This post presents a small CPG food company that I recently met. What follows are the facts I know about the company, its struggles and my recommendations. Company This company is 4 years old with the founder as sole employee. He is also the product inventor. Product Innovation There are 6 consumer retail products that [...]
In this post, I will cover some thoughts and details about securing a name or filing for a federal wordmark for a CPG or consumer product startup with the USPTO. 1. Come up with multiple names to choose from. 2. Search the USPTO database for your chosen names and any variations. 3. Use the main [...]
I read a good article called The 3 Most Important Levers of Growth for Business. They include: Grow the market, or attract new customers; Grow volume with existing customers, or sell them more of the same product or new products you roll-out; Steal share, or attract a competitor's customers; I would add a 4th leve [...]
In my last post I wrote about some characteristics I thought CPG natural food start-ups must have to succeed in that category. As context for that article and this article, I visited with about 20 start-up companies in the natural food category that showcased their products at a recent event. I want to continue from [...]
I had the opportunity to see about 20 start-up companies in the CPG natural food startup category that showcased their products at a recent event. All were small CPG natural food startups no more than 4 years old - half were probably less than 1-year-old. I went around to each one, tried products and asked [...]
This article talks about how to separate investment costs from your operating costs in the profit and loss statement so that you have good numbers from which to make meaningful analysis. P&L Cost Buckets In my P&L, I like to group operating costs into the following buckets: COGS, marketing, and operations. There are many expense line [...]
To sell to Walmart can be boiled down to the following: Cash and Inventory Retail takes cash. You will have to invest in product inventory that won't realize cash very soon. Expect to pay upfront shelf fees to get your product on shelf. It could be a combination of cash, free product to stock stores [...]
This post demonstrates how to use margins and benchmarks in financial statements for a CPG or consumer product business. Margins Defined By margins, I mean an expense line item that is relative to net profit, expressed in percentage. Figure 1 is a basic example with the key margins to which we will pay attention. Figure [...]
This post is a basic guide to get your product and company ready for retail CPG. Finance Retail takes cash. You will have to invest in product inventory that won't realize cash very soon. Expect to pay upfront shelf fees to get your product on shelf. It could be a combination of cash, free product [...]
This is a nuts and bolts post on operations for a DR TV/Radio/Print business for a consumer product. It includes the pieces you need to setup and manage in order to run such a business, whether it is part of a business or is the business. Think of these components as your team on the [...]
