They Invested In Poppi, Siete & Bachan's. How A 'Supernatural' Team Evaluates Early-Stage Brands.

(upbeat music) - Hello, and thank you for joining. I am Melissa Travers, Director of Community here at Bevnet and Naesh, and I'm excited to welcome you to the NAMBASE podcast. A podcast built to help CPG owners and operators navigate growth challenges and run more profitable businesses. Be sure to check out NAMBASE.com, Bevnet's platform, built for the CPG community. It's where you can find episodes of this podcast and so much more. Raising capital in food and beverage is never easy, but it's especially tough at the earliest stages when you might not have revenue, traction, or even a finished product. And yet that's exactly where some of the most important decisions get made. The partners you choose, the amount you raise, and how you spend it can shape the entire future of your business. So how do you raise capital before you've proven anything? And how do you make sure you're using it in a way that actually sets you up to win? Today I am joined by Chris Rob, founder of Supernatural Ventures, a fund focused specifically on pre-seed and often pre-revenue food and beverage brands. Chris has backed companies like A.O., Painterland Sisters, Stone & Skillet, and he spent years helping founders navigate the earliest and most uncertain stages of building a business. Chris, it is so great to have you, not only on the NAMBASE podcast, but here in the Newton headquarters. Thank you so much for coming on over. - Yeah, thanks so much for having me, and the rest of it's great to be here. And I'm glad it worked out to be in person together. - Yeah, likewise, yeah. There's no substitute for being in person. I know that you're a man who probably needs no introduction for so many of the folks in our audience, but I would like to spend a little bit of time on your background because I think it really does help explain the opportunities that you're able to offer brands and a lot of the support that you're able to offer. So you grew up in consumer packaged goods and grocery retail. How long have you been in this industry? - Well, I've been in the industry, I guess my whole life, my parents started an outdoor grocery store in 1978. So, and they were more or less hippies that went back to the land. And we're part of the early movement of natural products. And so we spent a lot of time in that store as kids, and I get nostalgic about products like orangina or Nancy's Kiefer, things like that. But it was just the very beginning of the industry. It was very small. Things like UNFI, for example, were started by people like Michael Funk, who at the time was called Mountain Peoples. And it was just a kind of a roots California thing, which is where I grew up. And being a kid in the '80s and '90s and watching this unfold was really formative for me. And then even just bagging groceries in high school and being in and around distribution centers and stopping off with my dad to go to the bakery and things like that, right? Just food and just the whole kind of ecosystem of timeframe. It just really shaped a lot of my passions now around food and beverage. And so for me, I'm really grateful that I got to have that experience. And I'd like to point out for folks in the audience who may not know when you talk about your dad, you're talking about Walter Robb, who was co-CEO with John Mackie for Whole Foods Market that you really did grow up in grocery retail. Yeah, and it's funny 'cause he did, right? He worked, he actually sold his store No Valley, California in 1991 to Whole Foods, which I think became around the ninth store in the company at that time Whole Foods went public in '93. He started out as the store manager and kind of worked his way all the way up to Co-CEO. So there was a whole time frame of watching him kind of grow professionally and build his career at the same time that the natural products industry was rising, right? But when I think about how long I've been in the industry, I think this year was my 21st year going to Expo West professionally. And when I first started going to Expo, it was maybe 10,000 people. And it was like a small little organic section in the corner. And now it's 80,000 people and wild. But yeah, it's been really fun to watch this industry grow up. And one of the most important things that I always think about even as an investor is trying to put myself in the customer shoes. And I think when you are on the retail floor, that's the best possible place to learn about what the customer perspective is. And the way that they always decided where to put grocery stores was it wasn't on household income or typical demographics. It was based on education, right? The idea is that if you're more educated about better food, or if you're more educated in general, you might be more educated about better food and what that means for you and your own health. And that's how they would kind of determine where to buy real estate and a lot of college towns, a lot of places that had that kind of influence. And so we think about skipping forward to where we are today and how fast information moves and how easy it is to educate yourself on all different types of topics. You can see why natural products in general are still on the rise and growing really quickly. But it's always been up and to the right in terms of how this industry has grown. And it's an exciting to be part of an industry that has always been growing. It really is such an exciting industry. And not only did you start off in grocery retail, but you've also been a founder a number of times yourself. Can you explain what that part of your career was like? I hated school. I never really wanted to go to school. I went to college reluctantly. And I'm glad I did. I made it through. I made a lot of good friends. And it was a great experience. But I think I parked my U-Haul in the Civic Center parking lot on the way home from college to go and start my own business. Because I didn't have a job lined up. But I didn't want to go work for anybody else. I just, to me, entrepreneurialism-- like that was the household I grew up in. So it never occurred to me to go get a nine to five job. And so I started doing whatever I could do to earn money. And ultimately, that led to starting my own brands. Because I had been exposed to this industry. And I didn't really want to go into the grocery business. But I loved the brand building side. I was just drawn to it. And so yeah, I'm not going to try to rattle off all the things I've tried. But I've done some things successfully. And I've failed quite a few times as well. One of the failures I think about a lot is in 2013, I started a Reddit to drink beverage brand. It was called Summer Made Beverages. And it was a sparkling shrub if anybody knows what that is. Not a lot of people did. It was an awesome product. We made organic syrups ourselves. It was all raw. It was sparkling. It was organic raw apple cider vinegar. It was delicious. But I learned very quickly that apple cider vinegar was polarizing to a lot of customers. We had 19 grams of sugar to balance the ACV. And it wasn't really the right time or place for sugar in 2013. So it's funny to see what Poppy did years later. And it was very much the same thing. Mother beverage was doing ACV. So we might have been a little early. And we also were a little bit too hardcore with our proposition. But our member getting that on the shelves, getting it eye-level, 24 facings, and some of the best stores, and moving six units a week and just being so demoralized that why aren't people trying this product? It's a beautiful package, beautiful product. I think you learn those lessons. And the cool part for me is the experience of bringing product to the stores, shaking hands with the buyers, dropping cases, and paper invoices, and doing demos, and talking to customers. And I did a lot of things like that. I tried different brands, different products. I always thought I could see around the corner. Sometimes I could. And sometimes I was just a little too far out in front. But you know, also started a-- and this was a year later, 2014. My brother and I started a brand called New Barn Organics, which was a clean label organic almond milk business that was refrigerated. And this is actually something that I would recommend to founders. But if you can talk to the retailers and see what they're looking for, what the buyers are excited about, it's a great way to start a business. That was why we started that business, was a buyer in Southern California named Diane Snyder, who's one of the best buyers that I respect all time. She came up to us at Expo, and she said, Caliphia is dominating this new almond milk thing. It's flying off the shelf because we're putting it in the cooler. People are excited about this premium proposition and an alternative milk at the time. It was this big wall of kind of shelf stable stuff that just kind of checked the box. So we designed a really amazing bottle, built a great product with foreign ingredients, organic almonds, spring water, sea salt, maple syrup. It was awesome. But we grew really fast, because there was a lot of demand. And Diane was true to her word. She brought us in, she really championed the brand and helped us get the placements. And I kind of kicked off this whole venture. But we grew to about 10,000 points of distribution in about 15 months. And when you say Diane, you're talking Whole Foods? Yes, she was a buyer at Whole Foods. Yeah, we knew her a long time. And so she gave us that opportunity. She said, I think you guys can build a product like this. If you build it, I'll bring it in because I really want this. And so that's what I mean to founders that are, hey, Should I start this? Should I not start this? It can be really good to network with the retailers, even if it's small local buyers. Just to get a feel, are you thinking about the category the right way? Buyer is know what sells, you know, or what will sell. So that's like the ultimate market research is to go talk to people who do it every day and bring these products in. Not only are you getting great information about what the market is looking for, but you're also making alliances with the people who are going to be taking it into their stores and putting it on their shelves. So that makes perfect sense, certainly, and you know, just as you're talking about your experiences building these brands, it really does, I think, help our audience understand the kind of empathy that you're able to have for the founders that you're working with at Supernatural Ventures. Now you actually have your part of three different organizations right now, right? So Dirty Hands, the Angel Group, and Supernatural Ventures. Are you part of all of those three entities all at the same time? Yes, is the short answer on the heels of growing new barn, which was quite a ride, you know, low margin high volume business. We raised a lot of money. In fact, that's where I really learned how to invest was going through the fundraising process myself on the brand side. But I think we raised maybe $17 or $18 million, all non venture was all from individuals. And that taught me a lot, you know, and we actually spent more time fundraising than running the business way more time. And so it was a good learning experience. But the biggest learning experience that I had growing, helping grow that brand was getting on the shelf. Actually, it was pretty easy. Like I said, we went pretty wide, pretty fast and we needed to drive that volume. So I think it felt like a good choice. But I think there's, you know, upsides and downsides to that strategy. What I learned was buyers can, you know, bring you in and that feels really good because you do your job. But getting product executed at the stores and off the shelf was a whole thing I had never even really considered to be honest. And so we'd go into stores and you'd see your products on the bottom shelf or the top shelf or, you know, you'd missing skews and things like that. And it just frustrated me and I was like, you know, how do we fix this? And at the time I started hanging out with regional DSDs like Dub Distribution and Zarr at High Touch. And some of these guys who were doing the work, you know, in that kind of final mile execution, you know, these guys have the trucks and they bring the product, you know, to the store. But they also have reps that go into the store and merchandise the shelf. And I just thought that was the coolest thing and it probably just the grocery nerd roots. But I thought it was such an unfair advantage if you could, you know, go in and actually, you know, execute. And at that time, I met Will Ahern who is the president of Dirty Hands and he was expanding Dirty Hands out to the West Coast so he was living in Northern California where I was. And we just headed off as people, you know, as friends and we, you know, I never really wanted to go work for anybody but I met with him and his dad, Roy Ahern, who has become a mentor to me and he came out of, you know, Red Bull system which was all about that execution side as well. And they both saw the opportunity like I did to say, hey, if we can go into these stores and we can execute, you know, we're going to help, we're going to help brands increase their sales and maximize their opportunity with each door that they're in. And so they built, you know, and fortunately, I never wanted to have a job. But I felt like at the time it was the right thing for me to go and join this business and help grow it, given my background and skill set. So that's what I did. I was there for six years full time and we grew that business pretty significantly. You know, I think we were around 50 or so people when I joined and when I left, we're a little over 200 full time people. So it was, I learned a lot around just culture and community and having multiple teams across the country and really just doing my part, you know, very well so that it would work with the rest of the team and that we could accomplish the goals as a company and what we're trying to do. So really a formative thing and, you know, fortunately, we got to work with at any given time over 200 brands, you know, in their portfolio. And these are some of the best brands in the business, you know, think about, you know, Oli Pop and RX Bar and once upon a farm and, you know, go down the list, we're really blessed to having great, you know, great partners and I had the best job in the world because I got to, I got to build my network for six years and meet all these cool people who are running the most successful playbooks for the most successful brands and I got to learn about how to do it. And so when I think about the training, you know, to become an investor, learning distribution and learning strategy from some of the best minds in the industry, just really blessed to have had that opportunity. And more importantly, you know, it's a family owned business, 30 hands, the A her and family is incredible, incredible people just really fortunate, you know, to get involved with that. So you brought up the issue that you really understood with new barn, which is that it's not so much about getting on the shelves, but it's about getting the product off the shelf once you're in the stores. What did you learn at dirty hands that, you know, what wisdom did you accumulate there that helps you guide other brands now to help solve that problem of making sure that you're on the right shelves and you're able to move the product once you're there? I'm going to say this today and it'll probably be outdated in 10 years, but, you know, grocery and food is still analog, right? And somebody's got to still move the case from the backroom to the shelf, they got to pack it out. There's still people doing those jobs and especially, you know, when I first joined, you know, planograms are a guide, right? But then there's the reality of, you know, how stores operate and the best grocers, I mean, it's an art form. It's much more art than science. And I hope any grocers that are listening to that go back to the art form, you know, go back to that feeling of abundance, go back to zero holes on the shelf and think about the customer when you're building these, you know, kind of programs for your stores. But the reality is people, the stores have decision-making ability and if you show up to those stores three, five days a week and you help pack out, you know, you're there, you show up, you've got relationships. If you go anywhere three, five days a week and talk to people, they're going to know who you are, they're going to, you know, appreciate what you do. And if you approach it that way, then, you know, you think that that person's going to say, oh, this is one of your brands, you know, take this extra secondary or, you know, yeah, just go ahead and optimize it up to eye level. Like that can be the difference of 16 and it's a week and 12 units a week, right? If you do that work. And so when you're looking for an edge, which everybody, every emerging brand is, you know, there's lots of different tactics, but for me, I was drawn to where the rubber meets the road because I had experienced so many times walking into stores and realizing our product is, you know, stuck in the bottom, like nobody's going to even see it, you know, so the, the unit velocity wasn't even a fair metric because it, we weren't even given a shot. And that's what I coached founders a lot on now is saying no, is way more important in this business than saying yes, and it's because if you're going to say yes to a partnership, you better be ready to support it, right? Whether that's you going to the stores to do demos, whether it's, you know, hiring somebody to go and build those relationships for you. It matters. It really, really matters to put your best foot forward in every door that you're in, especially in the early, you know, early stages before you have any brand equity, you know? So that's what I loved about that business was our ability to make an impact that was pretty unique to what we were doing, actually, and it was very relationship forward, which is something that I really, you know, enjoy. Hey listeners, this September 10th roundup brings jobs at CPGjobs.com from Barrel RM, Revolution Brewing LLC, and Good to Grow. Harkin Suites, Russian River Brewing Company, and Trade Turbine Keep it Rolling. Check opportunities and apply today. Need great people? Put your opening before category pros following the industry. Reach operators, sales leaders, supply chain pros, and retail buyers spending more time with candidates and less on mismatches. At CPGjobs.com, post your opening, use code TasteRadio26, and save on the listing. Your inbox should reflect the parts of CPG that matter to you. Choose from Bevnet's seven free newsletters, covering beverage, food, beer, spirits, careers, education, and more. Sign up and select your favorites at CPGmedia.com/newsletter. Early stage business is so crucial, it's so important getting into the stores, making sure that the product is where it needs to be in order to sell, building relationships, one thing that's incredibly hard for early stage brands is raising capital, especially now, after the pandemic, I think that we've all heard that the investments that are going out from most VC firms are going to brands who are at least at a million in sales, oftentimes a higher number than that, but supernatural ventures, which is your fund. You guys specialize in much earlier stage funding. Can you talk a little bit about what supernatural ventures thesis is and where you invest, like what time you invest and how much you invest? invest? We like to come in as early as we possibly can. Pre-revenue is actually my preference, which most venture firms would probably not say. But I think the reality is when you've done this for as many years as I have and I've experienced it and I've seen it and you know just watched a lot, those first steps that you take are very important, right? And it's very easy to make missteps in those early onions and making missteps or mistakes in this business is very expensive. There's no cookie cutter framework here that says this stage is makes more sense because or this stage is less risky because like I know most venture firms mentality is that the more revenue you have, the more de-risk it is. But I think if you can get in early and and have that co-founder mentality, that partner mentality where it's like we've got this crazy bank of resources and this formalized network that's really powerful. Let's put it to work and let's help design the foundation and build the foundation together so that we can build a taller building, right? So that's why I like coming in as early as we possibly can. The other practical is just venture math, right? Most venture is tech, right? Not necessarily food and beverage. I think CPG I heard somewhere is 6% of venture. It's pretty small and the reason is you don't have these major outcomes, right? You don't have a hundred billion dollar outcome in this industry. You're lucky if you have a billion, right? So the venture math just says, you know, if you're playing in the series A, series B game, that's a very A, it's much more competitive because more venture is playing in that space looking for stuff that's already been validated where people have already taken the risk and proven something, right? But you're also paying much higher valuations at that stage and so the potential for you know a 10x plus return is just much less, right? So the way that we look at it and what we've experienced in our careers thankfully is return profiles that look more like 50x or 100x or 400x and those are not on multi-billion dollar outcomes necessarily but you know hundreds of millions, you know? So if we come in at a sub 5 million valuation or a sub 10 million valuation depending on how big the category can be that venture math works and so the way that I look at it and most people probably don't think about this, right? So we raise a pool of 30 million dollars which is what's supernatural, we're in the final stages of closing that fundraise but we get to make, call it maybe 30, we get to bet on 30 companies, right? And some of that will be follow on but you know when we're making a bet we kind of need any one of those companies to ideally return the fund or at least return quite a bit of it because they're not all going to work. You know, that's the premise of venture capital and power law dynamics but one of the things I'm most bullish on with our thesis is that I believe we can bet above average, you know? I don't want any company to go out of business. I never want to think that way and I know that's ludicrous but at the same time there's a lot of things we can do in this asset class to mitigate risk, right? And we know how to leverage things like retail, right? In a world where you can go D to C, you can you can pay to acquire customers that's it's very formulaic, you know, one of the things that we look for especially when we come in very early is just indicators that customers really want this product, you know? And that's hard to do pre-revenue, right? That's a lot of instincts but you can, there's things you can do, you can bring it in your own kitchen, you can bring it in your own household and see how people you know engage, you can walk to the grocery store and talk to the people that have work in the stores that see things every day. There's lots of things that you can do to kind of build confidence and then a lot of it's just drawing on experience as well but we believe that we have a major edge in what we do because it's it's kind of a white space. There's not a lot of people that are taking that early risk the way that we are and when we hit, you know, on something that we come in that early on, the outcome is much bigger. So that's that's the thesis of the fund and why the fund matters is allows people to diversify the risk across 30 companies, you know, which is a pretty good idea when you're when you're playing in the most risky space. Supernatural Venture certainly offers an opportunity to a lot of brands who really may not have had an option like this otherwise but to your point, it must be challenging to figure out what the possibilities are and what the opportunity is if you are investing in a brand pre-revenue with all of the experience that you've had that certainly gives you a leg up and you're, you know, probably able to make assessments that especially, you know, folks who don't who haven't lived in CPG, they aren't able to make. What do you need to believe about the product, the founder, the go-to-market plan in order to believe that it would be a good partnership? Well, people in product are the hardest thing to change. Product is a little easier than people in my experience, so people are the most important. And I can give you an example of, you know, pre-revenue investment that we made, which is a brand called Jesse and Ben's and they make incredible frozen French fries, was where they started, it's three ingredients, you know, beef tallies, sea salt potatoes. For us, Jesse and Ben, you know, in the name, but the two guys, the guys behind the fries, if you will, which is something that we helped, you know, come up with, which I love. But, you know, tried the product first that, what's usually always our first step is try the product. Product was exceptional. I mean, it's not hard to imagine, right? It's French fries, you know, fried and tall with sea salt. Like, it was very, very good product, but they executed it. But when you hopped on with those guys, you could see there's a really good compliment between them. Ben was the operator. He was making the fries. He was making that work. The supply chain, you know, you could tell they had thought through every aspect of what they were doing and they were very capable people. And then Jesse just instilled a confidence that, you know, is undeniable. And sometimes you just see it, right? Is it just something the person has or they don't have? Yeah, I think so. A lot of times, if every founder could be like Jesse, I would, my job would be easy. But I think that, you know, you just recognize it. And it's, it walks that line of, of confidence. But the biggest thing I look for that complements the confidence is openness, right? And what I love about Jesse is that he is very capable and very confident and very decisive. But he also wants to be better. He wants to figure out the right answer. It doesn't matter if it's what he thinks he knows, you know, he wants the best answer wherever it comes from. And so I love that humility and a founder, especially when it's coupled with, with that confidence. But, you know, there's all different types of founders, you know, it's having this conversation with some venture friends the other day. And they were like, we like founders that are older, you know, that have been punched in the face at least a couple times. And I get that. I'm one of those guys. So I definitely can see the value of that experience. But sometimes the youth, you know, we just invested our biggest check ever into a brand called Frozen One, which is a new ice cream brand that's up and coming. I love the product. I love the founders. And part of what I love about the founders is they're they're mid 20s and they're young and they're hungry. And they they have a level of hustle that I used to have that I no longer have, right? Obviously I'm down to work hard. But, you know, when you're in your 20s, you're you're it's just different, you know? So I think that sometimes the the profile of the founders match the the need for the business, you know, sometimes businesses need to grow a little slower in the beginning. Sometimes they need to go a little faster in the beginning depending on the dynamic, right? So the ice cream category right now is very competitive. They need to go fast, right? So we're coaching them on a strategy that makes sense for where they are in their category. And I believe that that these two guys match the profile of what they need to accomplish very well, right? So does that make sense? Yeah. And with the product like Frozen Ones, is it a functional ice cream and then it has protein in it? Yeah. So they have 40 grams of protein, a little over 300 calories per pint, two grams of sugar per serving since the macros are pretty insane. And the product is it delivers, right? The texture is awesome. The flavor is awesome. And you you know, this is a category that we see moving very quickly and I think they're going to be a leader in it. You know, something that supernatural ventures probably has a really strong hand in is an area where so many founders and brands get tripped up at very early stages and that's how much to raise and at what valuation. These are two things that are critical to get right and they can affect the entire course of your business, but it's so hard to understand where to fall when you're just getting started. What's the advice that you give the founders that you're working with? And also, So I understand that you're constantly texting founders that aren't part of supernatural ventures or that you aren't necessarily working with. So this is probably something that a question that you're fielding all the time. What's some advice you can give our audience around those two aspects of fundraising? We invest in less than one percent of what we look at, which is a very low number. I wish we could invest in everything, you know, be way more fun to say, hey, we do this early stage space. It's very, you know, kind of unique, and it's not a lot of people do this, and I think a lot of people are like, oh, my God, these are my people, you know, invest in me. I'm in this space, right? And I think it's very, it's frustrating when, when obviously you feel like I'm right where you're right in your zone, but I think the reality is we're looking for very specific things, and we kind of know it when we see it in terms of the potential of it, and you have to look at a lot of stuff to kind of find out the things that you that you have conviction on, and really want to get behind. And that said, just like I've done in my career where I've launched stuff and it hasn't quite worked. And so even if you're pre-revenue or you're at the earliest stage and you don't know how much to raise, what I would always recommend is being very reasonable about your approach. And so if it's hyper early and you haven't proven that much and you haven't brought in that many dollars, take a little bite-sized thing. You know, typically in that range, the easiest place to go and get some dollars is going to be from friends and family or just other angels. And if it's not going to be someone like us, that's going to be where you most likely have access to capital. So what I always tell people is don't try to go and raise $10 million or $5 million before you really have proven anything, go say, I'm going to do this, you know, next six months I'm going to go make this happen. I need this to do it, you know, maybe it's a couple hundred grand or something like that. And I'm going to put a really fair price on it. And if we accomplish X, you know, I'd like to come back and structure this next round, right? So I think that it's the big flashy rounds are exciting and fun and they make the headlines, but there's a lot of this kind of ground level nuts and bolts that just, it just requires a lot of effort and a lot of discipline and you've got to kind of show people what you can do. I'm a big believer that if you show people what you can do, they're going to want to put up more, right? So I like taking something that's really bite size, especially fundraising is a challenging for you and say, I'm going to go do this, then go do it, you know, and then talk to those same people again, I guarantee you that they will probably put up more and they'll probably introduce you to their friends. So that's the best advice I have in terms of you are a brand that you've gotten a lot of attention. You've gotten, you know, some notoriety or, you know, you've gotten some really indicators that this is going to be successful and now it's your first time to go raise, you know, around that is, you know, bigger than your friends and family around. My best advice there is don't, don't overvalue it because it's, it's, you're kind of, you can shoot yourself in the, in the foot in that way, right? So if you're, if you're doing, you know, a hundred thousand in sales and you've got some really good early indicators and you're going to go raise at a $15 million valuation, it's going to automatically price people out of the conversation, you know, potentially. And the other thing is in CPG, like very rarely does everything go well, you know, or perfectly as planned. Everyone does that, right? So if you, if you price on the higher end in terms of valuation, you know, yes, you're going to maybe be deleting less, but you're doing a couple things. One is you're not rewarding the investors who are backing you at the earliest phase, which to me, I think it's like, you want those people to win as well, and they're on most likely a seven year journey with you where they're not going to be liquid. If it works at all, so you got to, I just think it's important to factor that in. But the other thing is if it doesn't go perfectly and you don't hit the plan exactly and you need to go raise more money, you're now putting those early stage investors who bet on you early at risk because the, you know, possibility of doing it down round, right? And you raised up here and now you got to raise down here just to get more money and to keep going. Now you're really squeezing yourself and your early investors and just not setting, you know, an appropriate trajectory. So I think that the hardest thing to do is kind of figure out where do I price this business, you know, based on A, what people are willing to pay, but B, maybe what's kind of a reasonable pathway, and I think if you are more reasonable on that, on that valuation, then you're, you're just making it more possible to kind of spend less time fundraising potentially and, and allowing for a little bit of variability, which I think is, you know, just happens in this business. What's one of the questions that tends to trip people up and they're really not prepared to answer that question because they just haven't thought of it? The number one question I ask, if it's not pre-revenue, the number one question I ask is what's your units, you know, your unit velocity, your units per store, per ski per week. That's a metric. If you don't have that num, if you don't know that for every store you're in, then start there before we talk because I will be much more impressed if I say, hey, what's your unit velocity on, you know, your hero's queue at Bristol Farms, and I want you to have that answer, you should have that answer. If I was growing a brand today, I would know that answer, and I would know it for the last eight weeks. I'd know that number for, you know, we just ran a promo, I'd have that number, like you got to know your numbers, and you're, if you're building a retail brand, which is a lot of where we focus, because it's a lot of where we have expertise, and ultimately I think it's where every brand kind of needs to end up anyway for the most part, but that's, that's all I care about. It could care less about revenue, you know, at the end of the day, like that's not what, that's not what we're going to value a business on. We're going to value it based on how much customers want the products, and that's why those numbers matter so much, especially because in the early Indians, you're not, you can, you can pay for, you know, shop or marketing, and you can do demos, and there's things you can do to kind of increase those, those things, but the data I'm most excited about is when you're not doing those things, when it's, you know, in the wild, it's a single facing pursue, it's full price, how much the customers want this product, you can't hide from that. You've, so you mentioned marketing, and I don't know, shop or marketing was necessarily part of this, but you mentioned that marketing is one of the functions that you tend to steer early founders and early brands away from, can you explain that? You're exposing yourself, it is marketing, right? It's retailers are influencers, that's what I always say, I mean, they have, you know, good stores or, you know, what, 55,000 transactions a week, right? Like these, you have eyeballs, you've got, you know, real customers that are identifying with your brand, you know, moving around the aisles, hopefully they're going to find you organically, right? Like that, the best thing that you can do in the beginning is focus on getting into the right places where your customer already is. It's the most cost-effective, capital-efficient way to build your early-stage business, right? I think tends to come into play a little bit later, but I also think there's just a lot of learning in putting yourself in the environment where you could do well and seeing what's possible, right? And so, you know, marketing is one of the, if you're a brand, there's so many organizations that are coming at you trying to get you to spend money, right? And you know, how hard it is to raise money, you got to be really careful about how you spend those dollars. You know, especially in the early goings, right? So, again, this is maybe not conventional thinking that most venture firms, a lot of venture firms will say, "Hey, I'm going to give you $x million. I want you to go as fast as you can," right? But we don't really live in that era anymore. I don't think. I think we learned, well, hopefully we learned our lessons. I think, you know, maybe we'll probably find ourselves back there again, but I experienced the growth era, you know, where money was growing on trees and top line revenue was all that mattered, and I can tell you, it's not how you build a real business. You know, you've got to put yourself in an environment where you can sell products organically. You have to verify yourself more importantly than what you're going to communicate to me that it's working, you know, to be able to take the next step. And I just don't see marketing as a really critical piece of that, you know, at, you know, depending on where you are in stage. But for a while, right? Like even zero to five, zero to ten million, like there's a lot of mileage you can get just putting one foot in front of the other with a discipline strategy and retail. So when we're talking marketing, does that include shopper marketing, retail media, all of the, all of those functions in my opinion, yes. But the one thing that is most important and this would be a marketing spend where I would say overspend is packaging. It's brand identity positioning and packaging because that's going to do, you know, if you do the other piece that we're talking about, which is get your product on shelves in the right environments, you still need people to see that package and convert, right? It's going to do 95 plus percent of the heavy lifting to reach your customer. So that's your billboard. So spend money there. You know, an anecdotal example of that is Jesse and Ben's actually my mom, who's almost 80 years old she brought me a package of Jesse and Ben. fries that I think she got at Market Basket, which is a regional New England retailer. She's never purchased fruit. She doesn't buy frozen anything except for maybe ice cream, certainly never frozen food. And she brought them to me and she said I think the boys, like the boys, you know, my two kids would like these. And I should have asked her why she picked them up, but I'm sure it's because of the packaging. It's not because she believes in beef tallow. You know, like I think she saw a like a very small number of ingredients, the packaging really popped and it's case in point. Yeah. Well, we were very involved in that process. And, you know, it's because we were pre-revenue, we got to come out of the gate with the package that we wanted to have. And so we put a lot effort into it. And I think it's kind of case in point, right? Where in that particular instance, we were looking at the category. And this is part of why we built a lot of confidence on this idea was the category leader is a brand called Alexia. And I remember when they launched I was at Expo. I they had a tiny little booth and I was like, oh, this is cool. You know, but that was like 20 plus years ago. It's tired. It's corporate. You know, it doesn't stand out. It's not relevant. It's not premium. It's got way more ingredients than you want to have even though it's organic. And so we're just looking at this. And like these guys are dominating the door. And every other package in the space feels pretty, pretty corporate, not really, you know, fun and personable. We had multiple good directions. Some were safer than others. And then eventually we all kind of locked down to this direction. I was like, this ridiculous, you know, two guys in this trench coat with fries as hair. And I'm like, for some reason, I'm like, I think this is gonna work. You know, like this is just fun. It's different. And if you look at this in this freezer door of corporate brands, there is no way that you don't look at this and at least pick up the bag and check it out. And sometimes that's half the battles just getting people to see you. Of course, you got to have a product that delivers. There are certain categories in my mind that are more difficult than others when it comes to unit economics. What's something that a lot of early stage brands get wrong about unit economics? And is there a way for them to rethink that concept to maybe do better a little bit earlier? Well, that's one of the most challenging things, right? When you're early, you're going to be inefficient. That's just the way it is. You're going to have lower emo cues. You're you're going to be buying pallets, not full-truck loads, you know, like go down the list of reasons why you're inefficient. But, you know, your cogs are going to be higher. So, I think that's where there's a the most immediate fork in the road that you're going to see as a really founder is, okay, do we want to do want to try and scale and drive more volume and drive down cogs? You know, or do we want to maybe charge a bit more and be a little bit more selective while we can and kind of, you know, try to gain some higher gross margin that way. But I would say it's very dependent on the strategy of the brand and the timing. You know, if you're in a really competitive category and there's multiple suitors coming after it and there's other people that are well-funded, you're probably going to have to, if you want to do it, you're going to have to go compete, you know, and and probably match that type of energy that you're up against. But I think if you, if there's nobody else doing what you're doing, you might have a little more time, you know, and you might, like, for example, when we first launched Bajans, it was 1299, you know, that's expensive. First, us, everybody said that it wasn't going to work at that price. I tell you one thing, they were just wrong. It worked. We sold more units than the category leader and our margin was 60 plus percent from day one. Now, today it's 799 at Walmart and it's still got a 60 plus percent margin. So kind of that, to me, that's the best illustration of, you know, economics is you're going to be inefficient in the beginning. So design your price pack accordingly, basically set your pricing strategy in a way that that can work for you. Right? And so if it's, you know, hey, we're, we're not going to launch this until we, you know, we get commitments for two thousand doors and, you know, we've raised three million dollars and we're going to, you know, commit to the 200,000 unit run instead of the 10,000 unit run out of the gate because we believe that this is just going to sell better at 4999 versus 699. We're not really willing to take that risk. We want to go to scale fast. That's fine. I'm, I'm okay with that. If you feel like that's the right strategy, but if you want to, if you're in a position where you, you know, want to take your time and maybe start smaller and build less inventory and, and just kind of step up your, your growth a little bit more to prove it. And that means that you need to set a little higher price so that you can accomplish a margin that is more sustainable. That's also fine. So it, you know, your price pack should be driven by your, by your strategy. So you were just talking about timelines and, you know, certainly those can vary so much from brand to brand. Sometimes I think I saw that groons, of course, just got acquired. They had a very, very short timeline to acquisition, but that certainly isn't the, the most common path for a food or a beverage startup who's looking to scale from, let's say, zero to 10 million in sales. What do you think a realistic timeline looks like? Understanding that it can take longer or shorter, but just for the folks out there who are building their brands and kind of trying to figure out what their runway looks like. Is there a way for you to be able to quantify that in a general sense? Yeah, I'd, I'd peg it right at seven and a half years, you know, amazing. That wasn't general at all. Right. And I think I think if you, if you understand that that's average, you know, it could be longer and it could be less, right? But I think that, that gives you some time horizon that's realistic. And, you know, that's a fair amount of time, right? So that's why I also think, you know, take your time in the beginning. I think is really important. Learn. Learn what's possible for yourself, right? So you're gonna, you need to be able to communicate that to any stakeholder that you're going to enroll in your process, right? To get on board with what your vision is without a doubt. But learn for yourself first is the best advice I can give you. Go see what that organic fallacy looks like. Go see how much customers really like your product. Look in the mirror. Is this working? You know, I had that moment in my life where I, I put that out in the, out in the shelf, it didn't work. And it's like, okay, am I gonna keep doing this? Am I gonna waste, you know, a million more dollars or am I gonna cut it off at 150,000, right? Like that's a decision you need to make. That's real decisions that you need to make. And I, I joke a lot, you know, sarcastically that we need more decelerators in this business than accelerators because it's so expensive to push the wrong thing, right? And but most importantly, if you're a founder, you've got to, you've got to be willing to look yourself in the mirror and say, is this working? Do I, do I have conviction that this is gonna work? Because that's the most important thing. If you're gonna go and bust your ass to make this happen, you better feel like what you've got and what you've put together is, is ready for prime time. You know, otherwise, it's really, it's truly, it's not worth it, you know, or, and I'm not saying it's not worth it for you to do this. I'm saying it's maybe sometimes you go back to the drawing board or maybe this isn't the one and it's maybe the next one, right? But that's the best advice I could give is, is go and, and learn for yourself what's possible with what you have. That certainly takes honesty and vulnerability as a founder to be able to look in the mirror and ask yourself that question and give the right answer and that kind of goes back to some of the qualities and traits that you mentioned looking for in other founders like Jesse and Ben, folks who always want to hear what other people have to stay and I'll always want to be better. You've given us so much great advice for folks who are starting up brands and who will be embarking on a fundraising journey. While I have you sitting here, what's, what's, what are some closing words and some, you know, some advice that we can leave our audience with around fundraising and fundraising strategy? You know, I've been through the fundraising process multiple times on the brand side and now on the fun side. I have to rate, I'm fundraising right now, you know, trying to close our, our supernatural fund one, which is, you know, we're probably 95% of the way there, but it's been a journey for last year. I've been fundraising, right? So I think that's what I tell founders a lot. I'm doing the same thing you're doing right now, right? It's money needs to move into your product and, you know, my venture thesis is my product now. I do this full time. This is all I do. I think I'm good at it, but, you know, other people need to make that determination. What I would say is, and this is the thing that I say that shocks people the most. I love fundraising. Shocking. No, no, I've never heard anybody else say that. I've never heard anyone say that. But I love it. And I think if you love it, you're going to be better at it. And so that's my best advice and my biggest challenge to everybody who's listening to this is if you're fundraising, if you're confident in your products, you're going to have more fun fundraising. So back to that kind of learning and making sure that you've got what you've got. You're really all in and convicted on. But the other thing for me is why I like I love fundraising so much is I get to meet so many cool people that are from all different walks of life, right? That have been successful enough to become accredited investors. And if you don't approach that from a social capital perspective versus just a financial capital perspective, you're really missing the point because you're building relationships with people who can make things happen. Not just with their dollar. And if you build relationships, real relationships with them first don't approach it like you're pitching somebody approach it like you're just genuinely interested in what they've done in their life and share what you're doing in your life and if there's alignment if they see the potential of what you're building they're gonna tell you but you don't need to ask them for anything just go be interested and get to know people and you're expanding your network your network is your net worth right everybody says that but it's absolutely true if you build meaningful relationships with more people and you approach life that way I don't think there's I don't think you need to look at fundraising this a chore I think you look at as an opportunity well if that isn't inviting and inspiring I don't know what is Chris Robb thank you so much for joining us today on the Numbies podcast to talk about supernatural ventures and so many other things it's been such a pleasure to have you here and certainly we appreciate all of the advice and inspiration you've given us today so thank you for joining for everybody else out there thank you for listening to the Numbies podcast and we will see you next time that concludes another episode of the Numbies podcast if you enjoyed the show please leave us a review and follow us on your listening platform of choice you can also watch and listen to past episodes on non-base.com and don't forget to join our non-base Slack it's slackedupbevnet.com for company updates industry networking and community discussions see you next time