Time to Get Bizzy with CEO Alex French

Why is finding product-market fit so important? 

Scaling retail is brutally hard. You have to be very strategic about it because once you pick a direction, you really can’t go back. That’s why finding product market fit before you scale is so important. If you scale before finding product-market fit, there’s almost no coming back from it. You're basically out of money and lost all trust with your retail partners. 

My recommendation is to find product-market-fit in your own backyard. What I mean by this is build relationships with local retailers and get your product on the shelves. Go into those stores and talk to the retailers and consumers to understand what’s working, what the challenges are, and optimize.  Throughout this process, you should be identifying what stores make sense to carry your product. 

Don’t force a square peg into a round hole. Be strategic. 

How did you find product market fit? 

There’s no magic sauce to finding product-market fit. I recommend asking yourself: Would I buy this item at this price to solve this problem compared to competitors? If you’re being honest with yourself, most times the answer is no.

So how did I know cold coffee was the one? 

I was at a food truck festival pouring coffee out of a keg and made $1,500 in 4 hours. That’s great, but there are still millions of people who know cold coffee is an excellent business opportunity.

What makes us different is that our product is genuinely delicious. I love my product as a consumer. There’s a lot of crap out there in the market. I also knew we got it right after our rebrand. We put the amount of caffeine big and bold on the front of the label.

We placed our tagline “Time to get Bizzy” on the label as well, and people started creating conversation around it. When people started saying our tagline unprompted, that's when I knew that we nailed it.

How did investors react to your rebrand? 

We were fundraising during our rebrand, and some very successful investors told me to my face that they were not investing because they didn't understand the vision of our new packaging. It is really difficult to stay committed to a rebrand when investors are telling you they don’t get it and it’s not going to work. Honestly, I’m so glad I stuck with it and trusted my gut because we’re killing it right now, and those investors were dead wrong.

How do you measure retention vs. customer acquisition in retail? 

Retail data is very expensive, so we typically analyze our base sales before and after a promotion. For example, if we're at Publix running a buy-one-get-one-free promo, we often see our base sales increase afterward. This indicates strong customer retention and successful acquisition of new customers through the promotion. We then analyze the cost per incremental item sold to quantify the promotion's success relative to others.

What’s your retail strategy?

Our product is inexpensive, but it’s refrigerated and heavy. I need to ship in large volumes. If I ship less than four pallets per order, I'm likely losing money. 

When it comes to choosing retailers to carry Bizzy, I work backwards. Our 48 oz. refrigerated bottle retails for $6.99, so I start with the high-end, premium grocery stores and work my way down. I’m not going to start at the low-end grocery stores or the conventional ones like Walmart or Krogers because they’re much more price sensitive. 

Let’s talk about scaling.

You typically start by being in a geographic region with a key account. Most big-box retailers are not going to take a risk on a new brand; instead, they're going to look at the data in their geographic market to see what other stores you’re in.

For Bizzy, the Northeast has been tough to crack because the big retailers typically look at the data of the bodegas, and we're not in the bodegas. We’re not local to the Northeast, so it’s very expensive to ship our product. It becomes a Catch22. 

That’s another reason why you want to start scaling slowly and strategically in your own backyard. You want to have a good data story and ensure that when the nationwide PO from Target or Whole Foods comes in, you have the manufacturing capacity.

What’s your strategy for selling into retail?

Stick to the basics. I think people are inherently lazy and all they want is simplicity. Buyers want to know the number of units per store per week that will sell and how this translates into revenue and profit.

Remember, buyers are like any other employees; they report to a boss and have goals and objectives, typically focused on revenue, profit, and market share in their markets. Your selling story should appeal to these three factors.

I listened to a great audiobook called "How to Be a Rainmaker," where the author explains that great salespeople don't sell products; they sell money. If you can show how your product will make someone wealthier, you will win and get a yes every time.

What advice would you have for people who are entering the retail distribution network for the first time?

I’m going to be honest, the real advice is don't do it. I think there are way better businesses in today's day and age than CPG. In CPG, your chances of success are extremely low, especially in today’s macro-environment. 

If that doesn’t deter you then my advice would be to start in your own backyard because you have more attempts at success.  Make sure you’re well funded and have product-market fit before you scale.

You also need to learn how to execute promotions. Consumers need price incentives to purchase in stores. You can do all the brand marketing and influencer stuff you want, but it doesn’t move people like a price discount. People aren't going to switch from their existing product unless you are truly solving a searing pain point with no other solution.

What’s the plan going forward? 

We’re in about 7,000 stores, and there are roughly 25,000 stores for us to get into. We’re focused on getting into those stores and marketing our brand to make sure people know who we are.