The Startup CPG Podcast

03:47 Jessi - Hi, Nicky. Hi, Vir. Welcome to the show today. So excited to have you both here. I would love if you could start us off by each just introducing yourself to us before we dig into our conversation.

03:59 Nicky - Sure. Thanks, Jessi, for having us. My name's Nicky Jackson. I am the founder of RangeMe. Really excited to be here today and tell you more about RangeMe and what we do to help small CPG suppliers. Over to you, Vir.

04:12 Vir - Thanks for having us, Jessi. And it's, it's such an honor to be with Nicky on a podcast. So my name's Vir. I'm one of the founding team members from way back when we first started in Australia and I lead our supply success team. So really focused on, again, helping brands that are on RangeMe get the most success possible.

04:30 Jessi - Amazing. And can you also just kind of briefly describe RangeMe as a platform before we kind of dig into the story?

04:37 Nicky - Yeah, sure. So as Vir said, he was at RangeMe in the very early days and really RangeMe was born out of the pain point of trying to find a solution for small brands to get into the doors of big retailers. What we do is we help streamline the process for retailers to discover new innovative brands through our platform, making it really easy for them to determine if the brands are relevant for their stores and their buying strategy or not. So really, it's a platform that helps streamline an existing process, making it a lot more efficient and using smart technology to bring the right brand to their fingertips.

05:11 Jessi - Awesome. Yeah, I'm super excited to dig into your tips on how to get the most out of the platform and those pieces. But I'm also really curious about the story because I think it's super fascinating, Nicky. You started the platform, like you said, as a way to help emerging brands. So tell us a little bit about your background and what led to starting RangeMe. Like, why did you create it in kind of the early days?

05:33 Nicky - Sure. So my background is in the CPG space. I spent many years working at Kellogg. and pepsi at the big cpg land where you know when you're working in those big head offices you're almost ideating your innovation with buyers at the retailers and you have that red carpet and that existing shelf space and that you've already got that foot in the door and so it is a lot easier for big cpg brands to innovate and get products on shelf. When i was actually on maternity leave with my daughter who had terrible eczema at the time i was on my own path of becoming a small cpg brand i was developing an organic skincare range for kids with eczema called derma baby and when i got to the point of trying to get a foot in the door at the retailers what i quickly discovered that was that when i wasn't in the face or in had a big brand name in front of me It was basically virtually impossible to get a foot in the door. I was trying all the channels imaginable to get the foot in the door. I was sending unsolicited samples to head offices of buyers, trying to spam them on LinkedIn. This is 2014, so LinkedIn was just starting to unearth. I feel like I'm very old now. And, you know, calling head offices and people did have headlines at that time. And really I got absolutely nowhere with my product. could not get in front of any of the retailers. And actually as a small emerging brand, I did consider going through a distributor or an agent, but unfortunately you have to have some kind of traction for them to actually take you on. But also the margin that they expected for me as a small brand, I just couldn't weather that as a small brand. So really had no way in. And I thought to myself, there has to be an easier way for brands and retailers to connect. And back then there really wasn't much technology in the way of CPG or in the retail landscape. There was technology emerging in all other facets of our life. I think Instagram was starting to unearth and a lot of platforms are starting to be born, but in the world of B2B CPG, there was nothing there to help the retailers and suppliers connect. So I basically parked the Dermababy project and decided to launch an MVP to help See if there was a man for connecting retailers and suppliers and quickly started to board a lot of big name retailers and small emerging brands and what i quickly discovered is that for retailers i wanted to find innovation from smaller players but they didn't have a way of doing that aside from going to a trade show which as we know is you know really silent into which brands are showing their products there And they also had no way to manage all these new suppliers that were trying to ankle bite and get a foot in the door. So really, Range Me was seen as a great solution on both sides and gave a level playing field on both sides. So if you think about a brand, they didn't have to be represented, they didn't have to be a certain name. They literally were going by the credentials of what they were in the platform to help connect them to the right buyers. So, you know, launched the platform quite scrappy in the beginning and quickly discovered that there was something there and there definitely was a real need and a real pain point on both sides and then started to expand from there. As Bia said, we first launched in Australia and he was one of the founding team members in the Australian market way back when. And then we saw basically that in the U S market, which is one of the biggest CPG markets in the world, that there was no solution for retailers and brands and quickly moved over to the U S only 18 months from launching in Australia to help expand it into America. So that's kind of the founding story. So I really do resonate with small CPG brands because I understand I've been there before. I know how hard it is to get a foot in the door retail and everything we've done in the platform. everything we've built over the years is to really help these brands get discovered. And I think that I speak on behalf of the whole team that nothing gets us more excited than hearing about these awesome brands hitting the shelves because of the power of the platform. And that really shows to us that the platform works and also proves to us that you don't need to be a certain, you don't need to be represented or be a certain someone in order to get a foot in the door. It really is a level playing field. It's based on how innovative your product is and how much it meets the needs of a buyer that's looking for your your product. And as we all know, every buyer has got a different strategy and a different focus and looking for something different. So that's what's really exciting about the platform is seeing these awesome, innovative brands have a chance to get a foot in the door at retail.

09:33 Jessi - Yeah, that's amazing. And I would think for retailers too, because at least I use the platform on the brand side you know a few years back and I loved how basically you could just kind of upload all your information and check off everything because I assume then as a retailer like you're not having to then have people submit that information to you individually or keep asking like hey can you send me this image or can you send me this about the product like it's all in one place.

09:59 Nicky - Absolutely, that was one of the biggest pain points we researched in the beginning is that buyers were getting information for suppliers in all different formats, huge PowerPoint presentations, attachments, unsolicited samples, and quite often the supplier didn't really know what the buyer needed to see. So RangeMe is a collaboration of years and years of research to understand what are the key nuggets of information the retailer needs to see. And what we do is we organize it in a beautiful format. So it makes it much more streamlined and much simpler for the retailer. And quite frankly, buyers don't have the time to open an email, look at an attachment. It just is too time consuming. So we really helped streamline that to give them their time back, but also to make sure that these awesome innovative brands don't slip through the cracks.

10:40 Jessi - Yeah, yeah, that's so interesting. Do you have current, you know, numbers on like how many retailers are on the platform or even how many brands like I'm curious what it's kind of scaled to at this point.

10:50 Vir - Yeah, I can, I can take that one on. So, you know, we've gone up to over 15,000 different buyers from various retail chains and that's the national major chains that Nicky talked about. We've also got large regionals and examples would be people like Hy-Vee and Wegmans all the way down to independents. We also expand outside traditional retail. So someone like United Airlines is using us. We've got a campaign going on with them right now. Because anyone that carries a packaged CPG product, we're happy for them to use the platform for discovery. And on the other side, because of those partnerships, we've grown to have over 150,000 brands on the platform. But back to Nicky's point of the origin story, 85% of the brands are in that truly emerging space where they're in their zero to five year runway in CPG and in the market in general.

11:41 Jessi - Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. As a retailer, like if you're logging into the platform, what does it look like to use the platform? Because there's so many brands at this point, which is incredible. How does it kind of help niche down into their area? Do they use it? Do they review it at different times for their category reviews? Like how does it kind of fit into the retailer schedule at this point to make Range Me part of their life?

12:02 Nicky - So RangeMe really is embedded into the process of the retailers that we work with. So I've recently been launching over in the UK and just by way of example, when a buyer goes through a category review process, RangeMe is actually listed as part of that process when it comes to discovery for innovative brands. So we really have embedded ourselves into the workflow of the retailers. And so when it comes to a category review, we all know that they're looking at what brands they have currently, what gaps they have. And so RangeMe is a place where they go to discover the gaps in the innovation that they need to uplift and reinvigorate their categories. So really, because we manage all the inbounds of all the supplies that want to get put in the door, they can use RangeMe to look at all the supplies that have submitted to them directly, but also have access to our huge marketplace to look at all innovative brands to see which ones meet their credentials and when it comes down to filtering and finding the right ones they can put any filters they want to know whether they want to find a product with a certain certification a certain price point a certain ingredient they can really filter and hone down on the products that are meeting their needs and their credentials so we really make it simple for them so that's part of the category buying process. And then they can also discover 365. So because we have that way of managing their inbounds all year round, what we do find is that buyers, as a key part of their role, a key part of a buyer's role is to go to a competitor's store and see what's on the shelf, look at innovation, go overseas traveling to see what's trending. And so they can actually do that right from their desktop in range meat. So they can see products where they're currently sold. Are they at their competitors? Are they not? They can look at, we have trending collections within the platform. So they can look at if, you know, Keto is trending, they can look at a whole trending collection based on Keto based products. So we really help them keep up to date with innovation all year round, which is a key part of what they need to be doing just from their desktop. Vera, I don't know if there's anything else you want to add.

13:57 Vir - Yeah, I wanted to add one more point, which was, you know, talking about the visualization of what buyers see when they first log on and going back to Nicky's origin story. Think of the buyer grid similar to Instagram, where each tile is a brand. And what's really powerful about the platform is the size of the tile is exactly the same, whether you're a $1,000 a year brand. or a hundred million dollar a year brand. And so that's really goes back to what, when Nicky said, we made this so emerging brands had the same equal level playing field. When the buyer logs on, they see the same size, regardless of how big or small you are, but then that's where your attributes really shine. So that gives you an idea of why you get the same chances as a tiny emerging startup as the massive CPGs do as well.

14:44 Jessi - Yeah, that's super interesting and really a really helpful visual to imagine.

14:48 Nicky - And actually, one of the things we always say to buyers is if you can use social media and if you can search online, you can use Rangeman. Really, for the buyers, it was designed to be really easy for them to use filters just like online shopping. and connect directly with the suppliers, just like you would on LinkedIn, connect to someone on LinkedIn if you're looking for a job or you want to make a business connection. So we really pride ourselves on making it really user-friendly and easy to use so that the buyers have a great experience. And of course, the suppliers too.

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16:59 Vir - My favorite question. So I'm going to beat Nicky to answer this one. You know, the first piece for me is level setting on what the platform can do for you and what it's useful for. And it truly is about product discovery. So when you think about product discovery, for you to be discovered, you need to put your best foot forward. And that means when you're setting up your profile, put the highest quality images possible, remembering along each step of the way that this is a B2B platform for category buyers. And it could be very different in branding to your direct-to-consumer website. So buyers like to see in your image the packaging and the product he wrote. They love to see call-outs around attributes that are important to you, and therefore would be important to them and the consumers. And finally, having high quality images. You know, when you go onto Amazon and you're looking at products as a consumer, if one page is set up better than the other, and they're both similar types of products, you're most always going to the other one, the ones that set up better. So similar concept here, that's the key piece of it. The other part is treating it like LinkedIn, where the more you use it, the more you get out of it. If you're active and logging in every week, if you get into a new store and you go in and update that on your profile, really sets you apart. Whereas we've got examples, obviously, of people that have set up a profile five years ago, have logged in maybe once in six months, and then are kind of surprised that they aren't really getting much out of it. So it's being active, making sure it's set up in the strongest way possible. And we do give you help along the way as well. It's free to start. And that's, I think, the biggest piece, again, back to the barrier. We use a LinkedIn model where there's no charge at all to start your free profile. And you can set up your profile in the same way that a premium subscribers would. So all the basic information, it doesn't stop you from getting discovered. Once you've done that, there are lots of different tools that you can then subscribe to. And that's our premium program that we can talk about a little later, but really it comes back to setting it up in the most effective, sharpest way possible and being active in updating it and making sure the information is right on there.

19:08 Jessi - What else can brands like look at and learn from being on the platform? Is there other information they can review and learn from that can help inform their decisions as well?

19:16 Vir - Yeah, there is. So, you know, Nicky mentioned about the category review process. So when buyers are typically looking for new brands, especially with the number of brands that we have on the platform now, they will come to us often and say, here's what I'm looking for for the next couple of weeks. Go and put out an invite for brands to apply. Very similar to the shelfies when you solicit applications for the shelfies. And we do about 500 of those applications. We call them limited time applications a year for different retailers. When you see that, you've got to jump onto each and every single one, because that way, from a buyer's perspective, let's use coffee as an example. There are 6,000 brands on RangeMe and just coffee. But if the buyer goes and puts out an application and 500 apply, the buyer can then go to those 500 that have applied instead of having to scroll through all 6,000. So that's a great way for the buyers, but it's also a great way for the suppliers, because you're showing that you're interested in putting your hand up and being considered, which already gives you a leg up over everyone else.

20:19 Jessi - Right. I'm also curious, because at the time of recording, Expo East is next week, and I'm wondering if you see brands also having success, like using Range Me in tandem with some of the big trade shows like Expo or Fancy Food. Like, how can they get the most out of having Range Me and leveraging that and then the in-person relationships they might form at a trade show?

20:40 Vir - Nicky's really good at this, so I'm going to let her talk about it.

20:43 Nicky - We always say that brands should have multiple touch points to get into retailers. And we do know that the brands that attend Expo are in our platform. And so what we do is we highlight that. So within your range of your profile, you can show buyers which Expos you are attending. And before big trade Expos, we actually communicate out to our buyer community and show them collections of supplies that are attending certain. expo, so they can actually connect with those suppliers, request samples, and actually decide who they want to meet there. So it makes for a much more efficient, I guess, trade show process because there's a lot of brands there and it can be very overwhelming. If you think about the trade show floor, they're walking past and they don't necessarily know, is that product stocked to the competitor? Is it not? What's the price point? What's the USP? What's the key ingredients? And so having that dialogue and that pre-show Information makes it a lot simpler and a lot more effective for them when they actually are attending. Also, for those buyers that can't attend, coming into the platform makes it a lot simpler. Also, at a lot of these trade shows, brands can also identify on their stand that they actually are part of the range of new platforms. The buyers can actually scan QR codes and up comes their profile and they can connect with them straight away.

21:55 Vir - Great to meet the buyers in person. Nothing really replicates an in-person meeting. But what happens after the show for the remaining three months of this year going into next year, the follow-up process is typically much smoother on RangeMe. And we tend to see a spike in activity on our platform after trade shows because buyers can jump in and say, nice to meet you in person. Now I've viewed your RangeMe profile as well. I want to follow up with some samples.

22:21 Jessi - I love that because the follow up after a trade show is so much. So that's super interesting that you see the spike in activity. I'm really curious about how you saw buyer behavior shift and change with the pandemic. I assume that with so many meetings and in-person things getting canceled, that that led to a lot of buyers flocking to your platform. But I'm curious, like how, what has been the long-term shift that you've seen in how they, how they buy, how they learn using the platform?

22:49 Vir - It's been fascinating. So you're absolutely spot on, you know, 2020 comes around and Expo West was the big one and it got canceled, you know, a day before it was supposed to start. And we saw in the immediate aftermath a little bit of a pause because I don't think the entire industry knew what was going on. I mean, the whole world didn't really know what was happening. And very quickly we realized that while buyers were jumping on and we did see a big spike in activity, the buyers themselves were being drawn into so many different places. Their energy and time was being spent in stores more than ever before. People were getting sick, so then the buyers had to be on the store floor instead of the usual operational staff. And what we realized that came out of it was buyers going, I now am more in a time crunch than I've ever been before. But the profit of my category and therefore of my retail banner hasn't changed and needs to keep going. So I'm going to continue to jump in and look for new and innovative items. But instead of browsing for 10 to 15 minutes per item and product on RangeMe, I'm going to put out more of those limited time applications. so that the brands can do the heavy lifting and apply. Each of those applications have additional questions that have to be answered that are not part of the general Range Me profile that you set up. So if you think about that from a buyer's perspective, they at the end of two weeks have a vetted list of people that have answered all their pre-qualifying questions, delivered to them in two clicks, which would have otherwise taken them days and days of browsing on the platform to find. And that's continued to sustain even today. Pre-pandemic, we were doing about 40 to 50 of those limited time applications a year. And now it's spiked up over 10 times that amount. So buyers are saying, we're really busy. The category's crazy. Here's what we're looking for. Here are our minimum requirements. Go and answer the questionnaire and we'll look at all the answers versus just browsing and spending hours on the platform.

24:42 Jessi - Wow, that's super interesting. With so many individual buyers on the platform, are you able to track trends kind of across entire retailers or shifts between like conventional or independent? I'm curious if there's any other trends that you track across like all that buyer information and how they're using the platform. It just seems like there'd be some interesting insights in there.

25:02 Vir - Definitely, definitely. And it's one of the most interesting parts of the platform and our jobs as well is to keep tabs on these trends. Some we can predict, some catch us completely out of the blue. One of the trends that we see around banners is with independents, they're really struggling because they don't necessarily have the ability to have the kind of margins that the larger chains can push the brands to. So for them, product differentiation becomes the biggest way they can compete. If I can get the same type of brands at my local deli that I can find at Walgreens and CVS, 99% of the time I'm gonna get a cheaper price or a more cost-effective price at Walgreens and CVS, so I would go there. So the independent has to have a totally different type of product offering that would reel me in as a customer. And that's been a big change and it's interesting to see. On the national chain side, we've seen them get more hyperlocal. I think the pandemic and empty shelves and the supply chain issues really showed them that if they're a California, I'll use Lazy Acres just because I love it. And I go to Lazy Acres all the time here in LA. If I'm Lazy Acres and I'm expanding my coffee set, I'm probably going to start with California and then West Coast coffee brands. before I take a chance on someone in New York, because again, nine out of 10 times, I'm going to have less issues with supply chain and deliverability if I go hyper local versus going across the country or even internationally.

26:30 Jessi - Yeah. Wow. Oh, that's that's super interesting. Do you have any examples of any either specific brands or just, you don't, you don't have to mention their name, but just like a trajectory of a brand that's used Range Me really successfully and used it to get into certain retailers. Like I'd love to hear, you know, a couple success stories if you have them.

26:48 Vir - I have a lot of them and I love talking about them too. Machu Picchu is a great example. It's hitting all the right trends in the industry right now. Everyone likes energy drinks, but the challenge with a lot of energy drinks was there's a lot of them with tons of nasties. And so coming out with something that's all organic, that has zero sugar, really hit the right kind of customer sentiment. And it's been great to see the different types of retailers that have picked up Machu Picchu. And again, the way we talk about pickup is initially reaching out to have that conversation. That conversation could end up with you being on shelf today, six months from now or two years from now, but that discovery has to start on the platform. There's also been the non-traditional expansion that they've had. So, you know, we do a lot of work with Canteen and Canteen distributes to a lot of different offices. So Canteen was able to find them, have a conversation, and now the Netflix office carries Machu Picchu. So that is a non-traditional that you wouldn't have otherwise thought of. That's one of my favorite examples. Another one is Maza, which is also a great startup CPG community brand. Maza makes great chutneys and condiments, and they applied to one of the Kroger applications, which is the GoFresh local discovery campaign that they do with us. Again, it was a long process. Larger chains just take more time. They're not going to decide tomorrow if they see you today. And we were very happy and jumping with joy a few months ago when we heard that they'd been picked up with Kroger. They're going to hit shelf soon. So those are two that come to mind immediately.

28:22 Nicky - That's one of my favorites. I remember interviewing her and she was pregnant, heavily pregnant and went to Kroger and Kroger was the first buyer she's ever met. Like she'd only, she'd come from farmer market. So it was like such an awesome, like homegrown CPG success story. And to think that she got into Kroger from being at a farmer market, it's just incredible. Yeah.

28:43 Jessi - That's amazing. I love that. And I love hearing about the kind of the food service and these other channels that are on the platform. You mentioned airlines, you mentioned canteen, we've been having more kind of food service related content on the show. And so it's exciting to hear that if you're interested beyond independent and national retailers, there's other buyers you can connect with another channels.

29:04 Nicky - Yeah, it's just a great way to also sample there. Like if you think about getting your brand out there to a wider audience, be able to distribute through airlines, like, isn't that incredible? You get, you know, you get to touch so many consumers and you get paid people, but you know, airline buys your product. I think it's an awesome opportunity for small brands. Go there.

29:22 Vir - It's also a good piece, I think, for brands in general, Jessi, with thinking about what's important to them. You know, five, six years ago, you'd have conversations with the brand and they were very rigid in their thinking around, I only want to be in Sprouts and I only want to be in Whole Foods. Fast forward today, I think a lot of brands, especially the emerging brands, are starting to think. And for the ones that aren't, I highly encourage them to think of alternate channels as long as the target customer shops there. So an example of that is with inflation and price sensitivity, a lot of shoppers are now going to Walmart, dollar stores, C stores, because the pricing could be a little different to the more upscale gourmet organic chains. They're looking for typically similar types of products though. So if you have the opportunity to, and it works out for you with your numbers, don't shy away from some of those stores because you may do more volume there and get better margins there than you might have in your rigid list of the top 10 retailers you want to be in. So thinking outside the box is really important and being open to non-traditional retailers who may not have been on your list earlier, but might actually be really good fits for you.

30:35 Nicky - And that's, and that's the power of the platform. They get access to all these different retailers. You know, they may come in through a particular retailer thinking, I just want to go big box, but their brand is exposed to all other retailers and there's opportunities that they can pick up, which they wouldn't even know have existed. So I think that's really the power of them being in the platform is to have access to all these different channels and all these different retailers.

30:59 Jessi - Also on the platform within the buyers that you mentioned, like, are there also distributor representatives who are who are browsing the platform from Kahi or UNFI category managers? Or are they also using this for discovery? Because I feel like it was mentioned before the kind of chicken and egg problem of like, you need the retailer, but you need the distributor and who goes first. And so I'm curious how the platform also helps with those distributor relationships.

31:22 Vir - Yeah, very good point. Because of that chicken and egg relationship, we realized years ago that we had to open this up to at least the top distributors in the industry. So when I think of grocery, we're talking about KeHE and UNFI. In terms of food service, we're talking about Cisco and Dot Foods. And then when you think about health and beauty care, you're thinking about McLean and McKesson. So we have them using it too. And because to Nicky's original point about how seamless and easy it is to have a Range Me profile, if you're talking to Whole Foods and they say, this looks interesting, talk to our KeHE rep, you can send the KeHE rep your Range Me profile. And now they've got access to the platform anyway. So it just makes it so much easier instead of having to start the conversation from scratch.

32:06 Jessi - Yeah. Oh, that's super helpful. I'm curious now because there's a new partnership between RangeMe and Startup CPG, which is just an incredible opportunity for our community. So I'm wondering if you can share a little bit about that opportunity. You know, we'll go into how to take advantage of it, but I want I'd love to just hear about what the opportunity is a little bit more about how it works.

32:27 Vir - It's our most exciting partnership to date on the platform, and I've been so excited for it. You know, big shout out to Peter. Before I talk about the partnership itself, he put in a lot of work here. What we realize, especially this year, is that while exposure to retailers is great, and that's what our platform provides, having access to actually meet them is what brands obviously want, but then even more of a finance and budget crunch than ever before. Trade shows traditionally are very expensive. And so what do you do in that case? What we've done with Startup CPG is partner together. So if you subscribe to Range Me Premium as part of the Startup CPG partnership, you also get three guaranteed face-to-face meetings. These meetings happen at one of our eCRM sessions, which we'll obviously talk a little bit about right now. But it means that in addition to all the benefits of premium, which is being seen higher on the buyer dashboards, being able to see which buyers have looked at you. And that goes back to being exposed and having brand awareness growing and looking at trends that buyer behavior shows on range me. So what the margins are that buyers are interested in, in your category, what top certifications are in your category and what pricing varies and what keywords are being searched for. In addition to all of that, that you traditionally got as a premium member, you now get those three guaranteed meetings where you have face-to-face time, which at no additional cost is impossible to replicate anywhere else in the industry.

33:55 Jessi - Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. And yeah, I would love to hear a little bit about ECRM and how ECRM and RangeMirror related and what that means for the face-to-face meetings. Like where did they take place? Cause I believe that there's ECRM shows. And so I would love to learn a little bit more about that.

34:09 Vir - ECRM started in the CPG space 30 years ago. This is a 30 year anniversary actually. And six years ago, acquired Range Me and the brilliant business that Nicky founded. ECRM sessions are all in person now, since we're going back to, you know, past the pandemic challenges of the last couple of years, and they're hyper-focused to the category. So instead of a traditional trade show where you have a booth, but if you're a coffee brand, you could be next to an ice cream brand and you could be next to a pizza brand. At ECRM, it's all based on the subcategory alone. So coffee, tea, and cocoa are part of beverages. And then for three days, buyers and brands get together and have pre-scheduled, pre-vetted meetings. So you're not wondering about a buyer potentially walking past your booth. Before you go to the actual ECRM session, you know what your schedule looks like, you know which buyers you're going to meet with, you know who the buyers are that you're meeting with. And then you have that face-to-face time. They happen all around the country and we'll link in the notes, you know, the different areas that they are. So you have to, as part of this partnership, of course, make your way to the actual ECRM session. And we had one in Chicago a month ago, and it was so great to see three brands that were part of the community that took advantage of this discount and this partnership. Go there. It's a quick flight in and out since you're doing three meetings. have the face-to-face meetings and then leave. Traditionally at the ECRM full session, you'd have 30 to 35 meetings over those two or three days. You're also then interacting with the buyers at the evening cocktail drinks, whether it's alcohol or non-alcoholic. There's usually offsite events like bowling. And so for three days, it's a very intimate meeting of brands and buyers in the category. And it's such a great, opportunity for us to be able to present the startup CPG community with three of those meetings, because they typically come the entire two or three day events or sessions come at a $10,000 to $15,000 price point because of the kind of value you're getting.

36:12 Jessi - Right. Yeah. Oh, that's incredible. I love the idea of just how targeted those meetings are compared to, like you said, other trade shows where it just it can be a little more generic or less, you know, laser focused. So to have that be part of RangeMe Premium is so cool. I'm also wondering if you can kind of walk us through if a brand does onboard, let's say they want to onboard with RangeMe, maybe even starting with the free profile or they're starting right away with the, maybe they're going to upgrade to premium. Like, can you walk us through like what the process will be like for them? Like what kind of information will they be prompted to provide? And we talked a little bit about how to, you know, make their, their profile best in class, but I'm curious about kind of the relational process and what the experience is actually like to onboard.

36:55 Vir - Yeah, you know, when you start off, so there's a couple of different ways that brands find us. We're on about 140 different major retailers' websites. And that goes back to solving the problem for these retailers that Nicky talked about with managing the inbound submissions. So you go to CVS and it says, for potential vendors, create a Range Me account. You go to Albertsons and it says the same thing. Also, Someone like Thrive, who I know is a big supporter of the startup CPG community, on their website, they ask brands to onboard by creating a RangeMe account. When you go to create it, pass the generic username and password, you're going to be asked for basic information around your brand and product. So pricing, which distributors you're carried with or work with, which retail stores you're currently in, the images, any certifications you have, and also the unique selling points. There are then more optional questions like LinkedIn, where you start with the basic profile and then you can enhance it. The more filled out, the better. So I encourage brands to fill out as much information as they can. You know, is it a frozen item? Does it need refrigeration? Are you EDI capable so that if walmart.com wants you, they can see that? Are you interested in private label? which is obviously growing and continues to grow at a rapid pace. There's a total of about 80 data points. You start by filling in about five or 10 bare basic ones, and then you can fill out the rest. Once you've done that, you're discoverable by all the retailers that use us and all the buyers that use us. That's when you can decide whether you want to stay on the free version or take advantage and upgrade to the premium version. Premium costs $1,400 for one year. So about $125 a month, which is not a lot, even for the small emerging brands. But the other big startup CPG benefit and discount is it drops it down to $999. So you save $400 if you're just looking to do premium, but for a few hundred more at $1,200, you could do premium with the three meetings as part of our startup CPG partnership, which to me and to about 200 brands in the last couple of weeks has been a no-brainer.

38:53 Jessi - Yeah, that makes total sense. You mentioned the cost to go to these, you know, really targeted shows or any trade show is so huge that this is just a fraction of that to be really targeted. So that makes sense. And I can see how taking the time to fill out your profile and really maximize all those like 80 plus data points you talk about, it seems like you're going to get the most out of it if you take the time to fill those out. Because like Nicky was mentioning earlier, like buyers really like using the filters to find exactly what they want. If you haven't taken the time to fill out those pieces, you're not going to show up once they start clicking down all those filters. So that seems really critical to spend the right amount of time getting your profile set up with all the right data points.

39:33 Vir - Yeah. And you know, it again goes back to, I think, how do you want to be found and do you want to put yourself in the best position? So a great example is I happened to be at the plant-based expo last week and there are brands that are certified plant-based through the certification with the plant-based food association that haven't put that certification on their profile. I was sitting with the buyer and she said, let's look at all the certified plant-based brands. I want to reach out to someone who requests a sample. And about 60 of them showed up, but we know there's at least another hundred that haven't updated that info. So right away for that buyer, there's no other way for them to know. As far as they're concerned, those 60 now get their time and attention. So it really goes back to making sure it's all set up from scratch. It takes about an hour and a hour and a half when you first set it up. But since it is so amazing in terms of the reach you get, it's well worth the time and investment to have the right information shown to buyers.

40:27 Jessi - Yeah. It's like an online 24-7 accessible salesperson just working for you once you set it up the way that it reminds me of We were just talking about chatbots on the show a couple of weeks ago. Once you set up a chatbot to interact with your customers and answer frequently asked questions, it's a salesperson doing things for you. It seems like your profile is the same thing. It's someone that can meet with and show itself to buyers when you're asleep with all your pertinent information.

40:51 Vir - We should lead with that next time. I think that's the best summary I've ever heard.

40:56 Jessi - I love it. That's great. So how can brands take advantage of the offer? I believe that there's, there's a link that is in some Startup CPG emails. I'll make sure to put it in the show notes. Do they just need to go to that link to take advantage of the offer and they'll be on the right track?

41:11 Vir - It's as easy as that. There's two links. One is if you only want the premium benefits, then you get that $400 discount and you can upgrade at 9.99 for an entire year. Or the second option is if you want those three additional meetings face-to-face with buyers in your category, then for $200 more, you can use that second link. Once you do that, we track it, we get in touch with you to start scheduling those buyer meetings at which session is coming up next year or at the end of this year. And we also onboard you with our premium success team on RangeMe to make sure that you set up properly, your images look great, you've got the right information on there and so that you are set up for the most success.

41:50 Jessi - Yeah, that's awesome. Having the success team be able to look at your profile and give you advice and with all the data that they see and all the brands like that's super valuable. So that's very cool. So I'll put those links in the show notes and so that folks can take advantage of that. Go check it out. I encourage everyone to do that. Is there anything else that you wanted to share or anything else you wanted to add before we wrap up?

42:11 Vir - I wanted to take just one moment to say, you know, what I really love about the Startup CPG community is it's brands coming together despite the challenges that each of them face in their own category and their own business journey and saying, we're here to support each other. Let's do this together. I think five, 10, 15 years ago, that was lacking in the CPG space. I feel like it's more cohesive now than it's ever been before. And I also encourage all service providers in the industry to think the same way. Just like we think of ourselves as, don't just be on Range Me. If you can also engage, again, going back to my point with your local events, do some smaller roadshows if you can, then go into larger trade shows, consider our ECRM sessions. In the same form, I feel like as community allies, we have to come together and say, how do we all help that one goal of connecting brands and buyers more? And that, you know, that's part of what's been the most exciting, again, for me with this particular partnership. I feel like the alignment is absolute on we're all here to help emerging brands in whatever way possible.

43:17 Jessi - Yeah. I love that. I think that's a great, that's a great note to wrap up on. And we're so glad from, you know, on behalf of Startup CPG that RangeMe and your team is part of the community and part of events and that you've created this special offer for our community. I'm really excited to see community members take advantage of it. and add this to their tool belt as part of being in the CPG industry. So it's very exciting. And I really appreciate you both being here today and sharing with us and telling us the story and giving ways for brands to really take advantage of all there is to offer. So, yeah, thank you both so much. Thanks, Jessi.

43:48 Nicky - It's been great to be here.

43:49 Vir - Thanks for having us, Jessi. Really appreciate it.

43:52 Jessi - Thank you for listening in today. I'm so honored you joined me for this conversation, and I love hearing from you all with feedback, suggestions, or if you just want to say hi, at podcast at startupcpg.com, or you can find me on LinkedIn. If you liked this episode, we'd love for you to share it with a friend or colleague, subscribe so you don't miss future episodes, and maybe even leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you aren't yet in our Slack community of founders and experts, we'd love to see you there. You can get the free invite at startupcpg.com and find all our other awesome resources there, like webinars, databases, the blog, the magazine, and virtual and in-person events. And if you found yourself rocking out to our intro and outro music, which I do every single time, make sure to check out the Super Fantastics on Spotify. It's the band of our Startup CPG founder, Daniel Scharf. I'm Jessi Freitag, your host and producer, and on behalf of the whole team at Startup CPG, thank you for being here and see you next week.