Get Growing with Grocers List

- It's time for Tastemaker Talk, the podcast for food creators who want to level up their business and make an impact in the creator economy. I'm Abby Rodriguez. - And I'm Chanda's Probst. We are your hosts and fellow food content creators here to dive deep into the trends, tools, and topics shaping the industry around us. There's so much to uncover, so let's talk about it. Tastemaker Talk. - Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of Tastemaker Talk. Get growing with Grocer's List. We are super, super excited to be talking with Ben Jabawi. He's the founder of Grocer's List, working with 1,000 plus of the top food creators to drive more traffic, list growth, and affiliate revenue. He previously was the founder of privy.com, a lead marketing automation platform used by 100,000 Shopify stores. He lives in Boston with his wife and two daughters and loves supporting entrepreneurs through new technology. So welcome Ben. - Thanks Abby, thanks Chanda. So excited to be with you today. - Yeah, we just learned how to say Jabawi. Wow, we Jabawi. And it's bringing. - That's great. That's actually what my mom always used to say to people when they couldn't pronounce our name. She'd be like, wow, we Jabawi. - It rolls off the tongue. It's just like a natural inclination. - If you did sports, that would have been, you know, perfect, wow, we Jabawi. - Oh yeah. - We'll do it at Tastemaker. - Yeah, welcome in and like that. - So welcome, wow, we Jabawi. I think we all, first of all, want to hear your founder's story, how you got into the creator economy. Like you just have such an interesting, like origin story. I feel like being in this space, you know, being a founder, you've already, you know, done this. I think there's a lot of just like, insight, business wisdom you can give to a lot of creators. So yeah, tell us how this came to be. - Sure. Yeah, thanks. So about 10 years ago, I had an idea. I was in my early 20s, maybe 12 years ago, had an idea around supporting small businesses through technology and found the e-commerce world. Shopify, if you're familiar with that, was kind of just starting to grow like crazy. And it felt like, wow, these are business owners that are scaling quickly, they're tech native, right? They grew up with technology and they're gonna need tools just for them. And spent a lot of time with Shopify store owners, learned a lot, found some opportunities to build essentially marketing automation tools just for the e-commerce workflows. And we learned in that experience, we scaled really quickly, we focused on ease of use, we focused on just solving for that one customer and an amazing support experience. And that equation really unlocked a lot of magic just for those customers of ours. And it was also a great experience for us. I think it was a very successful company. And after that company got bought out, I took a bunch of time off to some travel. And at home, we cook a lot. And almost all of our inspiration comes from Instagram for recipes. And so as I was kind of just with my wife, we're looking at recipes that we wanna cook, I couldn't help but notice how much technology was sitting around the recipes. And I didn't know this at the time, but as I spoke with a few recipe creators, we have a really good friend who has a successful business in this category, I learned how big these businesses are, one, and how like so much credit to all of you because it's really not easy to put out engaging content daily. And then two, how much creators were spending on software already that really was not built for them? There's a lot of amazing tools out there, but very few are actually focused entirely around food. And so when I saw both of those things and how many content creators there are in food, especially that have over 50,000 followers, that was when I started to say like wow, I think there's really potential for something kind of similar to what I did before, but obviously very different and focused entirely around food creators. - Yeah, it's interesting too that do you feel that it's kind of interesting, well funny or interesting that 12 years later, e-commerce has kind of come full circle because now the creators are the ones selling everything. And it's not just like they're selling their recipes, but not really because they're giving them for free, but they're also the ones that everyone is buying everything from. Think about the last purchases that you made. Most of mine were influenced by a creator, you know? And so they're showing their favorite things. I used multiple creators, gift guides this year. I bought their cookbooks. I bought their courses, things like that. And so isn't that I wonder what your thoughts are on that that come in kind of full circle for you? - Well, I mean, you're spot on. I think there's so many parallels. I think a few of the things that we noticed in the food space was in commerce, you have these expectations as a consumer, express checkout, apple pay, Amazon Prime shows up your house the next day, even same day, right? But coming into food, one of the observations we had was like there was no direct connectivity to Instacart or Amazon Fresh from the recipe and the source of inspiration. So that was one. The other thing that was kind of interesting was in the Shopify world, these were really cool products and great entrepreneurs, but the hardest thing for them was to build their audience. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And so here it's kind of the exact opposite. It's you all have been so successful focusing on steady streams of content and building your audience, right? And so if that's the starting point, imagine what can happen if you put like really efficient funnels in place to remove all the friction from whatever it is the consumer who's engaging with your content wants to achieve, right? Whether it's visit your website, whether it's cook that recipe and shop those ingredients or buy the t-shirt that you're promoting as an affiliate, you know? - Yeah, absolutely. I think we're seeing brands realize that too that without creators, they're not going to be able to move product like they once did. It's definitely different. We're seeing that all the way from the celebrity status, trickle down into like you said, those smaller content creators, but that have an incredible engaged audience. So it's really fun that you're seeing that too. So what are some of the other observations that you've seen been in the current creator, food creators specifically landscape that you've seen? One of the things that I love about this industry is that like you can try something new today that moves the needle for your business. That's pretty rare, right? Most businesses, they have like some supply chain stuff or maybe you sell through retail or maybe you sell to larger companies and it takes times closed deals. Like in this industry, if you want to publish something today on Instagram and try something new or implement a comment for DM funnel or a story reply, like you could just take five minutes to learn it for the first time and do it and you're going to know very quickly because you have an audience, how they react to it. Do they like that? Do they engage with it? Did it move them needle for you? Did it drive more traffic? Did it drive more email subscribers? So I love how nimble you can be in this industry and really do things and try new things that change the trajectory of your business. Definitely, I like that call out because just talking to people, right? At Tastemaker, we talk about the business of being a food creator and you don't have to have a lot of overhead from a traditional business model. It's quick paced. You have to have a lot of discipline and I think ambition because like you said, it's hard. It's hard to be turning out content and you have to be creative in that sense, but that is a big pro of the creator landscape and the economy itself. And I think like one of the biggest things that Chandice and I were both at EnvyCon where you were as a sponsor in your session and Chandice and I were having these side conversations about Grocer's list and just noticing right now, there's just a lot of fear. The economy's a little softer right now. It's just people are feeling kind of in this strange awkward in between where they feel like the needle isn't moving. In fact, it's going down. The gas tank is getting, you know, lower and lower and that can induce a lot of fear. And I think what you have done really well is like bringing that tech founder attitude into the food creator space and showing people, like you said, like creating less friction for them and that you can do this very simply because I think we have this tendency to over complicate things unnecessarily. And you've just made it so easy and clear and achievable. And so I would love to just hear a little bit more about that. I mean, you kind of touched on it already of like that is your whole goal and supporting people's monetization, audience growth, shopper behavior, better brand connections. So like what does Grocer's list do? Like if somebody doesn't know who Grocer's list is, can you speak to us that? So we are a software platform that is focused on helping food creators drive more website traffic, grow their email list and monetize in new ways, mostly through affiliate, but some other stuff. Our belief is that this industry needs innovation and software can be a major driver of success for food creators. And we want to pair that kind of like we did in our last business for Shopify source, we want to do the same thing with amazing support just for food creators. And so we've been around about a year and a half now. - That still blows my mind that that's all that you've been programmed to be capable of. - Another quickly scaling business, yes. - Oh my gosh, because all of the business. - Food content creators, who are seeing the growth? So Abby mentioned, and I didn't mean to interrupt or anything Ben, but-- - She's so excited. - I'm so excited that I'm like, you've been a year and a half, are you kidding me? And you have the biggest content creators using your platform, not because it was truly word of mouth. You have not put out all these huge ads, or you haven't put out probably any ads, anything. It was just one blogger saying to the next day, I'm growing at a time when everything else is going down. I've personally seen that. I hit 50,000 on my Instagram, which I've been working for for years. And that was because of those automatic messages that go to my team to be when they ask. And so it increases engagement, which increases the more times the Instagram shows it to people. My email list has quadrupled. So anyways, I know that all these bloggers are seeing the same success. So I just had to interject and say, I can't believe it's only been a year and a half. - Thanks, yeah, I mean, we have an incredible team. I think we are talking to customers every day, whether it's through support interactions or onboarding new customers. And I think that we try to keep a really tight loop on the feedback we get to improvements in the product and then telling the customers about that. And I think one of the goals internally we always talk about is like the shorter that cycle of feedback to improvement to new feature to whatever, the more success we can drive the creators. And then thankfully it is a tight-knit community. And I think because people have seen success with some of these automations, it has helped a lot. And great events like tastemaker. I mean, last year, tastemaker was insane. We didn't even know what we were doing. We couldn't afford to sponsor last year. And we just kind of showed up, Juliana and I. And it was like, oh my God, this is crazy. And it was so overwhelming and the best way possible for us. So thank you both for everything that you've done. Yeah, you're welcome. That's been one thing that we've worked really hard on as well. We send out a survey after our conference and ask for feedback. And I've seen that, that that's one of your greatest strengths as a company and as a founder is that you ask for feedback and you implement it. We try really hard to do that as well. And obviously our cycle is a lot bigger because we get to see them once a year at the conference. But we do try to implement that. And people, that's our favorite thing when we hear, you really listen to what I said. You heard what I said and you implemented it. And I know that the people that I've talked to are like, oh my gosh, Bennett Groscher's list is great. You have made a personal connection with these creators instead of just being like, all right, I'm hands off. Here's the product. You really stepped in and made them feel seen. And like you said, making that cycle shorter from feedback to implementation. So great job. I think it's been fantastic. Awesome. What is the most frequently asked question you get? Just got a curiosity. I feel like people are constantly asking you and talking to you. So what are you hearing? Oh, man. What's in a mind? The most frequently asked question I get is TikTok. Yeah, I was just going to ask you about that actually. Which is exciting. I think you want to tell everyone you're exciting news that you told us at MVCon? Yeah, I mean, it's still early. But I will say that we are speaking directly with the TikTok team. We are hopeful that in 2026, that they will approve this use case as well. And they're working very hard on it. I have a very high level of confidence that it will happen. One of the things that's important to know about us is that in order to do what we do, we have to be approved by the social media platform. And so it was a rigorous process. With both Instagram and Facebook, we're official meta partners. And we are hoping for the same thing for TikTok. But today, no one can execute a comment for DM automation in an automated way on TikTok. And it's going to be at OSHR's list first, which is so exciting. Hopefully. What about Pinterest? Because that's like YouTube. Begin your conversation as well. It's funny that you mentioned that. We are internally-- I mean, there's only six, seven of us. We are talking a lot about what comes next year. And channel expansions are a big part of that. So we've had a lot of requests for Pinterest. We've had a lot of requests for YouTube. I think the dynamics there around comments and direct messages are pretty different than how they're used on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok. So I think sometimes people ask questions, and they just want good stuff on other channels that drive good traffic for them. So I think the way that I would answer that is part of our to-do list is to closely examine the technical capabilities of what third parties can accomplish on top of Pinterest and YouTube and to see if there's interesting things we can do to help you drive traffic and less growth from those channels. So that's definitely high on our list. I think that it would be a great way to revive Pinterest for food content creators because with AI and everything that's out there, man, to bring it back to more personal where the direct conversation is happening on Pinterest again. Like it once did, where people would comment about your recipe. You know, living out as much about as Instagram or Facebook, but it was still there. I think it would be incredible. So I'm so excited about that, but in the meantime, we know there's 20, 26. I feel like it's going to be your year. Man, we're excited to see what growth is going to be. It's going to be everyone's year. I think everyone's going to have a big year. I agree. I think it's when everyone kind of moves past a lot of this timidness and nerves around AI. And just realizes like a lot of this is in your control and get back to business. I think that's exactly the creators are taking the reins back and they're saying, fine, this is what's happening. This is what is changing. This is what I'm going to do. I think we're going to see a lot of products released from creators. I think we're going to see a lot of really personal type emails that are different than just ascending a daily email. It's going to be like Molly's killed it with her meal plans, same with Mary from Mary's whole life. So I think we're going to see a lot more fun things that we haven't seen. I don't know. I'll be interesting to see what they create. They're always amazing and continue to amaze us. So question for you. What are some of your-- since we're talking about the exciting time, let's move into that. What are some of your suggestions for growth strategies for food creators? Yeah, so I think I'll speak to different levels. If you are not yet offering DM automations, this concept of commenting a specific word on your Instagram post, sending an automated DM that looks visual that drives them to that recipe. That's a very important part of the workflow in this industry right now that is driving a lot of traffic back to your site, which is the primary goal. So start there. People, Ben, with that, the question that you get number one is, is Instagram going to start banning that? No, because you're a metapartner, right? Yeah, so the process to get approved for this sort of thing is really rigorous. They look at how we handle customer data. They look at the actual use case of, hey, we want to enable someone to comment recipe and then receive a DM from that creator that has a link that clicks off of Instagram. And they have reviewed that. They have validated, hey, these are valid use cases and given us a stamp of approval to do that. So if you have Raptive or Mediavine or Chickery on your website, those are-- that's an important step one, right? To start monetizing. What this comment for damn thing and why it's blown up has done is just add a funnel from social media that is driving more people to your website and those ads than the link in bio. So you need a link in bio as well, because some people are clicking around there. But comment for DM is about one to two clicks less than telling someone to go to your link in bio. So a really effective thing. The other important thing that we've seen is sometimes when people get that DM, their inboxes are all over the place, like so many of us. And having an option, just like you offer on your website, to save this recipe to your email is a really powerful way to, again, remove friction from the process and let someone just bookmark this to their inbox or it's searchable, it's referenceable, and it's also clickable. But it turns out it's also a really powerful passive way for you to grow your email list. So those are kind of the two headline features that I think have really put Grocer's list on the map. And we do things to save time, like pulling your awesome photography automatically. So you don't waste time setting these things up more than once. The other thing that is, you're starting to see people do is story replies. So Instagram actually does let you put an external link that's clickable in your stories. And that's what most people do, and that's fine. But what we've found is that if instead of putting a link that's clickable in, you ask people to reply to your story with a specific word, then Instagram sees, oh, wow, here's a story from Candace that's getting a lot more replies than normal. And there's no external link on that story. So let's show this to a much, much higher percentage of our audience. And story replies kind of the other thing that has completely taken off. We have some creators that are driving more traffic to their sites through story replies than their feed this year. And people swear by it. It's just yesterday. My story went to 10% of my audience, which that's pretty high for me, you know what I mean? 10%. And it was because everyone was replying recipe, recipe, recipe, recipe. That is a high percentage link of conversion. It was very high, I was like, woo, woo, woo, woo. No, actually, I don't know if you've tried this, but if you delete all of yesterday's stories or just let them expire, yeah. And you kick off a new batch of stories with the reply first. Same thing. Yeah, I think you need more. You might even get higher. So every day now, my first story is always the real that I posted. And I just, instead of a story story, it is a story. But I just share to my stories and I zoom out. So it looks just like a video. So you can't like, nice, nice. So you zoom out and then they just push recipe. Because you share from in feed, from in story to my stories. Yep. And then that one certainly gets the highest. But then like if I'm doing something that's like sponsored or I want to share and like fill it link or something, I always share it right after. Because then that second one's going to get the most views after that first one. So it's been fantastic for that for partnerships. And for just exposure. So it's been huge. And so always, always when I do a real, I share that real in feed to the story, blow it up. So it just looks like a video. And then I said it so that if they reply story or recipe, then they get that automatic reply. Huge for growth. I mean, huge. So then definitely in terms of growth is great, right? We can see that. We like with our eyeballs without having to like see, you know, all these case studies and whatnot. But what percentage of traffic have you seen like on people's websites that they're getting? Since organic traffic is down with, you know, AIOs and whatnot, have you seen a significant percentage that's replaced that? Or do you not have enough data available yet? I mean, I actually don't have that data on RN. We just see click through rates and email opt-in rates. So comparing that to other traffic sources, I don't have. But I will say that, you know, both our partners at Mediavine Interactive, we hear regularly that Grocer's List has become a top, maybe not top three, but a top five, top 10 refer for so many of our customers, yeah. Well, and not only are you getting traffic to your site, but the coolest thing that we learned at MBcon from you, Ben, is that you can also grow your email list so substantially, which has been great because to be able to have a crossover between Instagram and your email list and all of that has been lacking, let's be honest, it's been lacking. And so to be able to get the traffic to your site, but then also get them to opt into your email, that's great. That's great. Yeah. There's a playbook forming around converting social media followers into email subscribers. The first part I kind of already mentioned was our Save to Email button that you can just turn it on, set it up once on your account. And then it's a way for people to just kind of choose if they want to move it to their email on their own. We see about 5% of people that get your DMs end up using that feature. And so over the course of a year, that can be tens of thousands. We have some that are growing by over 100,000 a year through that. And then the other concept is a way for you to repurpose some of your existing content into a single resource. It could be a PDF. It could be just an email. An example of this is like, Pinch of Yum did my most viral recipes. She re-edited that into a single reel. She set up a landing page in Kit. So if you wanted access to that, you needed to put your email in. And then she used that landing page link and delivered it through a DM from Grocer's List. And so that is kind of a slightly more active playbook. But those in combination is where we've seen people just totally crushless growth. And I'll share it here first. We are like that process that I described today requires that, in the Pinch of Yum example, that she and her team go create a landing page and set this whole thing up somewhere else and then put it inside Grocer's List. In a few weeks, we're launching a new list growth type DM that is going to let you basically remove the need for a third-party landing page, capture an email first, and then deliver whatever resource you want all inside the email. So it's similar to safety. You're just making it even more smooth and better because you know what this is going to do? It's going to cause retention because our customers are going to be like, you made it so easy. I didn't have to click, click, click, click, add, add, add. Totally. This is amazing. See you listened and you already are implementing my goodness. How exciting. What a gift to us to end out 2025. Yeah, we're psyched about that. A present-to-team maker. Yeah, the team's working so hard to get that ready for tastemaker, so we're a few weeks out. But that'll be great. And in the internet, the thing I've learned across both of these businesses is that each click comes with a lot of drop-off. So if it takes five or six clicks for someone to get what they want, you're losing half or more of your audience. And so that's a big reason why we're kind of taking this next step around this new use case. So that at the end of the day, we can help you grow your email less more and deliver a better experience to the end consumer. Which I think is so true. Because even me and I'm looking at, let's say, a Q outfit. And I'm like, oh, perfect. OK, click LTK. OK, great. I just go find the thing that I want. And then I have to-- and I'm like, and it's not a deep link. So now I have to log into my Amazon. Are you kidding me? Never mind. I don't need the outfit. I don't think it's me time to say I don't need the outfit. So-- Maybe that's a good thing. It's a good thing for me. It's not a good thing for them, for their affiliate income. So I love that this is all here. So I want to ask you, Ben, in addition to all these awesome things that are there to help growth for food creators, talk to us a little bit about. Because I know this is also important to you. You genuinely love this community. Talk to us a little bit about your thoughts on community networking and other things that will also help you as a creator in today's economy. Yeah, I'm trying to think about how to answer that. I mean, for us, I'll speak to our perspective. Meeting with customers in person is so powerful because you can see the impact right away of what you're doing. The way that people receive groceries less when they meet Juliana or Evelyn or me, or we actually have Mike from our engineering team. My co-founder coming to Tastemaker. It helps our team internally understand the importance of this work, right? These are entrepreneurs who, in many cases, have grown dependencies on the role that our software plays in driving their income. And so if that income goes up, we look great. If that income goes down, we're getting a lot of questions on, hey, how come that DM didn't send or what can we do better? So I think the community aspect and being at these events has been so critical for our team. - That's great. I love hearing that. So we loved hearing from you today. That was amazing. Fun to hear all the good news and everything. I'm gonna let Abby ask you this. We always close with rapid fire and one of my screens closed. So I can't see the question. I thought I knew it in my head, but I don't know it well enough. I'm gonna let Abby answer the rapid fire. But thank you so much, Ben. It was so great chatting with you and-- - So fun. Thanks for having me. - Yeah, I can't wait for everyone to see you in January. It tastes better. - Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. - All right. Totally off track from what we just talked about. But what's a non-work related goal that you're pursuing in the new year? - Ooh, non-work related. My wife and I are talking a lot about presence and she and I are both entrepreneurs and running companies and customers need stuff and the team need stuff. And we also have two young girls. And so it's very easy to get a customer support inquiry and get distracted. And so I think one of the things that I'm really trying to work on is making sure that when I'm with my family and my daughters that I'm not distracted and then I'm really present. - I think that's a great goal. Erin from Meaningful It's actually introduced me to Opal, O-P-A-L. And it's a service where on your phone it literally locks you out of the fun stuff. So my daughter was like, "Hey, can we watch puppy videos "with Instagram together?" And I'm like, "Member, I'm locked out from 3.30 to 8 "because you guys are home from school "and my focus needs to be you, not the phone." And at first she was like, "Oh, man." And now she's like, "All right, let's play a game then." So highly recommend, I mean, we don't even work with them or anything, but it's been great for that goal for myself. So figure others how to do that as well. And you literally cannot get yourself out unless you delete everything. - That's great, that's a great tip. I'll check it out. - Yeah, that's a great tool. - Well, and I think to, you know, just to wrap this with a nice little bow, like I have found that entrepreneurs, right, you see a little bit, not a little bit, a lot of like their values and their soul and the products they create, whether they intend to or not. And I think Groucher's List is doing that. It's automating so that you get time freedom back so that you can be present. So about a little nugget to end with. So I think that is very, very aligned for you. And it's great to hear that side of your life. It's very to never try to reply to all DMs without an automatic. If anyone's ever done that, it like takes hours. So I think that's a great point. I love that. - So Ben, thank you so much for your time. We're so excited to see you in January and let our community meet your team, talk to you, get more feedback. So we get to see you there. So for those of you listening, if you don't have your ticket, get it now. While you still can, for those of you who already have it, get ready to be wowied by Ben Jabawi. So where can everybody find you though? They wanna get in contact for the best place to hit you up. - Grouchergroucherslist.com or on Instagram at Groucher's List. And yeah, we'll be booking one-on-ones. We'll have four members of the team, myself included, and we'd love to meet you at Tastesmaker. - Thanks Ben. - Thanks. - See you soon. Thanks for listening to Tastesmaker Talk. 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