consumers within that space. So you're creating new use educations, it seems like for the people who are already familiar. But are you finding that there are people who are just Like, look, I didn't know I loved tin fish. I didn't know I would like this. And now I do. And now I'm a consumer of this category, this industry. Oh, yeah. All the time. I mean, so many people have never, they don't like seafood and they definitely don't like tin fish.