811 Steve Weiss: Co-Founder & CEO of Snakkidz

0:00Kara Goldin:I am unwilling to give up, but I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be, go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin Show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders. We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Cara Golden Show.

0:44Kara Goldin:What if the snacks we pack for our kids could actually be nutritious and convenient without the usual compromises? Today, we're joined by Steve Weiss, who is the co - founder and CEO of an incredible, fairly new brand called Snack Kids. All one word, S-N-A-K-K-I-D-Z. Love the name. A fast-growing brand on a mission to make healthy eating easier and more accessible for families. With allergen-free, low-sugar snacks made from organic ingredients and no seed oils, Snack Kids is helping reshape what parents can expect from the snack aisle. I love it. I'm looking forward to exploring why Steve started the company, a little bit more about his background, and how he's working to make healthier choices much more practical and easier.

1:40Kara Goldin:Steve actually had an interesting background from Amazon as well, so I can't wait to hear more about how he is working with Amazon to help grow the brand as well. So welcome. So excited to meet you, Steve. Thanks, Kara. Thanks for having me on. It's great to meet you. Absolutely. So for listeners just discovering Snack Kids, how do you describe the brand as the co-founder and CEO of the brand? Yeah. So Snack Kids is more than snacks for kids. We're really looking to create a community of parents that want better for their kids. And as consumers, we have the power in our choices. So when we make the choice to buy healthier options, then companies are going to provide healthier options for you as a family.

2:27So we launched with our very first Organic Granola Bar in Three Flavors, and we continue to launch new innovative products.

2:33Kara Goldin:So you and I were just talking, the banana chocolate is just the chunky monkey. So good. I just love it. And actually, I should say, if you don't like banana, then you probably won't like this. So, but, and the other two are just as good, but for somebody who is a banana lover, who doesn't like fake, that I feel like banana is butchered in so many products, that it is actually just so, so good. Um, so what inspired you to start snack kids? And, uh, was there a defining moment when you realized that I have to go and do this company? Yeah, it's a great question. So my son, Ben is now eight years old.

3:25And for me personally, like during COVID, I went to the Ironman. Like I really want to take care of myself to be an example for my son. And part of what happened was I was doing a lot of traveling. So I was going to Costa Rica. I did the Inca Trail in Peru into Machu Picchu. And I was looking at cultures that are a little bit different than the United States. And I was really focusing on what they were eating, especially the families and the kids. And I noticed it was less processed. And if it was processed, it was way better ingredients for you. and then I was talking a lot of the locals and understanding and they just had a healthier overall culture compared to what I was continuing to see in the United States and having a son at the time that was in kindergarten I would go in and I would see during the holiday time they were decorating gingerbread houses but it was like M &Ms and sugar and just non-stop junk that they were feeding and as a kid I grew up with ADHD and this is going way back in the day and they put you on medicine well when you look at it now a lot of they say ADHD is the food that you're eating with the dyes and the sugars.

4:31And I remember as a child, how difficult it was to sit still and pay attention. And it was just very difficult. So understanding that this could be because of food and then having a son myself and seeing how other cultures did it, I really understood like, hey, this is time now. Like I want to create something. And my cousins have their own manufacturing company in Toronto that's been very successful. My background, as you mentioned, I worked at Amazon ads before there with other large advertising organizations. And I said, we have an opportunity here. I know brands and marketing. You know how to produce really good products.

5:04Let's come together and produce a product that one is allergen free. So it's inclusive of everybody. And then you can actually bring it to school because there's no nuts and there's no allergies. Two, let's keep it low sugar, right? Like obviously we need to make it so kids can enjoy and they like it, but they don't need to have 15, 20 grams of sugar for them to enjoy it. And then three, I was really looking at the market and understanding that One of the things that Americans were starting to open their eyes to was that there were seed oils in everything. And like anything, too much of anything is going to be bad for you.

5:34So we looked at healthier alternatives that were still allergen-free, and we came upon avocado oil. So all our greens are organic. They're non-GMO. And that's really we want to make sure there was a better option for parents and families altogether. So you launched with three SKUs.

5:53Kara Goldin:How did you decide three? So we really wanted one. We knew that we wanted to ultimately put a variety pack, right? Because as a parent, like you don't want to eat, your kids aren't going to want to eat the same thing every day. We want to reach people with different tastes. So we started with three. And so we honestly, the way we came about was what are the best sellers already out there? We went and did our research in store. We looked at Amazon and we saw that chocolate chip, strawberry at the time, birthday cake was really where we wanted to launch. after about six months of feedback on Amazon, our customers let us know that chocolate chip and strawberry they really liked.

6:29And even though it was a family favorite, a birthday cake, the consumers didn't like it as much. And that's where we pivoted and came up with your favorite, the Chunky Monkey.

6:38Kara Goldin:I absolutely love it. When you look at kind of the top performing skew today, what do you think makes it resonate? Which one is it of the three and what makes it resonate so much? So if we took individual flavors, it would probably be chocolate chip and strawberry right near each other. I think it's because Chunky Monkey was launched later on, so it has less exposure. But our instincts are right. We originally wanted to come up with three flavors because by far, 80 plus percentage of our sales comes from our 45 count variety pack. And I think it goes to, like you have as a family, you're gonna have different kids.

7:18you have you know different parents in the house there's gonna be different taste buds and people want variety so having that variety pack is something that families really are drawn to

7:29Kara Goldin:definitely well and i always think uh when people are really focused on giving it to kids you know the parents are trying it as well and and i love that they're small size i just stick it in my pocket. It's really, really great. Everything, the packaging is fun and bright. This is the first company that you founded. You worked at incredible companies that had been founded, but this was the first company that you founded. How different is your role today versus what you thought it was going to be? That's a great question. As a CEO, as a founder, you think a lot of your role is going to be big picture.

8:13And that still is very important because you have to understand where you're going in the next year, two years, five years. What is your roadmap? One of the things I took away from Amazon that I think is really vital in business is working backwards, right? Understanding where do you want to be in a certain amount of time, and then laying the roadwork starting at the end goal backwards. And then basically, you know what steps you take, and then you pivot where you need to. So I thought it'd be big picture. Well, as a startup, and as really kind of a solo entrepreneur from the marketing and sales side of it, I wear a lot of different hats.

8:47So everything from social media, to doing sales from outreach, to reaching back out to customers, to interacting with our different partners. Obviously, we continue to grow and scale and there's more to our team. But I'd say that wearing so many different hats at once was something I wasn't necessarily expecting.

9:04Kara Goldin:Yeah, definitely. Which part of starting and now scaling a company was probably the most challenging for you? That you just, you know, you had been around, like I said, been in businesses that were successful, done some different things, you can be scrappy, but what was the part of the company that you had to get educated on, I guess is the best way to look at it? patience. So working for 15 years in digital marketing, advertising, working with clients at Amazon, so top fortune 100 companies all the way through startups, my previous role, I talked to so many VPs of marketing and CMOs and brand managers, and I send strategic meetings, I help them come up with their strategy.

9:53I came into this like, I have this, we have a great product. I know how to market, we're going to do this, we're going to do this. And before you know we're going to be at$100 ,000 a month in sales. It was so slow going, even though I knew I was doing the right things. It just didn't come as quickly as I thought. So really, that was the biggest learning curve and shock of why in three months am I not where I want to be? And we've been in business now about two years. And I look back and I'm like, wow, we're so far. We've come so far, but I know where we want to be. We still have so much farther to go, but I've really learned patience throughout that time.

10:30So I think that's been definitely the biggest thing.

10:34Kara Goldin:It's funny. I had another interview earlier today for an episode that's coming out with a second-time founder. And he talked about he is much more patient on the second time because he knows that to build a brand as he did, it took so much longer than he ever originally anticipated. So now, Steve, you just need to go found another company after this, right? Yeah, perfect. Exactly. Now you know. So allergen-free organic ingredients and no seed oils were non-negotiable from day one. I've heard you talk a lot about food literacy as well. How do you define food literacy and why is it so critical for parents today to know about this.

11:28So it kind of touches on what you said before. You're like, oh, you have such fun, engaging packaging. And that was the thing when we sat down the table and we had a blank sheet, we said, okay, how are we going to come up with our product? How are we going to differentiate ourselves? We know we wanted to be healthy. But when we looked at healthy, the packaging, the messaging, everything was directed towards the parent. So it wasn't necessarily that fun, playful, exciting colors. But end of the day, we know that the kids are the ones that are shopping as well with their eyes and what they like, and they're drawn to something.

12:03And we saw that the not so good for you brands were heavily taking an advantage of this. So he said, first and foremost, let's make sure we have packaging that's exciting and bright that we can reach the consumer. And the consumer, yes, is the parent, but it's also the child, right? And then from there, the non-negotiables, as you mentioned, were allergy free. One, there's over 25 million Americans that suffer from a nut allergy. There's gluten allergies, there's egg allergies, there's dairy allergies, right? So we wanted to make sure, and our product's also kosher. So we want to make sure, one, that we're inclusive of everybody that can have a healthier option provided for them.

12:38And then two, even if you necessarily don't have allergies, as a parent, I know that whether it's a birthday party or school, I can't bring any product that's nuts for my kid. And the whole point of this was making sure they have a healthier snack on the go for the sporting events in school, not just at home? And then low sugar, right? Why do we have to load sugar into there? And then even from a marketing perspective. So I've been in marketing for 15 years. So I'm very easily understanding to look at labels and packages. And one thing you'll see is you have to read behind the lines. So from a marketing perspective, of we've seen things and I've seen it on Amazon for brands that say no high fructose corn syrup.

13:23And then you look at the number two ingredient, it's corn syrup. It is the same exact thing. You can call ingredients 17 different things and get away with it according to FDA and food regulations. So if I didn't dive so much into food literacy and understand what that means, I'd be like, oh, this is great. I've heard people talk about high fructose corn syrup. I know it's not good. Their marketing, it doesn't have any of this is amazing. I'm gonna buy that to me is when I talk about food literacy, what I want to help educate parents on. Understanding, you know, there's sugar and dates, there's sugar and added sugar, like, what is the difference in there?

14:01I'm looking at different oils. Well, growing up, we said, Oh, vegetable oils all fine for us. Well, no, it's not necessarily when you're having it in bulk. So looking at is it palm oil? Is is sunflower oil or are we using things like avocado oil, right? So I think it's understanding what the ingredients are and not just looking at the marketing claims as a whole and pick up the package and looking at it. And myself, 10 years ago, I didn't do that. I didn't have the food literacy. So part of our mission for Snack Kids, and I appreciate you having me on today, part of this is helping parents understand what that is.

14:36So one thing we've done is we've partnered with a registered dietitian and we're going to continue doing that. So if you go on our website and we're going to continue to put marketing materials out there that a registered dietitian is actually putting out there what to look for, how to create healthy snacking. So yeah, that's really food literacy in a nutshell.

14:55Kara Goldin:What has surprised you most about launching Snack Kids, launching your own brand, but also Snack Kids in particular? I mean, was there, you talked about the example of like the birthday cake. I'm sure that was a bit surprising. But what else has really surprised you about the consumer reaction to what you're doing at Snack Kids? Yeah, so I knew we were going to find a niche. I knew we had a place in the market. Like we did our research and we then obviously tested the first six months. It was how important to some families this product is for them. The letters and emails we get or on social media of like, thank you so much.

15:37We're looking for a healthier option or my son has a severe allergy and there's not that many options for him. That's really where I think I knew it would make an impact. I didn't realize how big of an impact we even had recently. It was awesome. We posted on our social media. Two sisters, 12 and 9, sent us a handwritten letter and they drew snack hits and they're talking about how much they love it and how they eat it outside, their favorite snack. Like that means the world to us. And so I'm so grateful that we have customers that it's helping their life in such a big way.

16:11Kara Goldin:How did you figure out your go to market strategy, how you would actually show up and be able to be purchased by consumers? You started in direct-to-consumer, but was that just because you knew a little bit about that? Did you think that you would stay there forever? How did you think about the strategy around how you went to market? So the reason we started Amazon is we didn't have the big budgets, large organizations and companies do, where they go out and they test their product and focus groups and they understand what they're looking for. And so we knew we had a really good product, but it doesn't matter what we think.

16:53It's about what the customers think. So we wanted to start on Amazon because we wanted to be able to get that feedback from customers in real time and pivot when we needed to. On top of that, I think it's, we have different value propositions, which we talked about already, right? No seed oils, low sugar. Well, in today's world, you need to speak to the consumer. You need to speak to direct it to the customer. We're used to having things targeted towards us. if we went into retail right away, you're not going to be able to do that. You're on a shelf. You're not speaking to an individual consumer anymore.

17:21Where I can on things like Amazon, I can bid on keywords. I can message the right audience based on their purchase and buying habits. So I think it was really important for us, one, to get the feedback in real time of do they like our product or where can we improve? And then two, speaking to the individual based on what's important to them. So whether it was allergy-free or whether it was low sugar or seed oil or amongst other benefits that we fit in this space. I think that's the reason we wanted to start on e-commerce. On top of that, if you look at e-commerce as a whole, it's continuing to grow and grow, especially within the CPG space.

17:57So we definitely want to make sure we have a presence there. But now that we've gone to retail, we launched in December in 81 plus Costco's. So that's been really exciting. And we continue to look to launch in more retail this year on top of increasing and scaling our e-commerce with our influencer partnerships. And from an influencer partnership though, it's more about building a community than it is about selling. It goes back to the whole reason we started it is that if we have more and more parents and influencers talking about food literacy, we're only going to continue to change the narrative around food and help families educate themselves.

18:36And that's a really big part of our mission.

18:38Kara Goldin:So Amazon, everyone needs to have a presence on Amazon, especially if you're a food company. What are some of the big secrets that you know from working inside that really helps people to kind of get the word out about their brand on Amazon, whether you had mentioned keywords, ads, things like that. But what's the first thing that you think you would do if you were a company with a brand? Or what did you do? What was like the first thing that you did when you were launching Snack Kids? So one of the things I would do, one, is go through brand registry. So get trademarks, apply for brand registry.

19:22The reason for that is they offer so many more benefits for you on top of a ton of cost savings in the first year when you're brand registered, on top of protecting your brand. So I think first and foremost, I would definitely spend the money to get the trademark to do that. Two, not necessarily write away, but diversify. And when I say diversify, I'm talking about with your ads. So many people look at Amazon ads and they don't think, but it's a tech company. And it's a tech company that understands consumer behavior very, very well. So they have strategically placed different ad placements. So you think of sponsored ads.

19:59So for those listeners that don't know, sponsor ads is when you go on Amazon, you scroll down, and it'll literally say sponsor there after you search for a keyword, right? So maybe you just put granola bars, and it says sponsored. That means it's a paid advertisement. That's where a majority of clients and brands, especially startups or young brands, they spend all their money there. But what they're missing is different places like sponsored brands at the very top. That is, if you were thinking about digital marketing from a billboard perspective, that's a home run. The first thing someone sees is right there before they scroll down where your competitors are.

20:33So put some money into sponsored brands. Plus you get to have like a lifestyle image that really shows your brand interacting how a user can potentially use it. There's sponsored display. Sponsored displays used when you're at the product detail page. Think of it as somebody's in the aisle or they're about to check out at the register and your product is right there. That's the last chance to get them to convert and it's a great opportunity. And then DSP, so the banner ads or ads you may see online, that is great because it's driving outside Amazon traffic to Amazon. So you're not just capturing it.

21:07Like think of ads, sponsored ads or sponsored product as capturing existing demand, just like Google search would. What Amazon DSP would be with your banner ads or even video, that would really be about driving awareness to then drive purchase. So I think a lot of times we go on there, we spend all our money in sponsor ads. It's a very competitive space. The cost per click continues to go up. The return on ad spend or your ROI isn't going to be necessarily that high there. If you build a well-rounded marketing strategy with a lot of Amazon's products, one, the algorithm is going to reward you for that.

21:46You're organically going to show up higher. Two, you're actually going to build a funnel using their technology. And with Amazon's technology, it's a one-to-one match. So you know you're reaching the same user. As marketers, our job is to reach audiences as many touch points as possible. They say it typically takes at least seven touch points before someone even remembers their brand. Don't just keep reaching the same area. Reach them across their everyday life. That, to me, is a huge opportunity when it comes to marketing.

22:12Kara Goldin:You mentioned Costco. You went into Costco. That's pretty early to go into Costco. And I always say that I love to hear brands that kind of do things a little differently. So I remember meeting the founder of Liquid Death years ago and he had launched it originally in 7-Elevens. And I was like, dude, I don't know if you're going to be able to grow a brand starting there. Like it's sort of backwards. I've talked to other people who have launched in Walmart originally and then they've grown. And so I don't think there's any set way to do things anymore. Like that's sort of my thinking. there's a way of doing things that most people do it, but not every time.