#173 - The Food Investors: Capital for Emerging CPGs

In this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, Daniel Scharff is joined by a distinguished panel of investors, including Greer Tessler (Founding Partner at Simple Food Ventures), Daniel Faierman (General Partner at Habitat Partners), Carolyn Simmons (Partner at Melitas Ventures), and Andrew Reynolds (Co-Founder & General Partner at RCV Frontline). Together, they provide an in-depth exploration of the current fundraising environment for CPG brands, discussing realistic valuations, funding strategies for pre-seed and seed stages, and the nuances of engaging with angel investors versus institutional funds.

The panel offers expert insights on investor expectations, from gross margin benchmarks to profitability strategies and the critical role of founder resilience. They also examine key industry trends, including the growth of better-for-you products, protein-enriched innovations, and clean-label global cuisines, while highlighting how founders can effectively differentiate themselves through strategic pitches, trust-building, and leveraging professional networks.

They conclude with rapid-fire pitches from emerging brands and real-time feedback from the panel, making it a valuable resource for founders and industry professionals. 

Don’t miss this deep dive into the minds of top CPG investors—tune in now!

Listen in as they share about:

• Fundraising Environment
• Metrics and Margins
• Trends of Interest
• Raising Funds
• Investment Criteria
• Investor Expectations
• Pitching to VCs
• Q&A and Brand Pitches
• How to Approach VCs

Episode Links:

Greer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greer-tessler-50256640/
Daniel LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-faierman/ 

Carolyn Simmons  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolynsimmons/
Andrew Reynolds LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/areynolds720/ 

Don't forget to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify if you enjoyed this episode. For potential sponsorship opportunities or to join the Startup CPG community, visit http://www.startupcpg.com.

Show Links:

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• Episode music by Super Fantastics
  
  

Creators & Guests

Host

Daniel Scharff

Founder/CEO, Startup CPG

What is The Startup CPG Podcast?

The top CPG podcast in the world, highlighting stories from founders, buyer spotlights, highly practical industry insights - all to give you a better chance at success.

Greer Tessler
When I first started investing, it was definitely a founder's market. Valuations for companies doing 100k, whereas $10 million, you know, and investors didn't really have a choice but to accept that because that's what other investors were doing. Valuations have come down significantly, which can be difficult as a founder, but you have to really think about it in the way that you're being more realistic about your potential growth in the company. Do what you're going to do, perform the way that you're expected to perform and then try and go for that higher price. But if you go for that higher price on the jump, you're most likely going to end up having a down round because things don't always go as planned. And, and you want to just be realistic.

00:50
Greer Tessler
And it shows your investors too, that, like, you're not overvaluing yourself, you're not undervaluing yourself, you're just making sure that, like, you get what's going on and you're being efficient with the way that you're managing your capital and what you're expecting and your expectations.

01:05
Daniel Scharff
Shake your money maker. Well, today we're shaking it up with a bunch of money makers. We've got four of the most active food investors. These are VCs actively writing checks for early stage CPGs and they are here today talking to you about how do they find brands? What are the kind of brands and trends that they're most interested in right now? What kind of advice do they have about fundraising and valuations for early stage brands and so much more. I want to thank our panelists today. It's Greer Tesler from Simple Food Ventures, Daniel Fairman from Habitat Partners, Carolyn Simmons from Melitas Ventures, andrew Reynolds from RCV Frontline on a truly epic discussion. And at the end, we even had time for some brand pitches. Listen, and I think you're going to love this one. Hello, everybody. I'm Daniel. I'm the founder of Startup CPG.

01:56
Daniel Scharff
Welcome. And if you're watching us on YouTube, make sure you hit the subscribe button. I am very excited about this particular panel. I had asked Ryan Williams from Fabid in a previous discussion, hey, who are really the VCs that are the most active right now? Because they're the ones I want the community to meet. I feel like I go to a lot of events and they're like, quote unquote VCs who are there, but, you know, it doesn't really seem like they invest that much. But they'll give you a lot of advice. I'M like, no. Who are the ones that are writing checks these days? These are the ones where we really need to focus attention and learn from them and what they're looking at and give the brands a chance to get to know them. So these are they.

02:36
Daniel Scharff
Thank you guys so much for making yourselves accessible to our wonderful community of brands. And so we have a bunch of questions here, but just to get started, I wonder if I could go to each of you and just ask you to start off by first introducing yourself and what you do. So I'm going to start with Andrew and then I'll go Greer and Carolyn's. That's the order on my screen.

02:58
Andrew Reynolds
Sounds good. Startup CPG Universe. Hello, my name is Andrew Reynolds. I'm a partner with RCV Frontline. Me and my partner Jeff Grog started the fund in 2020 to bring some operational support to the early stage companies we invest in. Early stage to us are companies in the 1 to 10 million revenue run rate range. We have about 17 companies in our portfolio based in New York and Battle Creek, actively investing and that's it. Looking forward to answering some questions and hopefully making fundraising that much more easier in this challenging environment.

03:31
Daniel Scharff
All right, andrew, maybe a couple of brands that you guys have invested in recently or that are in your portfolio?

03:37
Andrew Reynolds
Yeah, absolutely. We were actively investing. The most recent brand we invested in was a company out of New York called Witnotic. On the earlier stage going through the portfolio mentioned just a few highlights, Rind lemon, perfect Muddy bites. I'm going to be forgetting a lot here on the spot. Bonafide Provisions, Hoplark to name a few. We have a few others in there obviously.

04:00
Daniel Scharff
All right, I love Whipnotic. That's a great call. Good job, Frontline. All right, okay, so I'm going to come to Greer next.

04:08
Greer Tessler
Hi everybody, I'm Greer Tesler. I am founding partner of Simple Food Ventures, also founded in June of 2020. Thought it'd be a good activity to do in Covid. So we are an early stage CPG fund. We invest in everything from pre revenue to series A, Series B and our special sauce is really helping brands enter and scale through conventional grocery. I have a relationship with Albertsons and so we help brands enter and scale through Albertsons and really bring them into our diligence process. So kind of thinking of us as like the conventional retail experts in the way that we invest with our companies and we look for products that are creating cleaner, better for you versions of grocery staples because obviously shoppers don't really want to change their consumer behavior.

04:57
Greer Tessler
But they want the opportunity to be able to actually eat products that are better for their body and don't have such toxic ingredients in them. So that's what we do. Our investments range anywhere from Boschons, the Japanese barbecue sauce, to Bali Welly Crave Jerky Ourobora as of yesterday and co investor with Daniel on this one, ao, which is a flavored mayo brand that is founded by Molly Baz. We are founding investors in that which everybody should go try it. It launched yesterday. It's amazing. Cure hydration. So just to name a few.

05:35
Daniel Scharff
I love it and I'm enjoying myself an Ourobora Grapefruit Elderflower right now, and I highly recommend it. Okay, great. Thanks, Greer. Okay, Daniel, do you mind, we're just doing a round of intros. If you mind introducing yourself and your firm.

05:49
Daniel Faierman
Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm Daniel Fairman. I'm a partner over at Habitat Partners. Similar to Greer, we invest pre seed to Series A, mostly pre seed. And seed we have invested in now, I want to say about 14 consumer brands. Some of our portfolio companies include MezClub most recently, and AO, as Greer mentioned, also invested in Muddy Bites, one of our portfolios, Happy Wolf Snacks, just launched in Whole Foods last week. So we're excited about that. And yeah, our angle, if you know, if Greer's kind of angle is more of the sales kind of side, our I'd say our angle is more of the marketing side. We were born out of a creative agency called Red Antler. Red Antler was doing some balance sheet Investing from around 2017 to 2020. Had a lot of success with that strategy.

06:34
Daniel Faierman
And ultimately we spun out Habitat Partners as an independent entity that we operate independently.

06:40
Daniel Scharff
All right. Red Antler, for people who don't know it, I think is the firm that everyone would be like. If you have all the money in the world and want the best design possible, you would go to that.

06:49
Daniel Faierman
Well, portfolio companies are treated a little, especially on the. On the price side. So not always.

06:55
Daniel Scharff
Not an arm and a leg. Just an arm. All right.

06:58
Daniel Faierman
That's right.

06:59
Daniel Scharff
All right, great, Carolyn. All right, I'm coming back to you.

07:02
Carolyn Simmons
Thank you. Sorry I cut out there. I was just saying I joined Melitas Ventures about three years ago as a partner at the fund founded originally in 2018 as a $19 million fund. And today we're just now closing on fund three, which will be larger than our fund two, which was 60 million. So we are actively deploying, excited about partnering with Better4U consumer brands, specifically in consumer products. So at our core is better for you food and beverage. And within our portfolio you'll see we have brands ranging from Olipop to Magic Spoon, Lemon, Perfect Rind. Andrew, we have some overlap. Our most recent investment was in Evergreen, which is a better for you frozen waffle brand. And we often lead those investments.

07:56
Carolyn Simmons
So taking really active roles in everything from more strategic to like branding and marketing, to assisting brands in financing processes to you name it. So we're based here in New York and I'm on a team with three other general partners.

08:16
Daniel Scharff
All right, fantastic. So jumping right into it, I'm going to go through the same order with you all, if that's okay. What are you seeing in the current fundraising environment? Advice to brands, like valuations. You think early brands could be asking for overall tips here, Andrew?

08:33
Andrew Reynolds
Yeah, you know, I think as we all kind of experienced in some form, it's a really difficult funding market for sure. What we've seen kind of giving a shout out to Ryan and the Fabbit team. He put out his Q3 report a couple weeks ago and kind of deal volume has been pretty flat through the year with roughly kind of 50 or 52 deals per quarter. The good news in Q3 was the amount of dollars that came in were up. I think he had around 340 million or so into food and beverage. The frustrating News is around 60% of that went to more mature companies in that kind of scale of the emerging brands. So the early stage is still really difficult to get funding. You know, what we're seeing in terms of kind of deal terms, not a lot of prices.

09:18
Andrew Reynolds
Excuse me for one second. Amelia, I'm on a call, sweetie. You gotta talk right now. Sorry about that, guys. My coworkers here. So we're seeing, you know, not a lot of price rounds early on. Everyone's using or a lot are using safes and convertible notes. I think the caps and the valuations on those have come down to kind of more. More realistic numbers or appropriate numbers in past years. But the valuations, if we're seeing a price round, has typically been kind of extensions of previous rounds that they're kind of pulling forward. So that's part of it. And everything's taking longer.

09:56
Andrew Reynolds
The rounds people have been fundraising for so long and you know, we're kind of, we're seeing a lot of the same deals talking to the other funds that we love to work with and discussing deals and trying to get something done for some of the companies.

10:07
Daniel Scharff
Amazing. Okay, Greer.

10:09
Greer Tessler
Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with him. I think that in terms of advice, I mean we're definitely seeing. When I first started investing it was definitely a founder's market. Valuations for companies doing 100k, whereas $10 million, you know, and investors didn't really have a choice but to accept that because that's what other investors were doing at the time. Valuations have come down significantly, which can be difficult as a founder, but you have to really think about it in the way that you're being more realistic about your potential growth in the company. So like also like if you value yourself at a 1 to 2x revenue multiple this time around, it gives you time to get cash in, which is incredibly important and incredibly difficult.

10:56
Greer Tessler
Do what you're going to do, perform the way that you're expected to perform and then try and go for that higher price. But if you don't, if you go for that higher price on the jump, you're most likely going to end up having a down round because things don't always go as planned and you want to just be realistic. And it shows your investors too that like not overvaluing yourself, you're not undervaluing yourself, you're just making sure that like you get what's going on and you're being efficient with the way that you're managing your capital and what you're expecting and your expectations. And from an investor too, like we don't net if valuations are so low.

11:28
Greer Tessler
The bright side is we don't need to see billion dollar exits which we are now seeing, but we don't need to see that, you know, like it can be a hundred million dollars and still be meaningful for all parties. And so that's kind of an exciting almost moment in consumer. I think that's going to really reinvigorate things again.

11:45
Daniel Scharff
Great, thank you. Greer, Daniel, coming to you.

11:48
Daniel Faierman
Yeah, I think both of you guys nailed it. I think to put like a few more specific number ranges on the valuation side so we talk like specifics. I think on the pre seed side for food and beverage we're seeing a range of about three to seven posts, five being like the most common benchmark for like an appropriate valuation if we feel like the concept is pretty strong alongside the founding team. I think with seed it's been anywhere from like 7 to 14. Sometimes it depends on if it's more of a later seed or an early seed and then a is being done really anywhere between like 15 all the way up to 30 again depending on kind of the range of the business.

12:27
Daniel Faierman
What's kind of interesting right now is just like I think to Andrew's point, the bar for pre seed has just never been higher in terms of concept differentiation as like the core factor. I think using AO as an example for Greer and I, it's an example of a product that we really felt like was innovative and disruptive to the Mayo category and really hadn't been kind of done before. And so I think just in terms of like founders who are starting businesses in the pre seed phase, being able to really answer strongly to a core differentiation point, you know, is essential.

13:00
Daniel Faierman
And then I think given that there isn't a ton of data to go off of in the pre seed phase and because profitability has become even more important earlier gross margins alongside founding team is like that second variable that even in the pre seed phase we diligence quite closely. Last for coman contracts as a means of auditing like the cost inputs of actually doing a production run compared to the price that you'll be selling to a retailer distributor. So those are like some of the main things that like I'm thinking about these days with really early stage deals. And then yeah, I think to gross point what's exciting is like it feels to me like valuations are kind of feeling a bit more like aligned to reality and realistic, kind of like expectation wise.

13:38
Daniel Faierman
And so that for me is making my life a lot busier because when I used to be able to say no to a lot of stuff by just scanning valuation, I can't do that as often anymore. And so there's a lot of stuff coming across my desk with real pricing expectations that make me want to dig in further.

13:52
Daniel Scharff
Thanks so much for those numbers, Daniel. Carolyn, coming to you just to elaborate.

13:56
Carolyn Simmons
I guess on what Daniel very well articulated. I would just add, you know, in terms of really pre seed and kind of these early seed deals, a lot of the valuation you may be asking is what is that based on when you don't have any real data to be looking at. So what we as investors are really digging into is first that differentiation piece. So really leaning into and clearly articulating how your product or services quite unique relative to the closest direct competitors that you have in the space is one key component that we look at. Another one would be the market potential based on that. And then on the financial piece, Daniel, you really hit the nail on the head there.

14:42
Carolyn Simmons
We're really also leaning into margins and profitability and if not current profitability it's path to profitability and where we see trades at a premium or the higher end of the range is are businesses that are either clearly on track to achieve a relatively high margin in the category. So as I mentioned, Frozen is a space we recently invested in. You know, that trade happened at a premium for Frozen, which is typically two to three times because of the strength of those margins. And so that's something that we really look at. And then finally I would add we really look to see founder experience and or grit and resilience and potential generally, you know, your vision for the brand and how you plan to grow and ultimately exit it and what that exit potential looks like.

15:36
Carolyn Simmons
And I know that feels a little murky, all of those different factors combined. But in terms of your second question, Daniel, on just advice to give founders, I mentioned those things because every one of the investors that you talk to will be evaluating at least a few of those things. And so the more practice and clear articulation you have of those key points will ultimately I think serve you well in communicating real value.

16:02
Daniel Scharff
Thank you, Carolyn. I wonder if Carolyn or any of you want to give guidance on margins that people should be able to get to. Whether it's in the early stage, don't worry about as much or like, you know, when you get to X amount in revenue, like here's where we kind of want to see you. Any color that you guys can provide or examples.

16:20
Andrew Reynolds
You know, I think for us looking at the early stage, which I think most of the audience on this call is we are not expecting those companies to be profitable yet. So we want to see a while they're unfavorable at that time. A very clear bridge to how you're going to improve that margin. If it's just a simple answer, oh well, volume's going to go up and we're going to have better margins. It doesn't usually work that straight.

16:42
Andrew Reynolds
So really understanding, I think Daniel mentioned it, your co man contracts, you know, are there price breaks break baked in, you know, are there buying bulk some of those items and really understanding what those break points are, where you're going to have more room to play and kind of what your targets are, which should then come back and inform how much you're raising, what those milestones are that you're using, the capital that you're bringing in for those rounds. Now I think the margin varies by category, kind of what you want to see early on. You know, for us, if it's starting out as negative gross margin, we simply will probably say, you know, love what you're doing, but let's connect in a year and see how you are. So minimum for us I think we want to see something certainly north of 15%.

17:23
Greer Tessler
Yeah.

17:23
Andrew Reynolds
At the very least.

17:26
Greer Tessler
Yeah, I totally agree with Andrew and I think that it is very category specific. I mean some categories you can actually really do D2C are easier to ship different, you know, better margins than maybe necessarily in retail. So it'll just really depend when we're looking at it though. You know, for a pre revenue company obviously you're not profitable from the beginning unless I don't know, some companies can manage that but you know, you're not profitable from the jump but it's just a clear path to how you're going to get there and then understanding too like what you're spending on OPEX in the beginning and why and being able to justify those numbers too. So like do you need a coo? Probably because it's one of the more important roles in getting a business off the ground and just going.

18:10
Greer Tessler
But maybe you don't need a CMO or and looking at like where you can cut costs that can affect that margin as well.

18:17
Carolyn Simmons
I would just really quickly add because we're throwing around lots of margin numbers and there are so many different margins and I'm seeing some questions in the chat right now like what is this margin? So there's gross margin, there's contribution margin and then there's obviously EBITDA margin and then net margin, net income margin. So investors, I, at least I can speak from our perspective we look at the all in contribution margin. So net of freight logistics and other product related costs. I often read Dax and see numbers presented as gross margin. We consider all product related costs in that number and we use that too to evaluate things like customer lifetime value because that to us is a clean true number of what your income is. Net of all product related costs.

19:11
Andrew Reynolds
Yeah, and I saw that. Oh sorry Daniel. I was just going to say I saw Tao someone had a question on there referencing the 15%. I said I was talking about gross margin but something in 15 would not get us excited. I'm just saying a kind of a bare minimum of something that you know, we keep reading. So I just wanted, I mean the.

19:28
Daniel Faierman
Golden, the golden number for me has always been 35. That at least for us like it's. If it's not above 35 in this environment we've been unlikely to move forward. Just I mean maybe that's like a pretty high bar and I'm sure I probably get stuff wrong by not looking at those deals. But like taking in freight in, freight out, warehouse and fulfillment. Like, we want to see that at least 35, which I know is high. And that's also kept us away from certain categories like beverage in the past year. Knowing that's like almost impossible to do in the early days, but like in the condiment section, that's actually like, feasible to do in the very early days, which I think is like part of the reason why we're attracted to that space right now.

20:06
Daniel Faierman
And I think from our perspective, like, part of the reason why we're so obsessed with this metric is because, you know, the companies that are able to drop more dollars to the gross profit line essentially need less capital over time. And if a business needs less capital over time, our entry point is going to be less diluted over time, which means that if there is an exit, it's going to be a stronger return for us in the long term.

20:28
Daniel Scharff
How did maybe just one follow up on that one, Daniel? Which is okay if I think about beverage versus, like, condiments, like mayo. So yeah, beverage, higher costs, of course, a lot higher velocity though, on the store. Also, if you compare something like condiments, which would be like, you know, lower price point, lower velocity, do you take that into account when you're thinking about that kind of an opportunity?

20:49
Daniel Faierman
Yeah, I mean, honestly, not. Not really. Because part of my thesis surrounding like innovation in condiments is that it can accelerate like the historical velocity trend that has normally been seen on shelf in that category. I think what I'm more thinking about is like, and I think, you know, Caroline is an Ollipop investor at Melitas as an example. Like, if you compare the soda category to the mayo category, the condiment category, like, soda is such a massive tam that like, even if it requires more capital along the way, you probably feel comfortable underwriting to like a 500 to $700 million exit if it goes well. Whereas like and condiments. If I look at the exit size from like historical M and Also just think of the size of the category, I'm probably only underwriting to like a 200 to like $350 million exit.

21:37
Daniel Faierman
So I guess I think more about like size of exit potential based off the category as opposed to comparing like velocities on shelf.

21:45
Daniel Scharff
Awesome. Okay, thank you. Next question for you all is what products or trends are you most interested in right now, aka like any areas of your portfolio you're really looking to build out, or if there's a brand out there that has this particular thing, they should reach out to you. Andrew, coming back to you.

22:03
Andrew Reynolds
Yeah. We've looked at some of the kind of a common theme is a low sugar and clean ingredient. You know, it's all over the place. But I think it is a powerful one that there are more brands in many different categories that can still benefit from a better product with a simple formula like that. So broadly speaking, that's 1, 2. I'm certainly learning more about kind of the change in opinions on seed oils and how does that play out to the consumer and what's a angle that's going to resonate with in terms of specific brands? You know, this is the perfect thing we're looking for. No looking at a lot of things. You know, sugar reduction has been popular. We've started looking at salt reduction too, and some of that technology, more in the food tech side.

22:44
Andrew Reynolds
But we're still kind of open and looking at all categories and all brands that really have that combination of that founder, that perfect brand and a delicious product.

22:53
Daniel Scharff
Low sugar. Are you looking for lightly sweetened? Are you looking for sugar replacements? Do you have a view on which sweeteners you're okay with, which ones you don't like?

23:02
Andrew Reynolds
Right now we do it certainly firmwide have kind of opinions on that. I think consumer wise, a lot of the sugar alcohols are kind of frowned upon, whether that's appropriate or not. But I think looking at, we want to see the cleaner it can be and kind of the easier to translate to the consumer that this is sugar or something very similar, the better.

23:23
Daniel Scharff
All right, thanks, Greer.

23:24
Andrew Reynolds
And a lot of products need sugar. So we're now looking for no sugar in a lot of cases.

23:28
Daniel Scharff
All right, great. Thank you, Greer.

23:30
Greer Tessler
So, you know, people always ask this question and it's a little bit, I feel like it's just a tricky question to answer because you'll see like at one time there's like 10 popcorn brands that you're going to see within two months and then there's going to be multiple pet food brands. And so it kind of all the trends sort of just come in trunks. We're very interested in the baby food space right now. We see a lot of opportunity there. We think that, you know, as consumers are just more aware of what products on the market do to our bodies and especially like moms are aware of this, they're going to not really trust these mass brands to provide baby food options for their kids.

24:10
Greer Tessler
And so you see, you know, Sarah bellies, Serenity kids really kind of like stepping up and Taking over market share. So that space, we see a lot of opportunity. We're interested in pet, frozen pet specifically. I think that it's still pretty nascent within retail in terms of fresh frozen pet and, you know, like farmers dog control is 2 to 3% of the market share of the dog food space, which in my mind is a. Is small. And so I think that there's just a lot of opportunity within that market. We are actually at the tail end of our first fund and starting to invest in our second fund through our second fund. So we have the opportunity to actually go wide and not worry about being competitive with any of our existing portfolio investments. So we're really open to just categories.

24:55
Greer Tessler
So if you guys have great brands out there, definitely reach out anything that is clean ingredient. We look for companies with large, addressable markets, accessible ingredients, high velocities, you know, great margin profiles. And founders who, like Carolyn was talking about, have the operational experience, or if they don't, they seek it out, but are really, like, willing to understand the mechanics that their brands need to do to be successful.

25:25
Daniel Scharff
All right, Daniel.

25:26
Daniel Faierman
Yeah, I probably mean to take one of Caroline's. So she talked about. Greer talked about baby nutrition. We think that baby nutrition is a little bit more crowded than, like, kids nutrition. And so we've been really focused on the age group, I would say between like 4 to 12. I think with baby, it's an incredibly strong category, But I feel like there's just so many that have emerged, and I feel like there's kind of less that have scaled in that 4 to 12 age group category. So we're super focused on that space. We've already invested in two businesses, one called Happy Love Snacks, and another one called Roxbury. That's a kid's beverage. I mean, I'll leave it at that and kind of give the floor to Caroline. But that is the space that I'm spending a lot of my time on right now.

26:07
Daniel Faierman
And it's more of a portfolio management focus, but just generally it's something we've been super bullish on. As you can see, I have a little baby picture in the background. So I'm a new dad, so I've just been very focused on it as I think Caroline's a newer parent also. And so another area that, like, we've also invested again, and I don't think this is going to be surprising to anyone, is just like protein ification across the grocery store. There's a million different ways in which that's manifesting itself. We invested recently in a protein bar brand called MesClub. But I think, you know, the overlap of protein and desserts is interesting. We think the overlap of protein and kind of the carbohydrate section, whether that's bread or pasta, is still interesting as well.

26:45
Daniel Faierman
So we're constantly kind of learning from consumers how they're using protein and kind of desiring it in unique manners.

26:51
Daniel Scharff
Okay, great coming to you, Carolyn.

26:53
Carolyn Simmons
Great. I would second both of those. And we recently invested in Evergreen, which I mentioned on the toddler kid side, and then also Amara, which is well known for its organic toddler mouths. Both exceptional businesses and both catering to millennial parents looking to provide healthier alternatives for their children and toddlers. I would add ones that have been on our radar for a while are global ethnic foods that are authentic and clean, label and maybe internationally inspired, but still approachable to the American consumer. High protein. And we can see this, as Daniel mentioned, really with the rise of GLP1, there's really a need for holistic high protein, but nutritionally holistic alternatives to those that are no longer getting the nutrients that they need and no longer have necessarily as much appetite.

27:57
Carolyn Simmons
On the other side of that, I've also seen a lot of innovation in the kind of indulgent space. So I'm seeing a real push towards maybe it's more indulgent, I. E. High fat or high sugar, but novel experiences. So we're looking at some in the frozen novelties space and other shelf stable treats, but in some way are kind of cleaner or better for you. Maybe they are date sugar powered, for example. So those are a few that we're looking at.

28:35
Daniel Scharff
All right, amazing comments. Thank you. So, you know, you got, you guys are some of the top VCs out there, but what would you actually recommend to an early brand or yourself if you didn't have all the connections that you have about how to go about growing your business and raising money, would you say, like, hey, side, hustle it as long as you can bootstrap, maybe go to angel investor because they're going to give you a better valuation than I will? Or would you say no, like, we're the right people, try to get us as early as possible because of the help that we're going to give you steering your business. Real talk here. All right, Andrew, coming to you first.

29:09
Andrew Reynolds
I would hold off on the funds until you're a little bit more mature would be some advice. However, that said, you have two panelists here who invest in pre seed, so it's a different perspective than I have. I think if you can bootstrap and the longer you can go without taking on any kind of institutional dollars, the better. Angels, they're out there. You know, we just went through an exercise looking at kind of 30 funds and how many different companies they invested. Angels are a huge part of this community in funding the early stage. So I think they're out there. They are hard as hell to find, but there are more resources now than ever to find it with startup CPG and others where they have great databases that you can kind of check into and kind of at least have a starting point.

29:55
Andrew Reynolds
So I think the longer you can avoid raising outside funds, the better. But yes, you know, if you can lean and stretch those friends and family dollars, do it. What would be my short advice?

30:06
Daniel Scharff
All right, Greer, anything to add?

30:07
Greer Tessler
Yeah, I mean, I guess so. We have made a couple of pre revenue investments. There's been specific reasons why we did it, whether it was the founder and the concept and we kind of sort of incubated a few of them. If that's not the case and you know, you're pre revenue or you're doing, you know, 50 to 100k in revenue, don't go to funds yet. You're not going to get a good response for them in that time. Like go to angels, go to, I always say, to like crowdsourcing like Republic or go funder are great ways where you can get your customers to be your advocates and to be your investors so that they have some skin in the game.

30:48
Greer Tessler
I think that like those ways to really kind of show your proof points and then your next round, once you've actually really kind of proven yourself out, go to those funds and start to have those conversations. Also, don't price yourself too early because you can get in a situation where it's not the price that you wanted and then you get incredibly diluted as you continue to raise money. So.

31:08
Daniel Scharff
All right, Daniel?

31:10
Daniel Faierman
Yeah, I mean, I agree with Greer in a lot of cases, like if you can get, obviously andrew, if you can get some material traction under the belt before you go out to investors, I think that's ideal. I don't think there's anything wrong with starting relationships early on, especially when you're not raising. Like I love, you know, founders reaching out, not looking for money, but wanting just like feedback on a concept before they go out to actually like raise for me is something that I think is like a healthy exercise and a way to like get my attention early. And it's kind of nice because I'm not meeting the founder in the context of like their raise for the first time, which is like a more comfortable way to obviously meet someone generally.

31:46
Daniel Faierman
I think another thing to do is founders want to help founders, of course. And so if you look at the founders in each of our portfolios and if there's some way to get their feedback and attention as well, that's also a really good avenue to us because our founders often want to send us companies that they find interesting and supportive other founders. So I think obviously you can try to reach out directly to funds. But I think one of the best ways to really get in front of a VC if you're having like trouble with just like cold outreach is to go through the founder community who's connected to investors and is already raised from them because, you know, investors obviously have pretty tight relationships with their founders and kind of trust their inbound.

32:28
Daniel Scharff
Okay, great, Carolyn, that's a great point.

32:31
Carolyn Simmons
Daniel, I would just add one other thing. I would say the amount and timing of a raise can also just depend on the category dynamic. So I wouldn't say necessarily that it's best to push off a larger fundraise as long as you can and raise from angels and crowdfunding. If it's a really highly competitive category where stepping on the gas by putting a lot into marketing because that marketing is generating high retention customers, then you should go for it and you should raise. And as Daniel mentioned, starting those conversations early is important. But you know, we've invested in some high, more highly competitive categories where I would say it's a race to the finish line. And a lot of that growth is going to be based on who gets there first. And there's a first mover's advantage.

33:29
Carolyn Simmons
And in those cases, you don't necessarily want to wait and try to self fund as long as possible. Right. That's the benefit of vc. And I'm not necessarily selling vc, but I'm just saying there are situations where you do want to raise and you want to raise quicker than your nearest competitor.

33:48
Daniel Scharff
All right, great responses here, guys. I hope everyone appreciates how awesome this panel is like this. It's hard, you'd be hard pressed to find just such an active group of thoughtful investors out here. And I'm seeing it in the comments and so thank you guys again. This is just really energizing to hear from all of you. Okay, next one. So for brands that are pitching you, what tips do you have for them to get on your radar and to Send you a good message that you're going to, you know, smile and be intrigued at rather than being turned off by Andrew.

34:17
Andrew Reynolds
Yeah, I think two things. One, in person you touched on energy. You know, energy comes across so importantly in a conversation, whether that's at a cocktail thing or a meetup. So kind of bringing the energy, how excited you are around your brand is one thing. Coming into decks kind of for early stage again companies I certainly want to focus on kind of the go to market strategy. How are you expecting to grow your business? Is it multiple channels? Is it one anchor retailer? Like really have that thought through and understand, you know, the trade offs and costs of going through those different channels. I think at the end of the day you have to be where your consumer is. So understanding that, understanding where they're shopping, as much homework as you can have and demonstrate early on is very helpful.

35:03
Andrew Reynolds
And of course like the old adage, know your numbers, know your cogs, know exactly what's going into your product. We touched on it before in terms of how you're going to grow your margin, you know what those important breaks are and how you're going to improve your business. And then team members, you know, are there's a big world of service providers out there. Do you know who you need? Are you planning on building your team internally? Just having good answers in terms of, to demonstrate that you've thought out how this is going to grow. To Caroline's point, you know, if they're raising a lot of money early on, you want them to be experienced and to demonstrate that they know how those dollars are going to be used and how, what results they're going to get out of them.

35:42
Daniel Scharff
Great answer. Thank you.

35:43
Greer Tessler
Okay, Greer, I think that Andrew nailed it. I think also it's important like come with passion like if you're a founder for a business. I personally like drink the Kool Aid very quickly. Like I love falling in love with the founder and their story and like their passion for their company. Because if you can sell to me, you can sell to your customer. And so that's a big part of it. Just like more of a high level look at it knowing too who you're pitching to. So why Simple Food Ventures makes sense as an investor for you. We really like to be more than just a check. So want to understand if you fit into who we are and what makes sense from that standpoint.

36:26
Greer Tessler
Know your numbers for sure and understand like why you're the right person to run the business and if you are where your Weaknesses are, but also like what you're going to do to kind of like counteract those. So thinking about questions that I might ask before I ask them.

36:42
Daniel Scharff
All right. I love it. And hopefully everyone here has the passion. Okay. Daniel?

36:48
Daniel Faierman
Yeah. I mean I think there's so many good points that have already been said. I think I talked a little bit about like one of the best ways to get to investors in the first place is through another third party that like the investor trusts as opposed to like cold outreaching, which like a great cold outreach. Email can work, but we're getting so many kind of inbounds all the time. If there's like one trust layer that can like be put in front of us that like, you know, that can obviously increase the conversion rate of us act like responding and kind of seeing it. To be completely honest, I think in terms of like the pitch, like two completely random thoughts that just pop into my head. So like one is being short and punchy.

37:26
Daniel Faierman
If it takes like 25 slides to explain what you're doing, then like I feel like it's probably going to be complex to explain to the consumer like why your proposition will like resonate. So I think a big thing is keeping these short and punchy. Trying to obviously, you know, tell the story about your mandate and what you're selling, but then also following it with just quick punchy data that's quantitative and objective. And then the other thing I'll say is like I've had experiences with founders where they will kind of exaggerate certain accomplishments and stats in the early days. And like we do our homework very like closely on any kind of number or any kind of velocity or any kind of like figures that are put in front of us.

38:08
Daniel Faierman
And so if someone is kind of like, hey, like we're getting into all these national retailers next year and we're going to be in like thousands and thousands of doors. And then we find out that it's like one region of like then we know that there's this exaggeration push that's happening. And when that happens, it makes me feel like I might not be able to trust the founder long term. So I guess just integrity at the forefront of anything you put in front of investors is really important because I will personally check any statement that could make your integrity questionable.

38:39
Carolyn Simmons
Okay, Carolyn, these are all great points I would add on how to get an investors attention. You would be surprised how many pitch decks I see that actually don't clearly articulate what problem they're solving and what the product is and how it's different because we all invest in food and beverage brands. We see hundreds and hundreds of food and beverage brands a year. All of us do. And so when you take a category like the bar category, for example, I really want to understand, very simply, Punchy, as Daniel said, how is this different? What problem is this solving? Why is this going to succeed in a very competitive market? I think if you start with that and the problem you're solving, you'll go a long way. And that would be really my biggest piece of advice.

39:38
Daniel Scharff
And just to follow up a little bit more one of the points, Daniel and I think a few other people touched on this, about getting people to kind of recommend you, what I've heard from VCs is it's kind of a way to have your network do a little bit of the vetting for you, which is nice. Like, if a founder that you respect, it takes time out of their day and a little bit of reputational risk to actually send you a note about another founder, you're probably going to listen closely. Right. So for anyone who's probably sending out a lot of pitches, not getting much back, that might be a good way to invest some of your energy is, well, let me look at their website and see all their portfolio companies. Do I know any of them?

40:13
Daniel Scharff
Could I sell some of those founders on my product the same way I might have EC to get them to champion me with some of their connections? So that could be a good point for everybody.

40:23
Carolyn Simmons
Daniel, on that really quick. In addition to us doing our diligence on you should also do your diligence on us. So you should really ask your founder friends. You know, don't just rely on our references that we give you. Get a sense of what it's like to work with a fund like Mellitus or any of these other amazing funds here on the panel. That's really important too, because ultimately it's a partnership and we're in it for the long haul. So you really want to make sure you have a good relationship.

40:55
Daniel Faierman
Yes. And Daniel, when I found out about Machu Picchu is through Midday Squares. So that's just an example. Like, I'm close to them because I angel invested and then they told me about what you were doing on the T side. So it just shows, like, going through other founders can be like a great avenue.

41:10
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. That's very nice of those guys there.

41:14
Andrew Reynolds
And I think good folk, I think Caroline and Greer just went through this and We've gone on the same side of fundraising and no is unfortunately a huge part of the game. We say no way more than we say yes. And it's really frustrating. But I think keeping that in mind and also execution is one of the best sales tools that I see. If I meet someone, we say no, and a year later they do everything they said they were going to do. That speaks volumes. And we've had situations where we have come back and invested. It just wasn't the right time for a few reasons. So start that relationship early. Get investors on your email update list. Every quarter is a great way to kind of softly build that relationship and trust.

41:53
Greer Tessler
I also think there's two things. If there is a no, ask why. Because sometimes, like, it's, you know, looking at the constructive criticism or just the reason why might help you along the way. And then also ask the investors if they know anyone else that might be more appropriate for the company.

42:11
Daniel Scharff
Awesome. And Carolyn, I just want to ask you specifically, since you mentioned this, if you're talking to one of your friends who's a founder and you're like, oh, you're talking to VCs, well, you should watch out for this. Like, is there something, like there's something specific they should screen on? Like, maybe don't partner with a VC that does this or that doesn't ask you about this or, you know, from their reputation. Is like this any major red flags?

42:33
Carolyn Simmons
I think it would really just be understanding exactly what the expectations are and how that particular VC likes to work. Like, what is the cadence of communication? Like, what is the amount of reporting that is required? Is that VC mostly going to be outreaching to you and asking for things or are you the onus on you to reach out and provide information and ask questions? I would just ask more specifically, like, what is the cadence? What does that VC like to work with?

43:08
Daniel Scharff
I love it. Guys. Thank you. Thank you so much. These questions are incredible and I would be doing a disservice to everybody if when I had one of the greatest panels of active VC investors out there, we didn't get at least a couple brands up here to do a couple quick pitches so we can all learn from it. So for anyone out there, I'm going to ask one more question in a second. But if you want to jump on stage real quick and do literally a 15 second pitch about your brand and then at the end we'll probably get a little bit of feedback from these all stars, you can raise your hand, I'll invite you up, make sure, you're muted when I do that and then I'll call you when it's time to do your pitch.

43:43
Daniel Scharff
And this is just for CPG brands like you make a product that's like, you know, a drink or a beauty product or food. So just for that. But just last question while we're getting some hands up here, which is if people want to not just try to pitch you on LinkedIn or email, but actually like maybe come across you and do that elevator pitch, you know, in first in like what's a good way for people to follow up with you? Is it on LinkedIn or you know, through your website? And secondly, just real quick, what shows will you be at in the next six to 12 months?

44:12
Andrew Reynolds
Andrew, happy to put my email out there. People can contact directly. In terms of shows we do, I do not like LinkedIn. It's. It's a kind of a pain in the butt. So direct is better. In terms of shows, naturally was Expo West. I'll probably be out at Utopia again. The Naturally New York events I'm at pretty frequently and Startup cpg more so in New York now. So those are some of the big ones.

44:38
Daniel Scharff
All right, you said the magic word. Startup cpg. Greer.

44:41
Greer Tessler
Yeah, you guys can email me directly. I think that LinkedIn just. Things get lost. There's a lot of like junk in males that come through LinkedIn. So my email is just my [e-mail] and shows definitely Expo West. I'm not really sure what else necessarily. We're kind of in the midst of a fundraise, so we've been really focused on that. But I'm sure I'll see some startup events and some Naturally New York events as well.

45:10
Daniel Scharff
All right, perfect. Daniel.

45:12
Daniel Faierman
Yeah, direct email is best. I am often slow to respond because it's just me and one other person. But I'm also very active on LinkedIn. So like, if you want to hear more about like the way I'm thinking about the landscape, definitely throw me a follower connection. In terms of events, I'll definitely be at Expo. I might be at an upcoming Bevnet event. Still deciding however. Yeah, I'll see you in LA if you'll be there. All right.

45:36
Daniel Scharff
And Anyone going to BevNet, we have our startup CPG holiday party in LA, December 9th karaoke party hosted by yours truly. So make sure you all sign up for that.

45:46
Carolyn Simmons
Carolyn, someone from the Mellitas team will be at all of the events mentioned, so please join and feel free to say hi. To any one of us. My email is great. I'm also on LinkedIn. It's Carolynllitasventures.com I think that was it.

46:04
Daniel Scharff
All right, perfect. So if you guys are ready for some quick pitches, just quick tip for everybody if you want to. It's great. If you also want to show your product. If you have like a background screen on, it doesn't show if you do this, but if you hold it in front of you, it always does. Just pro tip for everybody. Hold it in front of you. Okay, cool. Nicole, I'm going to come to you first because I can see your product up. So literally, you know, 15 second pitches, guys. And then I'm just going to try to cycle through and then hopefully our panelists can just give some general feedback at the end and call out anything that they thought was super cool. So, Nicole Gordon, go for it.

46:36
Andrew Reynolds
Hi.

46:36
Carolyn Simmons
So I developed Nikki Go Original sauce, which is a soy free alternative to soy sauce made with just three ingredients, mushroom, salt and water. We beat coconut aminos nine out of 10 times in taste blind taste tests and we will be in full production from farm to bottle in the land of mushrooms, Chester County, Pennsylvania beginning in January. Nikigo.com and we will have a range of sauces besides the original, making a whole new food segment.

47:04
Daniel Scharff
Allergy. Perfect. Thank you so much, Susan. I'm coming to you next. And then to Simon.

47:11
Daniel Faierman
Hi, Susan Hartman, co founder of Recoup Beverage.

47:14
Greer Tessler
We are a gut healthy hydration beverage.

47:16
Daniel Faierman
And we're the first beverage brand to be regenerative organic certified. Right now we are in 420 Sprout stores. We're in Wegmans, Erewhon, Jimbo's and we just launched in June.

47:31
Greer Tessler
So kicking off really well.

47:33
Daniel Faierman
There's no added sugar, no stevia, very clean ingredient list and they all have prebiotics, electrolytes and ginger for gut healthy hydration.

47:41
Carolyn Simmons
Thank you.

47:42
Daniel Scharff
All right, Simon. And then to Carolyn after that. Hi there. I'm Simon Solis Cohen, founder of Huxley. Huxley is a superfruit energy drink that offers an all natural healthier alternative that's.

47:54
Carolyn Simmons
Redefining the energy drink category. We have 90 milligrams of plant based caffeine, low sugar and no artificial ingredients.

48:00
Daniel Scharff
And it delivers a balanced boost of energy, hydration and focus. We're only eight months old and we're excited to announce we're launching a Target.

48:07
Carolyn Simmons
Later this week and have incredibly high gross margins.

48:10
Daniel Scharff
All right, Lex, if you're ready, maybe we'll just jump to you. Sure.

48:14
Daniel Faierman
Hi everyone. I'M Lex. I'm the founder of Lexington Bakes. We make luxury brownies and cookies that are 99 to 100% organic, over 40%.

48:23
Daniel Scharff
Fair trade, have no naughty ingredients.

48:25
Daniel Faierman
And we feature radical ingredient transparency on the back, listing not only our ingredient list, but the exact brands, their logos that we source from, which helps us build incredible trust with consumers who have never seen our brand on shelf before. We've been top 10 at Erewhon for the last two years. We bring in 50% of the revenue of really, really powerful brands in our category, but also the protein category. And to Daniel's point earlier, we are exploring adding protein to these. Not to turn it into a protein bar, but more dessert with benefits. So super indulgent. The best dessert you'll ever have with an added bonus of protein.

49:02
Daniel Scharff
Give me one. All right, I'm getting hungry here. All right, Maxi, I'm coming to you next and then to Sarah. Sounds good.

49:12
Carolyn Simmons
Hi, everyone.

49:13
Daniel Scharff
My name is Maxi Heidenblut. I'm the founder of Happy Candy, which.

49:17
Carolyn Simmons
Is a better for you gummy candy with 70% less sugar and no fake sugar. So no alternative sweeteners like stevia Monk fruit allulose, no sugar, alcohol, it's like erythritol.

49:27
Greer Tessler
We simply use less sugar.

49:29
Daniel Scharff
We only use natural flavors and colors and all of our ingredients are non GMO. We launched last month and we're already.

49:37
Greer Tessler
In 30 locations in California, Illinois and.

49:40
Carolyn Simmons
In New York and talking to national retailers.

49:45
Daniel Scharff
All right, Startup cpg, New York community leader. Thank you. Okay, so I'm Sarah. I'm coming to you next.

49:51
Carolyn Simmons
Hi, My. My company is Sarah.

49:54
Greer Tessler
I started this in Mexico almost nine years ago in my kitchen and it's growing a lot. We're now in Walmart, Costco and other retailers in Mexico City and we're trying to open up in the U.S. It's been a hustle try to bootstrap, but we really are looking for investment because.

50:13
Carolyn Simmons
We have really good gross margins and no added oils. The best texture and the best taste and no sugar.

50:21
Daniel Scharff
Thank you. All right, great job. Thank you. Okay, and I'm coming to the PAYOA team now.

50:27
Carolyn Simmons
Hi, we're Payo. We're a deaf and coda family owned business and we focus on making frozen Asian inspired Neapolitan pizzas like our award winning Shelfie Miso eggplant. And our mission is to create job opportunities for our deaf community for those who have little to no training experience, provide job training as well.

50:49
Daniel Scharff
All right, winners of the Shelfie award which you all can apply to starting in February for their miso eggplant. Don't miss it. Okay, cool. Thank you. I've got Vasisht. Sorry if I said that wrong. No, that's right. Vasish Rama Subramanian.

51:04
Greer Tessler
That's my real name.

51:05
Daniel Scharff
I go by Chef V. Originally from India, I came to the States to attend the Culinary Institute of America, which.

51:10
Greer Tessler
I call as the Hogwarts of Cooking School.

51:13
Daniel Scharff
And then after I graduate, worked with Jean Georges Restaurant Group. And after opening restaurants all over the world, U.S. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, I started my own brand called the Flavorsmith.

51:24
Daniel Faierman
And currently we do condiment sauces made.

51:27
Daniel Scharff
With all natural sweeteners like organic maple.

51:32
Greer Tessler
From Vermont and local Tennessee honey, agave and sorghum.

51:38
Daniel Scharff
So currently we are. I started this business eight months ago and I'm ready to the buyers of Sprouts and Walmart, they already have the products and they're going to be making decision very soon. So I'm super excited about the prospects of this five SKUs currently and ready.

51:54
Daniel Faierman
To scale and take it to the next level.

51:56
Daniel Scharff
And I'm getting some attention from potential buyers and VCs, but I'm here. Thank you so much, Daniel, for this panel. It's so much I learned in this so I can get ready when I'm actually in front of VCs. Great job. Okay, Dina, I am coming to you next. And Carolyn, send me a note if your audio is working now.

52:18
Carolyn Simmons
Hi, I'm Dina. I'm with Rind. And we are also a startup CPG Shelfie winner for our aged cheese. This is actually our paprika, but it's our aged vegan cheese. It was the first vegan cheese in the dairy section at the Whole Foods here in New York. We're in seven, going on now, eight locations. We're also found in Erewhon and we also make Veggie Underground, which is the first and only vegan cheese made with real vegetable purees. So we are based in Brooklyn, New York, here, and we are expanding nationally and trying to scale.

52:55
Daniel Scharff
All right, great job. Okay, we've got Aaron.

52:58
Carolyn Simmons
Hey, guys, this is Aaron. I'm with Grillicious. Grillicious makes it more delicious. We are transforming the way people cook in the kitchen, in their backyard, at tailgates, and of course, while camping, Grillicious.

53:12
Daniel Scharff
Are made from 100% all natural flavors.

53:15
Carolyn Simmons
And what you do is you wipe.

53:16
Daniel Scharff
Them down on your favorite cooking surface.

53:18
Greer Tessler
And now that food is infused with.

53:20
Carolyn Simmons
Flavor, as in whatever flavor. So we have five flavors right now. We are Selling online with Walmart, Tractor supply, onboarding with Lowe's. We're in Gelson's in Southern California, and.

53:32
Daniel Scharff
We'Re just trying to blow it up even more. All right, great job, Erin. Okay. Jenna.

53:37
Carolyn Simmons
Hi, I'm Jenna. I'm from Silver Swallow.

53:40
Greer Tessler
It's a bubbly, not boozy, non alcoholic wine alternative.

53:43
Carolyn Simmons
Its differentiators are that it's not made with any added sulfites or preservatives like a lot of non alcoholic alternatives are. So it's attractive to clean eaters like myself and stores like Whole Foods Markets. But more than a product, we're rethinking drinking and helping people like parents who need more energy or menopausal women who need better sleep and more resilience to fill their flutes and feel good.

54:09
Daniel Scharff
All right, awesome. Cheers. Okay, Anna, coming to you.

54:13
Carolyn Simmons
Change the background just in the nick of time. Hi, I'm Anna Ficino. I am the founder of Eat Happy Kitchen. I'm the best selling low carb cookbook author. So I've been the no sugar, no grains lady for about 12 years and yelling into the void, it's finally having its moment. These are my sauces. This is my shelfie award winning puttanesca sauce. Everything is all. Or there it is. Everything's all organic Italian tomatoes, no sugar added. Like I mentioned, I. We have a huge direct to consumer component. We're in about 450 retailers now. We're currently crowdfunding and doing that because I have a cookbook audience and I'm. We're going to be growing very quickly. And Kroger's bringing us into their premium banner. There's about 500 stores. And so, you know, it's, it's an adventure every day. You guys kicked ass at pitching.

54:54
Carolyn Simmons
Thanks for the webinar.

54:56
Daniel Scharff
Okay, I think we got to our last one here, which is Elixir Kombucha.

55:03
Carolyn Simmons
Hey, y'all.

55:04
Daniel Faierman
Corey Wood, co founder of Elixir Kombucha, based in Louisville, Kentucky, ICU nurse for.

55:09
Carolyn Simmons
11 years, went down a gut health.

55:10
Daniel Faierman
Rabbit hole in 2013 when our homebrew Kombucha helped my cousin that has Crohn's disease. So, yeah, we're here 2024. We're in about 400 retailers across the.

55:20
Daniel Scharff
Midwest about to hit capacity at our.

55:23
Daniel Faierman
Current facility, raising funds to expand in the next facility. Let's see, sales velocities at whole foods.

55:29
Daniel Scharff
Or 3x their category, benchmark. Kroger, their 2x their category benchmark. So we're under review for expansion right.

55:37
Daniel Faierman
Now and looking to find the right partner.

55:39
Daniel Scharff
All right. And, hey, I'm really sorry that we couldn't get to everybody. There's still a lot of hands up, but hopefully everybody will take the advice on how to follow up with. I definitely want to make sure we get everyone out of here at the right time, so just to close out here. So I would love to then maybe just ask some of our panelists if they can give a little bit of feedback on some of the pitches that they heard here. I'll start with you, Daniel.

56:02
Daniel Faierman
Yeah, I thought the grill wipes, that was one of the most, like, differentiated ideas I've ever seen. I feel like marinades are, like, obviously of super high interest right now, and, you know, seasoning proteins with, like, unique flavors, obviously something that a lot of people are looking to do. And I thought that was just like, a. A very unique form factor and way of doing that I've never seen before. So in terms of differentiation, I thought that was one of the most differentiated ideas.

56:29
Daniel Scharff
All right, you know what? We might have actually lost everybody at the top of the hour, or maybe somehow I depromoted them because of just a lot of people joining, but we might have just lost them at the top of the hour. Daniel, I wonder if maybe you could just summarize for us any, like, overall thoughts that you have on how those quick pitches are delivered, things that resonated with you, things that you feel like were missing from some of them, how you would recommend to people.

56:55
Daniel Faierman
Yeah, they're super quick. So obviously, there's not a ton I can say. I would say I like when people, like, obviously dropped, like, the objective, tractive traction points that they've already accomplished. Like, that's really helpful, how many stories you're in, like, how you're performing in those stores. Like, I like Lex's point on, like, he's bringing, like, the most dollars in the brownie set, essentially in all of Erewhon. Like, that's, like, really interesting because it's objective and it's. It's quantitative, I think, in terms of, like, the overall pitches for, like, 30 seconds, I thought they were all really well done. And I think everyone did a really nice job, like, at least giving us a comprehensive statement on, like, what their product is and how I would consume it and why they believe, like, it's differentiated and interesting.

57:35
Daniel Faierman
So I think it was very well done.

57:37
Daniel Scharff
Okay, perfect.

57:38
Carolyn Simmons
Carol joined as a panelist.

57:40
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, sorry. Sorry about that.

57:41
Carolyn Simmons
I think I would just add to that I really liked the pitches where I clearly knew what the product was early on and why it was different. The next piece of that is how this becomes big. Why is this a platform brand? What is the vision? I want to know that this is more than just one SKU and one product. I want to hear what your brand represents and what you're going after.

58:08
Daniel Scharff
All right guys, what a panel. Thank you all so much. I honestly, I always love hosting VCs for these panels because it's just always such an intelligent conversation where I learn so much. So thank you and thank you to all the brands for getting up and just giving it a whirl on a quick pitch. Thank you for all of the great questions. I'm sorry we couldn't get to anyone's specific ones, but we had about 200 brands here for this one so it can be hard to dive deep into some of the categories. But we love you all. Thank you so much again to the panelists that we had from Simple Food Ventures, from Habitat Partners, Melitas Ventures and RCV Frontline. And hopefully we will see all of you soon at an in person event. All right, thank you everyone.

58:53
Carolyn Simmons
Thanks.

58:54
Daniel Scharff
See you on the slack.

58:56
Carolyn Simmons
Bye.

58:59
Daniel Scharff
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. You 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@partners tartupcpg.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 super fantastics.com thank you everybody. See you next time. Food.