August 16, 2024
The BEST Posts of 2024 To Date
1. Glaring Funding Gaps in CPG The funding of amateur-founded brands is no longer viable. What will you do? Read More
The PGS Blog
August 12, 2024
Kevin’s Natural Foods – The Unicorn You Totally Missed
You’ve seen the bright white packaging in the deli department or perimeter displays at Whole Foods. Kevin’s Natural Foods is now at peak ACV for refrigerated meals; you’re just reading about it. How did this happen, industry savants? No sexy TikTok influencer campaign. No viral YouTube anchor
August 9, 2024
Why You Need to Annualize Your Topline Scanner Data
Unstable weekly and monthly sales are a basic, universal feature of early-stage brands. Honestly, it’s terrifying. And, all this data noise easily masks fixable issues in demand for your thing. But not if you can’t unscramble the raw data noise and find the real growth curve underneath. Annualizing
August 5, 2024
Solo Founders NEVER Scale Their Brands
I’ve been working exclusively with early-stage brands for seven years. After almost fifty client engagements and immersion in hundreds of case studies of CPG brands that successfully scaled, I’m confident that not a single CPG brand I have ever researched or worked with has scaled
August 2, 2024
Why You Need a Strategic Review – Not a Re-Brand
When early-stage businesses struggle in the premium end of consumer-packaged goods, a shocking number of founders and operators leap to the conclusion that they need a “brand refresh” or a “re-brand.” Look, branding agencies are numerous, and they network heavily at Expo West. They sponsor
July 29, 2024
The Five Signals that You Should Pivot Your Brand
Below are the combined signals that make pivoting a smart option. But only if you are committed to getting on the Skate Ramp of exponential growth. Sub-30% topline growth rate for three years straight, AND Your original UPCs don’t grow the same store velocity, AND Adding new UPCs
July 26, 2024
Sometimes, Founders Need to Make Weird Cool
In my book - Ramping Your Brand - there is a line that gets at the fundamental danger in CPG innovation, the fundamental threat to above-average memorability in a crowded, oversupplied marketplace. "Rarity in its purest form—rare ingredients, rare flavors, rare sensory textures,
July 22, 2024
Are You Using the Wrong Retail Velocity Metric?
One of the more significant challenges I've seen with aggressive growth brands is using U/S/W velocity data to diagnose and plan the business for years and years. I can't emphasize enough the need to switch to weighted distribution metrics as soon as you hit $5M in
July 19, 2024
Will Regenerative AG Replace Certified Organic?
ROC—Regenerative Organic Certified. Is it the new "certified organic" or a dead-end nano-niche attribute for navel-gazing elites? Part of the answer lies in ROC's ability to condemn its cousin 'organic' as inferior while introducing new consumers to the latest premium standard of environmentally friendly agriculture. Google search
July 15, 2024
Riding the Ramp Training – July 19
I’ll explain. But before I do, there are less than 10 spots available for the July Q3 cohort. So, you may want to grab one now. OK. For the rest of you reading this, this is my best explanation of why it matters for CPG founders