Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / GEMS: Landing a Dream Retailer Before Launch with type:A founder Allison Moss

Transcript

GEMS: Landing a Dream Retailer Before Launch with type:A founder Allison Moss · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:09
  I read that you launched into Credo Beauty. And I'm interested to know how far in advance you needed to start working on that partnership and what that actually looks like. How do you land a dream retailer before you even launch? I will say, one of the things that when I said, hey, I have this idea of this product, I'm going to work on it and bring it to market. For me as an entrepreneur, and I think for everybody, it's different. The kind of cumulative experience that I had had professionally gave me a lot of confidence.
• 0:38
  And so I knew there were things that I felt really comfortable saying, Hey, I could at the very least get us off the ground when it comes to some, you know, running in e-com or getting that up and running or some digital media or some, some of the other things I had just done before my life, the product marketing piece. And then I also felt really confident in my network and just knowing who I was going to call already to validate, to give me advice. And I've.
• 1:03
  been so blown away by, you know, how supportive everybody has been. I think, you know, I've just worked with some really amazing people over many years. And I think there's just so much support that you have out there from your colleagues, from your network that you can really leverage. So that from the beginning was a mindset. One of the early people that I called was a former coworker. She was actually on the founding team at Beauty Counter and her whole career is about health, safety, formula, integrity,
• 1:31
  sustainability, all of the things that I wanted to really build into this. And, you know, this was meant to be a healthier, safer, no sacrifice alternative. Right. So I called Mia, Mia Davis, and she is, she started as a consultant and is now a brand advisor for us. She also is now at Credo Beauty. So she was able to facilitate an introduction to the buyer right before launch. Fun story. She was like, Hey, I think you should talk to Credo. They are setting the
• 1:56
  They're doing things just top of the game. They're an amazing partner. Would be great for you to, you know, get in early with them if they like the product. And I was like, I don't know. We're very lean. It's just me. I've got a lot on my plate. And I actually was worried that I was taking on too much complexity. One of my other approaches was just really streamlined in the beginning.
• 2:17
  one scented, one unscented version of the deodorant, no other products. And I'm not sure, like looking back, is that right? Is that wrong? But, you know, reducing complexity was helpful in a number of ways. And so only having one key channel to start, which was D2C, was also. All of that said, of course, I took the meeting with Credo. The buyer loved the product and we decided to launch with that. So we launched on our site and then a few weeks later we launched at Credo.
• 2:41
  And it was one of the best decisions we made just to have the validity out of the gate from someone who's known for clean and known for curating brands and formulas that are exceptional. It really helped. It helped with PR. It helped with awareness. And also, they're just amazing people and we adore them. And we're still, they're still great partners of ours now. So it's all been amazing. That's so nice. I'm sure they're going to love to hear that.
• 3:08
  For anyone who's kind of building a brand with that same idea in mind of like, we're going to launch into a great retailer. How long in advance do you need to be having those conversations? Like what's the timeline?
• 3:20
  Excellent question. So retail timelines can be quite long. And this is, you know, Kate and I leaned a lot on, you know, experiences at L'Oreal and she's worked in other CPG industries before she spent some time in toy. So, you know, it depends on what channel you're going for. So if you're talking to an retail partner, it's a shorter lead time. They can really cut into products at any point. It's
• 3:39
  If you're talking to a retail partner, it depends on the channel, but typically most food, drug, mass, natural, sort of like the larger chains, they have regularly sort of annual or biannual resets and times when they bring new products in. And so you're going to want to talk to them about a year in advance. Wow. So if you were looking, you know, we're having conversations, we have been, and we'll continue to be having conversations for 2022 retail expansion now.
• 4:05
  And some retailers have already made their decisions. Some are making them. Some will continue. The same goes prestige, but the smaller the retailer, the more flexible they are. With Credo at the time, I don't believe they still kind of adhere to a very rigid reset schedule. They own their stores and their store formats are smaller and they have more flexibility. Now they probably have schedules in there, but it's not the, my guess is it's not as regimented as like a Target or Whole Foods.
• 4:34
  Got it. But if you're having to have these conversations a year in advance, does that mean your product is a hundred percent finished or is it kind of like they're buying into the idea and it's like almost finished and like the packaging hasn't been done? Because where I'm getting confused is like, if it's a whole year before launch, but the product is already finished and like maybe you'll have access to, you know, your first order, say three months later or six months later, but then you're wanting to launch, which is a year later. How does that work?
• 5:05
  Right. Or like if you have all the products ready to go and it's a year later, like when you're sitting on it for a year, that would be tough. It really depends on the retail channel and the retailer specifically. So in the example of Credo, you know, we talked to them two months before we launched, they love the product or maybe a few months before we launched. And they don't have these really strict long lead retail schedules. If you wanted to talk to a Whole Foods as a launch partner or, you know, or Target or CVS or another really
• 5:32
  kind of larger scale food, drug, mass channel partner. Those are very kind of regimented. And also truth be told, they're going to want to see some in-market traction. So you're probably not having those conversations precede. There are, I know of brands who have launched first with a partner like that. And so they had to, yes, pitch the idea. But I think that's a situation where you're also actually going to want to be well-capitalized going into it.
• 5:58
  So you're going to have raised a pre-seed round. You're going to be launching sort of, you know, it's a totally different launch plan. Retail is amazing for building awareness. You get that billboard effect on shelf. You know, you don't have to drive the traffic necessarily, but you have to sell through and you have to build brand awareness outside of the retailer to help deliver that sales velocity. And then really importantly, you have to have a good.
• 6:21
  system of calendar of trade promotions. Doesn't always have to be a discount, but involvement in the, whatever the retail, however the retailer engages their shopper to make sure your product's standing out on shelf. So, you know, different channels will require different things and, but all of it, there's a lot of investment and then the pay cycles are tough. Like they're going to pay you, you know, you're going to send them products and then they're going to pay you, you know, a few months later. And so you really need to be capitalized for that if that's your launch plan.
• 6:50
  Yeah, that's really interesting. And I hadn't thought of it like that before.
• 6:58
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 7:23
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• 7:45
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