The Startup CPG Podcast

Lauryn Bodden
Was really kind of a new experience going into Expo. It definitely feels like the industry's kind of like super bowl mixed with summer camp. You're seeing all of your industry friends, you're meeting new people at the same time. It's also you're dealing with a lot of logistics and more operations stuff. And for us, it was a lot of stuff that we hadn't experienced before. And so at one point they lost some of our inventory or they lost some of our booth materials, which you have to understand, like that's going to happen. And so, you know, it's kind of like we're going to brush the sweat off our back and then get back to it.

00:45
Leanne Viola
The way I would describe Expo and my experience there is it's like a marathon that never ends. And were crazy. Like we would wake up soon, early, hit the gym, make breakfast for ourselves, then hit Expo and then get our booth set up and, you know, prepare for the day. And what I loved about it is it was just opportunities to share and talk to as many people as possible. And that's what I was looking forward to the Most.

01:08
Daniel Scharff
Expo West 2025 is officially behind us. Were you there? Did you not go? Do you have fomo? Don't worry. We are here to tell you all about it. On today's episode, I've got our startup CPG editor, Caitlin Bricker. She's going to tell you from a first person perspective, what was the show like? What did she see? What was the innovation there and really what was it like in our section as well, we had a super cool curated set up in the top floor of ACC Level 3. We're going to talk about who came through, what were they looking for and so much more. Also as a huge bonus today we've got two of the standout brands from the show. They're both first time exhibitors. We've got Leanne from Wims and Lauren from Snoods. They absolutely crushed it.

01:46
Daniel Scharff
Some of the real innovation at the show. So you're going to hear directly from them about what was the show like for them as first time exhibitors? Who do they get to talk to? What are their tips for brands that are going to exhibit next year? Thanks a lot to New Hope for setting us up with a really beautiful section. We're so grateful. Can't wait for you all to hear all about it. Here we go. All right, everybody. Today we're joined by Caitlyn Bricker, the amazing new editor who joined us in October. So this was Caitlyn's first expo with us and probably her first one in a while. Caitlin, I was just wondering what were your impressions of the show overall this year? How did it compare to the last time you went? What hit you?

02:26
Caitlin Bricker,
Unbelievable. The last time I went was 2017, so almost 10 years ago. And this show is just so big. I don't think there are words to explain how big this show is. I could feel how much bigger it was compared to 2017. There is just one wall to wall food, beverage, wellness, people. It's crazy. Like the way that I can explain it best is it's like getting on a cruise ship or a boat and then getting off and you're like kind of feeling your sea legs. That's how I feel when I'm back home now after being at Expo west for the week.

03:01
Daniel Scharff
I wish we could go back. It's so much fun. I'm always so sad when it ends. Although I'm also exhausted. I had the best nap on earth on the plane on the way home. One of those just like dead to the earth sleeps where you wake up like, whoa, it was amazing. So, okay, you're a former buyer. What did you see at the show? Anything different from years past? You know, what are you seeing out there when you walk around?

03:24
Caitlin Bricker,
It's a really good question. From my perspective, obviously you have the major brands who are doing it big with huge booths and structures. But something that I noticed this year compared to 2017 was I didn't see a lot of that with smaller brands. And I was actually very happy to see that because I think brands are realizing the value in putting the dollar behind your product versus your presence. Not that having grand booth or a small booth is going to make or break your product. But from me, seeing brands who just may have had a table and a banner behind their table, that impresses me because I want to focus more on your product than your presence.

04:04
Daniel Scharff
Okay, that's pretty interesting because yeah, in our startup CPG dedicated section we have about 30 booths. And the reason we are in the exact location that we're in is because it lets us get the most 5 by 10 booths, which are much more affordable than the 8 by 10 booths. And for early brands, that's our perspective is you need to be at the show. We want you the cheapest price to be at the show and then you make it happen. Like have your booth, great, it looks fine. And then get out in the aisle and get every buyer who's coming by. And also I actually think it's a really Strong signal to a lot of buyers.

04:36
Daniel Scharff
There are buyers and also really interesting media who are hovering around this area where there are just much smaller booths because they're like, no, these are the kind of brands I'm looking for. I'm not looking for those big booth guys. Like they don't need me. I can't be first to market with them. Right.

04:51
Caitlin Bricker,
I mean, I really like seeing the smaller booths personally. Of course, the big booths, it's like visiting an amusement park. But I think the magic is happening at the smaller booths because you're going to find stuff that other buyers probably haven't discovered yet.

05:03
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, I don't really remember the exact numbers, but let's say one of the smaller booths is like 6k and a bigger booth is 10k and a much bigger booth is 20k up to whatever you want to spend. But the costs also really compound because then you get a 8 by 10 or a 10 by 10 and then now you got to fill it. You need to print out more material that you probably won't use again the next year, fill it with more staff, have more people travel out there. So I don't know as an early brand until it would be like weird that you have such a small presence. I really like just getting it ticket to the show, just getting in the doors and having a place to post up.

05:39
Daniel Scharff
I didn't notice any difference in our section between the presence that the 5x10 versus the 8x10s were able to have. So I was really. I love that people are just watching their dollars a lot these days, doing what they need to do. A lot of them I feel like do need to be at that show. There's so much you can make happen. Some of them I think had the best day of their lives the first day and the second day, the first day and second day, best days of their lives, I guess. But it just was, it was really amazing to see that. So I think you are totally right. And I mean, I think that is for me what this year was about a lot. Right.

06:12
Daniel Scharff
I mean, I think, I don't know, I've seen maybe like 20 LinkedIn posts right now from everybody saying that there was no innovation at the show.

06:20
Caitlin Bricker,
I strongly disagree. Strong disagree. And you know what? I did not walk the whole show floor. I think it might be near impossible to do so. But the innovation isn't necessarily happening at the booths where brands are exhibiting. It's happening with the people who are walking the show floor who haven't even launched yet, who are carrying around Samples of a trial product that they want you to try.

06:41
Daniel Scharff
I did see some really amazing early stuff from people who just kind of pulled it out of their backpack, which, I mean, I think that is what's up this year because it's so hard right now to get funding. I had a really fortunate experience this year. I got to be on the Expo west panel keynote with one of my heroes, Dax Shepard. It was so much fun. And the kind of main theme of that panel was around where innovation is and white space and all of that kind of stuff.

07:09
Daniel Scharff
And you know, I was talking about, I think right now the real creativity that you're seeing is actually more about business models because we are seeing entrepreneurs who, despite a very low funding environment, are able to build good businesses and they are figuring out how to keep their job and make this a side hustle as they grow so that they have the money to pay for the things that they're going to need. They're using AI. If you listen to our AI for CPG episode a few podcasts back, it was incredible to hear how people are running, right, like a $2 million business as a solo employee of their company. That never ever happened before. People are using international contractors, which can be a really smart thing to do as you grow.

07:53
Daniel Scharff
You can get contractors in places like the Philippines and Brazil for a small fraction of what they would cost here. And they're really well qualified, great team employees and using financing options also, you know, people are figuring out how to do that out of the gate when they get a big PO or just kind of having it lined up so they don't have to go begging to an investor and taking some kind of crappy terms. Because when you give away that pound of flesh, hopefully you can get a lot more for it later on than you would have to give up for it now. Right, Right.

08:22
Caitlin Bricker,
What a visual you just painted.

08:23
Daniel Scharff
Yes, we're gonna have to do it. I don't know, I sort of wish for everybody that you never actually have to fundraise because everyone that I talk to about it is like, yep, it changes the game.

08:35
Caitlin Bricker,
I never even liked giving people change at a register, nevermind fundraising.

08:39
Daniel Scharff
I mean that's what like starts the hamster wheel. As soon as you give away the first piece, you gotta really get things going. So. Yeah, and I think for me also it's just really interesting. It like, I mean, I kind of wonder what everybody really thinks innovation is. Right. If you looked at the last three, five, seven years, okay, what were the biggest pieces of innovation that we saw. And did you know it was innovation when you saw it? Right? Yeah, I don't know. I think it's like, because they're also just kind of fads every year, right? Everyone, everyone knew it was going to be protein this year, which is kind of interesting to me because I think I also am like, oh, that was kind of lame. Like protein, absolutely everything. But I also did just start eating protein pancakes for breakfast.

09:20
Daniel Scharff
I'm like, well, that sounds good.

09:22
Caitlin Bricker,
There you go.

09:22
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, like, I saw it on the Court of Gold Netflix documentary that half of the French basketball team was doing protein pancakes because they were saying eggs were giving them inflammation. I'm like, whoa, if it's good enough for an international Olympic athlete, probably it'll work for me too. So I've been trying that and I talked to a few people who had something similar to that. Like, yeah, it's lame, but I did. Yeah, I am trying this one. So I guess it's hitting us personally also. Yeah, I mean, but if you look back, like, okay, plant based mushroom, cbd, like all these things that really were like all the rage one year, I don't know, like, were those innovations or those were just clearly fad. So, yeah, like, what is innovation?

09:59
Daniel Scharff
What is the stuff that all of the people who didn't see the innovation this year would have looked back and been like, yes, that year where there was innovation and here's what it was. I would be really interested to hear.

10:09
Caitlin Bricker,
I mean, if you ask me what innovation is, I think it's when people are doing more with less. Figa foods is a perfect example for me. They're using kupuasu, I think is how it's pronounced. But they're making chocolate out of it. So my understanding is that kupuasu is a cousin of chocolate, but they're making chocolate bars with kupuasu, which supposedly hasn't been done before. I tasted it. It's delicious. That is innovative to me. There's not a laundry list of ingredients. I think it was like three or four ingredients. And I was like, wow, that did it for me.

10:43
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, we had a few people like that come by our booth and just show us something that they were working on. That. Yeah, I mean, I think we'll see in a number of years. And also really the question is going to be do they and brands like them figure out how to really get people to know about it and get it known in the market? Right. So the innovation in their business models as well. But I mean, the other thing were talking about on the panel is kind of where does innovation come from? How can you spot the white spaces in the market?

11:07
Caitlin Bricker,
You nailed it with your answer. I was there in the crowd and I literally pulled up my phone and started recording. Cause I was like, I need to have this for later.

11:14
Daniel Scharff
Thank you. She is paid to say that, folks. Thank you. I mean, I know, I thought about it for a while because people do ask us that a lot. Right. We are in a position where we talk tons of brands, we get sent so many products, which is amazing. And everyone always asks us like, hey, what's like the new thing? What are your favorite things that are out there? Where should I launch a new product? And my view of is it's really hard to just look at data or analyze a category and say this is where the white space is. If you do that, you're probably a big company trying to figure out where to put your innovation. And as we know, and I've worked at a big company, a huge CPG like that, they're terrible at innovation.

11:49
Daniel Scharff
They'll like end up launching some just really lazy effort into it where the branding sucks and it just totally misses the mark in terms of why that white space is there or why that particular sector has a lot of momentum. But also as a really early stage entrepreneur, that's very hard to do because if you've done that data analysis and seen something that's emerging, everybody else has seen it too and they're all coming for you. So I just am a much bigger fan of you live your life and you figure out that there's a particular need for a product in your life because you're a runner and this kind of a product would really help you on your runs.

12:24
Daniel Scharff
Or, you know, whether it's product need like that, or you are a surfer and you just really want to create this kind of a product that is just totally for the surfing community, you know, in your own life, in your own backyard, something like that. I think then when you create the brand, you do it so authentically and start to build the marketing in a grassroots way that you'll have so much creativity for days about how to do that the right way. And people know when you are faking the funk, when, you know, I've seen people pitch on stage and it was so clear, which was like the Pei who had just bought the company versus the founder, who it came from, her or his heart.

13:02
Caitlin Bricker,
The latter is always going to win.

13:04
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, I mean, hey, big guys, they can always buy the thing when it gets bigger and they'll probably crush it. But, you know, are they like one way or another? Yeah. That's the way the game is played, folks.

13:14
Caitlin Bricker,
I completely agree with you, Daniel. I mean, you can tell when people are doing it from the heart. And I think people who are finding solutions for problems in their own lives, it becomes so interlaced with who you are as a person that it's almost part of your identity and it would be really hard to give that up. I don't think the same thing can be said for something that's just a trend. Like the three P's right now. Protein, prebiotics, probiotics. Like, is that part of my identity? No, probably not. So I'm not going to like really gravitate towards those products and I'm certainly not going to try to make one of those products myself.

13:47
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, it's so interesting to me. So, okay, before we switch over and have some brands on to talk about their experience of the show, I wonder if you could just tell me, I really want people to know what it's actually like to be in one of our sections at the show. Can you tell me, like, hey, what was going on there for those action packed three days? You know, what were we doing? What was going on? Who was coming through? What did you see?

14:04
Caitlin Bricker,
I mean, what did I not see? I think the most exciting thing for that section though, the buyers are coming to you. They know that you're there. They are sitting down at our booth there for a meeting with them. They are ready. You don't get that experience anywhere else. That is the most valuable thing. And if I were to speak from a buying perspective, oh my God. For you to just hand the brands to me on a silver platter and I get to pick what brands I want to meet with. And there's a timer on the table, so if I'm in. If I'm out. It's just like, it's perfect. The vibes were so high the entire time. I mean, our partners were so cool. They bought everybody lunch. Everybody at Expo knows how hard it is to find actual food on the show floor.

14:48
Caitlin Bricker,
Like, no shade to any of the food brands. But if it's not a salad, like, I don't want to eat it for lunch. It's just different. And we had a pizza party. Like, it's just a very different vibe. Very, very different. In the best way possible. Like, felt like an oasis. Going from the larger floors and the larger brands, then back up to the startup CPG section. Even though I was reporting for duty, it felt good to go back and just be like, I'm home.

15:15
Daniel Scharff
I love it. I really love to hear that. And yeah, we did a lot of work. Maybe I'll just quickly summarize for everyone what we actually did at the show, which is hard to fathom now in retrospect, but yeah, we started out real strong. Tuesday night we had an operations dinner with our sponsor DOS, where we gathered 20 operations leaders who came from brands as well as a lot of the fractional experts in the space and had a really valuable peer share session where we all did our intros but then just really focused on what are the major problems that brands are having right now and having the, a lot of the fractional experts just solve them for them right on the spot. It was really incredible.

15:52
Daniel Scharff
So incredible actually that despite it being the night before Expo started, everyone just locked in and turned their phones off for three hours. It was so lovely. And ops community look for us to be doing a lot more this year because we know, you know, kind of marketing, sales, they get to do a lot more, they're more coming to the trade shows, but we're really focused on you this year. And then the show started Wednesday So we actually so one, I email about 500 buyers the day before the show asking them to start their show in our section. So it's not a coincidence that we are just seeing some incredible early stage buyers coming through the section right at the start. They're coming, they are looking for the brands from our community because they know there is some incredible innovation coming from them.

16:32
Daniel Scharff
And a lot of first timers, they can be the first to get a look at a really incredible brand. And then we also have for about two months ahead of exp, gone through setting up tons of retailer meetings. That means we had about 20 different retailers agree to take meetings at our booth. So we had hundreds of brands applying to meet with them. They would then select which ones they were interested in and then we're holding three to five minute meetings with those timers and it's just like as if there's a chess tournament happening at our booth all the time. Like you know, one one timer time. All right, next. And there are so many distribution deals that are coming because of it.

17:06
Daniel Scharff
And actually those buyers, so many of them said to us afterwards, this was maybe the most valuable hour for me at the show because I just, it was so highly productive. I already knew I liked a lot of those brands and I'M going to take half of them. So our team is there doing all of that, you know, like, it's not glamorous. We're just sitting there like hitting timers and moving people in through lines. But it actually.

17:26
Caitlin Bricker,
One of the guys from Snack Wise called me the Grim reaper at one point and I was like, should I be flattered? I'm going to be flattered. Thank you.

17:35
Daniel Scharff
Yes. We unfortunately have to do the equivalent of playing people off with like the Oscars music, except it's just one loud timer and we're like, wrap it up. Go. You got to go. Next. Next brand. It's one of these things that's like they say about businesses, like do things that don't scale. Is something that doesn't scale for us. We need like four people just coordinating those meetings. But it honestly just is one of the things where you will see the greatest impact for brands. And so we love to do it and we can't wait to see all the deals that happen. And then Wednesday night we had our famous 4th Ann Alley rally party. We had 1100 people. Our title sponsor, Nielsen IQ, thank you so much for making it happen. We had just about. We had a hundred buyers at that event.

18:14
Daniel Scharff
We had backpack brands. And there's a brand that called Cracked who won a free booth at next year's Expo west because they won the Alley rally competition. And we got to tell them in person. It was very fun. And so that was amazing. And then, yeah, just back at it in the section and yeah, those lunch sponsors were incredible. So Hummingbirds and Moss Adams both bought lunch for everybody in our section, which was really fun to go and deliver it like lunch train. You get a real meal. Can you believe it? And then that, yeah, the pizza party with Seattle was super fun. It turned into a Latin dance party as well. You know, like coincidence or I just kind of want every party to be that. Who knows? But I had a good time and yeah, that was super fun.

18:54
Daniel Scharff
Thursday night, our big party. It was the startup CPG family dinner sponsored by Vendo. We had TikTok shop there. Just really great vibes. Friday, closed out the show very strong and then had our fifth slackiversary party back in la. I'm joined by just tons of incredible people. Again sponsored by dos. We had Earth Fair there. We had Bristol Farms. It was really a wonderful celebration of the fifth year of our slack, which is a huge milestone for us. While were also hitting 25,000 members. So. Wow, that was a lot. That was a lot even for me to say all the things that we did, much less do them.

19:29
Caitlin Bricker,
I'm like, thankfully, you could summarize that for everybody because it was just so much.

19:34
Daniel Scharff
So, Caitlyn, as one of the newer members on our team, so what do you think in retrospect, like, when you joined us, did you really understand what you were getting yourself into, all of that work?

19:45
Caitlin Bricker,
No, I did not. It's really fun because I love working in a remote position. But now every time we get together with our team, it's like a reunion, but we're also just busting our asses on the show floor doing whatever we're doing. It's a lot of fun. Like, even though there's not a lot of downtime, like, I'm just surrounded by good people for a week, and we're doing good things, and I'm grateful. It was a really great experience.

20:09
Daniel Scharff
I love it. And I will say, for me, one of the most satisfying things as a business owner is actually just seeing everybody on the team gel so well together and seeing people who are, like, just becoming friends and, you know, really enjoying the work. Because the work that we do supporting brands is a lot about joy. Like, just the joy of helping founders and people trying to do really hard things. And so I think that's how we do it also is just with a lot of passion, enthusiasm, and I love it. Okay, so everybody stay buckled in with us here. We are about to hear from a couple brands who were in the section so that you can live the show vicariously through them.

20:45
Daniel Scharff
And I just really want to thank New Hope for giving us this great section and also for letting me do two panels at the show, including that keynote. That just was a huge highlight for me. I even got to hang with Dax for and his CEO Aaron, for, like, an hour before the show. It's really like getting to hang with one of your heroes and talk to him about CPG because he's launching a non alk beverage, so really wonderful experience. All right, let's hear from these brands. Let's go. Thank you, Caitlin.

21:09
Caitlin Bricker,
Thanks.

21:10
Daniel Scharff
All right, everybody, we are here with two people you're going to love to hear from. We've got Lauren from Snoods and Leanne from Wims. Now, these were two of the standout brands from our section. Every time I looked over at their booths, they were buyers galore. That's what we like to see. There were cameras. There was just amazing bustling activity the whole show. So I just wanted to check in with each of you and have everybody get to hear from you first person perspective, what was it like to be at the show this year, to be demoing? What did you get to actually have happen? So maybe we can just start with a couple of intros. Lauren, I'm going to come to you first. Yeah.

21:46
Lauryn Bodden
So I'm Lauren, founder of Snoods. We are a globally inspired noodle chip company. Gluten free, vegan, kosher, all the good stuff. This was our second year at the show. First year last year, we actually walked it. And then we competed in startup CPG's alley rally. And it was amazing because we actually tested a lot of reformulations that we had just made. And so it was such a wonderful experience to feel very validated in all those decisions. And then this year, we got to exhibit because we won a free booth from last year's show. So it was incredible to be there, boots on the ground, our first year under our belt. And so we really kind of, at this point understand who our audience is, we understand who we are.

22:28
Lauryn Bodden
So we really got to, like, flex our noodle chip muscles and just show off everything that were able to grow and learn from this past year.

22:36
Daniel Scharff
Okay. I love it. And so, yeah, you won a free booth at our party last year because you were voted the best backpack brand. Won that free booth this year, and you really put it to good use. And while we're talking, I'm going to open up my package here, asmr.

22:50
Lauryn Bodden
They're coming your way. Don't worry.

22:51
Daniel Scharff
Okay, so got it open. All right, I've got my Snoods here. And for anyone who hasn't seen this, it is a super innovative product. These are. It's basically like opening up a little package of chip. And these ones are bright red, said says snoods. And rigatoni, basil pomodoro, light and crunchy noodle chips. So these are like chips, but they're in the shape of noodles. They look like noodles, but they've been turned into chips. Can you just tell me about that again? Like, how did you do that?

23:19
Lauryn Bodden
Yeah, so we're using. I mean, there's a bowl of noodles in just about every corner of the globe. I come from a restaurant background, a food media background. I've seen a lot of how consumers interact with food, how they learn about food. And I wanted to be able to showcase a lot of these cuisines and cultures that I've grown to love to everyone around the nation, currently, soon to be, hopefully around the world. And so, I mean, a lot of people find our snack very Nostalgic, whether they grew up eating these dishes with their family or even eating the, like, dried instant ramen blocks at the corner store. And so it's really wonderful to be able to pull at people's heartstrings of these flavors that they either are just learning about or that they've grown up loving.

24:00
Lauryn Bodden
And so, yeah, using chips and snacks to get more of these flavors and cultures out there, I love it.

24:06
Daniel Scharff
And I tell people all the time, this is, I think, for me, one of the brands that I think has one of the biggest addressable markets, because it feels like one of the really interesting, innovative products that comes from our community. But just the chip market is so huge. And you've got a product that can really compete with them head on in a very unique, incremental way. Bring in some new consumers who might not typically be buying chips, but they're like, whoa, what's that? I'll have that. And for me, this, you know, just such an incredible innovation to have at the show. Can you just take me through for you? What was it like being at the show? What was every day like? You know, we kicked off Wednesday. What's going on at the show? What's coming your way? Who are you talking to?

24:42
Daniel Scharff
Take everybody through it who wasn't at the show.

24:44
Lauryn Bodden
I mean, every day was really kind of a new experience. Going into Expo, it definitely feels like the industry's kind of like super bowl mixed with summer camp. You're seeing all of your industry friends, you're meeting new people. You have these, like, rock stars that you want to connect with. You're constantly pitching yourself. At the same time, it's also you're dealing with a lot of logistics and more operations stuff. And for us, it was a lot of stuff that we had in the experienced before. And so at one point, they lost some of our inventory or they lost some of our booth materials. You have to understand, like, that's going to happen. And so it's kind of like we're going to brush the sweat off our back and then get back to it.

25:23
Lauryn Bodden
It was definitely long days trying to keep up the energy and excitement because it is very exciting, but it's also very exhausting. So, yeah, just keeping your mental fortitude strong throughout the week. But it was a lot of fun. And I'm still recovering.

25:39
Daniel Scharff
The disasters are real, folks. I remember the first year of my brand. Oh, were working with a company called Chipmunk, and we're like, okay, you have all the product we need for the trade show. Please Send it? Did you send it? It was really hard for that to get a confirmation that they had sent it. Finally they're like, oh, no, it's cool. We sent it a while ago. Like you're getting it. And it showed up to my sales guy's house. The pallet. Opened the pallet. And it was a bunch of books. Like, what? This is not our stuff. It almost ruined the show for us. But, oh, thankfully somebody really helped us out and overnighted some product from somewhere else so it didn't blow. Our coming out at the show with a new product. That was a doozy. Okay. So.

26:15
Daniel Scharff
And then just to get a little more tactical, like who was coming by the booth versus who you expected to or like, what are some of just the really important conversations that you had at the show?

26:24
Lauryn Bodden
Yeah. So were fortunate enough to compete in the Albertsons launchpad competition that happened right before exhibiting days. And so meeting all of their team, their different category managers, it was a really just fun event. I mean, in the end we did lose, but at the same time it was, I mean, you're getting to flex different muscles and getting more used to pitching into these more intense settings. And were also able to pitch to other retailers like Target, Walmart, Central Market and a lot of these big dogs as well as a lot of our independent partners. It's really exciting to see them at the show and meeting other brands. I mean, it's across the board, the kind of people that you're meeting and connecting with.

27:09
Lauryn Bodden
We were even, I think you mentioned earlier there was a news segment and were just snacking with this one woman at our table at one point and then come to find out she was actually there with Good Day la filling us, filming a segment and then ended up making Snood's the backdrop for that. So, I mean, just non stop conversations throughout the days. I can't pick a favorite because they were all just really positive and really. Yeah, exciting is just the biggest word.

27:33
Daniel Scharff
I love it. Okay. And it was super cool to see the Good Day La Fox team coming through, filming live on the floor. They filmed a segment with you guys. They filmed a segment with House of Kajana. It was very cool. And I heard maybe that's going to a national segment as well. So let's see. We'll be crossing our fingers crossed. Yeah. Okay. Leanne, I'm coming to you. So can you also just start us off similarly? Tell us, do a little intro, please, if you would, about whims.

28:00
Leanne Viola
Awesome. Yeah. I'm Leanne Viola Co Founder of Whims and Whims is about reimagining chocolate indulgence, taking nostalgic treats that we all know and love, and making them into better for you treats without sacrificing on taste. And so all of our chocolates only contain one gram of sugar. They're gluten free, dairy free. There's no sugar, alcohol or palm oil. And we are on a mission to change and disrupt the confectionery aisle and help people indulge without compromise.

28:28
Lauryn Bodden
So.

28:29
Daniel Scharff
All right.

28:29
Leanne Viola
Yeah. And it was our first time exhibiting, which was amazing.

28:32
Daniel Scharff
Very exciting. Leanne, do you remember the first time we met in LA at Juiced a grocer at one of our events?

28:39
Leanne Viola
Oh, yeah.

28:39
Daniel Scharff
I remember it very clearly because I go to so many of our events, as many as I can go to, and I meet tons of founders who, I'm really grateful for this, but a lot of them are really interested to give me product and have me try it. I also feel a lot of pressure when they do that because, like, they're like looking at me and I'm trying him like, oh, like, I just, you know, I feel like it's my role to just be supportive of everyone. But I also, like, I do sometimes want to give people feedback about it or I don't want to be like, oh, it's good when it's not. So it's, you know, it's kind of. It can be a little tricky for me sometimes, especially when I do want to give some people feedback. Pro tip for people.

29:10
Daniel Scharff
If you ask me for real feedback, I will give it to you. And I've seen buyers do that too, and sometimes it's incredibly valuable. So you gave me a sample to try of whims. I think it's the exact one that I'm holding here today, which is the peanut butter cup with one gram of sugar and no sugar alcohols, anything like that. And it basically, it looks like a small peanut butter cup. It looks really delicious. And I tried it and I think I just kind of double take two at you. And I was like, oh, this is amazing. This is nuts. It's so good. It just like baffles me how there's only one gram of sugar in here. It's incredible. And that's the same feedback that everybody that I've ever seen try it has had also.

29:47
Daniel Scharff
So I was very excited that first day that I met you and really excited that you were able to be in our section. And everybody, I think, just was kind of flipping out over the product as well, so how about from you? What was it like? You know, what was Wednesday like? What was Thursday like? What was going on? What was the energy? Who was coming by? Hit me.

30:05
Leanne Viola
Okay. The way I would describe Expo and my experience there is, it's like a marathon that never ends. So, like there's this nonstop energy from morning to night. And were crazy. Like, we would wake up super early, hit the gym, make breakfast for ourselves, then hit expo and then get our booth set up, prepare for the day. But the minute those doors open, it was like back to back nonstop conversations, which I was not prepared for. I knew it was going to be that intense, but it was just like our booth was so busy. And what I loved about it is it was just opportunities to share and talk to as many people as possible. And that's what I was looking forward to the most. And there was so much energy.

30:44
Leanne Viola
It was just like vibing so hard that I didn't even know how fast time was going except my body and my feet would sometimes remind me like, ow, you're hurting right now. And then by the evening it's like, let's go hit all the events and let's do the follow ups. And then were crashing in exhaustion. So that was like my day, if I could summarize it in a story.

31:04
Daniel Scharff
And yeah, it's just nonstop. And on top of all those conversations, every few minutes you have like me trying to bring a big buyer by being like, dog, hey, interrupt what you're doing. I need you right now.

31:15
Leanne Viola
Like, I could not pick one conversation that stood out because they all stood out. And I'm so grateful for the Startup CPG team for you. A lot of those conversations couldn't have happened without the community and those opportunities to have like in real life conversations versus like a cold outreach email. Huge difference. And it was really great to build those relationships that way. Talk about our brand. It was incredible.

31:39
Daniel Scharff
So Leanne, you've been around the show and shows like this before. What would you say if somebody asked you about our section? Like, you know, very candidly, what would you say it would like what you like, what kind of brands would it be right for? What's your overall opinion of it?

31:53
Leanne Viola
That's a good question. It's like I would say, and a few people did ask, they're like, who's Startup cpg? What's this section all about? This is crazy. And I'm like, Startup CPG is like a community where all of these that supports emerging brands to really get in front of retailers and the Support and kind of resources that they need in order to grow their business. And I would say that the section was just so. I don't know what it was. It was constantly buzzing. There's people coming investors, buyers, retailers, people who are just curious. And so there was constant energy in the space and curiosity about what all these different brands are doing.

32:30
Leanne Viola
So if like I had an opportunity to do it again next year, truthfully I would want to come back in that exact spot right next to you because it was great.

32:38
Daniel Scharff
I love it. You guys both elevated the entire section. I also really have to thank New Hope for the signage that they gave us for the section because it really did differentiate it from the rest of a busy floor that was like, oh, wait a minute, I just walked into something special. Where am I? This is unique. It was just really nice and just really like created the proper environment for everybody to really appreciate the quality of the brands and the innovation that we had in our section. So thank you to New Hope for that.

33:07
Daniel Scharff
So I'm just kind of curious to get both of your all's take on something that it just in the last two, three days, I think I've seen like 10, 15 hot takes on Expo west this year from people saying like, hey, there wasn't a lot of innovation at the show. I've seen it in different ways. Some people just being like there isn't any. A lot of. Some other people saying like, you know, there's more innovation around like iterative stuff kind of building on, you know, maybe a new flavor or something. Do you have a reaction to that? Maybe. Lauren, I'll start with you.

33:36
Lauryn Bodden
Yeah, I mean, I think it definitely depends on how you're looking at innovation. Also like, what hat are you wearing when you're looking at innovation? I don't think it necessarily always has to mean a product drop or a new kind of product. I mean there's still gluten free products that are coming out that I'm like, how is this possible? I mean, same with the frozen food category. Same with like different kinds of protein products. So it's. Yeah, I think for me, like I saw a lot of really cool products that I didn't necessarily envision. Same with, I mean the soda category, seeing the things that people are able to do within that. So I saw a lot of innovation and a lot of different ways that people approach the show.

34:18
Lauryn Bodden
And I think for me we came into the show really looking to show how were going to scale this next year. We were looking for service providers, were Looking for investors. We were looking for new team members. And so it was showing off more of, like, what we do and what we're good at versus not necessarily dropping a new product or sku. And so, yeah, I mean, it's just. What does innovation mean?

34:40
Daniel Scharff
It just means putting protein into your chips, Lauren. That's what we're asking for.

34:45
Leanne Viola
Okay, next year.

34:47
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, whatever comes next year. Yeah. Any. Any early guesses on what it's going to be next year? It's going to be pasta. Everything. Pasta eyes, everything.

34:56
Lauryn Bodden
I'm here for it. Yeah.

34:58
Leanne Viola
Snoods and whims. Collab.

35:02
Lauryn Bodden
Yeah, yeah.

35:03
Daniel Scharff
Pasta, water. Yeah. Okay, great. Okay.

35:07
Lauryn Bodden
Wow. So many ideas.

35:08
Daniel Scharff
Okay, great, great ones. Yes. Feel free to take them. Anyone out there? Leanne, same question to you. Do you have a take on that? And, like, I mean, I think, you know, for both of you, really, this was your first kind of big showing at Expo. I think part of it is, like, people are familiar with both of your brands. You haven't exhibited at Expo before this. But, I mean, you know, Lauren, you were with us at Fancy Foods, and I think guys are both on people's radars in general. So it may also be like, they don't feel like they're discovering you at the show. They want to see innovation they haven't even heard of that, like, is just hitting an Expo. It's been behind some curtain. I don't know. Leanne, what's your take?

35:43
Leanne Viola
Yeah, interesting, because I was. Firstly, I barely left the booth, so we should all know that first. And then secondly, you know, one of the things that I thought of as you were talking about those comments about lack of innovation, I was just wondering if people had come up to the third floor and checked out a lot of the emerging brands that were on our floor. In the quick kind of spin that I had on the floor, I thought there were just so many interesting brands doing interesting things. New flavors, new kind of like, spins into maybe an existing category, but just changing it up a little bit. So in my mind, I thought there was so much innovation, things I would never even think about for myself. Like, if I was starting a brand, I would have never done that.

36:21
Leanne Viola
But, hey, cool that you did that with an idea. And so I didn't have that sense that there was lack of innovation. And I just wondered if people discovered some of the cool brands upstairs.

36:31
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, I really do think, like, a lot of innovation happens only in retrospect. Like, you don't really know what you're seeing. You might see something that later turns out to be incredibly innovative because it wasn't maybe like new to the world ingredient, but they use it in a good way and figured out how to grow their business. So now it's on everybody's radar and they're growing this new kind of function or product type or whatever. Whereas you might see some crazy new thing like that's innovation. And then it like five years later you look back, you're like, whatever happened to that innovation? I guess it wasn't that innovative.

37:04
Daniel Scharff
So kind of, I think it's kind of hard to tell in the moment, but maybe I wouldn't consider myself really like an innovation expert, guru or like even I don't think very good at spotting trends or anything like that. I really like to focus more on kind of the business fundamentals and how do you go out and look for the retailers, that kind of stuff. So yeah, let's see. It'd be nice to do a three year retrospective on this. Okay, so last thing I wanted to ask you guys is while it's still fresh, what would you do differently if you could do it over again or if you're talking to a brand right now for like, oh hey, you're going to exhibit there for the first time, make sure you do this, or like we kind of forgot to do this.

37:39
Daniel Scharff
I wish I had spent more time doing this or put more effort into this or you know, reached out to buyers this way beforehand. Any tips that you would have for brands that way, Lauren, I'm going to come to you first.

37:49
Lauryn Bodden
Yeah, I mean there's so many things that I would do differently and I think also I knew I going into it being my first year, I was going to handful of these, probably not the best. And so it's just also giving yourself a bit of grace and hopefully you didn't waste too much money on this year. But definitely I sent way too many samples. I would send far less product. It's such a hard thing to gauge and everyone will say that. And we definitely tried to do the math and how much we should send, but it's great for brands that are on Amazon too, so they can send like maybe a first round of samples and then if need be it's like you're Amazon priming that or you're going to your retail partners around the area and getting product that way.

38:32
Daniel Scharff
Yeah.

38:32
Lauryn Bodden
And I think being smart about your boot setup, both in terms of being able to call yourself out in sea of other booths, but also in terms of functionality. I Definitely wish that we had some kind of chair situation.

38:45
Daniel Scharff
Oh, no, you should have asked us.

38:47
Lauryn Bodden
We had styles. No, I mean, it was hard, too, because I'm also very much like, I want to be up and in the crowd and in the things. So it would be something where I would sit down and then get right back up. Definitely something nice for the rest of my team to be able to do, even if I wasn't able to. And I definitely, I think, stacking our team members at the booth, I mean, it wasn't a crazy flood of people to our booth that we needed to have a lot of people. But like Leanne said, I didn't get away from our booth at all. And I walked maybe a couple rows over, install so much that I was like, I wish I could have been able to see the other floors and here, hear what everyone else was talking about.

39:26
Lauryn Bodden
So, yeah, just being able to give myself the time to experience the innovation that is out there.

39:33
Daniel Scharff
Yeah. From my perspective, you both did the right thing by not seeing any of the show. Other people might have a different approach, but me, I don't leave booth. I'm not going to miss that key buyer where I'm the only one who knows what they look like. I'm not letting them walk by without trying to talk to them. That could make or break the whole show. One buyer. That's how I feel. I like, don't even drink too much water because I don't have to go to the bathroom too many times. And then when I go, I run. But I'm, you know, very, like, I'm anxious person. That'll just show you, like, how I roll. I actually like, a high chair rather than a low chair, because then you can actually.

40:04
Daniel Scharff
You can get away with sitting on it for a while without looking like you're resting on your laurels. Not really engaged, ready, you know, open for traffic, all that kind of stuff. But it does hurt even you, who a. A former D1 soccer athlete, right. To do, like. Yeah. Just get challenged by the task of standing up for three days. Days.

40:22
Lauryn Bodden
I'm past my glory years. My knees crack every time I move. So high chair. High chair. Next year, high chair.

40:29
Daniel Scharff
And I also. My pro tip for everyone is bring two different pairs of shoes to the show every day and change them every three hours. So I have, like, one super cushy pair of running shoes that kind of tilt your foot forward and then more of, like, a cushy flat shoe so that it hurts in different places. You can spread out the Pain, that's my key. And I had my whole team do it this year. They're like, yeah, you were right about that. We have a little Mr. Rogers, like changing shoe moment. Everyone together. It's nice. Keep us fresh. And then, Lauren, was there anything that you did that you were like, wow, I'm really glad I put as much time into that. That worked out super well for us.

41:03
Lauryn Bodden
Yeah, I would say definitely being in the startup CPG section and I'm not just saying that to say it was the best move because I mean, you guys are able to really like call out the section. It was beautifully set up and I mean, I feel like you guys are bringing the party and that attracting a lot of like the key players. You make it very easy for us to go into these conversations with buyers and other people that we want to talk to. It feels like a very safe community to also ask the other booths, like, their perspective on things. I feel like I was able to have very honest conversations and take a lot of learnings from the other brands in the section.

41:40
Lauryn Bodden
And I spent a lot of time in figuring out also the best booth setup because I want again, I wanted us to stand out, but as a starting emerging brand, it's hard to figure out where to spend the money, especially with these items that I live in New York, I'm having to ship back and forth across the country. But we ended up using the company, the Foundry. I'm going to call them out because I loved working with them so much and I know that you guys recommended them. They did our backdrop and our demo tables which I'm really excited to be able to use for now different sampling purposes. So yeah, that was a highlight for us.

42:13
Daniel Scharff
I love it. That's a great plug for Foundry. Anyone, you can email them. I use them for every kind of piece of trade show assets or like branded hats, backdrops, pull up banners. They're super easy to work with. They never mess up. His email is Brandon Foundry BSG.com like brand services Group and definitely drop our name because he will give you some extra love. For sure. We love Brandon and yeah, I like hearing that. Oh, and then you'd also mentioned about the number of samples. Do you know how much you sent there and how much you was left over or like how much would you say people really should have because you were also, you were dishing out individual chips, right? Not like full bags.

42:52
Lauryn Bodden
Correct. And we also, I mean we at one point we did a pop up with our friends at Heyday Canning and At Ghia we did kind of a like walking taco situation which is, I would say that doing pop ups with other brands is wonderful brand association. It pulled in a lot of people because they knew them. But were serving about one to three chips and even when people took a sample of each of our SKUs, we had four SKUs out. We were probably only going through three bags askew a day, which is far less than we sent. So I mean again, you never really know what's going to happen. And it could. Even people were saying that the crowd was possibly less intense than it was years before.

43:32
Lauryn Bodden
And it's nice to know that a lot of the product gets donated to places around the area that definitely need it. So I would talk to a lot of similar brands. Like talking to other chip brands is definitely useful for us to be able to better gauge it.

43:44
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, I gotcha. You know, I was looking at the attendance numbers. I believe in years past it was like 70,000. I think this year it was 60,000. I think they did that intentionally because they did change the ticket pricing to I think discourage A lot of. Maybe not discourage but like, you know, limit the number of service providers. They know. They want brands who are paying all the money to be there, to have a good experience at their booths, not be overwhelmed by, you know, agencies and service providers coming to the booth. I think I really do believe one major benefit of our section is because at the show you have hot products level one and two, the classics, right when those doors open, those are mayhem. It's total mayhem in there.

44:22
Daniel Scharff
It's like, I don't know, like concert level, like mosh pit in there trying to fight through which I mean it's cool to be there if you just want maximum traffic for your brand. Like everyone is going through there but also a lot of people like don't even get to your booth. They might not even see your booth. It's just kind of, you know, you might, if they are there, you might not even see them because there's just so much going on. I really believe in the placement that we have which is ACC level three. So it's the third floor of Hot Products but it's in a completely different hall. It's like the top floor above hall E, you know, ACC level three. It's not that craziness at the beginning.

44:58
Daniel Scharff
So we do get all the buyers but I don't think we get the crush of just the kind of gen pop crowd which I think lets you then focus on the buyers. When they too come. So you're not going to miss the buyer when they come. And they do all come. So I think it probably saves your voices a lot. Also, it's just not like Black Friday at Walmart type deal. It's more like a, you know, normal day, like smaller show.

45:21
Lauryn Bodden
Yeah, totally. More curated.

45:23
Daniel Scharff
Okay, cool. I love it. All right, Leanne, I am coming to you for similar questions. So while it's still fresh, what would you, if anything have done differently or what kind of advice would you give a brand going for the first time next year?

45:37
Leanne Viola
Yeah, I think Lauren covered most of the highlights, especially as it relates to comfort. Having a chair would have been nice. We thought about that multiple times throughout the show. But it was also hard because Jesse, my co founder and I, were outside of the booth for a lot of the show and so that's how were kind of having conversations with people. So a chair in the middle of the hall would have been really awkward. I'm a big planner, so the tips that I would have for any first time brands who want to showcase at Expo or exhibit at expo is there was a lot of materials to read through. Like I was actually quite surprised that all the things I would have to go and just prep and learn and just understand all the logistics of move in, move out day.

46:15
Leanne Viola
I would say read through all of them, attend all of the webinars. If there's avail any webinars available to the startup CPG community. They were so invaluable to me to make sure that I was as ready as possible for the show. And the more you do up front it actually makes the show so much easier. And so by the time we got there, it was just like us focusing on those conversations. Unlike you, I did drink a lot of water and I think that saved us because my throat was just done by the end of day one. And so I did not realize how much talking we would be doing. So like hydrate, you need to hydrate. And then I think, you know, the things that we're talking about now as a team is the post show. What do we do post show.

46:54
Leanne Viola
And that's something that I would encourage New brands who are exhibiting is like, yes, the show's fantastic. Come away with so many interesting leads and conversations, but the work really happens after the show. And so creating a process around follow ups and you know, how do you want to connect with the folks that you met with at Expo is something that I would really encourage having a process around. And I think that would be it. I wouldn't change anything about it. It was amazing.

47:18
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, I really agree with you. And I also want to ask you about anything that you did really well that just kind of panned out super well. But just on that point about the follow ups. Yeah, I always would come out. I have my list, everybody I need to follow up with. I put it into a Google sheet, the thing that, you know, we agreed to follow up on and I put a status and I go through and I right now have not even, you know, we're like two days post the show right now. I haven't even looked list. I don't want to be tempted to start emailing people who don't want to hear from me yet. But yeah, I'm not going to miss a single follow up. I'm going to be doing it over the next couple months. Like that's what it takes.

47:49
Daniel Scharff
So yeah, in terms of like places you put in, the effort really worked out well for you. Anything in particular where you're like, oh, I'm so glad we spent the time and did that or set this thing up or reached out to these people.

47:58
Leanne Viola
I would actually did a echo what Lauren said about our booth setup. The way we set it up, we wanted to keep it as simple as possible. So we had two demo pop up tables and then a backdrop and that was pretty much it. And we had our products on a shelf and it was super simple which made the setup of it and breakdown very easy. And I really think that was a good decision for us because we focused on kind of just the conversations. We also sent way too many samples, I would say. We sent 2,500 singles of each SKU and we ended up having to ship a whole bunch of them, actually drive a whole bunch of them to a local retailer in LA and sent said, Happy Halloween, Christmas is here for you as well.

48:41
Leanne Viola
You know, here's all the singles and samples that you'll need for the rest of the year. And so in hindsight, we may have overdone it, but I think the best thing that we did was just keep our booth simple so that we can focus on the things that we needed to focus on for the show.

48:54
Daniel Scharff
That was very thoughtful of you to do. And you actually gave me a box of your product at the end of the show and I was like looking at it like, how am I going to fit this in my luggage? And our editor Caitlin looked at me like, is there any way I could have that? Because she's such a fan of your product. Also like, yes, I love that. Yeah. She. Oh my God, it's just so good. Everybody out there, if you're listening, you need to go and buy both of these products. I'm telling you'll be like, okay. That is innovation that was at the show. Nobody can deny that there wasn't some super cool new stuff there because these are both incredible brands from some really talented entrepreneurs. And then I also want to highlight.

49:29
Daniel Scharff
So Leanne, you had the a 5 by 10 booth, I think right on the edge. Lauren had the 8 by 10. I think they both work out really well. And I really like your comments about, I mean you don't have to go all out, you don't have to spend that much money. I think some people get really intimidated about booth design. Like, oh, I don't even know where to get started on that. Like at the end of the day you get a backdrop, you get maybe a pop up banner or two, you get a table and a tablecloth and a sneeze guard and you're like kind of good to go. Right? And I mean it doesn't have to cost that much. I mean, I think you can even probably get all that done for, I don't know, under 2K.

50:04
Lauryn Bodden
Oh, for sure. Yeah. I will say, when were planning our booth, I pulled up like some images of the booths from last year of Startup CPG section and I studied them and figured out like what would translate the best for us. And again, it was very much keeping it simple. But again, Startup CPG was very sexy and had it right. So. So good one to reference.

50:25
Daniel Scharff
All right. Okay, so we're going to wrap up here. I really want to thank both of you. Just, you know, congrats again on such a huge show for both of you for representing our community so well. We really put a lot of effort into having a great section at the showcasing some of the brands that I think have huge potential. And you all, it really is a cohort of brands. So we create a private Slack channel that's facilitated by Patricia who runs our community. Just so yeah, people can really share all the learnings. It's so valuable just to get real deal tips from other people and you know, it really is neighborhood when you get to the show and you know, helping each other out.

51:07
Daniel Scharff
And I think just because the quality is so high, when a buyer goes from one booth to the next, their expectations are incredibly high and you know, like 90% of experience is expectation. Right. So when you create that sort of right environment for everybody and it's just reinforced by such high quality founders and brands you can't miss. Everybody wins. We are really grateful to have founders like you with products like yours in our community, propping up the whole CPG ecosystem and showing such promise, I think for what founders can do despite these times of low funding and high costs. All of that stuff. So congrats again to both of you and I'm really excited to hear what happens with all of these exciting follow ups. All right, thank you everybody. Bye bye. All right everybody, thank you so much for listening to our podcast.

52:01
Daniel Scharff
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 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@partnershipstartupcpg.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 superfantastics.com thank you everybody. See you next.