01
Price the shelf, not the spreadsheet
Cost plus pricing quietly kills consumer brands. Build the price architecture backwards from the shelf so there is room for the distributor, the retailer, and the promotion you have not planned yet.
Pricing
Insights
How consumer
brands actually scale.
Notes on branding, launching, and growing consumer products. Written by the people doing the work, for the founders doing it alongside us.
Positions
What we tell every founder.
Eight things we believe about building consumer brands. Each one changes a decision.
02
What a category review actually decides
A buyer is not judging your brand. They are judging what your brand does to their category. Walk in answering that question and the meeting changes.
Retail
03
Velocity is the only metric that keeps the placement
Getting on shelf is the easy half. Velocity is what decides whether you are still there after the next reset, and it is set long before launch.
Retail
04
Trade spend is a marketing budget nobody is managing
Promotional spend quietly consumes the margin your P and L says you have. Put it on a calendar, give it an owner, and review it monthly like any other line.
Margin
05
One hero beats six equals
Brands that launch a line instead of a product give the buyer no place to look. The shelf punishes symmetry. Pick the hero and build the range behind it.
Range
06
The first ninety days decide the launch
A launch plan is not a launch date. What has to be true before the first shipment, and what has to happen in the ninety days after it, decides the whole thing.
Launch
07
When distribution growth is a problem
Adding doors while contribution margin falls is not growth. Find the accounts and promotions that are structurally unprofitable and cut them before you scale the problem.
Growth
08
Founder story is not positioning
The story that raised the round will not win the category. Positioning names who you take share from. Lead with that instead.
Brand
Go deeper
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