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Ramping Your Brand: How to Ride the Killer CPG Growth Curve
In this book, I outline a 4-Part approach to thinking smarter about growth as a CPG entrepreneur. It is based on years of anthropological research into how and why consumers pay for premium-priced CPG items and intensive 4P pattern analysis among an elite club of premium CPG brands that all reached $100M+ in less than a decade.
Part 1. Designing to Command a Premium
This is where many founders fail without realizing it. There is a cultural logic behind premium products that grow extremely fast. You should learn it.
Part 2. Managing A Small Experiment
Don’t hit the gas too early. Successful CPG startups manage a rolling, iterative experiment until key KPIs appear. You should learn this art.
Part 3. Fine Tuning the Conversion Playbook
Steady velocity growth is essential to ramping your brand.Your team needs to learn the art of sustaining it in key geographies, so that you don’t have to buy premature distribution to obtain growth.
Part 4. Accelerating to Scale
There are three best practices in acceleration. Two of them are counter-intuitive to CPG veterans not expert in the ramping of premium CPG businesses. You need to learn how to deploy them.
Part 1. Designing to Command a Premium
This is where many founders fail without realizing it. There is a cultural logic behind premium products that grow extremely fast. You should learn it.
Part 2. Managing A Small Experiment
Don’t hit the gas too early. Successful CPG startups manage a rolling, iterative experiment until key KPIs appear. You should learn this art.
Part 3. Fine Tuning the Conversion Playbook
Steady velocity growth is essential to ramping your brand.Your team needs to learn the art of sustaining it in key geographies, so that you don’t have to buy premature distribution to obtain growth.
Part 4. Accelerating to Scale
There are three best practices in acceleration. Two of them are counter-intuitive to CPG veterans not expert in the ramping of premium CPG businesses. You need to learn how to deploy them.
- GenresBusinessNonfiction
238 pages, Paperback
Published December 19, 2019
146 people are currently reading
1,544 people want to read
About the author
James F. Richardson
2 books6 followersJames F. Richardson is a Ph.D. holding cultural anthropologist who has studied American society for twenty years as a market research consultant. He has studied Americans in 40 different states and has lived all over the country, including New England, the Chicago-to-Madison corridor, Seattle and Tucson, Arizona. For nearly three years in the late 1990s, he also lived in South India studying a very different society than our own. Today, he lives with his wife, children, and dogs in sunny Tucson, Arizona where he writes nonfiction and consults with a national client base.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
December 31, 2019
As a startup CPG company (Landish Foods) we're about to make some key decisions for 2020 and onward: new product launches, messaging/positioning, sales channels, pricing, promotional strategy, etc. and the timing of this book launch could not have been better. I've been a fan of the author's newsletter for a while so I jumped on the book right away - literally within days of having to make some key decisions, some of which would be hard/very costly to reverse later. The book ties it all together. The advice is clear and specific but it's nuanced to a degree that feels completely appropriate and natural, leaving room for judgment within the confines of a clear, well researched and well communicated framework. There's no one-size-fits-all punchline typical of so many marketing/self-help books - the kind that is inspirational for about 3 days until I realize that it is not all that feasible to apply to my company/industry/stage/particular circumstances. This book is a really practical guide, specific to CPG and to each stage throughout the growth curve. Super super helpful.
September 17, 2023
Very good fit with the Wheelhouse PE model - sustainability and steady boring growth over ego-driven posterity. Especially with CPG, rarely is it winner takes all or most like in technology. The book is highly retail focused and underscores the value of ecommerce, though as Dr. Richardson cites (which I believe he is not lying about) - very few brands have reached 8 figures off e-commerce only.
Average first year revenue is $134,000 for companies riding the skate ramp
- well run launch can reach $1,000,000 in 2 to 4 years
Chasing doors is no way to scale
- Most cpg entrepreneurs leverage brokers and operate like b2b - forgetting the consumer
- Do not expand aggressively until knowing enough about your consumer to create a multidimensional playbook
- Retailers can scale by distribution (commodity) - no new brand has ever scaled by distribution
○ Memorability is key. Requires simplicity. Single category brand!.
- Why do so many entrepreneurs fall into the unicorn galaxy? Baby stroller fallacy. Fail due to
○ Low awareness
○ Premium price that eliminates 90% of consumers
○ Limited capital
○ Commoditization - easily replaced by incumbents
- “Correlation between a best practice any specific business is worthless, unless the correlation can be explained by human behavior or rules. Correlations without a why are strategically worthless. You must create your own individual playbook with your early consumers. There is just no way around it.” [p21]
Most emerging cpg brands are built on hope - passion intent more than brilliant execution
- “One of the most common mistakes CPG founders continue to make us to confuse their own personal drivers for founding their company with the category, relevant demand drivers […] This is most prevalent in Mission driven Brands, where the mission is actually projected onto the business is the main reason to scar the brand […] You are serving consumers. Not the other way around.” [p61]
- consumers and retailers shop categories, not products
○ No such thing as a new category. They begin from existing categories, and then expand, e.g., Hummus
- Natural it’s not a category, it’s a segment of a category
- Are competitive advantage is competitively, scalable, different from differentiation. Being unique is not enough and rarely scales
○ Don’t bury the lede in facts. Key value prop not 5 of them
- Focus on outcomes not needs. Vitamin deficiency is not strong enough. Weight management is
Secret is to reframe an outcome in modern cultural context. Low calorie / high protein with indulgence of ice cream
- Elite vs rare. Lemongrass vs. tempeh. Cannot be obscure
- “ the more entrepreneurs, overthink, and thereby subconsciously overcommit to every launch detail (packaging, messaging) before they have even one page consumer, the more difficult it will be when the market responds with a loud resounding meh!” [p78]
- “ when you want your first CPG business, you have created the product itself […] but you have not created a brand. Brent is the cultural praise you earn, not a lever you pull when you want a new trade market to the world.” [p79]
○ Brand = product qualities + consumer conversations about said qualities + passage of time
○ 1 or 2 words max, 1-3 syllables max, easily pronounceable, easy to spell
○ Avoid negative language, ingredient, names, occasion/seasons, self righteous phrases
- Repeat purchase is key. 50% is the high watermark (12-18 months data needed)
○ BigcCo product launches only reach 11%
- Power of digital marketing is not brand or ROI, it’s scrappy consumer research
- “ you do not want to be a $10 million company that I spent so little time listening to consumers that you inadvertently spend a lot of money, marketing your own personal why in order to drive organic growth. Oops.” [p107]
Product: Rapid prototyping pitfalls
- Tweaking out of timidity (trademark font or logo design, claims, brand story)
- “ the primary problem was tweaking is less what is tweaks in the spirit behind a behavior, Coleman and unwillingness to make a big, bold strategic. Based on fresh fan understanding.” [p116]
Placement
- Mass National: ideal for super simple innovations, with no sensory trade-offs (skinny pop, halo top)
- Traditional national: ideal for innovations, that are ahead of the curve, and they require consumer education or trade-offs (vita coco, Siggi’s)
- Deep local penetration before expansion: anything new, or with trade-offs (stumptown coffee, calavo)
- Deep alternative channels: high uncertainty (rxbar, Soylent)
Pricing
- Must sustain growth while maintaining premium
- Critical to maintain a high anchor - if reducing SRP over time, end point should remain higher than category ARP
Promotion
- Always local. Market to market
Segmentation
- Status buyers. Need premium, not because they are savvy
- Hard-core purity buyers - true believers, 11% of the population
- Category geeks - pseudo experts, tend to be annoying and not influential
- Pragmatic adopters - most important long-term
- Segmentation must be based on specific social or behavioral variables, not demographics
○ Moms are not a niche
○ Triathletes are
- NEVER PASS UP AN OPPORTUNITY TO INTERACT WITH A CONSUMER AT EARLY STAGE!
Consumers buy your trademark 4-6 times before they remember it - criticality of field marketing in localities
- Criticality of a memorable message: 1-line / 30seconds to make an impression
- Cardinal sin: promoting corporate mission instead of the killer consumer outcome
- Avoid field marketing that is mindless sampling - need to be strategic
When are you read to scale?
- $1M TTM revenue
- Demonstrated customer acquisition with positive LTV/CAC
- Iterated to meet 3 KPI's: Velocity ($/door/month), repeat purchase, reachable fanbase
E-Com: possible to scale to millions, but hard to scale above 7 figures
Better to remain under-distributed during ramp-up: maintain high velocity over high door count
- Beware of the Walmart trap - never fall into the EDLP trap early
- 40% of Whole Foods shoppers also shop at Walmart
○ Why Walmart is constantly seeking premium to have aspirational items in store
Price Pack Architecture - use multi-packs to increase ARP
- Focus on greater diversity of consumption occasions
- Phase1: increase visibility
- Phase2: increase local penetration
- Phase3: increase consumption occasions
One lesson: lean in on memorability
Average first year revenue is $134,000 for companies riding the skate ramp
- well run launch can reach $1,000,000 in 2 to 4 years
Chasing doors is no way to scale
- Most cpg entrepreneurs leverage brokers and operate like b2b - forgetting the consumer
- Do not expand aggressively until knowing enough about your consumer to create a multidimensional playbook
- Retailers can scale by distribution (commodity) - no new brand has ever scaled by distribution
○ Memorability is key. Requires simplicity. Single category brand!.
- Why do so many entrepreneurs fall into the unicorn galaxy? Baby stroller fallacy. Fail due to
○ Low awareness
○ Premium price that eliminates 90% of consumers
○ Limited capital
○ Commoditization - easily replaced by incumbents
- “Correlation between a best practice any specific business is worthless, unless the correlation can be explained by human behavior or rules. Correlations without a why are strategically worthless. You must create your own individual playbook with your early consumers. There is just no way around it.” [p21]
Most emerging cpg brands are built on hope - passion intent more than brilliant execution
- “One of the most common mistakes CPG founders continue to make us to confuse their own personal drivers for founding their company with the category, relevant demand drivers […] This is most prevalent in Mission driven Brands, where the mission is actually projected onto the business is the main reason to scar the brand […] You are serving consumers. Not the other way around.” [p61]
- consumers and retailers shop categories, not products
○ No such thing as a new category. They begin from existing categories, and then expand, e.g., Hummus
- Natural it’s not a category, it’s a segment of a category
- Are competitive advantage is competitively, scalable, different from differentiation. Being unique is not enough and rarely scales
○ Don’t bury the lede in facts. Key value prop not 5 of them
- Focus on outcomes not needs. Vitamin deficiency is not strong enough. Weight management is
Secret is to reframe an outcome in modern cultural context. Low calorie / high protein with indulgence of ice cream
- Elite vs rare. Lemongrass vs. tempeh. Cannot be obscure
- “ the more entrepreneurs, overthink, and thereby subconsciously overcommit to every launch detail (packaging, messaging) before they have even one page consumer, the more difficult it will be when the market responds with a loud resounding meh!” [p78]
- “ when you want your first CPG business, you have created the product itself […] but you have not created a brand. Brent is the cultural praise you earn, not a lever you pull when you want a new trade market to the world.” [p79]
○ Brand = product qualities + consumer conversations about said qualities + passage of time
○ 1 or 2 words max, 1-3 syllables max, easily pronounceable, easy to spell
○ Avoid negative language, ingredient, names, occasion/seasons, self righteous phrases
- Repeat purchase is key. 50% is the high watermark (12-18 months data needed)
○ BigcCo product launches only reach 11%
- Power of digital marketing is not brand or ROI, it’s scrappy consumer research
- “ you do not want to be a $10 million company that I spent so little time listening to consumers that you inadvertently spend a lot of money, marketing your own personal why in order to drive organic growth. Oops.” [p107]
Product: Rapid prototyping pitfalls
- Tweaking out of timidity (trademark font or logo design, claims, brand story)
- “ the primary problem was tweaking is less what is tweaks in the spirit behind a behavior, Coleman and unwillingness to make a big, bold strategic. Based on fresh fan understanding.” [p116]
Placement
- Mass National: ideal for super simple innovations, with no sensory trade-offs (skinny pop, halo top)
- Traditional national: ideal for innovations, that are ahead of the curve, and they require consumer education or trade-offs (vita coco, Siggi’s)
- Deep local penetration before expansion: anything new, or with trade-offs (stumptown coffee, calavo)
- Deep alternative channels: high uncertainty (rxbar, Soylent)
Pricing
- Must sustain growth while maintaining premium
- Critical to maintain a high anchor - if reducing SRP over time, end point should remain higher than category ARP
Promotion
- Always local. Market to market
Segmentation
- Status buyers. Need premium, not because they are savvy
- Hard-core purity buyers - true believers, 11% of the population
- Category geeks - pseudo experts, tend to be annoying and not influential
- Pragmatic adopters - most important long-term
- Segmentation must be based on specific social or behavioral variables, not demographics
○ Moms are not a niche
○ Triathletes are
- NEVER PASS UP AN OPPORTUNITY TO INTERACT WITH A CONSUMER AT EARLY STAGE!
Consumers buy your trademark 4-6 times before they remember it - criticality of field marketing in localities
- Criticality of a memorable message: 1-line / 30seconds to make an impression
- Cardinal sin: promoting corporate mission instead of the killer consumer outcome
- Avoid field marketing that is mindless sampling - need to be strategic
When are you read to scale?
- $1M TTM revenue
- Demonstrated customer acquisition with positive LTV/CAC
- Iterated to meet 3 KPI's: Velocity ($/door/month), repeat purchase, reachable fanbase
E-Com: possible to scale to millions, but hard to scale above 7 figures
Better to remain under-distributed during ramp-up: maintain high velocity over high door count
- Beware of the Walmart trap - never fall into the EDLP trap early
- 40% of Whole Foods shoppers also shop at Walmart
○ Why Walmart is constantly seeking premium to have aspirational items in store
Price Pack Architecture - use multi-packs to increase ARP
- Focus on greater diversity of consumption occasions
- Phase1: increase visibility
- Phase2: increase local penetration
- Phase3: increase consumption occasions
One lesson: lean in on memorability
May 20, 2022
I can't count how many times this author said CPG! It's amazing. The tips he gives are kind of basic and this book is really only for brands doing over 500k - 1 mil every quarter or year (big boys).
Big takeaways for me were
1. Know and listen to your customer (ground level)
2. Be patient your acceleration will come.
Side know the author also tries to be "cool" and "funny". Not really sure if I hated it or liked it?
Big takeaways for me were
1. Know and listen to your customer (ground level)
2. Be patient your acceleration will come.
Side know the author also tries to be "cool" and "funny". Not really sure if I hated it or liked it?
May 20, 2020
Epic
Exactly what I needed, right now. Thank you james for sharing valuable insights into the things we already know but ignore because it’s easier to.
Exactly what I needed, right now. Thank you james for sharing valuable insights into the things we already know but ignore because it’s easier to.
April 21, 2020
One of the best business book I've read. The insights provided by the author give a play by play book on how to scale a CPG company. I've never highlighted a book as much as I did this one and took about 20 pages of notes. The author is also straightforward and no-bull$#%!. I'll be recommending this book for anyone launching or scaling a CPG company and will definitely be reading it again.
December 18, 2020
great.
January 24, 2021
Some great tips for CPG entrepreneurs - serves for some good insight as you’re growing your brand. A bit repetitive towards the middle
January 28, 2022
2021 Best Indie Book Award Winner!
February 2, 2022
Like an mini MBA. Simple and actionable read. Came just at the right time for me professionally.
September 11, 2023
This is a must read for any CPG entrepreneur. Richardson puts a lot into perspective with his industry experience. It is even an entertaining read once you realized that Richardson has clearly inserted his own sense of humor into the anecdotes. He clearly illustrates his points through cited sources, and doesn't leave make opinionated guesses as to what's best. He gives CPG entrepreneurs realistic goals and even shows the best way to reach them. I highly recommend this book to anyone thinking of starting a CPG brand or is currently building their CPG brand.
January 24, 2023
Wisdom every CPG entrepreneur should know
This is a really well written book about learning how to grow your product brand in the consumer goods industry. Dr Richardson has layered out the manufacturers needs to grow step by step and it’s well written and easy to understand. Take as much advice as you can from reading this and growing your business.
This is a really well written book about learning how to grow your product brand in the consumer goods industry. Dr Richardson has layered out the manufacturers needs to grow step by step and it’s well written and easy to understand. Take as much advice as you can from reading this and growing your business.
July 27, 2022
It does what it promises I suppose- delivers a sour recipe for success in heavy CPG-oriented environment. On the other side I got few takeouts that could be just as well related to other industries or even a B2B scenario for that matter.
June 26, 2022
Well written and informative. I didn't finish the book only because it was not something I was really interested in.
June 1, 2023
High level examples for riding the skate ramp to CPG success. Approachable. Not enough tactics for implementation.
September 18, 2023
Required reading for CPG entrepreneurs
October 15, 2023
A must read primer for anyone thinking about starting or investing in a CPG company.
January 28, 2024
Amazing playbook on how to ramp up PREMIUM cpg brands.
February 16, 2020
I’ve been looking forward to this book, because I expected it to contain a lot of the industry’s best-kept strategy secrets. I was not disappointed. This is the book I wish I had had 6 years ago when I embarked on my CPG startup journey. A lot of what Dr. Richardson shares here rings true from our experience in the school of hard knocks. He has the data and anecdotes to support it.
The only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is, there are spots where it’s tough to slog through the academic and industry jargon. I found myself re-reading a lot of sentences to make sure I understood them. That could also be because I’m a sleep-deprived and distracted founder and parent 😅
Overall, this is an EXCELLENT book that will give new founders a leg up, help them avoid costly mistakes, and leave them hungry for more nuts and bolts on how to execute the strategies outlined here.
The only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is, there are spots where it’s tough to slog through the academic and industry jargon. I found myself re-reading a lot of sentences to make sure I understood them. That could also be because I’m a sleep-deprived and distracted founder and parent 😅
Overall, this is an EXCELLENT book that will give new founders a leg up, help them avoid costly mistakes, and leave them hungry for more nuts and bolts on how to execute the strategies outlined here.
November 26, 2023
Must read for anyone in CPG
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews