Biom

Sta- taking a slight step back and looking at all the incredible work that you and your co-founder and team have done over the years and just the twists and turns in navigating bringing this product to market and now really growing and scaling, what would be one piece of advice you would share with an emerging brand founder, again, in the super early days that you have just found really helpful?

So such a good question.

I, I think one very, very important bit of advice that I could share would be, you know, if you don't have ...

If, like, the clock is not ticking when you're just conceptualizing these ideas to try to really build as much conviction in the initial proof of concept as you can prior to kind of pushing go on it- I think in some instances that is inherently harder than others, right? If you're- there's expensive tooling involved to kind of like-

Right

... conceptualize it, et cetera.

But if it's, you know, if it's a food product or a beverage product to just really get it out in people's hands and build confidence that way.

The- just because I think that having that level of confidence, like, going into it, and it may help with fundraising or whatever else, but really, like, that can be expensive down range to try to kind of like augment.

And the reality is a lot of your initial customers are gonna be like your, you know, like these- these first movers, early adopters.

Totally.

Like, like, you know, like, including friends.

But really it's the folks beyond that that are just like, "I wanna take a chance on you." They're great customers, and so you wanna give them a product that you're happy with.

I mean, it's obviously not, like, it will continue to get better.

But I think that, um, I see some instances where you see a beautiful brand.

Like, the brand is, like, beautiful, the packaging is beautiful, but the underlying product is just, like, not quite there.

It's like, okay, maybe if you'd slowed down and maybe take a couple extra steps to get that part there, then these folks who just wanna be your super fans are more likely to just stick and be there, which will ultimately help carry you forward in the earliest days.

1,000%, and I'm really glad that you said that, because I think you need both, right? You need a product that you could stand for and feel confident in, and also a brand that looks great and will stand out.

But you can't have one without the other.

Especially in CPG, you really genuinely need both to even have a chance at making it.

It's such a competitive space.

So thank you for saying that.

I know that that will resonate with many founders who are listening, and I think it's a great piece of advice of slowing down and making sure you're checking all those boxes.