#207 - FFUPs' Shutdown: Post-Mortem & Lessons for Brands

24:32And what was your strategy to try to get overall consumer interest and awareness, you know, when you're not there? So you obviously had some kind of a digital campaign going. I remember also seeing somebody order this. I think it must have been late 21 or something off thing testing. But like, what were your other strategies to try to just educate the consumer about your product and get that pickup and velocity in stores? Yeah. And that's an area we used to fall short, which is like one of my so there's kind of like two things. One, we should have definitely invested more in building awareness and building consumer interest and doing cool things and just being part of the conversations and being visible, which we did a good job probably at the first three to six months.

25:12But I'm not a marketer and I didn't have anyone full time on the team that was focused on getting people interested, getting eyeballs over and over again. and you know I've worked with a few social media agencies and tried to build the TikTok and those types of things but it wasn't enough like it just didn't hit and so I felt like on the sales side we were able to get into doors and we were able to work with distributors that a lot of brands dream of and on the marketing side just we didn't hold up our end of the bargain we didn't do enough to support it and that's a for me a huge lesson learned of being a solo founder not having a kind of brand person along for the journey the whole way, fully invested like I was.

25:54I think that led to us not like, again, we talked about having a really cool brand, but then it's like a Ferrari in a garage that you don't know how to drive. I didn't have a driver of the Ferrari in that, especially when we were kind of navigating that first big launch with Rainforest and all the doors they helped us get into. We didn't have, got on shelf, great. Now what? And we didn't have enough going on beyond just like the look cool, be a cool brand, you know, have the typical BOGO type discount. Yeah, it's a tough one. I'm like you. I don't know a lot about marketing, to be honest. And a lot of times I'm like, I don't know, that just sounds really expensive.

26:28Is that going to actually do anything on the shelf? And, you know, I think that kind of stuff probably prevents me from being a great person at knowing how to really build a brand where there isn't just such kind of direct ROI on stuff. So I definitely can understand that. Who, by the way, did you really feel like your product was targeting? What kind of demographic do you think was most interested? Yeah, so we were going after, we call them the couch snacker, where it's someone who's, you know, surprisingly, like, even though we said not healthy, like, they lead an active lifestyle. You know, they are engaged at work.

27:04They, you know, exercise. They're part of community events. But when they get home at night on the weekends, they're watching a movie like they know that that's their time to relax and kick back and have a glass of wine, have a beer, have a snack that tastes good. And they don't want to make sacrifices because they don't make sacrifices on what they want during the day. And so if at night, midday snack, they just want something that tastes really good, that meets the flavor profile that they want. Like, that's who we were kind of going after. I gotcha. I'm probably one of those. I live in New York.

27:36I just came back from the gym and we'll have an active day and then towards the end of the day as I wind down and my will to maintain a good diet sort of fades as my mental energy fades at the end of the day then I will snack on something for sure. I think the sneaky thing about our products which we again could have communicated better with consumers was like the actual like nutrition facts and ingredient list was fairly good fairly clean because again it's like you can put out whatever you want on the front of the package but if you look at the back you're like all right like 140 calories per serving like that's not bad like ingredients that look relatively pronounceable like maybe besides one or two like not bad and it just i think we wanted to position ourselves to think of our consumer as a smart person who knew what they wanted and we're going to get tricked by kind of misleading marketing claims okay so it was designed to be you know not specifically healthy but it was also probably a lot of people would say probably somewhat cleaner than some of the mass market stuff out there.

28:34Yeah, like pretty good. Like it's good enough for a snack. Like it's not going to be like something that you're like, oh, this has this in it. Like, oh, I really shouldn't be eating that. Okay, so just trying to see the velocity in New York. Where did the signs really start coming that like, hey, you know what? This might not work out actually. Yeah, I mean, it was part of it is like, were sales, marketing, ops, and finance all moving in the same direction at the same time? And when that doesn't happen, even from day one it starts to create problems down the road and i kind of alluded to like you know early on being over inventoried some of it was just on a decision where like we did our first production run like the first one one that didn't go to market where like there was a miscommunication between us and our co-packer where you know they weren't putting it in the bags like we kind of made it in bulk and then moved it somewhere else and the amount of time between when they actually made the product and then we put it in the bags was long enough for the entire first run to go down, which, you know, lesson learned, but like, they were great partners about it.

29:34Like, that wasn't necessarily a financial mistake as much as it was just like a, oh, no, like we didn't, we don't have enough raw materials to do the full run that we wanted to do. So we were kind of like mismatched on flavors. And early on, I was like, oh, we're getting this Foxtrot interest in like the first couple weeks of DTC were going really well, like, we should do another production run because I don't want to run out of stock in two months. And so then too much inventory, right? and we didn't have like the marketing plan to really sell it all. So that first year, the big crack that started to emerge was we were making decisions so that we could get through this inventory faster rather than decisions that were like, what is actually the best for the business?

30:14And at the end of the day, it would have been less financially burdensome if we just, for lack of better words, like ate the inventory versus like trying to chase, oh, well, now we have to start doing all these marketing initiatives that like I probably wasn't the right person to be making the decisions on because, you know, if I'm saying yes to this like$20 ,000 investment and it doesn't work, then not only do we still have all the inventory, but we've lost that$20 ,000 marketing investment. So year one, like that's where a lot of the cracks started to emerge. And then, you know, as time passed, I think it became like, well, we were always kind of playing from behind.

30:49We were always thinking about, oh, we have working capital problems and, you know, we wanted to make sure that, we can move the brand in the direction that it needed to, whether it's pivoting to more of a single serve approach, trying to get into convenience stores, which was kind of like the year three strategy and, you know, making sure that the product is still when we move from co-packer A to co-packer B, like, are we managing that transition in the right way so that, you know, all the, from, you know, eight production runs at the first co-packer, it get, the product gets successively better each time because you understand, you know, how the machines work and, you know, they're kind of fine tuning things.

31:23And then all of a sudden you're at square one while then you're trying to launch with a rainforest. Like there's a lot has to go right. And when you are limited on capital, if it doesn't go right, there's no plan B. And that's kind of where we found ourselves. We'll be right back. Are you going to crush it on Amazon this year? It's such an important channel, but it's so hard to do alone. And most agencies are a total ripoff. We can't afford$5 ,000 a month and a commission on our sales. They just don't get it. That's why I love our partners at Daybreak. They are full service, meaning they do the creative work, the listings, the logistics, and of course, all the ads, all with the most reasonable retainer out there.

32:00I work with them personally. I'm so grateful we have such a good partner to recommend out to you, our community. They do evaluate your product first to see if it might be a fit. So if you want them to have a look, email them, startupcpg at daybreak.agency, and they'll do a free audit for you. Good luck, everyone.

32:22Did you ever try to sell any of that expiring inventory through some of the closeout channels, you know, grocery outlet, Misfits, Lewis Co., anything like that? Yeah, we did. And, you know, had some success doing that. I think, you know, early on, you don't really, you think, oh, well, it's a, you know, maybe it's not right for the brand. And then after you kind of eat through one, you know, bash of expired inventory, And then you're like, well, I don't want to do that again. So, yeah, I mean, we definitely, when we had to, went through some of the off-price channels. Cool. Just shout out for everybody.

32:53We have an expiry product inventory database on our website under founder resources. So it's, in my opinion, much better than paying to throw something away. If you especially can get it to a place like Grocery Outlet that has tons of outlets in California. It's a good store, you know, gets people product at a really affordable price. I think that can be a really good way to just not bite it so hard. but I definitely know what that's like. I've been there, man. I've been there. So just kind of listening back on this story, I mean, it's very relatable to me because I think you did the thing that is very hard for a lot of brands to do, which is just, you know, come up with a product with cool branding, get attention to it, you know, make it a thing and just, you know, create a lot of intrigue and awareness around a brand.

33:37That's really hard to do. So congratulations on doing that. And then just over time, just not, you know, obviously some operational difficulties, and then also just not quite seeing the demand for the product in the store based on the strategy and the packaging and the investments that you were making to really, let's say, make the product successful and kind of self-sustaining. So I've just been logging some of these lessons that you have as we've been talking here today. So let me list some of them, and then I want to see if you have any others that you want to add on to this. So yeah, the first one you mentioned about launching with number of SKUs.

34:12I think that's a great call out because I think the instinct for everybody is like more, you know, I want to show up and it's like, I'm going to look so cool when I have my five big, beautiful SKUs. And also it's a bit of a flex. And let me show you all the cool, innovative flavors that we come up with. My personal instinct is more just to like study the category, see what the top selling flavors are in that category, and probably make something that is like those flavors. Cause you know, at least I learned that when I've worked in cookie dough, like just chocolate chip is going to sell the most.

34:43So start with the chocolate chip. And then after that, it might be, you know, the what the rainbow flavor or whatever birthday cake. That's what I mean. Or, you know, you can just kind of like make those ones and you can iterate off it a little bit, but like consumers in dressings, they're, I don't know, ranch is going to come first, something like that. So maybe that's your first skew. Whereas yeah, really the temptation is to go the other route and be like, look, like, voila look at what i can come up with like the brand is magical and everybody wants a brand block at both of us yes and i think everybody thinks that consumers should want the thing that they can make that is yeah the flex or just like a really cool thing and won't we get won't everybody then discover this but like wow it's expensive to get consumers to discover new kinds of products and new brands and you know it's tough so i really like that lesson from you and you know obviously related to the amount of inventory because then you're sitting on a bunch of all of them and they're not all getting ordered by retailers even when you do get that right but I also really understand that because you know it goes back to that lesson you learn or at least we learned in business school which is the cost of overage versus the cost of underage like what is the actual true cost to me of actually running out of inventory versus sitting on the inventory that might expire I mean you know you can learn how to forecast well but ultimately you're gonna make a bet on, hey, I think these orders are definitely coming through depending on your lead time and, you know, looking at what accounts you really think you're going to close.

36:03So definitely can understand that as well. But I really like the lesson that you draw from that of just just fewer SKUs would have actually been enough for us, even if it wasn't all the ones that you want to launch with, because you can save that and then launch it at Expo in a subsequent year. And it'll be all the rage. You know, people love seeing that. Except three years ago, if you told that to me, I would have said, well, we're going to do five more flavors in year one. we're gonna have 10 sleep oh honestly i rarely see it done well these days there are a couple of brands that seem to actually even thrive by having a lot of seasonal flavors and you know just people who are really ops pros okay and then i also like that third lesson that you mentioned around the single size like serving skew because you had the big bag which yeah like maybe that's a big commitment you're at the bodega or you're checking something out online like i want to try this but just a little bit i'm not sure i'm ready to you know pot commit here my whole evening to this big bag and i haven't even tried it yet especially if there aren't like a lot of field stuff going on where they might have even been able to check it out before especially if the price is high right so it sounds like maybe you think you actually could have even launched with some single serving options 100 and even just thinking about like early on some of the cx interactions we'd have people thought that they were single serve bags so they would look at it be like i'm getting six of these small bags for 30 bucks like that like that doesn't feel right and then it would have to be the cover no they're so we even like change the copy on the website like six big bags and things like that oh i see because they're getting six multi-packs for 30 bucks not six lunchbox size yeah 30 bucks so they were yeah i gotcha and that's even it goes back to like the how are you making your decisions of what your product strategy is go to market when i was like well my moq is in pounds and i'll just do four ounce bags like that's like industry standard ish for what i see in the grocery store so i'll make 40 000 units that sounds like a lot because it is but like hopefully i move through it all and then when i started thinking about well a single serve it's 80 000 how am i going to move through 80 000 and so i kind of just like got a little you know gun shy around okay like these moqs are already high which you know and there's a backstory to that which is like the first copac we're going to work with had effectively no moq and then they went out of business.

38:14So then I was like, oh, well, I'm already like I've already raised money and I have to launch this by a date that I felt was like a sacred day where it's like, really, nobody cares when you launch your brand. And so I kind of found a co-packer that was really good. And I liked what they were making from all the samples and whatnot, but they were too big for me. That's interesting. And I think a good argument for why co-packers do have MOQs. They're like, well, look what happened to the guy that didn't. I'm like, all right. Yeah, we do want you to stay in business. Thank you, co-packers. Okay. So that was three.

38:43Lesson number four was around really having a strong marketer, somebody who would know how to drive the brand, help you on the other side, creating the demand when you were getting placement for the product so that it would move off shelf and make more distributors want to work with you and more stores subsequently. And then I think the last one that I noted here so far is just overall about being really good at operations. And, you know, when you're transitioning co-packers or just, you know, really having solid process around everything, knowing what's happening every step of the way because that can, you know, make or break you.

39:15Any other lessons that you want to add on to this from stuff we've been talking about or stuff that we haven't? Yeah, I mean, I think some of it is really like making sure that if you are doing all the functions of an early stage startup, which a lot of founders, especially solo founders, end up finding themselves in that position, or you're relying on contractors who, you know, they'll do what they're told, but like, you know, they're not always going to have like the most passionate voice in the room. And if they do keep them, I think just making sure that like, for me, like sales and marketing and ops and finance, like overall quadrants of my brain.

39:48And I don't think they were all always in sync at all the time because it's really hard. And so like figuring out ways to whether it's having the right advisors or like having people full time or having trusted, you know, fractional resources, like I didn't really have that. And so that made some of the decisions that I was making the wrong ones in hindsight. Yeah, it's interesting to reflect on that. I'm like, yeah, there are some mistakes that I definitely have made along the way because I just didn't know. But like, who is the person that actually could have told me the right way and save me from learning that the hard way?

40:16I don't know. That's a hard one to really like take on also because you just you kind of do the best. And if you spent your time talking to every single person out there, you'd also get just a whole plethora of different perspectives on stuff. That's the thing. And like, oh, like in what I do in my work now is like I try to be that person for the brands I work with, which is, you know, really, especially from the finance lens of, yeah, this sounds like a really great idea. But like, let's think through like, you know, what would doing this podcast sponsorship do for the business? Is this because you like the podcast or is it?

40:45And I certainly fell into that trap of being like, oh, like I would love to sponsor this podcast. I listen to it all the time. And then it's like, oh, I drove like 10 sales when I'm out, you know, 15K. So there's a lot of that that you can there's traps to fall into. And so just having people in your network or on your team or in your advisor group. And I did have some great advisors. But again, it's just like you need all those voices kind of helping you with those decisions. And obviously, you're not talking about this podcast because sponsoring this podcast is an incredible decision. Maybe the best decision anyone could ever make.

41:15So definitely reach out to us. Partnerships at StartupCPG.com if you want to find out more about that. But I know what you mean. And, you know, even like, OK, I had a brand where we had a celebrity influencer ambassador and like I just had no idea what's going to happen the first time this person posts about our product, for example, in a kind of subtle way. Like all of a sudden, do we get, you know, a million followers? Like what really happens? And I think at the end of the day, I don't know, maybe we got like 100 followers from it and it was a very expensive investment. And that's kind of like, whoa, like what?

41:50What is this money actually doing? And that's where, like going back to our discussion about having marketing people, I mean, that is the stuff that builds a brand, right? Like over time, they're going to see it tons of times and they might not follow your brand or place an order the first time, but it's going to, you know, over time compound and then crystallize what your brand means to somebody over the long term and get them interested in it. but it's just, it's hard to be along for that ride and how expensive it is when you don't have all other resources to build a big brand and your cash goes other places.

42:22So that that's, that's tough stuff for me too, but there are very smart marketers out there who have done incredible things with probably less than I wasted on some of that. So, um, okay. So what, is there anything that you wish someone had told you before you started? well plenty of people told me don't do it um no i mean i think it's there's kind of two things that i kind of think about that maybe i could have done differently number one is like if you're going to solo found a brand and you're trying to make a big business out of it like really really make sure that all the functions that are going to have to happen are things you're comfortable doing.

43:07I was not comfortable in hindsight making big marketing decisions. I knew we've got this budget to allocate to marketing and branding. I did the best I could, but my background was never in doing that. And so like, I wish that I had kind of been nudged or told like, really cool idea. Like you came up with an awesome brand concept, like bring someone in or find a partner to own that side of the business so that you can focus on what you are good at, which is finance and ops and kind of like the commercialization side of things. And then second, which is a little bit more tactical, was something that is a thousand bucks a month might seem relatively inexpensive on a monthly basis.

43:54But if you do that for a year and then you have five of those, then all of a sudden, if you're trying to think, well, hold on, like we had all this capital invested, like where's the money actually going? Like you can, and with some of the brands I work with, like an exercise I always like to now do is like every three to four months, let's go through our long tail of expenses and you can find things that you are not actively spending on, but are getting taken out of the account every month or, you know, a service that like you might be spending five grand a month on something that you really should be spending three grand a month on.

44:26and it's like those little things that I wish I'd you know there's so many of those little expenses that like if I had just not done those like it wouldn't have changed the answer like maybe we would have run out of money three months later but at the same time like maybe that would have given me enough to kind of go through a more of a pivot of the branding and you know get to a point where like when we were shutting down there were options for us like we had I think what where it didn't work out with our current distribution was the fact that like we were working with a health food distributor and we weren't a health food but there were like non-health food distributors that we felt like maybe there was something going on and maybe if we change the packaging a little bit because clearly like people were not seeing it in store and picking it up but by and large the product reviews we got like the stuff in the bag was fine and so like granted like you know we had make some tweaks over time and you kind of build that muscle again but you know we we were at a point where like a rebrand if we had enough capital for that knowing now like what i knew then like it we could have you know done something so it's again it's like it's just those little like manage the budget better like don't take for granted those small expenses because like when you're going through it and you need a plan b or a plan c but you don't have the money for it like you're gonna wish you did it's you know it's interesting to think about because i i agree with you the branding was effective and it was interesting but i also think at the same time like there is space for a better for you cheetos for example because you see baked cheetos and those i think do pretty well also like i think there is also a universe where different branding could have also been really successful do you think about it that way also yeah i mean i i think we we leaned in very hard into well if we're not going to say we're healthy then we can say we're not healthy but there was a like our products were baked they weren't fried like the nutrition facts like when we were formulating it was high quality it was kind of like no weird stuff like things you can get like you can debate maltodextrin as an ingredient like i think it does a good job binding seasoning to snacks and like it's not i don't think it causes much harm but like our ingredient panel like for the most part like maybe we needed a tweak or two like we would have passed the whole foods test and so it's a question of like should we have maybe positioned it differently and could we have and i think should we have is like i'm never going to know the answer to that i think hindsight is 2020 i think the answer is like what we did didn't work but if we had rebranded it or changed the packaging up in a meaningful way where it was optimized for retail and we actually instead of saying no help claims we actually put a couple on the front of the package like maybe things would have gotten differently hindsight is not 2020 for me?

47:06I'm like, I don't, yeah, I don't know. That's a lot of interesting questions. I think of, I mean, definitely you guys put in a really good effort, I think, but all of these things are things that I'm curious about. And I think a lot of those opportunities are probably still out there today. And I just was kind of wondering to myself, like, I wonder if this fell into a bit of a, you know, Coke life type trap where it's sort of like, it's, it's in the middle, you know, where it's like people either want the diet version with no calories, or they want the high octane one that has all the sugar and tastes crappy and putting it in the middle where they're like, well, now it's baked, it's not fried.

47:38So it doesn't taste as just like overly salty, you know, as what I'm used to, but it also isn't telling me that it's really healthy. So like, is this good for a bad product or bad for a good product? You know, sort of like, I don't know, but yeah, I mean, anyways, I have to assume that you're grateful for the journey overall, because for me, I just respect anybody who takes a swing and goes and does something, especially coming from the corporate world where they are sitting with a nice salary. You obviously to get a job at Harry's are a very smart person with lots of resolve and good ideas. And then to go out and risk all of that and go do something on your own.

48:13But, you know, I know now you're on a different journey where you're helping a lot of the founders, I think, to avoid making a lot of those kind of mistakes. So how would you know how to do that without having probably lived a lot of these decisions yourself? Yeah, totally. I mean, I'm not going to lie. Like, it's been a painful couple, I guess, like months, year. Like, you know, kind of know, like when and one of the exercises I did once I kind of had to tell my investors and kind of be honest with myself about like, hey, this isn't going to work out is just like what happened. And it's tough.

48:44Like, as you said, like, you know, being in the corporate world and kind of like growing up as a high achiever and all those things to like, you know, get a job that was my dream job to kind of then be like, actually, I'm going to do something else. You know, I used to have a very high risk tolerance. I think my risk tolerance is probably a little bit lower now, but it's good. Like, I would much rather be sitting here saying I took a swing and it didn't work than be three, four years down the road where I was and be like, oh, what if I had done that? You know, it's a blip long term on a career, but it did kind of like push me onto a path that now is like great because I'm still in like the early stage ecosystem and working with founders and just, you know, doing I think what I do best, which is more of like the finance ops, like helping brands, like make good decisions, because I certainly know I haven't made some.

49:28And if I can help a couple people make better decisions and keep their dream alive, and maybe that's what I should have been doing. I really appreciate those reflections. And for me, I hope that I would feel the same way of like, but I still got to learn all of that stuff on this journey. And all of this is like where I am now is way more fun than, okay, I started my career in, you know, big management consulting. And there's a lot that I got from that. I think, you know, similar to you, I felt like I was just, you know, really bust in my tail, just try to get the best job that I could work my butt off when I was there and learn all this stuff.

50:01But I mean, ultimately, for me, what I do now is so much more enjoyable. And I really am so grateful that I get to be in this ecosystem with emerging brands and emerging founders and people who are just really passionate working at early stage companies. It just means a lot more to me, honestly, than just kind of being at a bigger company where I think the impact can feel really diluted and people don't have the same passion and don't have the same connection with consumers and the market and, you know, being in stores, it just doesn't feel as meaningful overall. So I hope I would have that same perspective that you have.

50:33And just also, I think the other thing to say is like, Sam is a young man. Who knows where, who knows, like, you know, the serendipity of life, who knows where all of these experiences will lead you in this very long career that you will have as a change maker in the industry. Yeah, no, I appreciate that and kind of echo that. It's like, it's, you know, you, you take the lessons and you just have to, the worst thing I could do is just not apply them. And so that's kind of my, my whole thing is like, let's try to document this why like, I love the idea of, and I don't think enough people do this, which is like publicly or even privately, just talk about what happened and understand that like, yeah, you know, where people, people make mistakes, like definitionally, like not every business and brand that launches is going to be successful.

51:16So Sam, I just want, again, I really just want to celebrate you taking the swing. And I just want to end on a positive note on that, which is, can you just tell me some of the things that you're most proud of? There's a lot that I'm really proud of you for accomplishing again, especially around building a brand that was interesting to people and all of the stuff that you learned along the way. But, you know, is there anything, just please take a minute to brag of just like, yeah, you know what? I did really well. I'm super happy with how these parts went, you know one two three yeah i mean i think launching a brand and and kind of being someone who i err on the side of being a little bit more private and so realizing that like all right i'm launching this brand this is an extension of me and really putting myself out there in a way that i'd never really done before which is like posting on linkedin and trying to like meet people and go to trade shows versus just being like the finance guy behind the computer like very like personally like that's something and i'm like i i'm still proud of that and it's helped me kind of be a more extroverted introvert um it's definitely one of them i think just getting into hundreds i mean over i guess we were in over a thousand doors never at the same time so i never i always never know really what to say there but like just winning deals and getting into stores and kind of realizing like i can sell i can do this like to me like that was like a huge accomplishment and And I think really just going from, hey, here's a kernel of an idea that I had that felt crazy to realizing, wow, like I feel that passion of wanting to go and kind of like explore this and looking for reasons to say no, but constantly finding things that made me say yes and bring it to market and survive for three years, basically.

52:57and kind of like make tough decisions that impacted me personally um which you don't really get in a corporate job where it's like okay you know yeah we should increase the budget by 10 okay what happens if we don't like nothing uh versus like in this which is you know i have to make this decision and the business is on the line like you've just you feel the pressure and if you make if you learn how to make these high pressure decisions like i think that's just like for for me, like I'm kind of proud of the ones I made. I learned lessons from, from the ones that didn't go the right way. But, you know, I think just learning to make those tough decisions is you're never going to do unless you actually like take the risk.

53:36I love those, Sam. That was amazing. I especially really like the first one that you mentioned of just like, I can put myself out there. I can do this. I can be a founder. I can do the things that a founder needs to do to grow brand. And I mean, it's fun too, isn't it? To get to be that person kind of on the forefront because no one's going to do it but you. Yeah. Like I was, I was the FUPS guy and that was like, that was fun. Like I liked, I enjoyed it. I still like enjoy it. And even like, you know, some of the clients I work with, like, they're like, Oh, you're, you're the FUPS guy. And I'm like, yeah.

54:07And now I'm going to, you know, there's good parts of that, but like, I am no longer the FUPS guy and here's why. And please don't make those the same mistakes that I did. I love it. And it makes me miss also being the leader for a CPG brand. I love what I get to do now. It's very nice to highlight everybody and help lift them up and try to share these kind of stories that will help everybody. But there's nothing like the highs are so high when you're running a brand and it's growing. And I think the learning is pretty amazing too. What you learn about yourself along the way. But also just the straight skill learning because, yeah, you have to do everything in your life.

54:41It feels like you're Neo in the Matrix where you just all of a sudden get the cartridge and you're like, whoa, I know Kung Fu. Like, wow, now I know regulatory stuff for getting a label out. You know, you just learn all this stuff. And so I think I probably miss some of that, what I have now because I'm learning all this stuff vicariously through you guys, through our Slack channel. But I do miss a little bit of the just straight kind of Wild West building out there, hopefully tapping people who can help you, you know. but still just like really figuring stuff out firsthand you're just drinking through the fire hose the whole time in those early stages right yeah and it's I think just the the context that I now have with everything else and if I do another brand one day like I'll have that context too of just like here's all the things that you don't realize and and the thing is it's like not everybody does and you know I've I've I know a lot of founders who similarly to me like have brands didn't quite make it and when we talk through like oh like what happened like there's a lot of those similar themes of like maybe you were a finance person who came in and you know misallocated marketing spend and it you know it's i think what i love about you know you doing this podcast is like just anyone out there it's like if you had to wind down a brand or you're thinking about it like lots of people do it it's it's a rite of passage in a certain way and i think going into starting something there is that awareness of like it might not work out but like what are the things that you can take along the way if it doesn't.

56:07I love it. All right, Sam, just to wrap us up here, can you just share with everybody how they can stay in touch with you, follow along with you, maybe a little bit about Pale Blue Dot and what you guys do? Yeah. So, I mean, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm responding to messages. You can email me sam at paleblue.nyc. And Pale Blue Dot is a finance and ops consulting firm that specializes in kind of working with emerging food and beverage brands and really any brand in the CPG world. We are a collective of former founders and early stage employees. So like we've been in the shoes of a founder. We understand, you know, what you're going through and we just kind of help, you know, provide the services that can get you from A to B a little bit better than we did.

56:51All right, Sam, thank you so much. I really want to thank you for being so open about the journey and just trying to share some lessons for some other founders to hopefully learn from as well. It is brutal out there trying to do a thing. And you did it. And I hope that this will really help some other people out there. I know that it will. So thank you so much, Sam. Really enjoyed the discussion today. Yeah, definitely. Thanks for having me on. All right. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. If you loved it, I would so appreciate it if you could leave us a review.

57:24You could do it right now. If you're an Apple podcast, you can scroll to the bottom of our Startup CPG podcast page and click on write a review. Leave your company name in there. I will try to read it out. If you're in Spotify, you can click on about and then the star rating icon. If you are a service provider that would like to appear on the Startup CPG podcast, you can email us at partnerships at startupcpg.com. Lastly, if you found yourself grooving along to the music, it is my band. You can visit our website and listen to more. It is superfantastics.com. Thank you, everybody. See you next time.