From Kickstarter to Grocery Stores. CPG Tales & Tips from a brand studio on the inside.

1. From Kickstarter to Grocery Stores

Nearly three years ago, we schemed up an idea for a healthy, foodie-loving condiment, now lovingly called Burny Wild's Adventure Sauce. As a brand design studio, MRC was excited to have free creative reign?and work with friends we loved on a passion project. But, we never imagined the dedication and hours it takes to successfully launch a product like this.

I can say with certainty that this has been a major learning experience for our team, and now we can declare empathetically to our fellow CPG brands, “We get it!”.? So, I thought it might be worth sharing how, in two years, we took Burny Wild's Adventure Sauce from a fully funded Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to now soon being on the shelves of grocery stores. MRC has been operating since 2010, and by 2020, we were finally getting our footing. At that time, we enjoyed working on dozens of satisfying brand projects for clients, locally and internationally based. Running a successful business is always a challenge, not for the weak at heart, but after many ups and downs, we somehow made some good moves.

So, why would a successful branding studio minding its business jump into a completely different market that's terribly competitive and with such a low success rate? Simply put: It was exciting and creative, and although it’s a LOT of work -? it’s also a helluva lot of fun to try this new "thing," and we’ve learned so much working from the inside.

And try we did. We had the idea in 2019, the year before Covid. At the time, we wanted to work on different kinds of projects that excited us. Packaging design always seemed like a great lane to jump into, and being that we'd created dozens of brands in the food and beverage space, consumer packaged goods seemed like a perfect segue. So, we decided to make up our own brand and promote it to see if we could get some new projects in that market. We developed the name, brand, and worked with a chef friend to create a condiment sauce that had certain parameters ("vegan, medium heat to reach more people, no preservatives and tons of flavor"), tested it with friends who loved it and then...the world shut down.

Like everyone else, we were fighting for our lives as a business. Projects began drying up, and aside from keeping the lights on and payroll rolling, I needed to keep our team busy. And I realized that while restaurants were closed, this new heat sauce I had samples of in my fridge kept me super satisfied even with my quick heat lunches. So, I took a gamble and decided to try putting Burny to the real test and maybe - just maybe - get it into production. Because we needed to be very careful using our own money, we decided to crowdfund through Kickstarter, which turned out to be one beast of a mountain to climb! As many of you know, if you don't raise the total money asked ($10k for us) in 30 days, all of your efforts are for naught. You get zip, nada, zilch.

Luckily, we had an A-team of creative and strategic friends who helped us develop a plan for success - a strategy (thanks to Christina Marie Noel at Noel & Co.) to win enough hearts, minds and wallets to get us over the edge, photos to feature the bottles and food pairings (thanks to Food Seen), video to film our Kickstarter story (thanks to Spencer McRay Bland), a feature interview with Max Trujillo and Matthew Weiss on the NC F&B Podcast and of course our stellar MRC creative team with Joey Carty and Kaitlin Peterson plus many, many more - (you know who you are). And after countless posts online, taste testings at the lobby of our offices (thanks to Tony Bailey) during a pandemic, and hours of video content, we did it. 30 days, 219 backers, $11,310 smackeroos raised.

Whew.

So, now that that's done. Everything's golden, right? We go straight into production and ride right into the sunset with bags full of cashola. Right? Think again and read along...

Covid brought all kinds of supply chain issues mixed with a massive demand for CPG food products due to restaurants all but being shut down. The combo left this little train that could parked right in the "can't" track. The demand in the market left us on hold indefinitely and reeling, with several months going by and still no sauce production. Finally, one year later - almost to the day, we finally had our chance. The label designs were complete, the FDA approved the recipe - we were off to the races. And to be honest, at this time, I was so exhausted and exasperated by the process I vowed: "never again". I'd finish sending our wonderful backers their rewards and we'd call it a day.

But, something happened that changed me.

Once the sauce had finally arrived, we hit farmer's markets and comic cons (yep - you read that right!) and started seeing people's wonderful reactions to our brand, which had now expanded (thanks to the extra products we created for our rewards) to stickers, shirts, comics, art panels and more. I started to really fall in love with what we were doing and what we could achieve with Burny. Our mission started to move into one of not just food but adventure and eco-driven values. We discovered we could use the brand for a purpose beyond great flavor. We could have it be fun as hell, while promoting an earth-conscious storyline. We could be a part of the change to make our world a little bit better than the day before. This is the dream that keeps on giving.

So, we started to use that mission in not only how we spoke to our audience, but I have to say - it really helped us make better decisions about how we produced our products and who we worked with. Today, in keeping with our values, we partner with organizations like GoodCarts, noissue., and 1% for the Planet. We raise money for the National Park Foundation, and continue to find ways to do more for our planet and its inhabitants and get others to excitedly do the same.

Throughout the year since getting into production, we have done a massive amount of work, have built a beautiful e-commerce site for the brand with over 75 products available - not to mention a video game that you can have fun with while on break from ordering all of the things! But, the biggest payoff has been that while the work has been tough - we are happy to report that in the coming weeks, we will finally be selling our sauce at Weaver Street Market at all of their locations. A grocer that we admire greatly for being a true community leader, working with small local brands and farmers. We couldn't be happier.

Has it been a LOT of work? Yes. Indeed it has. But, for me, the rewards outweigh the risks and struggles. And at the end of the day, if Burny Wild's ceased to exist tomorrow, at least we have the lessons to take away from it all and how we at MRC can now be an empathetic partner for our current and future CPG clients. That's worth its weight in gold.

On that note - let's talk about some of the things we learned.

2. The Takeaways

One of the biggest takeaways is we’ve become much more aware of what’s required to make a CPG brand thrive in a highly competitive space and how we can be better servants to the clients navigating those waters. Perhaps these thoughts below could serve and inspire you as you move into the new year.

1. Take time to know who you are and who aligns with you are. A brand is like a person. The more you know who you are, the more confident you can be in any space you present yourself, and the more attractive you become. It also keeps you from deviating from the DNA of the business and why you started it in the beginning.
2. Set high goals for each year, then 6 months, then 3. We've found it incredibly helpful to start with the big, long view goal and work out the details in smaller bites to get there. Don't NOT hesitate to go after big goals. Remember: If you shoot for the stars, you'll hit the moon.
3. Remember, it takes a village, so build a dream team of players to help build your audience. Trusted employees, volunteers, partners and contractors will build you and your company up when things get tough. And trust me - it will.
4. Find teams and apps to save time and heartache with regard to storytelling & design, marketing, project management and accounting. Some of the tools we've loved are Klaviyo, Teamwork, Quickbooks, Adobe, Later, Gusto, just to name a few.
5. Think of it as an experiment. Understand and become comfortable with the idea that mistakes will be made and be ready to reflect on them. You won't have all the answers and often, you won't know how people will respond - experiment, reflect and adjust accordingly.
6. Do NOT let market trends guide your core values, but rather, leverage your core values to connect with what the market is demanding. Never lose the plot of who you are and what you stand for. Here's a thought experiment: Currently, 64% of consumers feel more anxious about the increase in inflation and 42% of consumers struggle to afford essentials. How does your product and its core values meet this demand? How does it solve their problems?
7. Be adventurous! Life is short, and so are attention spans. Give your brand your all - and remember, the greatest companies that we all admire never go for the small game. They think big, collaborate with the best, are not afraid to be bold, and think deeply about how to be of service to others. Be thoughtful, playful and have a ball with it. As we say at Burny Wild's - Live a Little!

I?hope this is of service to you and let me know if you have any further questions. I'd love to chat about where you are.

You can find me here or connect with me directly at [email protected].

Stay Wild,

Mike Rosado