Lara Schmosiman (00:11)

Hi everyone, welcome back to coffee number five. My coffee is ready, hot and ready for another great chat. So I, over time, I heard about these three letters, CPG, CPG, CPG, and you know, those words that you end up giving for granted. You kind of know what it is, but you really don’t know what it is. But people keep talking about it. And

 

Finally, one day I said, I need to find out what CPG is. So I went to my friend Google and I asked. And wow, CPG means so much more than what we think that it means. So today I brought you an expert and let’s talk CPG. So welcome, Daniel.

 

Daniel Scharff (00:57)

Hello, thank you for having me.

 

Lara Schmosiman (00:58)

So, so happy to have you here. And so what’s CPG?

 

Daniel Scharff (01:03)

CPG for sure is consumer packaged goods. So it’s the name of this industry that me and most of my friends work in. One that everybody will be familiar with even if they aren’t familiar with the acronym. If you’ve ever walked into a 7-Eleven or a Whole Foods, most of the stuff that you’re looking around and seeing is a consumer packaged good. So anything basically in there that’s not like produce or you know from the deli that isn’t really wrapped.

 

for you to buy and scan at the register. The rest of the stuff is all consumer packaged goods.

 

Lara Schmosiman (01:38)

So

 

this includes beauty products, includes toys, includes everything.

 

Daniel Scharff (01:43)

Yeah, mean,

 

can vary a little bit, but at least the way I look at it primarily would be food, beverage, health, beauty, wellness, supplements, pet products, alcohol, ⁓ a lot of the emerging CBD stuff. Basically anything that is, I would say, more high velocity type products. So like, OK, you could have a toaster, which it is technically packaged.

 

often for a consumer to buy at a store but traditionally the CPG category would look at more high moving product stuff that you might buy over and over again like a bar of soap you need a bunch of times unless you have a

 

Lara Schmosiman (02:22)

and a new

 

trait that loyalty also to the brands.

 

Daniel Scharff (02:25)

Yeah, right, right. yeah, mainly that like higher velocity type stuff, the kind of stuff you’ll find.

 

Lara Schmosiman (02:31)

I have

 

to confess at the beginning I really thought that CPG was just food and beverage and then I started to understand that CPG covers a lot more than that.

 

Daniel Scharff (02:40)

Yeah, I think probably most of us in food and beverage really self identify as CPG. Probably, I mean, but it does cover a lot of other things. But, you know, if you talk to an alcohol founder, they’re like, what industry are you in? They would probably say Bev Alk, like beverage alcohol. You’d like, are you in CPG? Well, yeah, also that, you know, sort of like if you ask somebody from Texas, like.

 

Where are they from? They’re like Texas, whereas a lot of other people might say like the US or something, you know, like people have different identities depending on which category that they’re in. But I would say food and beverage, we identify with CPG very hard because a lot of us will work across different companies in the space as well. ⁓ You know, I think beauty products definitely have their own kind of identity. They would say more, you know, beauty and but you know, the things that unite us in CPG are just the similarities in the business models.

 

Lara Schmosiman (03:09)

Yeah.

 

Daniel Scharff (03:32)

Most of us are pretty focused, I would say, on retail grocery. So it differs in different categories, like in food and beverage, we’re really focused on if you’re creating a better for you product, probably trying to get into Whole Foods at some point and building your brand that way. like higher end natural type stores, maybe eventually getting big enough to get into the Walmarts and the Costco is getting that mass adoption. Right. But these like retail, like a lot of us focus on that. I would say.

 

There are some differences. People who are more focused on beauty might have a lot more options in the e-commerce space.

 

Lara Schmosiman (04:04)

Well,

 

I really think that the differentiation there is in ⁓ how you ship products and to maintain the products and beauty, you can ship it in three, four days. Food, everything. A lot of things need, they are, can go bad.

 

Daniel Scharff (04:21)

Yeah. And if it’s refrigerated or frozen, it adds a lot of cost to the product. ⁓ But, you know, I think it ultimately also just comes back down to margins. So, you know, a beauty product, you might have a little tube of something that costs 80 bucks and it weighs almost nothing. And that then gives you a lot of budget to try to acquire customers online. And as most people know, the cost to acquire customers online, like the marketing costs through things like better, like all of that stuff went up a lot. Yeah.

 

Lara Schmosiman (04:23)

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yes.

 

believe me, I know that.

 

Daniel Scharff (04:50)

So it went up a

 

lot. They made those changes with the operating system about tracking people. so with food and beverage, it doesn’t work out quite so well because the product’s lot heavier and it’s a lower price point. just generally, again, just stereotyping here, generalizations are not always true. In general, food and beverage would be more focused on that grocery volume, like trying to really eventually knock it out of the park. That Kroger.

 

Lara Schmosiman (05:14)

Yeah, but

 

also I think it’s something with the user experience. ⁓ Someone in the food, you want to see how it looks, you want to taste it. It’s like, that’s why you have so many demos in supermarkets and even Costco. Tell me that you didn’t go to Costco and you try a thousand things.

 

Daniel Scharff (05:33)

I loved it. a kid, would go, yeah, I think to some store that was a predecessor to Whole Foods, like, mom, can we go and run around and just eat all the free cheese and bread samples? And yeah, food is a yeah, very much like it really helps when you can just try something instead of just hearing about it. ⁓

 

Lara Schmosiman (05:50)

Yeah, and it’s

 

a lot goes a lot more in your senses because you can see it, you can try it, you can smell it.

 

Daniel Scharff (05:56)

Yeah, it’s funny, you sometimes I ask the buyers for stores, like, how do you actually try a beauty product versus food or beverage? Because I feel really confident about food or beverage. You can look at the ingredients, you can try it, you can know if you would want to buy something like that. You know, often with beauty, a lot of it is about, this have the impact that it’s supposed to? Is this an effective product? And a lot of that stuff requires a routine, right? And you can’t expect.

 

Lara Schmosiman (06:21)

Of

 

course, beauty products you really cannot see if it works in like until three months at least.

 

Daniel Scharff (06:26)

And

 

that’s like, you as a consumer might take a gamble on a product every couple months, like, all right, and now maybe I’ll try this. But imagine you’re the person who’s making those decisions for Whole Foods or, you know, Sephora, wherever, like, you’re not going to just all of a sudden add in 10 new products to your routine every 30 days and try them all and see if they work. It’s impossible to know that. you know, when you talk to buyers who make decisions about what products go on the shelf, it is pretty interesting to hear how they actually will assess it.

 

Lara Schmosiman (06:53)

⁓

 

Daniel Scharff (06:55)

And you know, a lot of it is on the fragrance

 

Lara Schmosiman (06:55)

tell me more

 

Daniel Scharff (06:59)

of a beauty product. you know, so they’ll obviously look at it and see labels, see what the ratings are, if there are any. yeah, they’re like, they they’ll smell the thing. And like, is that like a nice, you know, that matters a lot more than I hear them talk about the importance of that, even for like food and beverage. ⁓

 

Lara Schmosiman (07:15)

And how in food and beverage, how’s the decision of accepting a new product?

 

Daniel Scharff (07:18)

I mean, think,

 

yeah, I mean, I can’t speak for every buyer out there, but I think in general, I mean, you know, they want products that the consumers are looking for and they just taste more than anything. Like the thing has got to taste good. And then hopefully it performs on other things. Like it’s cool.

 

Lara Schmosiman (07:35)

so personal

 

they don’t have at least like a few people trying it

 

Daniel Scharff (07:39)

I I wouldn’t say they have like panels of people tasting stuff. I will say, okay, when you’re a founder for a CPG company, or let’s say you’re just like a expert product developer and taster, you should be able to get to the point where you can taste a product, even if it’s not for you and know if somebody who likes that kind of product would like it. I never got there. I was the CEO for a beverage company. I have a

 

I think a pretty strong palette and I think I’m very good at tasting the, you know, complexity in a beverage and being like, okay, this is actually too watery and I need more body in it here and this aftertaste I don’t like, but ultimately I can only really say if I like it or not. I can’t taste a blueberry flavor and say if somebody who really likes blueberry is gonna like that flavor or like I don’t, I don’t really drink matcha and so I can’t, I just like can’t taste, but.

 

Lara Schmosiman (08:26)

to.

 

Honestly,

 

I don’t think I could be doing that job. It would be so bad. There are some things, actually I was talking today about the beverage, like how anyone likes that? I’m like very judgmental, but people buy it and drink it.

 

Daniel Scharff (08:34)

Hahaha!

 

I don’t know, I’m kind of the same way. I don’t understand how anyone could like this kind of a whatever, know. I mean, just certain things that I personally don’t really drink that much like kombucha or matcha. But there are plenty of people who are super passionate about them and whether that’s a natural thing for people to like, it’s programmed in or maybe it’s an acquired taste or, you know, people really, I don’t know, learn to love it. Who knows?

 

Lara Schmosiman (09:07)

Yeah, long to like it. So let me ask you a question because you started something very special that is called Startup CPG. Tell us a little more about that.

 

Daniel Scharff (09:17)

Yeah, definitely. So startup CPG is the biggest community in the world for the founders of all of those kind of products. And the reason I started it is because eight years ago I was working at one of these CPG companies and I looked around and just saw how hard it is. know, everybody out there is trying to get money from those kind of brands if they’re

 

the person who knows the name of the packaging company that you probably need to talk to, they might be like, okay, give me a retainer and then I’ll tell you the name of that person is like they have to pay for that they pay for everything.

 

Lara Schmosiman (09:48)

I know, I

 

know it’s horrible. I’m a connector. I’m an introduction and I will never occur to me to try someone to have as a client just to give an introduction. Introductions are free.

 

Daniel Scharff (09:59)

Yeah.

 

Yeah. And then, I mean, you need that money, too, because you’re eventually going to have to pay the slotting to get into a big grocery store and pay the distributor fees and all these other things.

 

Lara Schmosiman (10:09)

Okay, okay,

 

okay, hold on, hold on. Let’s talk about that for a minute. Let’s put a pin on that. Keep telling us about Startup CPG because those are all the questions I want to ask.

 

Daniel Scharff (10:19)

Yeah, so it’s very hard. Anyways, that’s the point. so I’ve always been a community builder. Like going back to my very early career days, I would always just take what I was doing and get excited about it and want to build community around it and find other people who wanted to share knowledge. And so I just started building this community and it was always going to be free because I didn’t want to be yet another person charging brands and entrepreneurs who are trying so hard to build this thing. And so

 

You know, fast forward, basically a lot of like after a lot of work and, excuse me, after a lot of work and a lot of, ⁓ you know, growing the team and just a trial and error on different kinds of initiatives. We are now the biggest community in the world for these founders. So we have a online Slack channel with 30,000 people in it. And the coolest thing is, imagine that packaging question. You can basically go in there if you’re a brand and ask any question you want like, Hey, does anyone know.

 

Lara Schmosiman (11:04)

Wow.

 

Daniel Scharff (11:13)

who manufactures this kind of a product that could help me and someone will just give the answer. There’s no like, yeah, hire me or have a call. No, just give the answer. And then they know you’re somebody who actually knows this stuff because we have so many great experts in the community who actually do love to answer those kinds of questions and give help that that’s the community that we have created for all of them. So it is the biggest and free community in the world for all of the founders in that space. But on top of just being a place where I think we can help people with connections and knowledge,

 

We do a lot more. The main thing that they really need is help getting into retail distribution. And so we actually do 100 events a year. And a lot of them are focused on just getting those brands connected to the retailers. want to do like last week, we did an event in Chicago where the brands could come and meet the person who is the quote unquote forager for Whole Foods in the Midwest who

 

is fantastic and she just came to the event and tried every single product there and everyone got to talk to her. There was a huge line of people and that’s kind of the promise of this. It’s called Grocery Run. That’s our national event series where we’re connecting brands with retailers in their local markets and we don’t charge brands thousands of bucks for this. We just like really try to cover event fees and it’s fantastic because so many brands are getting yeses from those buyers and getting on shelf and starting their journey or continuing their ascent.

 

Lara Schmosiman (12:30)

That’s amazing.

 

Daniel Scharff (12:33)

And so.

 

Lara Schmosiman (12:34)

And sometimes

 

founders only think that they need at the beginning is a two cents and they need a validation. The confirmation of what they did, it’s okay. And they, it’s so frustrating to be a founder. And as many days you are like, why did I do this? And so you should sometimes having someone who is in the industry and telling you you’re in the right directions mean everything.

 

Daniel Scharff (12:39)

Yeah.

 

And that might not even always happen, but at least we are just in their corner. We are unapologetic cheerleaders for every early brand, but it also can be an important conversation because you might talk to that Whole Foods buyer and they’re like, hey, you know what? This packaging is not gonna work and here’s why. And they have a lot of insight because they’ve been doing this forever.

 

Lara Schmosiman (13:16)

Well, but

 

at least you get someone is telling you the truth. feel like in this, have, I mean, I’ve seen this a thousand times or more that you have your friends who are either loving it and they’re not going to say something wrong or like they’re not committed, they’re no one to comment. So it’s just in case when they say anything, then you have all these experts who want you to sign a contract with them.

 

Daniel Scharff (13:35)

Yeah. Yes.

 

Lara Schmosiman (13:41)

just to give you their two cents and every expert is going to tell you different two cents.

 

Daniel Scharff (13:47)

Yeah. And I mean, the buyer is not the ultimate like authority in the industry, but they do have a lot of information and you might hear it for if you hear it from two or three buyers, then you really do have to take it seriously. But yeah, it’s very important and they might give you helpful feedback like, hey, if you just change this, then we could look at it like, okay, yeah. And then they like that you can work with them. So we do that. We also like you have a podcast. So I have that in the CPG industry, the podcast that I host is number one ⁓ in the industry. And what we try to do is

 

have guests that can really educate the founders. And so I love to especially have those buyers on there because they do want to hear from like two weeks ago, we had that Total Wine and More buyer, is that’s a national retailer. And it’s so like just for whatever reason, people just don’t know a lot about them and how to get in the stores and what do they look for or what do they want. And I was so excited to get ⁓

 

Lara Schmosiman (14:29)

Yes.

 

⁓

 

that’s amazing. But can we talk for a second what it really takes to get into stores or distribution? Because it doesn’t mean that immediately because you get in stores, you’re going to start getting a lot of money. First of all, getting into retail is an investment.

 

Daniel Scharff (14:56)

Yeah, I mean, yeah, you have to be committed to it as a channel. so because it’s not just about getting the store, but also the distribution to get your product there. And so you kind of have to do both things at once in, let’s say, food and beverage. are kind of two big main broad line distributors who hit a lot of the like natural on higher end conventional grocery stores. So, you know, you can kind of go and pitch directly to those.

 

retail chains, let’s say. like even on our website, we have a list of all of them that are out there. You can get it under founder resources. It’s, all of the grocery stores out there in the country and which distributors they pull from. If you go get a yes from the grocery store and they’re big enough, then they can actually force the distributor to carry you. Alternately, you can try to like get a bunch of little ones to say yes and also be pitching the distributor. The nice thing is once you’re in with a distributor.

 

Lara Schmosiman (15:35)

Mm-hmm.

 

Daniel Scharff (15:43)

then you just go around and figure out who else do they serve and try to pitch those accounts so that you can really leverage this distribution system that you’re in. But I think the main thing to know is it’s a big expensive channel and it has all of the reward if you can scale in it because just that still in this country, EECOM is important and will grow and take share from it. at least especially in food and beverage, 85 to 90 % of the volume is done.

 

through the stores and so you need to be present in the stores to get that volume and it but you’re good. There are going to be a lot of fees and things you need to pay along the way and understand what those are. Yeah.

 

Lara Schmosiman (16:20)

Yeah, let’s talk about those fields. What are those fields?

 

What are the advertising commitments that you have with stores?

 

Daniel Scharff (16:27)

I mean, there are a lot of just overall business fees that you’re going to have. let’s say so like if you sell like if you start with the shelf price, right, let’s say that I have a product that is on shelf for four dollars. Right. ⁓ Now, that’s so that’s the consumer price. But then the retailer isn’t paying that much, right, because they need to make margin on it. So let’s say the retailer, I don’t know, maybe they want like a 33 percent margin on that product.

 

Lara Schmosiman (16:40)

Hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Daniel Scharff (16:55)

So, you know, if that’s the case, maybe they’re paying like, let’s say, you know, 250 or something a little bit more than that, let’s say 260 for the product. And so they’re then making a dollar 40 off that four dollars and then they’re happy they’ve got their margin. But you’re not getting that 260 in your pocket, right? Because there’s also a distributor involved and they need to be paid for their services. And so, you know, depending on the account, like everyone kind of knows that

 

Lara Schmosiman (17:18)

Mm-hmm.

 

Daniel Scharff (17:22)

You know, if you get in with Whole Foods, there’s this sweetheart deal with UNFI where it’s only like an 8 % markup, but it could be for smaller stores as much as 30%. So now that $4 product that’s being sold in stores that the retailer is buying for, say, $2.60, okay, ⁓ maybe the distributor is actually paying you in your pocket like, you $180 or $2 for it then going out and getting it to the stores. So, you know, think about basically getting half then.

 

Lara Schmosiman (17:28)

Mm-hmm.

 

Daniel Scharff (17:49)

of the retail price in your pocket. Plus, there’s other stuff because you you always buy things that are on sale in store and you know, who do you think pays for that? Mainly the brand and you know, there’s product that spoils or you know, gets damaged. You know, you have to pay these things called slotting fees, which is typically if you get into a big account, they there are costs that they actually have like they need to go change all the price tags and you know, they’re taking a chance.

 

Lara Schmosiman (17:58)

Yeah.

 

Daniel Scharff (18:13)

on a new brand and so typically you have to give them like a free case per store of each of the products and that can be a huge expense because think like you might be getting into a thousand stores right in which would be a dream.

 

Lara Schmosiman (18:25)

Yeah, so

 

when you get to a store, it will be very unlikely that you will get in all the stores, right? First, I will do a test.

 

Daniel Scharff (18:33)

Right. Yeah. I mean, you got to work your way

 

1. I mean, you know, let’s say that like in a meaningful way, there are 25 to 30,000 grocery stores in the country. Um, you know, far more in like convenience and drug and stuff, but for grocery, it’s, excuse me, maybe it’s around that number. Like I think, you know, a good number in your first year in market, you might be trying to get into like 500, a thousand, 3000 stores or something like that. And so,

 

like smaller regional chains, might be like, yeah, can I launch in all of your 20 stores? They might say yes, you know, if they really liked your product. If you’re talking to Whole Foods, Safeway, Albertsons, Kroger, they’re not going to give you all. have so many stores. Walmart is not going to give you all of their thousands of stores. Whole Foods, which is about 580, I think they just, you know, they, takes the wild to sell into them. Like their review. They’re like right now, let’s say it’s, you know, we’re in middle of 2025.

 

Lara Schmosiman (19:15)

What do you hope for?

 

Daniel Scharff (19:29)

for my category, I’m like launching a granola business. They might say, hey, we’re gonna review that in February, 2026. And then those products that we like, we’re gonna take on shelf in, know, mid 2026. So you’re like, ⁓ you might be a year out from them even like placing you if they say yes. So it can just, it just can take a long time. And then they might be like, good, one region, cause we don’t know you. And if people are really gonna like this.

 

Lara Schmosiman (19:51)

Yeah. And so,

 

and what happened if you don’t sell? Let’s say you have a new product that the stores take it. They say, we’re going to do X amount of stores. And then they found out it’s not doing so well. So what’s next?

 

Daniel Scharff (20:05)

So

 

I mean, the sad part of that is ultimately maybe you’re not on shelf for much longer, right? Because like the store doesn’t get bigger. They have a finite amount of space. And so when they’re taking you in, they’re kicking someone else out who that has happened to. So it is your responsibility as a brand to figure out how you’re going to make sure it moves. How do you do that? Number one, you have a great product that has great packaging and that performs well. That people are going to want to discover and try and then hopefully buy again, maybe tell their friends about who knows, maybe go viral.

 

Lara Schmosiman (20:15)

Mm-hmm.

 

Daniel Scharff (20:34)

but you know, would say tactically, there are a lot of things that you would do to actually try to get people to try the product. And so some of those I mentioned before, excuse me.

 

Lara Schmosiman (20:45)

Well,

 

let’s go. So when you go into a store, it’s something that I see a lot of people doing demos. Demos also has a cost.

 

Daniel Scharff (20:51)

demos for sure. I love demos. Yeah. So I

 

would think about it this way. Like if you go into a store and someone’s there sampling a product, probably that costs them, let’s say $200 to have somebody in there demoing the product and you’re going to lose money as a brand when that happens because it’s very unlikely that you’re going to actually even sell $200 worth of product. Maybe you can if you’re like higher price point, you know, but ultimately this is an investment and you’re trying to

 

get a lot of people to try it and hopefully convert some of them to frequent customers. And you know, I think one thing that’ll surprise a lot of people. like, okay, take the mayo category. How many Lara jars of mayo, like let’s say the most popular mayo, let’s say a Hellman’s mayo, you know, I don’t know if you, I know if you’re a mayo eater, but like, okay, so you know, Hellman’s mayo, which is, you know, okay. So

 

Lara Schmosiman (21:31)

Okay.

 

Okay. I’m a super male girls. Yes, I do.

 

Daniel Scharff (21:46)

How many of their like the 30 ounces the number one seller ⁓ if you take let’s say like a Walmart, you know, like big like a normal Walmart in a given week. How many jars of that Hellman’s Mayo like the 30 ounce one? Do you think take a guess?

 

Lara Schmosiman (21:59)

⁓ no,

 

I don’t know, I’m really good at number.

 

Daniel Scharff (22:04)

No one no

 

one can guess. No, unless you like know the industry is so hard to guess this number. OK, I would say a lot of people when I asked them that they’re like, I don’t know, like a couple thousand is really not. It actually is very surprising. Even that like top selling product in the category. I don’t know the number, but I’m guessing I’ve seen the number years ago, but it might be OK. So for Helman’s the top seller in that whole category, it might be 80 units per store per week. But.

 

Lara Schmosiman (22:09)

No, but tell me.

 

Really? I would have said a couple of thousand too.

 

Daniel Scharff (22:31)

If you take the, now let’s say like you have Lara’s mayo that you launch, right? And then it’s like a new one. You would.

 

Lara Schmosiman (22:36)

⁓ FF. That would be

 

like one a week.

 

Daniel Scharff (22:40)

Yeah, no, but that would actually that’s right. Like you could launch it and sell one a week because you’re not Hellman’s and no one knows you but one a week you might actually get to stay on shelf, especially if you’re one a week today and then next month you’re at like 1.1, you know, because he did some demos and somebody tried it and then like six months later you’re at 1.2. You know what you have a growing brand because the buyers they don’t expect anybody to immediately sell as well as the leader.

 

Lara Schmosiman (22:57)

I miss it.

 

Well, that’s actually really

 

good news for the brands how they are.

 

Daniel Scharff (23:08)

Yeah, buyers get it. They just they want to see that you are growing brand, you know, that you can bring incremental sales into their category. They know like, is anyone out there like just like, hey, you know what? I’m going to like eat more Hellman’s right now. Probably not. They’re like, maybe they eat it historically, but they’re also open to trying new things or maybe even like, OK, you have this new Mayo brand that launched that was a celebrity backed one. And that’s bringing a lot of new people into the category. And the Mayo buyer likes that because they want to sell more Mayo. And if they’re getting like

 

somebody who typically was buying only prebiotic sodas and they’re like, this influencer has a mayo and they come buy some mayo. That’s a dream for the buyer. So, you you can sell a smaller amount.

 

Lara Schmosiman (23:44)

⁓

 

That’s so fascinating. So, Daniel, before we go, what’s a no-no in the CPG?

 

Daniel Scharff (23:52)

⁓ there are so many no-nos, but… ⁓

 

I mean, I think just like you need to have your packaging checked, make sure you’re not making any ridiculous claims or not falling into any, you know, like ambulance chaser traps, which you can easily do. So I’d say that’s one thing. And then I think also.

 

Lara Schmosiman (24:10)

Yeah.

 

I always

 

say for packaging, mean, I, from the marketing side, look at the rules, talk to an expert, get a few eyes in it. The packaging, of course, needs to be amazing, but less is more. Don’t try to go over complicated in the packaging.

 

Daniel Scharff (24:26)

Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s

 

right. Yeah, I think that and then I mean, think just having a good strategy, like really, okay, how much like be honest about how much money you have or if you’re going to raise money, have a good strategy. Don’t try to tackle everything. Just really think ahead of time about what it is you’re going to try to do, where you’re going to try to grow, save your money for that and use community. You know, if you are in this space, definitely feel free to join Startup CPG. You can do that via our website. Our resources are free for brands. You can go in there and join our Slack channel.

 

Lara Schmosiman (24:55)

I have something to say. Community is so important. I always tell my clients, go and network. I mean, I can introduce you a lot of people in the industry, but you need to make your own community. Talk to your peers. I mean, I’m a marketer. I’m not a brand founder. So go and talk to other brand founders. Learn from their experiences.

 

Daniel Scharff (25:15)

Totally agree. That’s the main thing is because you have, I mean, that’s the whole premise for our community is there everybody out there has tried to do this already. There’s no sense in you trying to figure out like, how do I launch a brand? What do I need to do about packaging when everyone can tell you that already and free you up to just focus on the things that make you uniquely you and that are going to set your brand apart. So yeah.

 

Lara Schmosiman (25:34)

Okay, and I have one more thing that I always say

 

to my clients. If you’re a founder, concentrate on being a founder. Being a founder, the CEO, it’s a lot of work. Don’t try to spend your time doing an Instagram post because A, it’s going to take you four times more than someone who knows how to do it, and probably you’re going to do it wrong. And all the time you didn’t do something else that you need to do to move your brand.

 

Daniel Scharff (25:57)

Yeah, I mean, I don’t know. I talk to people a lot even the early days about like maybe keep your day job so you have money then to pay that Instagram person to go and do the stuff that you’re not that good at.

 

Lara Schmosiman (26:04)

Exactly, exactly.

 

That’s a good one. Right, Daniel. Thank you so much. For you guys, we’re going to put all the notes in the chapter notes, links for the startups GPT, G, P, G, chat GPT. I’m getting my brain a little bit trouble. But we’ll put all the notes in.

 

Daniel Scharff (26:19)

We get that a lot.

 

Lara Schmosiman (26:25)

the chapter notes so you can join the community and you know how to reach out. And thank you so much, Daniel, for being here with us today. And to you guys, I will see you next week with more Coffee Number Five.

 

Daniel Scharff (26:33)

Thank you. All right. Take care, everyone.