The Startup CPG Podcast

00:09
Myles Powell
Can you distribute your product in your local targets? We'll onboard you and you just drive around Target and put your product on a shelf. And it was the wildest thing because I would walk into a target with this little authorization letter and hand it to the manager and be like, I know this is weird, but I'we're going to put this on your shelf. And I did that for six weeks. And what that did was give us sales data. It showed the target team that we could be there for them. Right. And I was still working a full time job at the time, so this was like my morning and night gig. And like I said, did that for six weeks. They said, all of we've caught back up. Our distributors are back up and running. Thank you. We're good now.

00:47
Myles Powell
We'll talk about this later. And then six months after that, they reached out and said, hey, we want to give you a business award for the following year. So it was a weird entryway into Target, but we had to prove ourselves, essentially.

01:00
Daniel Scharff
Hey, listeners, I'm really excited to share this episode with Myles Powell of Myles Comfort food. We got into a lot of interesting topics, including his origin story, their rebrand, getting into target fundraising, his advice for founders just starting out, and his process around innovation. Really excited for you to check it out. Enjoy.

01:22
Myles Powell
Hello, everybody.

01:23
Daniel Scharff
Welcome to the Startup CPG podcast. I am Daniel. I'm the founder of startup CPG. And today's guest is Myles Powell. So, Myles is the co-founder of Myles Comfort Food, formerly known as 8 Myles. Myles Comfort Food is a clean, premium comfort food brand, elevating the landscape of frozen foods through the marriage of quality and clean convenience that the modern day consumer is looking for in grocery. Myles Comfort Foods has gotten tons of distribution. They're in over 500 retail stores nationwide. Places like Target and Giant, just showing the high quality the products and how much trust they're getting in the industry and how well their products are doing. So, Myles, I am super happy to have you here. ThanKs so much for joining.

02:06
Myles Powell
Yeah, absolutely, Daniel. It's a pleasure to be here.

02:09
Daniel Scharff
All right, Myles said no questions are off limits, so I will test that. So, Myles, let's jump right in. I would love to hear your origin story. Can you tell me about where you come from, what were you doing before you got into this crazy CPG world and how you decided to start Myles comfort food?

02:28
Myles Powell
Yeah, for sure. So, born and raised right outside of Philly, and growing up in a family where food was really the centerpiece of even outside of your major holidays, just the dinner time moments with my family, I think, molded me into the person I became. And my dad was a part time caterer. My whole family cooked. So as I got older, I was always tied to home through the foods that I would cook. Right, or just eat in general. And so when I went to school for engineering, there was still this deep desire to get food involved in my career at some point, somehow. And I tell folks it was the moment I graduated with a degree in civil engineering. It felt empty, like, I knew that was the thing to do. Right.

03:13
Myles Powell
Even though it got me my first job, there was no sense of passion. There was no sense of something that motivated me. And so shortly after I graduated, I started just exploring in the kitchen. I started a food blog. And that food blog really helped me express myself from a culinary standpoint without being actually trained. But it allowed me to really express how I feel about food. And that was the humble seed, right. That started everything. And I'm sure we'll get into more of that, but that's kind of the beginnings. Yeah.

03:43
Daniel Scharff
So what do you think the difference is between people who aren't so happy with their career or job but just kind of do it anyways because they just don't know that they can make a leap or know how to do it, versus you're talking about that feeling of emptiness with the career path. That probably would have been really excellent for you, also as an engineer, but just kind of knowing it wasn't what your heart wanted to do. How do you think people get to actually take action on that?

04:08
Myles Powell
I think part of it is in our genes and our DNA. So my grandpa was an entrepreneur, my parents, too. So I think it was always inside me. And I remember growing up, I was always told, if you want to make it in life, you have to run a business. It just happened to be that. I thought that business would be an engineering because that's what I studied for. Right. But the leap was taking a step outside of that, what I spent all this time doing and pursuing something completely different. And I'll tell you the moment, at my first job, I was sitting in a cubicle, high Cube walls, and this is back in 2012, and I remember.

04:43
Daniel Scharff
Looking at the clock, right?

04:44
Myles Powell
And I'm thinking to myself, wait a minute, I've got to do this nine to five for 40 years, every Monday through Friday. And at that moment, I'm like, that is impossible. I don't want to do that. And I knew, I was like, all right, well, I'm going to hold on to this for a bit while I figure out what I'm actually going to do in my life. All right.

05:04
Daniel Scharff
Hopefully that is inspiring and not depressing to all of the nine to fiverrs out there. If it is depressing, it's not too late. Check out everything else Myles is about to tell you for some good guidance of how to get it right. Okay. So I'm pretty interested to hear also because I think when I first met you, the brand was called 8 Myles, and now it's been rebranded as Myles Comfort food. Can you tell us about how you came to that decision and what the transition was like?

05:28
Myles Powell
Yeah, so that happened. You got to figure seven years after I launched the company and what happened was we kind of hit this moment of aggressive growth, right? I mean, it was a situation where were getting on board with a bunch of big retailers and this was prior to raising any significant money. So mostly bootstrapped. And it was a one man band, right. I didn't have anyone on the team. It was just me. And I was in part naive, right. I had never worked with these folks before, but they're big brands. Like at the time, sprouts, target, whole foods. And I remember being so excited because I knew the revenue would come in and that's what we all look for, right. But I didn't have a good sense of the brand. I didn't have a good sense of what makes us unique.

06:09
Myles Powell
There was no fundraising. Right. And went too big too fast. And when I got to that point, I kind of looked around and I said, we need to figure this out because this is not scalable. And it was a very hard moment because you're looking at seven years of work and I'm about to say, hey, this may not work, right. Because a rebrand takes a lot of time and effort and sometimes when you go through that process, you don't make it back. Right. But we knew if we don't do it, then were going to just crash and burn, right? So in 2022, started the rebrand process, told all my retailers and distribution partners, hey, I'm sorry, basically we have to figure this out and I hope you can have us back when they're ready. And most of them said, yeah, right.

06:51
Myles Powell
And then I was able to also hire a co founder, hired an additional person. She's our marketing manager. And when we relaunched with purpose. And I took all the mistakes I made and applied them to everything we're doing moving forward.

07:05
Daniel Scharff
And what was that actually like going through the process with, I assume you hired an agency to help with that, or a friend.

07:12
Myles Powell
Yes, we hired a whole design agency. I mean, it was almost, quite frankly, like starting over. It went down to why I'm in business personally, why am I doing this? What I want as an outcome, what I want the consumer to see. I mean, it was almost like therapy. And it felt good to have a solid base, right? Because I think a lot of us entrepreneurs, we focus on product, we're like, hey, it does this, it tastes good, people will buy it. But it's such, almost like a psychological experiment to what's going to make your brand stand out. And doing all that work through the rebrand, help us create that, as frustrating as it was, right, because I'm like, can I sell product again? I need to make money.

07:52
Myles Powell
But I knew, my team knew this is the work we have to do to pull off this rebrand.

07:56
Daniel Scharff
That's amazing. And I've been through branding processes before. Sometimes you see a lot of stuff that doesn't feel right and then you see the idea that is right and you are filled with warmth and a sense of these people get me, and this is very exciting. Did you have that kind of a moment? Or what was it like when you actually saw the vision coming together for the rebrand?

08:17
Myles Powell
There were a lot of light bulb moments, for sure. For me, since I'm an engineer by trade, I'm a numbers guy. So when you get into a lot of the marketing and branding stuff, I struggle because there's no, technically, there's not a right or wrong answer, right? I can't say the probability of this working is 75%. Right. There's none of that. It's just like, what do you feel is true to you and the brand, and how do you convey that to the audience? And who in the audience is going to accept that and want to be part of this story?

08:42
Myles Powell
But there were definitely a few times where I was like, whoa, even the story behind why I started, once we started to mold that into the product and everything else, and then even looking at how we can expand on that, it was like everything started to come together.

08:56
Daniel Scharff
And since the rebrand, what do you notice? Do you see an impact on how retail buyers perceive the product and feedback you get from consumers?

09:04
Myles Powell
Yeah, I think it's when we pitch a buyer, we have positioned ourselves in a way that we're in a category that is familiar but is stale and is being revitalized. And so we're kind of looting that charge as opposed to us saying we're just another frozen food brand. And that really helped us when we're talking to not only buyers, but consumers. Right. And it allowed us to think about who is buying our product and who is not buying our product. It's kind of like a confidence thing, too. When I'm talking to even someone on the street, I kind of know what things I can say to make their eyebrows raise, right? And it's interesting. And we continue to run these experiments. Like I said, it's psychological. It's fun, for sure, when you have an understanding of why you exist in the market. Awesome.

09:48
Daniel Scharff
And one thing I just have noticed personally from seeing you at trade shows is your booth is a good time. When I walk up to your booth, you're always there, full of energy. Your team is full of energy. Everybody is really excited about the product and the mission, eager to stop people walking by and just share the story. Where do you think that comes from? What do you think the keys are to getting that kind of great energy for your whole team?

10:13
Myles Powell
I tell you, it comes down to why I started this thing in the first place. That food generally gets me excited. Like, wherever I am, traveling, locally, internationally, it's all about the food, right? And something like mac and cheese is such a powerful item, right? I put that in the same category as, like, great pizza, right? Great ice cream, great all these things that just are staples that naturally get me excited. And so I want to convey that excitement with others. If you mention mac and cheese, if someone's hungry to the average person, they're going to be like, oh, my God, I want something because of that. And I generally get excited of watching people's reaction to eating. That provides me with the kind of that joy and that passion. So combine that. I love doing that stuff. All right?

10:57
Daniel Scharff
I mean, I think that's why a lot of us work in the industry, because we share that same love and excitement of food. Almost kidlike. That's what just always got me so interested in it.

11:06
Myles Powell
Yeah, definitely.

11:07
Daniel Scharff
Okay, so I'm really excited to talk to you about Target, actually. I know there's a good story behind that. Target is a dream retailer for most of us. Can you tell me about just what that whole journey has been like?

11:19
Myles Powell
Yeah, that's a pretty crazy journey. But Target, and I still can't believe I'm saying this, but they found us. And they found us when were a very small brand. So this is back late 2020, got an email from a buyer that said, hey, I found your brand in a local store when I was just out and about. And we want to chat, right? And I remember screenshotting the email and sending it to my now fiance and being like, is this real? Is he a real person? Can you check for me? This can be real. And he ended up being real. And we had a conversation. He said, yeah, I would love to try it out, sent some samples. He loved it. And knowing it was a long sales process, the fact that we're talking to them was amazing.

12:00
Myles Powell
And then, of course, a couple of months later, COVID hits. And so he goes, hey, I'm sorry, we are not bringing in any new items because we obviously have our hands full. The frozen food category just exploded because everyone was buying frozen food during this time. And he said, we're going to hold off on everything. Maybe six months later into the pandemic. I'm sorry. Six weeks later, I emailed him and said, hey, is there anything that I can do to help out as a frozen food brand? And he said, actually, yeah. Can you distribute your product in your local targets? We'll onboard you and you just drive around target and put your product on the shelf.

12:34
Myles Powell
And it was the wildest thing because I would walk into a target with this little authorization letter, hand it to the manager and be like, I know this is weird, but I'm just going to put this on your shelf. Right? And I did that for six weeks. And what that did was give us sales data. It showed the target team that we could be there for them, right? And I was still working a full time job at the time. So this was like my morning and night gig. And like I said, did that for six weeks. They said all kind of. We've caught back up. Our distributors are back up and running. Thank you. We're good now. We'll talk about this later.

13:07
Myles Powell
And then six months after that, they reached out and said, hey, we want to give you a business award for the following year. So it was a weird entryway into Target, but we had to prove ourselves essentially. That's amazing.

13:19
Daniel Scharff
Kind of got to do whatever you have to do, right? When somebody like Target comes calling, that's really cool to hear. And then what's it been like now being on shelf with them? Any lessons learned or recommendations to people about how to do well with Target?

13:31
Myles Powell
Yeah, I would say with Target, and this goes with all retailers in general. But two things. Number one is be very intimate with your buyer. Are at the end of the day, they're people that want to do their own job. Right. And when they're bringing you in, that's their job. But they want to see you succeed, too, because otherwise it's more work for them to replace you. So ask as many questions as you can. Ask them how you can support them. Right. How they can support you. It's a two way street. And then number two would be know who shops at Target? The Target shopper is different than the whole food shopper, who's different from the giant shopper. So it's also getting as much category data, people data as you can.

14:06
Myles Powell
So, you know, all right, my target shopper loves to get items on deals or they really invest in looking at reviews online, right. And that's the stuff that you need to succeed. And knowing the buyer's expectation, how many units to sell per week. Like I said, you want to develop this really strong relationship also, because let's say out the gate, you have a slow start. As long as they see the effort, they're not going to say, okay, he's out of here. Right. You show the effort that you're trying to improve, then you'll have a good placement.

14:33
Daniel Scharff
And how do you know that stuff? Because I think a lot of brands out there, it's a struggle just to figure out who even is their core consumer, much less the differences between their core consumer at different retailers. So how do you learn those insights and how do you then talk about them with the retailers?

14:49
Myles Powell
That's something we're doing right now. So with these retailers that we re onboarded it with, you've got your things like demos where you're getting that one to one consumer reaction. You've got some organic surveys you can do. You can always ask your buyer, right. They have some of the info, too. It's really, I tell people by any means necessary, like, you got to pull from as many sources as you can, knowing that brands like us can't afford to pay $20,000 for Nielsen data or whatever kind of data you want, right? So a lot of it's going to be organic and then you're going to be doing a lot of testing. Like you're going to be doing ad testing, seeing who's reacting to your ads, and just keep testing and testing until you determine, okay, this type of buyer is buying us the most.

15:28
Myles Powell
Let's double down on talking to them.

15:30
Daniel Scharff
Amazing and quick plug for our sponsor, Nielsen, who actually makes a really awesome product for merging brands. It's called Biser Byzzer, and if you just Google Biser and startup CPG, you'll get access to three free reports from them. So if you don't have any of that data. And you want some free ones, jump on that.

15:48
Myles Powell
I'll double down on that. Shout out. We worked with Pfizer before and them knowing that weren't at the level to buy massive data packages. Pfizer was great. We got some serious insight into our group that way. So, yeah, I would double click on that endorsement.

16:02
Daniel Scharff
Amazing. Startup CPG has an awesome partnership with Nissan IQ. Their product visor is especially tailored for emerging brands that want to get on demand. Piecemeal data. You can get really cool info about your category size, growth, how competitors are doing, velocity, lots of really important information that can help you sell into retailers and understand your category better. Best of all, you can get three free reports through the Startup CPG partnership with Biser. We'll put the link in the show notes and you can also just Google Startup CPG. Biser, that's B-Y-Z-Z-E-R. Could not recommend it more highly to get some free data that can really help your brand.

16:42
Myles Powell
All right.

16:43
Daniel Scharff
And when you got that data, do you remember any specific kinds of things you were looking for? Stuff that was important to you to see or anything that you learned?

16:51
Myles Powell
So Last time we got the data was with our old brand. We're actually gearing up to get the data with our new brand. But I remember one of the things that we wanted to do was look at the category as a whole, right? And like dollars. I remember seeing crazy numbers like, and I won't say the brand, but they do a mac and cheese in frozen. And there was one skew alone, did like 30 million in sales, right? And I'm like, oh, okay, now I'm glad I'm in this category, right? And then seeing things like frequency of purchase, right? How many units they're buying per week, average sale price, all that stuff is super important because then you can start to carve out how you're different if you're going to be taking those consumers.

17:26
Myles Powell
Or are you bringing in consumers outside the category that are shopping and shelf stable? Maybe they're shelfing in prepared foods. All that plays a part. But, yeah, it's super insightful. And I think nine times out of ten, it surprises you. Yeah.

17:39
Daniel Scharff
Interesting. Well, speaking of Frozen, how do you feel about the category as a whole, especially for those of us who don't have experience in the category? What's it like, pros and cons? And how do you think the consumer is thinking about frozen these days?

17:54
Myles Powell
The pro is that frozen is such an emerging hotspot right now because convenience is number one. People going back to work. And just in general, people need convenient items. And the Gen Z's and the millennials who are now running that category are looking for things that they would normally have gotten through Uber Eats or going out. They want the same quality in frozen. So you've got all these shoppers kind of migrating to frozen that had never been there, and they're not buying the legacy brand. They're trying to find these exciting items. And so you're seeing this emergence of consumers with money, essentially, right, that are like, hey, I want this branded pizza to taste like my favorite takeout pizza. So you're seeing a lot of eyes. So it's exciting.

18:35
Myles Powell
A lot of fellow brands of mine who are doing frozen that are value and quality, it's great to see. The downside as a brand is that merchandising and Frozen is hard. Right. As you can imagine, those doors that we sit behind get frosted super quickly, so you lose opportunities to stick out as someone walking down the aisle, and your end cap opportunities are a lot less. Like, I can't stack up like soda cans in front of the store. Right. I can only be in this one spot for the most part. That's where it gets a little difficult. And just in general, distribution of Frozen is tough just because you're shipping cold. Right. But I see Frozen as the next hotspot. It's been beveraged for a while, and I think it'll continue to beveraged, but Frozen is right behind it.

19:18
Daniel Scharff
Interesting. Really cool to hear and talking about. Frozen's complicated and expensive, too. What's your overall fundraising process been like? How have you funded the business over time and getting into the rebrand, we know that can cost money. Can you tell us about the whole process?

19:33
Myles Powell
Yeah. So the beginning was bootstrap. For the first five years of the company, I didn't know anything about fundraising, so I used all my own money, and then I got into crowdfunding a bit. So we did a couple of small crowdfunding campaigns, pretty small amounts. But that got me a little, honestly, crowdfunding allowed me to refine my brand message because that's paramount to raising money. And from there, we started looking at, okay, how do we speak to angel investors? And as the business grew, we opened up our opportunities for outside investment. So last year. I'm sorry, earlier this year, we closed our seed round. We raised $1.5 million, but that was over the course of 18 months, through angels, through micro VCs. And so now we're doing a bridge round that's about 400 grand.

20:17
Myles Powell
Once again, through Angels, through Micro VCs, aimed to continue to grow the company from a retail standpoint, but also food service, which is a very popular channel these days. But it's funny that investing, obviously, you're doing whatever you can to bring in these checks. You're dealing with these macroeconomic environments, right. Whereas now it's tough out there for people. So the checks aren't flowing as, I won't say easy, but they're not flowing as high as a velocity as they were before. And so investors are now kind of narrowing their scope. They're being a lot more tighter. They're asking more questions, which forces brands like us to really get awesome at raising money.

20:53
Daniel Scharff
And aside from we know right now, it's a very different fundraising environment, a lot more challenging. But kind of irrespective of that, looking back, what would you do differently on fundraising, knowing what you know now? If you were starting over?

21:05
Myles Powell
If I was starting over, I mean, I would do everything different. Right. When I first started fundraising, I didn't really know what I was doing. So I would send out cold emails to groups that weren't even aligned with CPG or they were too big for us. Right. But I didn't know any better. I was just sending out emails, trying to get a response. I would have been a lot more curated and specific about who I want to talk to. I would have started it earlier and I would have used not only my story as a lead, but the data. Right. How are we doing in these retailers? Why is frozen food the category that's going to be in? Right. The market size? All these things that I know now I would have used two years ago.

21:41
Myles Powell
And overall having an understanding of the numbers behind fundraising from a cap table standpoint and what this means two years down the road and all this stuff that I was never taught in school, right. And it was all learned organically or through webinars or in a couple of accelerator programs that I did. But, yeah, definitely would have been a lot different a couple of years ago.

22:00
Daniel Scharff
And on that note of learning about how decisions might come back two years later on the cap table, anything in there that's a watch out for people?

22:09
Myles Powell
Yeah. When you are raising money, don't just think about the next six months, think about two years from now. Right? Let's say you raise money at a certain valuation or valuation cap. Let's say you finish that round and you want to raise money a year from there. What does that look like? Are you going to be super diluted? Right? Are you going to be in a really tough position to raise again, every check is not a good check. And so I would say, just make sure you speak to an attorney or someone that knows contracts when it comes to investing and really set yourself up so that you don't bite yourself in the rear end later on. That's probably number one. I remember when I first sent out my first convertible note. I don't think I fully understood it. Right.

22:47
Myles Powell
I just knew the amount I wanted. But all the other terms, which are boilerplate terms, I didn't fully realize the impact that they would have two years later. Thankfully, I had some kind of counsel to help guide me through it. But if you don't, you can really put yourself in a bad position. Got it.

23:02
Daniel Scharff
That probably is a good topic for a whole nother episode. And then I also wanted touch on. You mentioned food service. So what's it like to shift from retail into trying your hand at food service? It's a very different channel, different kind of resources, distributors. What's that been like, and how are you giving a shot?

23:22
Myles Powell
Daniel? That's the million dollar question, because I'm figuring that out. As we know, it's such a different web. Retail is its own complicated web. Food services. It's different, right? Different players, different structure. And there's a lot of entities in that space, right? You've got hospitality. You've got entertainment, you've got collegiate space. You've got all these arenas and all these different players. And now it's trying to figure out, how do we get our foot in the door without overcommitting, number one, and distracting ourselves from our core business, which is CPG. Right? I mean, retail, because that takes all your effort, right? And you don't want to go lean all the way in food service and forget about that. But you also can't just throw pebbles at food service and hope something happens. It takes attention.

24:07
Myles Powell
And so a key thing is surrounding yourselves with folks who have done it before and ask questions. How do you get started? I'll shout out startup CPG, right, for the food service channel that's live there. Stuff like that is super helpful. So it's a work in progress for sure.

24:22
Daniel Scharff
All right. And that's the startup CPG slack that Myles is mentioning. We have a food service channel with a lot of people there trading tips. And we also have some great earlier episodes on the Startup CPG podcast explaining food service and how to get into it, featuring our friend Janet Cameron. So definitely check those out also. So, yeah, next question. Kind of along the lines of some stuff we've talked about. But what advice generally do you have for founders? Thinking back on your journey, maybe what would you do differently or what would you really want to be prepared for? Lessons learned. Adversity for current or Future Founders?

24:56
Myles Powell
This is going to sound super simple, but take deep breaths and do so in order to protect your mental space. Because as you grow, it gets deep, you're going to be faced with insanely stressful days, right? Days you doubt things and such a roller coaster and it really wears on you. And so I tell folks, make sure you have an outlet. For me, it's the gym. I do that as a way to escape, right, and balance myself. I've been in positions where I'll tell you a funny mini story. Last year the family and I took a vacation. It was two weeks, right? And it took me three or four days to actually get in vacation mode because I was so stressed and so anxious, I could feel it in my chest, right?

25:37
Myles Powell
And I made it a point from then on to make sure I protect myself because I couldn't think clearly, right? I was super stressed all the time. I began not enjoying things outside of Myles comfort foods and that was horrible, right? So definitely find it out. And I tell entrepreneurs too. Make sure you know why you're doing this, because as things inevitably get tough and really tough, you got to have a base. You got to tell yourself, I'm doing this because I want XYZ at the end. For me, it's generational wealth. I see it. I can clearly see it. That's my goal. Nothing's going to stop me from getting to that goal no matter what. If I don't have that, then I'm going to look at this as just a painful experience and I can do anything. I'm going to do something else.

26:17
Myles Powell
That's advice number one. And number two is surround yourselves with people who do this. Ask questions, ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask for Intros. And don't rush it. A lot of folks are like, I've got this product. I want to be in 1000 doors tomorrow. You can start small, right? And some of the best brands have started small, crushed it small and grew from there. And I think that is the best approach. The retailers will come, right, but do what you can within your ability to do so very well.

26:46
Daniel Scharff
I love hearing that. I definitely know what it's like to walk around with your heart in your throat because just feeling completely anxious and afraid because of crazy stuff going on at the brand and thinking about you're just in not just fight or flight mode, but fight mode, basically, for a very long time as an entrepreneur. And I could really see why it would be hard even to enjoy things like vacation when you've just been locked in that mode trying desperately to grow this thing. So I appreciate you being open about that. That's very refreshing.

27:18
Myles Powell
Yeah. And I'll tell you this, too. So I quit my other job. That was late 2021. Prior to that, I was getting a paycheck, right. So the frustration was just. I was burning out. I didn't have time to do what I wanted to do. It's a very different frustration when you go full time and every move is like, hey, if I don't do this right, I'm going to be out of a job. Right. It's like the pressure. I mean, it multiplies by ten, but then so does the fulfillment, like, when things go as you plan and things go right, or you hit these milestones, it's an unbelievable eXperience. And those are the moments when you go, okay, I'm in it. Right? This is why I'm doing this.

28:01
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, that's amazing. And I am a big fan of the side hustle. There are some founders out there that will tell you differently. They'll say, if you believe in this thing, you must immediately go all in on it. Sink or swim. That's the only way you'll make it work. I actually really believe you can start something as a side hustle, and then you have the money to pay for things until you're ready to make that jump. So what was that like for you? And how did you know when you were ready to go all in on it?

28:26
Myles Powell
Funny thing is that I've done this tango twice. So after the first three, four years of the business, I had moved to DC after the first three years, and I was ready. I was like, okay, I'm going to come to a bigger city. I'm going to grow this business. And at the time, I hated my engineering job. I mean, it was the first time I hated a job. And I'll be honest, I was a little younger. I was just in love with the allure of being a full time entrepreneur and being able to set my own schedule. So when I quit my job, I didn't have a really good sense of how to grow a business. I was just excited to be out there trying. It didn't go well. I burned through my cash, and I got to get some work.

29:05
Myles Powell
So I got three part time jobs, and that became a full time job again. And I said, all right, that didn't work out as I planned, but I still believe in this company. And then, so then three years after that was when, at that point, the company had began to really grow. And I knew just from a capacity standpoint, I had to quit. Like, if I didn't quit, then I was going to lose the business. Right? And as scary as it was, I figured I'll either die trying or I'll let this thing just kind of sputter. And it felt great. But when I did it this time, I had a clear sense of direction.

29:39
Daniel Scharff
Okay, that's great to hear. So one question that I have is around formulating the product innovation. So obviously you have a lot of culinary skills, but how does that actually happen to the point of coming up with a new product and getting it ready for commercialization?

29:54
Myles Powell
May I tell you, this is the fun part, because I get to go to my kitchen, try stuff and eat it. That's amazing. And then I get to send it out for just reaction from my team to people in my network. I'll just say, hey, I'm trying something new. Tell me what you think. In the midst of all that, I'll look at the shelf and go, okay, would this fit here? Is it unique enough? And things like that? Look at the trends in the market. Does it align with the trends? And from there, once we've got this thing that tastes good, it fits with our brand, it goes into commercialization.

30:27
Myles Powell
Working with the copacker, it's me going up there, helping each other scale this recipe up and determining the price, the cogs and all that stuff, and seeing if it'll fit and then iterating from there. But it's really enjoyable because it really gets into the beginnings of my brand, which is just in the kitchen cooking and eating. Right. So it's fun, right. Because then you're getting into. All right, let's pick a couple of retailers to do a soft launch with and see how this does. Right. Can test out the market, things like that. So all that stuff is really part of R D process.

30:59
Daniel Scharff
That does sound super fun. And I would love to volunteer to be one of your test subjects.

31:06
Myles Powell
Yeah.

31:07
Daniel Scharff
And I will be in DC. I actually am born and raised in DC where you are. So I'm pretty interested to hear from you. What's it like to be an entrepreneur there? What's the startup scene like? What's the CPG scene like? What kind of sport do you see in the community?

31:21
Myles Powell
Yeah, speaking of DC, this is going to really speak to who I am as a person. So when I was moving from PA to, I was moving from PA, but I didn't know where. The thing that made me choose DC was chicken, and found I went to founding farmers, I believe, and I'm visiting friends and I had some chicken and waffles and I went, okay, I want to move here. And that was like the big push. I think DC, from a CPG standpoint, if you're talking about support, has grown immensely over the past few years. In 2017 18, I didn't see as much of that. I wasn't also as immersed in the space, but over the past few years, I've just seen a lot of new brands come up and some are very successful.

32:05
Myles Powell
And I think the support behind it has grown a lot. And the cool part about this industry is that people love to help one another. Like, they love to share resources and notes, and that's really great in a business environment that is huge. Like you're talking about food retail, it's massive. And there's so much hidden knowledge. So the fact that we're willing to come together and help each other out, I think is paramount to the region.

32:28
Daniel Scharff
That's incredible to hear. I love it. So one question I have is we love to try to help out the community. Everybody in startup CBG is so supportive. We do have a great startup CBG, DC Chapter actually, that we've just launched. But just broadly speaking, is there anything out there that people listening could help you with? Is there a dream retailer that if somebody knows them, hey, put me in touch, or is there a new supply chain partner you need? Is there anything out there for your business that if somebody listening has a connection, they should try to reach out to you and help know?

33:03
Myles Powell
For us, access to capital is always huge. CPG is never the biggest draw for investor angel or micro VC investment. Obviously tech still number one, but access to capital in terms of investor intros, I never say no. Right? It's always a plus. In terms of retailers. We've had conversations with thrive market, and being that we don't do online direct to consumer, that's ideal for us, right? Being able to use or work with a group that can host that online presence for us would go a super long way. Fresh market is another one. There's a handful, but honestly, right now it's ways that we can continue to get people to eat the product, try the product. We were talking about demos earlier.

33:46
Myles Powell
Whether that's doing a demo itself or it's through an event, we want to be able to continue to get forks and mouth right by any means necessary. So always open to ideas and suggestions.

33:58
Daniel Scharff
On that front, too. All right, so if anybody has good introductions to make for capital sources, or if you can put in a good word with the thrive market buyers, which I definitely will help with, they'll be joining us at our startup CPG boat party actually here in LA in a couple of weeks. So really excited for that. And then also, if anyone can put in a good word with the fresh market buyers for Myles. Awesome. And Myles, real quick, are there any brands that you would love to shout out? Any other brands that you're a big fan of or ones that you know from the community or have seen out at trade shows right now that you think are doing a great job or just really supportive of others in the community?

34:38
Myles Powell
Yeah, I'm going to do it in the frozen category because I just continue to think there's so many good brands that are mission aligned with being like taste number one and also clean label, like, making sure that you know what you're eating right. My friend Margarita at Mazanadas, I've known her for a number of years, but she's done exceptional work in the space. She continues to grow and thrive and so always impressed with her work. There's another brand that does oatmeal bites. I don't know if you've had them before, but I grew up on oatmeal. Right. And this gentleman put them in a bite sized form and let me tell you, they're really good oat bites. They've sold a lot of the know they're in Whole Foods as well, but they're awesome. And then there's another brand.

35:22
Myles Powell
They do a grilled cheese, which you talk about comfort food. I mean, frozen grilled cheese is pretty nice. His name is Lane. He's with a company called a Friendly Bread. They're coming out of Baltimore, but awesome group there, too. Honestly, there's a long list of brands that I like in the frozen space. So I would tell folks, if you're in a giant or you're in these arenas that have this kind of, they have a specialty aIsle, like kind of your natural aisle. Take a walk down there, you're going to find some brands that look really appetizing. I would advise you give it a shot.

35:52
Daniel Scharff
Sounds delicious. All right. And then on that note, last question, what is your favorite restaurant out there for comfort food? Anywhere. It could be in DC. I know they have some great ones also, or anywhere back in Pennsylvania, anywhere that people need to check out for some good comfort food.

36:10
Myles Powell
Oh, that's so hard. I tell you why it's hard. Because over the past couple of years, I haven't gone out to as many restaurants as I would like to. And my favorites, they no longer exist, which is really unfortunate. Oh, man, that's super hard. I mean, if you're talking about comfort food, I think they're still around. They were one of the first meals I had in DC. Ooze and Oz in DC. Soul food, comfort food. And I remember when I first moved here, when I had them, I told everyone I knew if you come to visit me, we're going there. It reminded me of cookouts at home. It reminded me of the food I eat at home. Collard greens, sweet potatoes, fried chicken, all that good stuff. So if they're still around, I hope they are. That still might be number one. Right?

36:55
Myles Powell
It's not fancy at just. It tastes really good.

36:58
Daniel Scharff
All right, well, next time I'm home, let's go meet up there. And if they're closed, we can hit up Ben's Chili Bowl.

37:04
Myles Powell
Do that too. Yeah. Now there's a couple of spots.

37:07
Daniel Scharff
All right, perfect. Myles, thank you so much for joining us. This has been incredibly interesting for me as the host, and I know it will be for a lot of other listeners out there. So thanks a lot. I'm really excited to see all the progress and a very exciting trajectory for you guys at Myles Comfort Foods. What's a good way for people to follow you all and your journey?

37:28
Myles Powell
Yep. So website Myles comfortfoods.com. We're on Instagram. We're on TikTok at Myles Comfort Foods. On Facebook as yeah, and feel free to shoot us, we are super active, super Digital. So always here. All right, great. Thank you so much. Bye, everybody.

37:45
Daniel Scharff
Thanks for listening.

37:46
Myles Powell
For sure. Thanks, Daniel.

37:50
Speaker 3
All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast today, it would really help us out if you can leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I am Daniel Scharf. I'm the host and founder of Startup CPG. Please feel free to reach out or add me on LinkedIn. If you're a potential sponsor that would like to appear on the podcast, please email partnerships@startupcpg.com and reminder to all of you out there, we would love to have you join the community. You can sign up at our website, startupcpg.com to learn about our webinars, events and Slack channel. If you enjoyed today's music, you can check out my band. It's the super fantastics on Spotify Music. On behalf of the entire Startup CPG team, thank you so much for listening and your support. See you next time.