The Startup CPG Podcast

Welcome to the Startup CPG podcast. I'm Jessi Freitag, and it's been my pleasure to be your host for season three of the show since August, 2021. It's now time for me to introduce you to your new host for season four of the show, Daniel Scharff. Many of you already know Daniel as he's the founder of Startup CPG and has been hosting webinars, in person events, and back in the day, lots of clubhouse sessions for the community.

He's super active, has built an incredible platform for Startup CPG and ways for emerging brands to connect with each other. So I'm really excited for you to learn a little bit more about him today and get excited for Season 4, which starts next week. Hi, Daniel. Great to chat with you today. I am so excited to introduce you as our season four host.

All right, Jessie. Thank you so much. I am really excited to be here. Honestly, it's been a lifelong dream of mine to be a podcast host. I'm a musician. I love sharing knowledge. So I'm really excited about this. But first, I have to just say thank you so much. for being the most fantastic podcast host in the world.

Season three for us, um, which lasted over two years and I think more than a hundred episodes, um, all done by you has just been transformational for us. And just thinking about all of the incredible knowledge that you've brought out from people and shared with brands is really. Incredible. And I think it would be impossible to try to calculate how many brands trajectories you've changed along the process by all of the knowledge that you've shared.

And also, it's just been so fun to listen along. And I love going to trade shows and events and hearing everybody say, Oh, I listened to the podcast. I love Jessi so much. And the thing that I always hear from them is she just has this uncanny ability to always ask the question that you want to know the answer to.

So what I think that really speaks to is how much you know about the industry. And I loved that. You just know a little about all of the functions of a business and know how to really dig deep and get the most useful nuggets to share with the listeners. So thank you so much. I will be doing my very best Jessi impression as I'm taking over as the podcast host, but they are very big CPG shoes to fill.

Oh, thank you so much. That means so much. I've had so much fun. Hosting the show. Our listeners and guests and supporters have all just been incredible. It's been so amazing. So that means so much. And I'm so excited for you to be the season four host. I mean, we've been listening to your music. You mentioned being a musician to the, on the intros and outros of every show already.

And then you've hosted so many events for startup CPG between. Webinars and factoring deep in the pandemic clubhouse events. And so you're an excellent host of all startup CPG events in person and everything. So I think it's going to be a totally natural fit for you to be the podcast host. And I'm very excited.

Thank you. Yeah, I'm really excited too. And just having recorded a couple episodes already so far, I think I underestimated how much I would actually even enjoy it, but just when I was locked in on the first couple of interviews, I got such a rush from it. Um, I think because I've spent so much time building the platform and, you know, doing bigger scale events, I forgot just how incredibly fun it is to sit.

One on one with a founder for an hour or however long and really dig into their story and learn about it and, you know, just see how they shine talking about their brand and getting some of those really incredible learnings from them. So I honestly could not be more excited to be taking over for for season four.

And I think we have an incredible lineup of guests coming up that people are going to love. Yeah, absolutely.

And I know most of our listeners and community know you as the founder of Startup CPG, and some of them know about your deep background and expertise within the CPG world, but I also just wanted to give everyone a chance to get to know you a little bit before our, your first episode airs next week.

So can you just tell us a little bit about. your background in the CPG world?

Yes, absolutely. Thank you. So for the last 10 years or so, I've been working in CPG, which I love. The last three years, I was the CEO for a beverage brand that I launched from scratch and got through all of the hard operations, challenges, getting our Marketing off the ground, the sales, building out the company's mission and ultimately built it to be the number one ACV growth in the natural channel was incredibly fun process for me.

And so many learnings along the way of just how to do everything. I'm like starting from scratch and then also just met so many incredible people along the way as well. Before that I worked for five years as head of strategy and analytics for a food tech company. Um, and before that I worked in, I worked in big CPG, actually.

I was at Mars Chocolate where I was in a global role traveling to Kazakhstan, Russia, China, helping them fix their pricing and trade promotions. Um, before that I had done my MBA at Wharton and gone on to management consulting for a few years and honestly was a little lost. I just. didn't really care about the work that I was doing, although the training was incredible, just learning about, you know, pace of work and critical problem solving and really getting the confidence that you can kind of learn anything.

And then realized it was because I just wasn't doing CPG, which I had always loved. I always loved going into 7 Eleven and seeing the brands that were there and, you know, just seeing what cool new snacks there were. So fortunately found my way into CPG, um, and have had just a really tremendous.

Experience since, since then. And I think, you know, like you, Jessi, I think I was really fortunate to just get a lot of varied experiences, which will happen when you're working at a startup, but you know, getting six months as a product manager and then working with the ops team for a while and then supporting the finance team.

It, it, I love the learning. I absolutely love it. Especially then when I can. think back to my time in a big CPG and then look at the little CPGs and think, all right, what's the really useful stuff they are doing that we're not doing? So it's just been an incredibly fun journey for me. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome.

We're also glad that you made it your way to the CPG world and then are now sharing your expertise and Curating and creating the community of Startup CPG, which also, I don't know if all of our listeners are familiar with the start in the beginning of Startup CPG. We've had so many people join the Slack is over 16, 000 people now.

And so most of our listeners are in the Slack. Could you just tell us a little bit about what inspired you to start Startup CPG and what it's looked like to grow over the past few years? Just the exponential growth.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you. You know, I'm somebody who's always liked to build community and I always look to share what I'm learning with other people.

It's really fun for me to do that. When I was in my first job out of college in investment research, I built a savings and investment research. financial learning seminar at a local public school. It's just so much fun for me to go in there and share the stuff that I was learning in the job. And I've done that a few different times.

And so when I got into CPG and then managed to transition my way to smaller companies, you know, I was looking around and thinking, well, I know a lot of stuff from the big companies that the little companies don't know. I really want to help them and I want to know them because I was in San Francisco at a food tech company and just felt pretty isolated.

Like I knew it was the head of the head town for food tech. And I just wanted to know people at the other companies that were doing really cool stuff. And so, you know, as kind of a natural community builder and organizer, I started organizing in person events. largely through my personal network, and it started with small meetups in a bar, literally walking around with a clipboard, getting people's email addresses, knowing we would need that eventually.

And we just started building successively bigger events. And by the third or fourth one, you know, we had hundreds of people at The old WeWork food labs in San Francisco coming for panels that we had designed, and it just was going really well. Um, but at the time, I was looking around the landscape and realized the only thing that's really out there right now are organizations that help people at the city level.

But our problems are not at the city level. Our problems are national. Like the challenges that a small CPG faces. They're the same. First of all, that a CPG faces that's in Vermont. First, you know, California, the operational challenges, the kind of people you need to know are really similar. And buyers are national.

Buyers are not just located in one city. When you're really trying to grow a brand, you need access to the national network. And so we decided to launch the startup CPG slack, and it happened to be very timely. I joke with Patricia, our head of community, that I think we launched the slack The day that we all found out that Tom Hanks got COVID, which I think is when we all considered the pandemic to be getting real.

And so I think we really tapped an unmet, a nerve, an unmet need from the industry for a central national digital hub for our entire community to come and get help. I was really lucky because I always had a job, so this didn't need to be my income source. So we could make it free and just focus on it being valuable.

And growing it and I just constantly would look around at all of the things that a small brand would have to pay for. And just there are so many people, retailers, distributors, consultants who have their hands out that I just feel really bad for those brands. Because if they have the courage to try to start something and disrupt the food system, they're probably not even paying themselves at that point.

And there's just so much stuff. And, you know, I thought, I think we can, I think there's a lot that we can do to help them. I think other people would be interested to help them as well. And that was. the impetus for just really trying to grow the community overall. And our guiding principle is always, what can we do that will be the most helpful thing for early brands?

And, you know, I think the Slack has been incredibly successful in doing that. The kind of olden days where you might have to hire a consultant just because they know the name of somebody that you need to talk to. Those are kind of gone now. I mean, in our Slack channel, which you mentioned has crossed 16, 000 and, you know, it'll be at 20, 000 before you know it eventually 30, 40, 50, 000.

It is, it is incredible to see that every question that someone posts in there gets an answer and it gets multiple answers from people who know. And we love having the experts in the community join because They have a lot of the answers. Other founders have them also, but the service providers have been incredibly generous coming in and just answering questions for people so that the value they can provide to brands is really more about their knowledge and expertise.

And they demonstrate that by showing them that they can help them solve the quick problems. So brands don't have to spend their wheels for days trying to tackle a problem that so many other brands have already faced. So I'm really excited about just the collective knowledge of the community and how many days, years, you know, decades of people's time it's, it's already saved.

And, you know, as we really grew critical mass in our online community, we realized there was also just incredible need for in person events. Still, you know, during the pandemic, we were pioneering, I think the breakout rooms and doing zoom stuff, um, which was really fun and especially when nothing else was really going on.

But as we, the world started pivoting back to in person events, we were ready. We had already launched all of our, our community channels, and I was very excited that we were able to start having quarterly events in all the major cities around the country, because there's just something about an in person conversation, um, that a Slack chat.

can't replace. Just the kind of stuff that you don't know is going to come up in a conversation where you realize commonalities are how you can help people. Um, and so the in person events are really important for us. And I'm, I'm really glad that we've been able to really ramp those up. Um, the attendance has been awesome.

I think, as you know, I recently went on a pilgrimage, visiting a bunch of those events and that, that was super cool to see. Um, and you know, we're really just getting started. I would say we have our thousand person alley rally. Party at Expo West coming up, um, and lots of other great stuff like that. Um, this, this week we'll have our first yacht party sponsored by Alive Vibrations, where we'll be setting sail from basically where my house is in Marina Del Rey, California.

Um, so just incredible stuff. And I think all of it built on the community. I'm driven by all of these incredible brands trying to bring. Really innovative new products and our whole community turning out to try to give them a better chance of being successful.

Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. It makes me feel very excited and just also very grateful because I, to your point about mentioning removing some of the gatekeeping that has existed of people being able to hoard names or connections and just making everything accessible on the, on the show, I feel like multiple times I've said CPG is a team sport.

And. Startup CPG has really helped facilitate it becoming more of a team sport than an individual individual thing, because we can all work with each other, leverage each other's connections. And everyone is so welcoming and kind and ready to share. And I love seeing that shift and more opportunities for that to happen.

So I'm so excited for the future of Startup CPG and for it to continue to grow and The podcast is an excellent way for you to continue to share all of your knowledge and continue removing barriers to that information. So that's really exciting. I'm, I'm wondering for the podcast, because you've hosted so many clubhouses and webinars and events, what, what are you most excited about for the podcast and being the new host?

Yeah, I mean, first, I just want to again, acknowledge how much you've built up this platform for us. It is Essentially a platform for emerging brands. We want to feature as many of them as possible. We, so, you know, when we started this podcast, obviously it was nothing. And, you know, we had the hope that we could build it up over time and, you know, we can't always help brands get on other famous podcasts, but we can give them their first experience on ours, which helps them then be a great candidate to get the next podcast.

Right. And we, we just really love giving them attention and light. And this podcast has been such an incredible platform for them, especially the way that you've grown it, Jessi. And so, you know, incredibly proud that as you finish the season three, we have hit some incredible milestones, right, of being in the top 1.

5 percent of all podcasts globally. We also saw the news that we're now listening to in over 200 countries around the world. That was really cool to see. So, you know, basically, I'm really excited because you've built up such an incredible vehicle now that I get to Drive for season four. So I'm really, really thankful to you.

And you know, not just for you showing up and doing it, but just anybody who's listened can hear how much you care. And like every product that comes up on the show, you've had it and you love it. And you have a lot of things to say about it just because you're so passionate about the industry and all these founders and really helping people.

So or season four, I will be trying to replicate all of that and really listening to your back episodes and learning. Um, but then, you know, I think Just also bringing my personal experience into how I think I'll be hosting. One of the things I really love doing is because I have been an operator in this industry for a long time, you know, I've grown a brand.

There are other people out there who I really look to as leaders in different areas, whether they are the best salesperson that I know or the best marketer. You know, just having come across them in the industry, I'm really excited to pull them into the podcast and get into the really tactical advice, you know, not just the broad strokes of here's how you can do sales, but like, okay, who did you meet?

How did you meet them? What's the message that you sent to them? Did you need to talk to the distributor first? Because I think those kind of nuggets in the early stages for brands are the ones that are really actionable and just making sure we're learning from people who have done this kind of stuff recently.

So I'm super pumped to get a lot of those kind of people on the show as well as just a lot of The, I would say industry game changers that I've met along the way and people like distributor reps and, you know, just, just the kind of like maybe under the radar people you don't know that you need to know.

Um, so really excited to just start pulling them. In to share knowledge as well. And the good news is that, you know, I think our platform is so big now that mainly people say yes, if we, if we invite them to the podcast. So thank you again for, for those contributions. Yeah. Thank

you so much for the kind words.

And yeah, I'm just, I'm very excited to. See who you bring to the show and hear your your own style and your own excitement and enthusiasm for all of our brands in the community. So yeah, I'm just I'm really excited. It's going to be awesome.

Awesome. And so what's next for you, Jessi, I think everybody wants to know.

So you'll be rolling off the podcast. But I know you have a lot of work that you do on your own. I know you do consulting work and a lot of Um, work with Notion. You got all our team all organized finally on Notion. And so what are, what are your plans? Yeah.

So when I started with the podcast, I was still on the brand side, managing day to day operations.

I was managing a plant. We did our own manufacturing and it was really deep in ops and the marketing world. But what I really loved is the operations side of CPG and operations is what I've been in, in a variety of reasons. I always end up gravitating. back to operations that always pulls me in. And so while I've been hosting the podcast, I've branched out into focusing just on CPG operations for brands and helping them find co packers, get set up with the co packer, commercialize their brand in, find warehouses, all, all the fun back end nitty gritty details.

And so I've been continuing that work and I'm just going to continue growing in that area, continue doing that work. And it's been exciting to see. how much demand there is and, and to have so many brands excited and be able to lend my expertise to, to help them solve some of these back end operational challenges that are really tricky.

And then I do, I love working in Notion since, since hosting the podcast, I've gotten certified in Notion and just continue to be able to grow my work and helping people get set up in Notion and do tutoring and do some custom build outs. And I just love helping people get organized and feel a little bit less.

cluttered, um, in their, in their digital world. And so, yeah, I'm going to continue to do all of that work and I'm super excited. And I'm, I don't think I'm done with podcasting. I may reboot my, my old original show, I rose corner or something. I definitely, I don't think I'm going to be able to stay away from the mic all the way, but excited for now to focus a little bit more on my operations work.

So yeah, thank you so much for asking. I it's been such a pleasure. And so I'm, it's bittersweet, but it's also exciting to. To move on and open up a little more time and in my schedule, but I'm, I'm very excited.

Yeah, well, I hope you will come back to podcasting. The listener audience needs you on the microphone.

Um, but that's, yeah, that's cool. And so notion, um, just cause I know you're so passionate about it from, from my standpoint, that. Basically got our whole team organized. Like we were all just kind of doing very disparate stuff and not organized about the real stuff we needed to deliver. And the notion implementation that you did for us now, we have our whole communications calendar running through it and all of the tasks that all the different teams need to complete.

We store all of the, you know, ad files and, you know, all of our stuff on there. We also use it to kind of publish like mini web pages that we need to send out to the community. Is that kind of a good. Way to describe, or how would you describe it to people who are curious about what Notion is?

Yeah, for sure.

And thank you. And I appreciate that. It was so fun to work with the team to get everybody organized. Yeah, I think Notion is, it's a really flexible project management, document management. System. And so people that have used like a Trello or an air table or something like that were or a sauna where you kind of manage your tasks.

Notion is essentially it offers you those kind of things. But I would say in a much more flexible way. You have a lot of autonomy and how you kind of build out how everything looks like you mentioned. You can publish little web pages kind of like Google Docs. It takes the best of a lot of different tools.

It There is so much customization option. The thing I hear most from folks is, I don't know where to start. I love it. It's so exciting. I know it can do what I want. And so, but I'm overwhelmed about where to start. And that's where I love to have a quick call with someone and say, Hey, here's a couple of tips about where to start.

Or I taught a class this summer about getting started in it. Cause it can be a little overwhelming, but It's just a really flexible way to organize your personal and work life. And I see a lot of StartupCBG members using Notion to organize their entire startup infrastructure from their marketing team, to having a little hub for their sales team, to having interfaces where people can download a pitch deck or a press kit.

And it all just lives in one really flexible dashboard versus having stuff in Google Drive over here and having some stuff in Asana or things living in all different places. It kind of really centralizes things and it looks nice and clean and modern. Some of the tools look a little outdated, I think, at some point.

So this is so flexible. You can make it colorful and branded to your company. So it's a really exciting tool. And if anyone is curious about it, feel free to connect with me. on LinkedIn and I'm always happy to just share a little bit and I try to share a little Notion content on, on my LinkedIn as well.

And I'll be teaching some more classes, but yeah, it's, it's a really cool tool. I think it's obvious that I get very, very excited about. I'm always a nerd. I'm a nerd for all, for all tech, especially within CPG, but just all tech in general. So I'm always excited to talk

tools. Yeah. All right. And what's a good way for people to stay in touch with you?

You know, if they're curious about Notion or some of the other stuff that you do.

Yeah, for sure. Definitely feel free to connect with me or follow me on LinkedIn. Love connecting with folks there, especially from the podcast. And then you can also go to my website. It's just Jessifreitag. com. And that has a little bit of information about me.

And I will be updating that as well. So that's a good place to stay in touch as well. But yeah, thank you so much.

Okay. And just to make sure everyone has the spelling. That's J E S S I F. R E I T A G dot com. We're on her LinkedIn. And so then lastly, Jessi, for me taking over as podcast host, do you, what's, do you have any advice for me from your, from your time over the last hundred episodes or so?

Any, any, any advice or anything, any like really warm memories that you want to just resurface? Oh

man. Oh, there's so many and If anyone is curious about some of my favorite moments from the show, our episode 100, which was where we toasted to hitting the hundred episode mark. I really did pull in some of my favorite memories from the podcast.

So that episode looking back is a really good way of, Oh, those are some of my favorite moments from the podcast. Any moment though, of just connecting with any of the small brands from our startup CPG community and getting to just sit with them and hear their stories and hear their excitement. Or getting notes from them afterwards of, Hey, like the episode allowed me to connect with this person, or it helped me get on this podcast, or it made my mom take me seriously, like whatever it is.

I just loved seeing, seeing those pieces. So my advice for you, I. I'm very excited for you. I think it would just be to stay really present in the interviews and just enjoy, like you said, it is so fun to connect one on one with, with founders or guests. And sometimes we get pulled in so many different directions, or you've got your ideas on where an interview is going to go, but trying to just stay present, see where that particular conversation goes and let it flow and just enjoy connecting with another amazing emerging brand and letting that soak in.

I think that's, that's what. I felt was so important and so exciting and loved when I was able to just be in the interview. So I hope that for you as

well. That's really great advice. I definitely will do that. A really good reminder about just, yeah, staying present on the interviews and being flexible.

And I also just kind of wondered if from any of the in person stuff that we've done, if you have a favorite memory, one of our expos that you were at or one of the parties or an interaction that you had with any, with anybody through the community, or maybe it was just. an online message or one of your, or a podcast that you did.

Oh,

gosh, there's so many. I mean, just meeting people in person and having people say, Hey, I really loved this last episode. And this tip allowed me to go. I went and did the tip that the guest shared. And then this happened. Or I met someone just a few weeks ago who had said, I have listened to every episode of the podcast since season one, since Since the very beginning, I've listened to every single episode and I listen to it every week and also just meeting people and have them say, Hey, it feels like we're friends because you, I hear your voice in my kitchen every week, or you join me while I work out or while I cook.

And that, that just means the world to me to have been able to, to connect with everyone and to have heard, yeah, to feel like I'm a friendly voice to them and have, you know, joined them on their adventures that I'm. I can't even express how grateful I am to have it's it's a really intimate thing to be in someone's ears and in their head and have your have your voice in their mind.

And so I don't take that privilege lightly and just appreciate it so much. So meeting people in person just, you know, Getting any any of those feedback moments were just incredible to hear how people are using the show and how it shaped their lives at having people say, Hey, it helped me get a job in the industry.

It helped me move to to find the right job. All those stories were just incredible. So I'm so

grateful. That's so awesome to hear. And I mean, just the little stuff even that you hear about having helped people is so energizing. I just listened to your a most recent episode with the founders of Toast It, and I was so excited to hear them say that they actually learned about applying to Shark Tank from us.

So I think, you know, maybe I had posted or someone posted it. So they learned about it and then they got on the show and they got a big investment from Daniel, the founder of Kind. And it is so great to hear about that stuff and have the chance to chat with people. about it live. And, um, yeah, so for all of those listeners who have been along with Jessi, this whole journey, I'm very excited to take the mantle.

I hope you guys will all stick with me well, and definitely let me know if you have feedback along the way, Jessi, of course, but listeners out there as well. And really excited to just, you know, uh, feature as many brands, um, and people from the community as well. So. You know, the best way, um, to be on the radar, I would say, if you would like to be a guest on the podcast, um, is to be really present in the community.

So we, we often will source from brands who have applied for our shelfies, for example, and, you know, ones that we see being really active on the slack and helping other people. Um, and just, you know, putting out great products and having cool stories. So that's generally how we look for people. And we will also be releasing a podcast interest form on the Slack channel.

Um, so if you're not already on there, please join the link is at startup cpg. com and you can come and meet 16, 000 of your best friends, um, including Jessi and so many other people. So I'm just really excited to. Be on this new journey with you guys, um, and, uh, just, yeah, just looking forward to it so much.

Awesome.

And how can people connect with you, Daniel? Is LinkedIn a great way to connect? I know you're in the Slack, but how can people reach out to you if they do want to connect? Yeah,

Slack, for sure, number one, um, best place. And, you know, I'm there posting a lot of stuff, so you'll see me there. Second, I mean, our in person events, please show up to them.

We really believe that there's so much value to being at events. And just all of the unpredictable stuff that can come up in conversations and you don't know who you're going to meet. So definitely the events and then LinkedIn for sure. I'm extremely active. I really want a, as seen on LinkedIn hat, if anyone knows where I can get one of those, just because of how.

How much I'm on LinkedIn. Um, so yeah, definitely please connect with me there for sure. I will accept all requests on LinkedIn. I'm really happy to engage with everybody. Excellent. And is

there anything else you wanted to share about season four? I believe the first episode drops next Tuesday, so you stay subscribed to the show because the next episode will just drop for everyone.

So make sure you're all set up in whatever app that you're using, but yeah, anything else you want to share about season

four? No, I'm, I'm really excited. The first couple of guests. Um, so we've got Matt from chlorophyll water is one of the first couple of episodes who I think just has so much to share about being a scrappy founder and just getting sales done.

Just you know, using every resource you have available to you, um, to make things happen. And even, you know, without a broker, he doesn't have a broker, he's making it all happen himself. And then I've also interviewed myles Powell from miles comfort food, who I just always looked at as one of the most inspirational founders of just having an incredible energy about him.

All the time and being a just a really thoughtful, candid guy. Um, so, you know, he really will shoot you straight and be open with the challenges, um, and successes that he's had. And it just what an exciting brand. So really excited for, for those couple others. And then we've got a bunch more scheduled. So I think we have a really incredible lineup of people coming your way.

Yeah.

Excellent. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. I remember getting to try myles. I think it was Expo East mic drop party and it was just incredible. So, so excited to. Tune in to those episodes coming out soon, and like I said, make sure that you're subscribed to the show if you're not already. Hopefully you are.

You can always leave a five star review. That's always appreciated. It helps the show reach more people. And, yeah, just excited for the season four kickoff. So thank you so much, Daniel, for joining me today and letting everyone get to know you a little bit before the start of season four. I just really appreciate it, and super excited to see you.

And thank you so much for everything that you've done to grow and build Startup CPG and help emerging brands. I just can't wait to see what happens

next. Me too. I can't wait to see what's next. And thank you again, Jessi, from me, the whole Startup CPG team and the entire community for everything that you've done really, it's.

It is a you're an incredibly prolific podcast host with all of the stuff that you've done with such high quality for and sticking with it for so long is really commendable. So thank you from all of us. Thank you. All right. Well, we'll see everybody soon. Please check out the first couple episodes. And yeah, definitely, definitely let me know if any, any feedback and I will see you all on the Slack.