Target CEO out, Amazon doubles down on grocery, and Bullish's Mike Duda on scaling founder-led brands

26:21It's target CEO is changing over and they've had a tough couple of years. So it's not going to be a fun back half the year, but it's like, there's still plays to be made. And what was me, you know, business is business. So it's, uh, um, but it's a tale of two cities that's kind of shifting over the past three years. Yeah, that's a, that's a great overview. And I really kind of love this, this framing and this approach of yes, here are all the challenges, but where's the opportunity in the, in that challenge? Because I think if you're a savvy brand, you can, you can figure that out. You know, as you said, consumers are still spending.

26:54And when we talk about how hard this macro is, we talk about how all of us are sick of inflation. I mean, I'm tired of everything going up everywhere I look, you know, costs out of my control, right? But at the same time, I'm still buying things for myself and my family, right? There's still this idea of the discretionary income of the consumer is going to go where they want it to go, right? And there's still going to be a place for that to land. We also, I feel like, have, you know, you mentioned AI, just new ways of reaching customers that I think is really powerful for brands. I mean, I think if you're savvy in the way that you want to reach people right now and you diversify appropriately, or you just find your niche on where and who you're talking to, you can sail, right?

27:35It's just about being savvy enough to find where that lands. I'm kind of curious too, you talk about brands that they're not just marketing. What else is going on that you're seeing to help brands stand apart right now? Preach, Sister Melissa, preach. First of all, I'm going to play with one of the verb that you use. It's not just reaching consumers or your customers. It's doing something for them. And if there's one unifying thing across the board, on the startup side, it's too much CAC and digital acquisition and left brain thinking and digital acquisition. That's not enough. And that's an up and down playbook by the day, quite literally given algorithm changes.

28:14On big corporate America, advertising and reach and all that stuff only does so much. What can brands do for your customers to stand out? Because you need to prove value more than ever. Like, Melissa, you're a mom. Like, you're probably not going to skimp on your baby. No, never. Never on Niko. Private label is way up. And so if I'm a brand these days, private label is growing four times faster this year than what established brands have. and right before this live discussion, I went to the CVS nearby and we have people in field going to the Wegmans and the Piggly Wigglies throughout America every six weeks.

28:49And if I looked at Cottonelle toilet paper, six rolls was like$13.79. Next to it was like the total home private label, which was$10. And so that's what you have to do. So not only getting attention, but in terms of like, if I'm toilet paper or I'm a pencil, think it's back to school time. And those number two pencils, like Ticonderonda, It's like a$500 million brand. Do I want to pay four bucks for 12 pencils where I can get like unbranded for a dollar? That's the thing. So what can you do for your customer? And when you see some great brands, like what Elf Cosmetics has done, what Chili's has done, what Rumped Lobster is doing, it's your participating with your customers and offering something, listening to them.

29:31And so that's why this is a great time for marketers to stand out. It's not easy because so much pressure falls in marketing. But whether you're a founder or your marketer of a bigger firm. It's just like, what can you do for your customers? And now is as pivotal as ever. And it's not going to go away in a week or two. This is something that's going to be probably through the rest of the year into Q1, Q2 of next year. But my crystal ball is also permanently damaged. You know, one thing that I want to hear a little bit more about from both of you, I think, is sort of what's going on behind the closed doors of the brands that are in those discussions about closing rounds and getting funding right now.

30:05You know, I'm curious kind of what they're doing to stand out, what it is that sort of signals to investors, hey, these are folks who can really make it to the next level. You know, Gabby, any insights on what you're hearing right now from the fundraising side? Yeah, I mean, I think something that Mike just touched on, which is that it seems like you have to create or present or position yourself as a brand that has value, right? But like the thing is, value is very subjective, right? I mean, to you, an unbranded dollar pencil has value. I guess to me, I'm like, I really need the brand. So I don't know.

30:43It's a little bit tough sometimes. And I think this is where the startup brands that are trying to either scale into, let's say, like a Target or a Walmart, and then thus need to go to investors and get maybe a bridge round are struggling because they're one of now maybe dozens in their category, right? Whether it be pet, beauty, wellness that are vying for these rounds. And so this is where I hear like differentiation is really the big one. But that could also mean a lot of things, right? I mean, Mike, I think this is a great time to maybe ask you like when you do have 10 wellness products, which are always really funny because I'm like everything's wellness and nothing's wellness.

31:23But anyway, what do you, you know, what do you look at? Do you look at like their, their CAC? Do you look at whether their social presence? Like they have really big brand equity. That's something that people argued for, for somebody like Poppy. Or do you also just need to see like the hard numbers? You're like, I need you to open the books. I need to see what you're doing already. And that's, I think, where some of that disconnect happens. Sure. You know, we're early stage investors, so we get involved where there's more faith than evidence. But the evidence we look for, again, given our backgrounds in marketing and advertising and consumer behavior.

32:00consumer behavior is like what's going on and what kind of fandom maybe exists out there. So we don't expect early stage companies to have much in marketing. That's fine. In fact, if anything, there's been opioid crisis in the marketing industry, like Google, Google, Google, meta, meta, meta. And it's just like when we see early stage brands doing that, it's just like that's artificial. We love to see brands that have repeat purchases. We like to see some level of participation. And I say fandom, like engagement, whether it's on TikTok, whether it's on Insta, whether it's on Reddit, things like that.

32:31Something that kind of shows like this is different. And again, if we're looking at a pencil company, I don't think I'd want to have a brand relationship with my pencil company. Maybe I do, but we're looking for things that like, okay, this is different. And usually it's, it's someone that's attacking a category that just, maybe there hasn't been any innovation or anything new in the past few years. I mean, if we were considered successful, what we do, it's because we invested in a bike, a mattress, a pair of glasses and a razor, Boring categories. I didn't say AI, but it's like you're talking about Peloton, Warby Parker, Harry's and Casper, which have been epic return.

33:03Hopefully Harry's soon epic return profile winners for us. So it's empathetic founders that are passionate about solving a problem that the big companies aren't or due to cultural tailwinds or technological. There's something new going on out there. You know, you look at a bandit running or you look at Bubble Beauty to in our portfolio. The fandom within those groups are amazing. And the numbers back it up. Now, we're saying that years later, we wound up being knock on wood, right? But it's like brands that are helping and serving the customer in a different, unique way. And we've talked about value.

33:33Value doesn't have to mean price. It doesn't mean value. Like value must be an emotional sense or something like belonging to me or whatever. And again, as you all have written about, like we're seeing a more contradictory oriented consumer right now that might go to Costco to get their toilet paper, but may pay top end for an alcohol choice. trying to put people in these nice, lovely buckets is tough. But we look for great founders building remarkable propositions and brands. I want to double down on that value question because I'm thinking about the last three things I bought online. And then you will see the exemplification of what you just said.

34:12So yeah, so I've stocked up on some fall and next summer clothes for my kiddo from a brand called Primary, which I love. There's a lot of reasons I love Primary, Yeah, you know. Primary.com. Primary.com. It's a great place. You should, if you're a mother and you care about your kids, you should go to primary.com. I'm sorry, Melissa. I'm sorry, Melissa. Go ahead and continue. Well, good. I hope they call me back. Yeah. They have, if you buy during their Black Friday and Cyber Week sale, you get free shipping for a year. So Primary builds me in as a customer for an entire year because I buy something that I'm going to give for Christmas or wear for the holidays.

34:47And then it becomes like a year long of, gosh, you know what? They have rash guards on sale. that's going to be great for next summer. And we could totally use some size up of hoodies for winter. Great. Done. The value wasn't necessarily... I mean, the prices were good on the sales, but the value was that I didn't have to pay for shipping because I was already bought into it. Next one. Our toaster oven was on the out. It's an item we use daily. We're big air fryers, big bagel fans. So that gets a lot of use on my countertops. I went to fromrebel.com. Rebel used to be called Rebel Stork. They did baby brands.

35:17Now they also do home. Yeah. And so it's all overstop an open box. So I got myself a very sweet Ninja foodie, about$100 less than I would have on retail because it's open box. In that case, the value really is the price differentry there for me. But I use Rebel now routinely. It's become a fixture when something breaks or I have a need. And I think that's just an example. And I think I'm like a lot of people where it's like, you know, I'm kind of agnostic on who I'm buying it from until you give me what that price value. And then once I see that, I'm like, oh, this is so much cheaper. Why would I not buy it from here?

35:53It becomes a no-brainer. And it also kind of makes me buy even faster because I think, oh, this is open box. This is a singular item. This is going to be gone if I don't buy it today. Third thing, and this is a goofy one, and Gabby knows this. I'm a huge Portland Leather Goods fan. Portland Leather Goods, almost quarter, they're still not on the podcast yet. Curtis, give me a call. I'm dying to talk about your brand. I'm dying to talk about the incredible Facebook insiders group where people just sound off all the things they love or even are challenged by with the brand. But they do something quarterly called a C sale.

36:29It is a mystery box. You get to pick the style you want, but you don't know the color. And I landed the most gorgeous peppercorn suede laptop backpack. And I'm very excited. It was also maybe like 60 % of the retail cost because I got it in the mystery sale. So the value, again, it was in the price, but also in the super fun surprise that mama got to have a package coming and she didn't know what was in it. I got to gift myself something during what has been a very challenging couple weeks. The value was I got to feel good and be excited and FaceTime my sister when I unboxed it and have a great time.

37:02Yeah. Melissa is like every marketer's dream customer though. So that's We're like opposite end of the spectrum. Yeah. RIP my credit. Exactly. Yeah, no, I definitely can see that. I think right now, like newness, excitement and, you know, deals. Honestly, people still want deals. Doesn't really matter how big or small they are. Seems to be a big theme. But I guess to bring us back to like early stage or scaling or hyper growth brands, you know, Mike, what is something that, you know, because there's always outliers. Right. So what is somebody and you don't have to shout out specific brands, but you can if you'd like.

37:42How are they doing? What do you think they're doing? Right. And then where do you see like really the biggest challenge, at least for this specific cohort of businesses? I think we're going to turn this back into a therapy session on Melissa's shopping habits, because right there was such a great distillation. Just showing free brands. Yeah. And notice what she did there. She went to she almost post rationalized some of her excitement based on price. Yeah, that's girl math, literally. Yeah, she did girl math. So primary.com, the person who just did what you did, like a free shipping for a year, is 2.4 times more valuable than the regular customer that just comes once.

38:22Wow, yeah. Because you post-rationalize, well, I get free shipping so I could do it anytime I need something for my son, my daughter on that side. That's great. And then Portland Leather Goods, it's just you love the brand. And you kind of feel guilty. That's an indulgence, whatever, because you're a newish mom still and everything like that. So you post-rationalize, I got this great deal. And it's like, you know what? You really want it in access. And that's the great thing. Like, we're in back to school season time now. And that means we're only probably, what, a month away from like holiday sales.

38:52Shoot me in the head, but holiday sales where retailers have just conditioned consumers like at 40 % off. But what you said is just like, how do you go into business with your customer? And how do you meet your customer on their terms? Bandit running does drops every like they're about to drop now that they're going to drop. So they're doing a scarcity model and it's not just trying to blow out and get distribution for the sake of distribution. They're they're curated their their designs on a fall basis. There's a lot of marathons. And so there's drops for their customers that get access 24 hours in advance.

39:21That's not a price element. That's I think that's an access play. Others like primary is just like we get you. We're empathetic to you as a parent. If you buy now at this time, we got your back for the rest of the year. So you don't have to worry about the$35 threshold to get free shipping because we want to serve you. So basically what you just did is like, what does your customer want and need? And listen, you've got to be mindful consumers are liars because everyone wants something cheaper and better, everything like that. They'll be a gross margin killer if you literally do what all customers want.

39:48And in a world of tariffs where things have gotten tougher, you've just got to be mindful. But if you know who your customer is, who the customer is, and don't say like an adult 18 to 49-year-old. I've never met an adult 18, 49-year-old. But really know who that muse is and go to that muse. You'll be able to win her over more often than not in a very competitive set versus just to go back to what we said before, reach through advertising and things like that. So you're rooting for those brands because in a main way, they got your back in many ways. And so you will kill for them where there's probably a bunch of private label stuff in your fridge or otherwise you maybe don't care as much about.

40:23So that's the thing what brands have to do and why it's tough for a seasoned marketer to get all that information to act fast or accordingly. So you're an ideal customer, Melissa. Well done. Well, I think, too, this idea that it's not just discounting where value lives, because like you said, we can't over condition. And this is something Gabby and I have talked about on the podcast before. And I feel like, yeah, heading into holiday, it's got to be tough for brands right now to figure out what pricing looks like, knowing that consumers are probably going to be, you know, more price conscious than ever and really looking at what they're spending and trying to stretch their dollar.

41:02But also, you know, how to mitigate that margin erosion that they already might be seeing because of tariffs. It just just seems like a really hard time to even have the discounting discussion. Yeah, it's very tough. But you see what a lot of brands are doing. In fact, it was just not saying McDonald's is like level setting somewhere. It's McValue menu. And when you think of McDonald's, you think of quality, you think of trust on that. But you also think of like it's probably more affordable. There's been accusations they haven't been as affordable, like an$18 Happy Meal and through in Connecticut.

41:34They announced today that it's like they're actually going to less to spend on that. Target actually replaced its CEO. And part of it is that consumers have said you're not bringing as new and shiny toys to me lately as you have in the past. And I'm not sure if the price is worth it. Meanwhile, Walmart's done extremely well. So part of it is it's a value play. So that's why you'll see more three for 12, two for 10 on that side of it to not totally destroy gross margins and push volume on that. And, you know, it's tough. You know, if you go to any store, anyone listening or watching this, go to any store, look at the inventory that's on shelves.

42:05There's a lot less inventory. And we're seeing that at Ulta to Sephora to CVS to Whole Foods. There's less there because of whether it's the tariff situation, people aren't sure about what consumer spending is going to be and when. People are nervous and consumer spending is slowing down a bit. The immediate impact of the tariffs in April didn't really hit until July because stuff was already on a boat or clean through customs or certain companies were able to stockpile that. We're about to see them now in September and October. And if the data stands true, about 20 % of the costs have been passed on to the consumer so far.

42:44That could go up to 65 % by October 1st. So it's going to get really, really interesting. And then there's the whole interest rates and all this game too. But it's mayhem. And so that's why it's tough to be a founder and marketer. But guess what? That's the business rules for everybody. So the more you know about your customer and the more you do right by them, not just price, but do right by them empathetically what they're going for, you're going to win. But do things for the customer. And that's when you see all the things like Chili's is doing well, or again, Elf Cosmetics, Bandit Running, it's just like they're doing things for the customer in a way that's just savvier and certainly not about price.

43:22Yeah, I think, you know, you both mentioned sort of positioning and retention of the customer, like Melissa keeps going back to the site, for example. But you kind of have to balance that with acquiring new customers constantly. And that's really where the fierce competition is. I mean, you know, Mike, you've been in the D2C space for a while now. And you remember, you know, it was like dirt cheap Facebook ads back in the day. And now that's, you know, no such thing exists. And so I guess with that, you know, you do have to find ways to reach these customers. That's why we're writing a lot about like creative marketing and sort of like doing the most with as little budget as possible, whether it's in-person sampling or activations, instead of just burning cash every single month on like, yeah, meta or TikTok ads.

44:09So anything on that front you want to talk about and any creative solutions you've seen from these companies that have really tight cash flow right now because of things like tariffs and inflation, but still want to be able to be in growth mode? spend less money on meta okay well that was easy here's here's the thing meta works it's good it's becoming machine like they're they're they're introducing more ai so that they want to control not only the media buy but the creative that goes with it but you don't get a lot of information when you buy off meta meta you might get acquisition might get customers you won't get data and guess what if you do well with meta and your cat goes down what do they do they take that data and give it to the rest of your competitors.

44:52And so I'm on a Slack growth marketing forum and it's almost like, it's the equivalent of being like on a ship in a storm with flickering lights. Like, did anyone else like see Crash on Sunday? Oh, it's back up Monday. And again, I'm not anti-meta, but we're not pro-meta. Too many, especially early stage companies, look at it because it's very left brain. Like, look at my CAC. We'd argue it's like, first of all, it's like, you're good, you should have several CACs. Like if I'm a fishing line company and it's five times, like my customers that I'm acquiring on phishing.com is five times more valuable than on somewhere else, guess what?

45:27Pay a little bit more money for the CAC to go get that. But it's also no sane human being spends all her time on Google and Facebook. Look at the things that influence your decisions and how you make decisions on that side of it. You need more of a fuller funnel. My partner Brent doesn't like the term fuller funnel, but you need a more fuller approach than just Google and Meta on that side. So you can acquire customers. We'd say acquire the right customers, even if that's less, and then get them to buy one more time and enroll them. That's far more valuable than the leaky bucket. And we've just seen so many, you know, in the 2010s area, so many DTC companies just put 40 % of their money towards marketing.

46:03Don't know why that is. That's too much. And then not sure, like, they have to keep doing it. And if the algorithm goes up or down, they might have a bad month or not. We've seen on our marketing practice side, about a 75 % or 80 % increase in companies for the past two or three quarters that are somewhere in the$100 million,$75 million to$300 million range that are spending 35 % of the revenue towards marketing. And of that, at least 80 % of performance marketing. You get stuck. You're not going to build value of a company to be taken out at that side. And you get stuck. And that's why you need to do things like in more of an integrated way and customer service on that side of it.

46:43So yeah, that's why there's too many people there too at the mercy of meta. And yeah, that's why we're seeing this move towards like brand marketing, which is just basically trying to create offline brand awareness online and whatnot. That's why we see things like out of home, like pop-ups kind of making a comeback recently. But you mentioned, you know, widen that funnel. are there any i mean i know there's no one size fits all but are there any specific channels you want to shout out i know tiktok is obviously in a weird spot right now so people are kind of on the fence whether to go fully in or not but yeah where else would you say yeah and i'm not a media planner probably but tiktok works you know we had a couple of our brands um fun fact i was on tiktok shop back in back in may that's right i was on live once I sold my product.

47:34What did you sell? For Hallie Hair. For Hallie Hair. Okay. Wow. Hallie Hair was a great, I'm so not the target audience, which shocks no one listening to this. But Hallie Hair is, so it's like self-expression. It's like hair color. It's gem pens. It's just, it's self-expression for really aimed at girls and women, like we'll say 13 to 25. And TikTok was great to work with. Wasn't sure what to expect to go on TikTok shop. But the main goal is it could help build out our affiliate program and get the right influencers doing for it. So we're hoping. Yeah. I'm saying we and for Hallie to get 100, 150 affiliates out of it by appearing live for four hours.

48:13Those four hours that were live, we sold they sold more product than they were anticipating. But they also had four hundred and twenty applications for to be an influence for the brand. And then TikTok used that content and pushed over the next two weeks to propel the brand. And we saw a huge uptick in sales at Amazon and DTC. And there was some fulfilled through TikTok. TikTok is an amazing channel. We'll see how stable it is, but it's like it's threatening to be kicked out of the country in a minute now for the 18th time. TikTok's real. It pushes stuff out there. It's obviously a great engagement tool.

48:45I think technically TikTok might be the number eight health and beauty retail in the world on that side. But it goes back to some fundamentals. The more you know about who your customer is, where she shops, what she needs, and you cater to that, the better. Pure and simple. And that, if you're a DTC brand looking to go into wholesale, figure out where she needs you. You know, it's, you know, there's a narrative like it's DTC or not. DTC is a great channel. And the reality is 81 % of all retail is built in physical stores. But what you can do in DTC, it can create news. It's a feedback loop. The P &Gs spend millions upon millions of dollars a year to get information on their customers because they sell through the Albertsons and the Walmarts and the Amazons.

49:24DTC is a feedback loop for innovation and new products. No other company has done a better job of this than maybe Harry's, who's got a strong DTC business, but doing very, very well at Target and Walmart and CVS and beyond on that. They are truly a multi-channel machine that is doing extremely well, not just a DTC player to be lumped in with some of the brands that haven't done this well. So it's just like anything else. Know where your customer is, know where she needs you, and cater to those experiences. It's as easy and as hard as that. Yeah. Those are some really great insights. So I wanted to, we didn't really get a chance to talk too much about retailers or big box or whatnot.

50:04I mean, you know, touched on Target and Walmart here and there, but one of the challenges obviously for startup brands is trying to make that jump from, you know, let's say like their Amazon D2C digital channels to big bucks and then having to do it in a way where it's like you only get one shot. You want to go in there prepared. Obviously, it's a lot of literal cash burn, you know, that you have on pallets going into stores. And so you want to get it right. And then you want to you're also expected to support the marketing, obviously there. But yeah, I guess what would you say? Like, where do you think brands are right now where they're having to make those decisions?

50:42Like, I know I've talked to a brand who's like, we're actually we told Walmart, no, because we want to make sure we're ready. And this is, you know, a brand that is actually just raised some money. So maybe they'll try it there. But yeah, I think this whole like moving right into wholesale is really not the standard playbook that it was. I feel like two, three years ago or it just became the norm. But yeah, what are you seeing from your brands, I guess, there? Gabby, I think it's very astute. Yeah, because take a step back. We were pretty impressed by the receptivity of wholesale. I think really Target and Whole Foods wrote the playbooks in their respective categories about being receptive to early stage companies.

51:23And I mean, the Harry's case at Target is great. I mean, the organic food revolution, certainly at Whole Foods, where now Costco is the number one seller for organic food that Whole Foods started. It's smart because as much as I said, OK, only 19 percent of retail is e-com. And of that, I think Amazon's got a third of that. It's like, if you're going to go into wholesome retail, you better be ready and you better be prepared to succeed. Because if you don't, you could be just destroying your opportunities for a future to be taken out. You know, taking a step back, why people have been down on consumer investing, it's like, well, it doesn't produce a lot of IPOs.

51:58And that's true. You know, it's like you have open AI at a trillion dollar valuation, whatever it might be, only$340 billion, actually. We're inside the halls of these companies. You look at corporate American strategic, They have$2.6 trillion on their balance sheets, which is up 38 % since 2011. So we've seen the Mondelezes, the Mars, and the Bayers buy our companies because they can't do corporate innovation because they're at the mercy of their four times a year report cards to Wall Street. And if they don't do well, boom, here comes a new CEO on that side. So they're going to be buying the companies.

52:31Like it is harder. I'm not picking on Pepsi, but it's harder for Pepsi to innovate a brand new brand from scratch versus it is like, wow, let's take Poppy and put it on the back of our trucks. and like escalated further. We think there's gonna be a lot more of that. So if you were an early stage brand and you're gonna go into a Walmart, you better succeed. And how do you succeed? One, is Walmart the right place for you? I'm using Walmart as a place. It could be Walmart, Wegmans, Air One, whatever. But if you're gonna go in, make sure you succeed and don't go too fast. You wanna leave some meat on the bone for the acquired to do something more of that.

53:00And we've had more conversations with strategic M &A people over the past year who wanna be on the, want to, they want to be on our radar because like, Ooh, what's going on with this brand or this brand or this brand, because they want to be in a position to buy it because while they can't really launch or do new things, they have the money to go buy it and like, you know, do the growth that is going to become harder to come by. You know, we have a brand now dirty labs, quite frankly, it is a great, it's, it's a much better version of like what laundry detergent is dishwasher. Now they're getting to like a, I won't say a Clorox killer, but I just did.

53:36they're mostly DTC and Amazon. And just a minute percent of their sales is in wholesale. That's where the next step is going to be. It is a phenomenal proposition. Now, they don't have to get into 10 ,000 doors to prove it out, but it's like we're probably going to prove it out in a few. And it makes sense because of what the reviews are and everything. So you have to go strategically based on what you want as a founder. But it's just don't go into retail for the sake of it, because if you don't succeed, that's kind of an at-bat you'll never get again. Call us. Just mention modern retail. We'll get you a free audit.

54:06How not to spend as much money on Meta and how to go about wholesale. Just say modern retail. Promo code. Promo code. Cool. Well, we are going to wrap up soon, but I actually wanted to go out on maybe somewhat of a personal note just as an investor. Mike, you know, we hear a lot about just with this, all of this in the backdrop. There's also a lot of like founder burnout and people just kind of wanting to throw in the towel. And then I know, like, I kind of hear both sides, because when you talk to a founder, they're talking about how, like, you know, miscommunication with their investors and then vice versa, because nobody wants to report bad news.

54:43I feel like it's like when you go to, like, your guidance counselor in school, like, I don't want to tell them I'm struggling. But, you know, what would you say, I guess, as far as what would you tell founders or just brand operators right now, as far as trying to kind of make the most out of this time, even though it is pretty rough right now? First of all, it's very tough to be a founder. It's tough. Think about what it takes. I don't mean this in any facetious way. To win, you have to be somewhat bipolar. You have to be stubborn and keep your head down and go forward and do something that hasn't been done before or whatever.

55:20Gillette's got 81 % market share. No one can beat that. Harry's dead. And yet you have to be A, B, test and fail fast and listen to the marketplace. When do you know what to do what? And it's really, really hard. It's really, really hard to do that. And so at this stage of, depending where founders are at, VCs don't run your company. So this whole lore, like VCs told me what to do, is kind of like bullshit. It shouldn't be. This is your company. And again, we're not founder friendly. We're founder supportive. Founder supportive means being there when no one else will take your call at midnight or one o 'clock in the morning.

55:53Believe me, we have that with Peloton when they almost chapter seven twice or other situations. but also to keep people like grounded when like you're getting these stories in modern retail about how you're great or you're on CBC. At the end of the day, it's just winning over the customer and building a viable business is what matters. And so, you know, it's tough to be a leader. I mean, there's so many different ways of doing it, but as the founder and therefore the CEO, it's just like you're in control of it. And a good board or good investors should be all about like being a personal trainer.

56:22Like we want to be supportive to help you reach your goals, but we're not going to like just let you get away with it. No, we said 20 pushups, not 18. Come on, on that side. But it's really tough to be a founder. And right now between tariffs, between changes in like, oh, the buyers, different retailers and resets and all these things, it's really, really tough. And then meta, those lovely people at meta that we love, algorithm changes, it is really, really hard. But here's the thing, it's hard for everybody. And so those who persevere, those who are passionate about solving a problem for the customer, those are like paranoid about why we could lose her dollar and that stuff it will win but it is hard and it's it's not going to be as fun right now for the next few months it's not gonna be fun for marketers either who are faced with like how do i turn around this stuff quickly when this is going down and my budget's getting cut um luckily we're seeing more marketers get more like um i'd say accruing more power in the organization like insights innovation product development we're see more markers actually ascend into the CEO level for the first time in about 10 years, which is great.

57:23And so there's plays, but it's not easy. But guess what? No one cares. It's not easy for anybody. So that's, sorry to be callous on that side of it, but it's empathetic that it's hard, but no one cares. So it's like, how do you go about and do it? And so we can dip into the whole, like, should you take money for VCs or not? The great thing is now for a lot of CPG founders, if you have at least 500 ,000 sales and you have to non-DTC business, you can get inventory financing. You can get purchase order. This stuff wasn't as bountiful as it was in 2018 or 2019 as it is now. Interest rates are about to go down.

57:59Through our rain downs. Yeah, but it's really, really hard. And that's why the more you stick to the fundamentals of like, are we doing something of value, not cheap or whatever, that this customer needs and who is she and let's get more of them, but not in the meta way. Did I mention that we're not the biggest fans of meta?

58:19yeah once or twice um cool well i think that's a good good note to leave it on yeah sure uh mike let us know where folks can follow you and bullish bullish.co uh website to find out more we're linkedin uh where we publish quite a bit uh i tend to be yelling at people on twitter at mike duda um oh old school yeah yeah sorry x sorry X. I tried Blue Sky, but no one's on Blue Sky. But LinkedIn is where we do most of our programming and that side of it. But in all seriousness, if we can be helpful to a founder that's going through some of the trouble, the stuff is tough. And we're not afraid of having opinions, but we also believe two ears and one mouth, so we do more listening.

59:02But really appreciate everything that you're writing about at Modern Retail. God bless you, Melissa. Keep spending. We're going to need you to keep spending over the next few months. Gabby we'll get you there I didn't say I would spend it's just it's in different categories I will say yeah well for us please be sure to follow Modern Retailer for more of this coverage on LinkedIn here Instagram and subscribe to the podcast so you can listen on audio you can also get our free daily newsletters by signing up on our site we also have a tariffs weekly newsletter right now that I really love. It kind of catches you up on everything.

59:43Yeah. And then to get unlimited access to all of our stories and members only town halls, events, roundtables, you can get 20 % off by using code Melissa. Melissa wanted the conversion, so I guess she put her promo code in there. But yes, please do that for 20 % off. Thank you so much for joining. Thank you for having me. Be welcome.

1:00:10Thank you for listening to this episode of the Modern Retail Podcast, a show by Digiday Media. If you haven't already, please subscribe and head to Apple Podcasts to leave us a review and a rating. If you want more from Modern Retail, you can find us at modernretail.co. You can find me, senior reporter Melissa Daniels, on LinkedIn and Blue Sky. And you can also subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter at the Modern Retail profile. We'll see you next week. Thank you.