Adam Spriggs & Chris Robb - Investing Early in Siete, Poppi, and Bachan's

On this episode, we’re joined by Chris Robb and Adam Spriggs, the duo behind The Angel Group - one of the most influential early-stage investment communities in CPG - and Supernatural Ventures.

Between them, they’ve backed breakout brands like Siete, Poppi, Bachan’s, Garage Beer, and Painterland Sisters. They’ve built a reputation for spotting winning founders long before the rest of the industry takes notice.

Chris and Adam unpack what they’re seeing across today’s early-stage CPG landscape - from what categories they’re most intrigued by, to how they evaluate founders, products, and data when there’s very little of it to go on. They share their frameworks for diligence, talk through the stories behind some of their flagship investments, and outline what truly differentiated brands have in common.

—---------------

Episode Highlights:

💸 How The Angel Group and Supernatural Ventures identify breakout brands early
🥇 The story behind their investments in Siete, Poppi, and Bachan’s
📊 How founders get forecasting wrong, and how to fix it
🚀 Why speed is becoming the new differentiator in CPG
📦 The importance of merchandising and store-level excellence
🧠 What truly makes a brand “differentiated” in 2025
📋 How to brief an agency the right way
💬 The biggest fundraising mistakes founders make
❤️ Why Chris actually enjoys the fundraising process

—---------------

Table of Contents:

00:42:14 - The Angel Group overview
03:14:02 - Supernatural Ventures overview
06:06:12 - The early stage CPG landscape today
09:34:04 - Overhyped and underhyped categories
13:07:24 - Investment philosophy and eval process
20:52:21 - Forecasting, how founders get it wrong
23:10:20 - How and why they invested in Siete so early
25:12:22 - How and why they invested in Poppi so early
27:11:01 - How and why they invested in Bachan’s so early
30:47:20 - Founders, green and red flags
34:30:08 - Will they make a bet on a founder new to CPG
37:50:07 - What a truly differentiated brand looks like
39:42:24 - Speed is now going to be the big differentiator
40:11:28 - Don’t let the copacker dictate your product
42:58:09 - What a good agency brief looks like
44:49:24 - The importance of merchandising
47:50:02 - Chris’ best advice for founders
48:42:27 - A good fundraising process, how to screw it up
50:44:28 - The biggest mistake founders make with fundraising
51:43:17 - Why Chris likes fundraising

—---------------

Links:

The Angel Group - https://www.wearetheangelgroup.com
Supernatural Ventures - https://www.supernatural.ventures
Follow Adam Spriggs on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-spriggs-69a91b53/
Follow Chris Robb on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-robb-9a522931/
Follow me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg/ 

For help with CPG production design - packaging and label design, product renders, POS assets, retail media assets, quick-turn sales and marketing assets and all the other work that bogs down creative teams - check out https://www.kitprint.co/  

Transcript

0:00

welcome to shelf help today we're speaking with I would say to the most sought after early stage CPG investors in the space these days Chris Rob and Adam Sprigs Adam and Chris built the Angel Group well known syndicate that invested early in brands like Siete Poppy Bashans just to name a few more recently they launched Supernatural Ventures it's an early stage VC fund focused on consumer as well so really excited to get into it yeah first off just for the listeners that aren't as familiar maybe Adam you want to just give us kind of quick lay of the land in terms of original vision for the Angel Group what the org looks like today few portfolio highlights and then Chris I'll let you kind of talk about supernatural yeah yeah let's dig right in and thanks for having us Adam uh you're a friend and member of the group of course so it's good to be here with you yeah so original vision from the Angel group I could come at this really from a couple different paths I think for the industry you know I've been in the industry for 20 years you see a lot of things kind of come and go uh one thing that I was noticing about starting probably about six seven eight years ago is that there is a significant funding gap between founders who are raising money from friends and family to when they can actually be credible businesses in the eyes of venture capitalists like institutional investors so you know that are typically looking for brands that are doing $1 million or or more in revenue and there's a big funding gap between the friends and family who'll back you no matter what and then the institutional capitalists who want to see a kind of jump over certain hurdles before they get involved and I always felt like the most kind of qualified investor to come in and help fill that gap where industry people themselves people who work in the industry day to day in different capacities who might invest their money in the stock market they might invest their money in sports gambling or private businesses or whatever real estate and my thinking was always like why don't you put your knowledge your expertise to work and invest in you know the the early stage landscape of CPG and so that was part of the vision for getting Angel Group started was fill that funding gap bring industry people together and then selfishly the second part was that I had wanted to start getting involved in angel investing personally um no finance background no investment track record nothing in my family like just starting cold from industry experience but primarily as a marketer I spent my entire career as a marketer really and I always felt like I was ill equipped to evaluate how to invest in these companies on my own I thought you know working alongside other smart industry people who came from sales or finance or operations we could do a better job communally diligence these companies and kind of deciding on which brands we felt like we had the most conviction behind and that was really the Genesis of the angel group was kind of building out from there oh that's great and yeah Chris and then you guys more recently launched supernatural I'm kind of curious tell me a bit about that how it compliments the Angel Group and and uh you know maybe what kind of a vision is what the firm looks like you know five years from now in an ideal world yeah well I think that um you know Adam and I were were building the the Angel group for years you know before thinking about doing the fund and I think it was really pretty organic evolution frankly because you know I I think the biggest you know driver was when you're talking with brands and and thinking when when you're kind of building your own conviction which is how we've always selected brands for the group it's really been you know Adam and myself um you know as two industry hacks not investors you know people that just you know have been 20 years in the industry and grown up in grocery retail or or marketing and branding and like that's a lot of what we've relied on is instinct and the group was to you know to bring in domain expertise to round out our diligence you know thinking and to kind of pressure test you know when we're looking at at deals we felt like we had a really good system for for evaluating for value add for deal flow a lot of factors and the one thing that we were missing was the ability to you know in conversations with founders say hey we really really believe in this deal we've kind of done the work we're gonna bring it to the group you know which is an opt in network is very different than saying you know we're gonna put in you know 500,000 and bring you to the group and we felt like that was a just a natural evolution of the platform and the ecosystem that we wanted to build and um and also we wanted you know Adam and I wanted to be full time investors you know and so I think there's an element where you know bringing in some more passive resources right like you know the angel group is full of folks like yourself who are in the industry and very active and and want to be participants in the process but not every investor has time or wants to do that so it was kind of a way to bring in some more resources into the industry and into this early stage thesis that we have kind of built our identity around so it's been a lot of fun I think a lot of people we're we're you know still in the in the midst of kind of fundraising but we did our first close in June executed our first five deals and um you know got out of the gate and it just it it feels it feels really fun to um you know just it's been a lot of learning for us you know standing up as a fund is is obviously a heavy lift um but it's been enjoyable you know I think a lot of people talk about the fundraising process and how much of a bear it is and how you know hard it is and and it is it's a lot of time it's a lot of work um for me it's been one of the most exciting exhilarating times in my life just meeting so many different types of people and sharing your passion and conviction for for what we do every day so yeah it's been a fun evolution and and frankly to do it with this guy who I have so much respect for and um it's been a dream come true that's awesome that's great I mean you guys clearly sit at kind of the nexus of the universe when it comes to CPG in a lot of ways so yeah Chris I'll let you take this one that and you can kind of build on it but how would you kind of describe this the current landscape of early stage CPG today well it's a really exciting time to deploy capital you know probably the most exciting time that I've ever seen and I've been you know in the industry for a long time but I think you know having started brands myself in in the growth era I'll call it pre covid you know is a lot of kind of growth at all cost in the mentality and I know this is stuff that we all talk about all the time but I think really you see a lot of people on the sidelines a lot of people waiting for others to make a move you know and I think one thing that we think a lot about is if you're willing to to make the move first if you're willing to take the swing that's a lot of what venture capital is about and I think that there's been some of that in terms of the venture that exists in this space that um has maybe exited stage left I also think there's a well you just look at the numbers I mean venture capital's down in early stage for CPG 60% since 2021 it's pretty significant right so there's a lot of that white space that we love is also a bigger white space today than it was a few years ago but I also think that um one of the things that we pride ourselves on and you've experienced this we know whether it's a Justin Ben's or a o or a Painter Land I mean we we like to come in early we like to um you know and it's kind of how we positioned our fund and position the group is you know is just um when you have conviction you got you gotta take the risk you know that's a lot of what venture is about and we have a lot of confidence cause we've done that before you know we've invested in multiple brands that have been become a pretty successful at the pre revenue stage you know so I don't see a lot of people out there kind of willing to take that type of risk and that's something that we that we've really enjoyed doing and it's you know when you see it you see it and it's a lot operating on instinct at that point but it's something that we you know have always kind of seen as part of you know what we want to do in this industry yeah Adam anything you want to add to that not much is I think the innovation is relentless that's great that's you know never ceases to amaze me new founders stepping into the arena you know unpredictable in many ways in terms of just you know how a trend is going to manifest across different categories so there's always the element of surprise it makes it fun and interesting there's always been the social dynamic right food is fun it's personal it's tangible kind of versus other sectors you can invest in I think more people are realizing that too I think CPG's becoming popular again with you know I guess you'd say kind of like outside money outside interest they see the Simple Mills transaction or the Poppy or Seattle deals and brings some people back into the mix which I think is a good thing it's just you know that's probably what took us off the rails there for about five years or you know 10 years from 2000 you know 10 to 2,020 or so where it was just a lot of tourists you know coming by and you know investing in things like plant based and gluten free and you know more recently it's been like now it's just kind of over indexing on um these these kind of fleeting trends or these slow to grow or slow to to develop trends um so there's always something new to get into and I think that's the that's the best part about CPG for sure totally what categories does it based on are the ones most excited about right now and on the other side are there any that feel undervalued or ones that are not getting as much attention as maybe they should that feel like they have some like the most room to run yeah Chris you could you should talk about commodity goods well I I think at at I you know you look at like a non alcoholic plant based are good good things to look at and again I feel like I'm preaching you know a little bit to what people understand at this point but you know you could see this a few years ago happening where it's like so much money is coming into these categories because when you just look at the trends OK people are drinking less alcohol people are eating less meat you know etcetera etcetera but it's like there's no infrastructure yet in retail there's no dedicated feet there's no planograms built there's like it's it's you know for me I'm like this is crazy um you know and also it's just not the demand and you know this is something that you know Adam really well but like what one thing that we talk about like I live in Saginaw Michigan you know Adam lives in Toledo so we're you know you're down in Minnesota so you understand this probably more than more than more than most but there's a lot of a lot of the innovation comes out of metros on the coasts you know or in you know particular cities like even like an Austin or Boulder and I think it's um which is great a lot of it is looking through a different lens than I think we are day to day when we're shopping at Kroger or Meyer or you know just kind of in more through the looking more through the lens of the mainstream consumer you know and and most Americans and I think that we tend to be more bullish on innovation within bigger categories that exist versus you know innovation in categories that that are new and sometimes absolutely it's worth and warranted to take a swing on something that is disruptive and and really just has that potential to break through the wall and that's part of venture absolutely but I think that we have we just see a big opportunity for I I would call it like back to the future a little bit you know like I've been ripped in the natural products industry so I've kind of seen this my whole life but at the end of the day better for you as a concept is always gonna be centered around keeping it really simple so things like you know higher quality protein or you know higher quality dairy or you know things like that that are going to be you know big categories that they just or you know French fries frozen French fries right I remember taking a lot of heat when we first brought this to the table it's never gonna work frozen French fries how big could that be right and I think it's just like yeah but you know most Americans they want a better option they're gonna eat French fries probably multiple times a week and and they want a better version you know and so I think it's just I can't you can't overlook the power of existing behavior that you know is within a big category and putting a spin on it that's relevant and current and going to be current you know for the next several years because ultimately that's what's pretty valuable to strategics totally yeah that's all makes a lot of sense you know primarily through you guys through the angel group and I think kind of some of the things that are top of mind for me I think are probably not uncommon is especially those earlier stages obviously the founder and the team product obviously has to taste amazing and just is the overall experience really good you you know economics have to be there velocities there and then you know you kind of touch on it a bit going after these bigger categories but in similar ways like is it clear where the brand sits on the shelf if the buyer doesn't really know what category this is in might be a little more challenging and what is a a fundable early stage brand look like to you guys in in 2025 yeah I'm glad you ticked off a lot of the items that are just kind of checkbook items right that are check box items that you know I think any investor would come on and talk about you know some of the the lesser talked about I think criteria or considerations is you know one I would say is just you know the founder themselves outside of just kind of owning and commanding their business so much I was thinking back on this yesterday Chris and I are always on calls with founders right and often times together Maddie Cerviante on our team is also alongside of us for many of these calls and it's like when we regroup after a call with the founder I think a lot of times we want to you know dig into the business itself the product concept its potential you know this is a debrief session but ultimately what we end up talking a lot about too is the founder what we thought of them and it's not necessarily like a judgment about them so much as it is like you notice when we're talking about I really like that guy or I really like that girl I really wanna see her win right or I just felt she was really warm and welcoming and you know open I think one thing some of your audience are founders raising money for their CPG brand you know to go in and um present yourself authentically I think goes a long way being willing to talk about yourself personally you don't you know have to go too far but I mean just to open up a little bit it's interesting how much that I don't know just puts points on the board right away with uh with between anybody right is just to be able to connect on a human level and I would say that you know almost every day we're meeting really really good people who are joining our group who are investing in our fund who are founders we want to get behind but we will go to like extra lengths to see even if we're not investing in a company if we connect with a founder on a personal level and Chris can say this cause he's got so many people we've never invested in who are texting with him daily um you know working with Chris and you know utilizing his network and brain power and resources you know to advance their companies so I think that that's a big piece is just really feeling like you can get a good connection with the founder the other thing I would say is the product concept itself goes a long way with us right so in almost every scenario before we do an intro call we're gonna order product to our homes with the founder of the company that we're gonna be talking with and we'll all sound it out we have Friday calls where we've all opened our bags our boxes of food products and we're we're sitting around and talking about what we thought of it and how quickly we're consuming through it and what our family members think of it so seeing something that you know you're just mentally thinking about going back to back down to the pantry grabbing another bag eating through the case you send it over to a friend's house they've eaten it like that's a really good signal for us and often times it's it's it's a substitute for market data because these brands aren't in market yet so you're leaning a lot off of your own personal experiences with the products in the household so if you can make a big impression with the with the product you create a memorable product experience that goes a long way yeah Chris I'm more like the quantitative side for brands that are have been in market at least to to a certain extent what are kind of the yeah well one one thing I would say just quickly is um you know I the everything that Adam said on the founders is is right on um the home test the kitchen test like the product the product has to be undeniably good you know and I think a lot of times people overlook you know oh it's 95% it's good enough you know it's not 100% if you're if you're not 100% like just wait until you are cause the product just has to be undeniable and I'd say the same thing for the brand I think like overwhelming majority of the time that's overlooked or hey we'll you know we're gonna get this off the ground we'll invest in the brand at some point yeah you know I really really look for people that spend the time to get the brand positioning right and to really make that investment it's a hefty investment but it's one of the best if you really believe in what you're doing it's the best investment you can make and so a lot of times we'll find stuff that we like it pass the founder test passes the kitchen test the product is exceptional except you know it feels undeniable sometimes the brand we don't think is there you know a lot of times that will be kind of a piece and so a lot of times we're willing to kind of do the work you know to help with that brand positioning and I think that not often do you see people that have gone all the way on the brand front but part of early stage investing is understanding that not everything's gonna be perfect but if the product and the concept is undeniable it's worth putting some elbow grease in to to work on the other things that are manageable yeah and so uh that's that's something that we've done multiple times in terms of the metrics and indicators you know for you know people that are out in market and this is something I always you know coach is like you know start with your own region start with your own premium accounts you know you're gonna be at an inefficient phase if you're early and so go to where you can where customers are gonna be less price sensitive out of the gate just makes makes sense while you're in your inefficient phase you know leverage regional distribution or or go direct if you can like whatever the situation is but retail is an indicator that matters to us if it's gonna be in market that's what I care more about than DDC you know cause DDC is a little bit unfair in the sense that you can you're kind of marketing directly through you know ad campaigns or or whatever it may be social influence it's a little bit unfair versus retail which is gonna be much more organic velocity like if you're in planogram you're not on promo um you know that's like a true test of velocity and how your packaging is working how your concept is working how you're standing out against the category that's just real data you can look at and so I think a lot of times too we'll see in pitch decks you know inflated data that's built on promo or demo and things like that so like what one of the things I really look for is okay what's the non promo period look like you know over the course of you know ideally you know several weeks or more and I wanna see that this is resonating you know at a at a premium price point in a premium market that can that is less price sensitive I wanna see that you're working in that organic you know premium price point and and beating category on dollars ideally you know that's a good that's a really good indicator regardless of you know the the worst metric that people market to investors is door count you know door count is not like sometimes if we're in 25 or 5,000 doors I'm like I don't I don't why is your revenue not crazy higher than right so it was more concerning right yeah I think that's the biggest mistake that the founders make is is marketing door count or another thing that I see is marketing you know um retailers in their timeline that they don't have real commitments from you know that's a real red flag or frustration for me it's like okay if you're putting the retailer logo on there I'm assuming that you've got a commitment if you don't have that commitment I think it's a bad look you know so it's if you market it as such where it's like okay this is this would be our ideal you know outcome and it's transparent that way but I think a lot of times you're seeing um just you know Adam said the word authentic and I think that's right just be where you are you know then I'll have to uncover everything it's a lot and it helps me it helps build trust but you know it's that that organic velocity that kind of that retail data that's gonna be if you're in market that's gonna be the data I care about yeah and also like sales forecasting what are like founders and operators get this process wrong well those let's say you start in an arrow on right and you're gonna you know you've got a good brand you've got a good shelf presence um you know there's an Aerogarden is kind of already immediately gained in your favor because there's just there's less assortment there's less choice and so your velocities are always gonna be like two times higher in Aerogarden than they're gonna be when you go to a Whole Foods or a sprouts right and so you could be pumping your numbers based off of this rate of sale that you're experiencing in a premium account or an independent account you know similar to an Aeroplan and projecting that out across you know all you know I don't know 250 Whole Foods stores and the fact of the matter is that Whole Foods in general is just going to be a step down from what you're seeing in some of these other premium specialty independent accounts and there's also going to be some real laggards within those you know 200 Whole Foods stores right so they're not all going to perform the same so I think it's you know I always prefer for founders to just take especially in the early going you know I think there's there's a lot more to be said for just being conservative in your in your estimations and also even when you're gonna get to your your price breaks you know and your cogs formulations your margin breakdowns like I could look I've done this I've looked through maybe I could look at the you know 12 15 decks you know from a year ago any any random sample of them 80% of those companies aren't gonna be where they said they were in margin you know a year later and they're not going to be where they were in um in um in door count or revenue especially yeah so I think you know and investors you know if they don't remember that they can look back on it very easily and I always ask founders you know who are actually like a series or a like a a seed stage you know like what was your promise to your investors and you know your pre seed investors and are you there today so I think it's just good to be conservative with with your numbers and um and not get too far out ahead of yourself yeah that makes a lot of sense well yeah to follow up on that just kind of a bit of a bit of a rapid fire round just like a few sentences in each of these crystal you take the first one you guys invested in Siete pretty early that obviously was a very successful exit what did you guys see and kind of what gave you conviction wow yeah right time right place Adam that's that's about the extent of it I think I don't know if anybody who came in who was invested in the brand when we were would have predicted what was gonna happen I just saw two founders and this was you know it wasn't even a voluntary choice right it was part of a program that I was involved with where you know you're effectively a mentor to a number of different brands Seattle happened to be one of them but you know had a a good relationship with Miguel and Veronica was rooting for them saw that the Mexican food or Latin or Hispanic food category was you know in sore need of refreshment saw a brand I think that I thought could do it but I had no idea where it was gonna go from these grain free tortillas into all these different snack categories so I would chalk that one up to right time right place yeah I think the brand was always exceptional like to my point around brand you know back in I think it was 2016 you know Expo I remember their booth in the Hilton ballroom I think it was when they were doing booths back in in that hotel but you could just tell like they just it was an iconic brand that was built I thought it was really exceptional and I think it was a time of grain free um it was a time for like rising of grain free and it was also a rise of um ethnic you know and and just premium ethnic and um and also kind of it was also kind of a rise of gluten free too so there was a lot of boxes being checked you know in that in that time frame you know for a brand like that and then you just had you had a great a great team right like it was it and it was that that it's a little unconventional like having that family the family you know um side of that business as well but you could just tell there was a lot of passion you know in that pursuit in the early days as I recall Chris same same question for for Poppy what'd you guys see in that one that early on wow as somebody who started a apple cider vinegar beverage in 2013 it didn't work um you know I think I knew that that was a polarizing ingredient I think that I think Poppy and this was true for Lollipop at the time as well but I think it we're in the what I remember a lot about that era was like people did not want sugar in their beverage you know and I think that was part of the challenge with the product I had built had 19 grams of sugar tasted really great and I I you know you needed to balance that but I feel like um I think that there was a lot of brands coming after that space that kind of functional you know soda whatever you want to call it but I think that the that again speaking to brand you know I think Kobe did a tremendous job with this but you know really kind of moving into that into soda you know was just a big unlock for the time you know and it and it you know I remember talking to other people you know George Bryson comes to mind with he had a brand called Wild Poppy and he was I think he try had tried to you know he was looking at a soda development and you know there was like there were rumbling on a lot of brands you know but again it just comes down to that kind of the formula like how does the product taste does it does it hit the Mark and you know a lot of it so much of it's just positioning and brand I think and yeah and having a product that delivers yeah they were also really smart to stay away from classic soda flavors in the beginning so they were you know cherry lime and strawberry and grape and citrus you know and you know they had an orange skew so consumers weren't asking for Ollie Pop to match or or Poppy I should say to to match the flavor profile of their Coke or Pepsi right or root beer you know or diet soda so yeah that's right um yeah I thought that was a smart move I'm not sure which one you guys were closer to this one but how about uh Bashans which I know that's been one that hasn't exited yet but I know that's that's one that's coming well yeah um I mean I think it's uh I'm it was pretty close to that one from the very beginning and I think I think the the biggest thing for me is like the first time I tried the product I was just I was hooked you know I thought it was phenomenal product and I thought if we could commercialize this um that people would really buy it and I think again remember standing in the grocery store in the early days with with Justin looking at the shelf and seeing you know soy ve which I actually liked I grew up eating soy ve as a natural food kid um but it was also kind of a acquired thing you know it's like a teriyaki sauce with sesame seeds in it's kind of a weird a weird one and I didn't I didn't think it was really mainstream and then you had a lot of other people playing in the space and private label and you know private label type brands and so it just felt like teriyaki was a really a flavor profile that was really wide open and um you know at this at the time we were looking at brands like Cholula that were exiting or you know entering into pretty big deals with crazy multiples and we're like this this sauce category is interesting for cause you know you there's a lot of interest in condiments you know you could see that rise coming and um and nobody had really kind of taken a premium at that point really it was us and and and Truff uh that were really kind of coming after that ultra premium when we first launched right which when we first launched it was 1299 which was a like a conscious choice I remember you know buyers telling us that it was never gonna work but I remember just having you know Justin having a lot of conviction in the in the idea that if we use fresh ingredients and we cold fill it and we didn't water it down and we actually made the product that tasted like the one that his you know grandma created the recipe for and and like the one that he made in his kitchen that if we could just bring that to market in a way in a package that that was undeniably attractive and um you know uncompromising in terms of the the sauce itself that it might work you know and we had conviction in trying that at the very least and I've Learned more through that that experience of watching that work than on any other deal but you know we put put that on the shelf with some local grocery stores and we were selling you know almost 300 units in a weekend per store you know on that original skew and um it was it was outrageous and so I think that when you kind of you know uh I think a lot of its timing you know Adam like I really I think it's a lot of it you know now I think there's I don't know how many people are in the same squeeze bottle that we that we were you know using back then um and uh but it it was just it really was um it was a lot about the the product itself and and just looking at the category and saying hey I there's nobody really coming after this space it it seems like an opportunity and then positioning right you know we we created a category in Japanese barbecue sauce that didn't exist right and I think that was also a very conscious choice to not call it teriyaki but to call it something that you know and the reason why that's powerful is not everybody knows what to do with teriyaki sauce but everybody in America knows what to do with barbecue sauce so it it it drove it drove occasion an understanding of the occasion I can marinate I can grill I can do this and that's been a lot of the success is is really um I think just you know you can use this in a lot of different ways uh and that hadn't been done yet really in that category yeah yeah those are all really helpful great kind of look behind the scenes shifting gears a little bit talking about found the founder and founder team that if I see this kind of red flag this is probably gonna be a no for me well I'll get it started I think it's interesting most times that we're engaging CPG Brands it's a one person or two person team it's the founder and their wife or founder and their college friend you know it's usually post our fundraising round where they're going out and starting to hire talent I think overall our theory you know I don't know if this is exactly universal but it's just to be um I think very cautious about adding headcount to um a team too early I think I certainly can't blame a founder for wanting to bring in some some warm bodies to come in and take some of the load off right but I think outsourcing or kind of shifting critical functions of the business to an actual full time staff member too early can be detrimental to a company that you know at the time we're engaged and hasn't raised a ton of money yet yeah I don't know Chris what what what how what would you add to that I mean I think that's one of the biggest things is really just like when you're looking for that you have to be a little wild to want to be an entrepreneur in this space you know like you've got to really be more than more than 100% all in you know like you have to you know I think it's or you have to have some unfair advantage if it's not that you know but like you've got to really be you know willing to uh to work 80 hours to avoid working 40 kind of mentality and um so I think that's a lot what you look for I also just think like looking for it's really easy to make expensive mistakes in this business like if you you're making mistakes in this business is expensive I should say and so in the early stage in particular I think the way that you can mitigate a lot of risk especially for founders that maybe don't have experience in this industry is is about being open to understanding like learning from folks who have done it before and so I think that one of the biggest things I look for is somebody that's receptive to feedback and wants to have that open dialogue like Adam said is authentic part of being authentic is understanding what you don't know and not trying to act like you you do know to look good you know like that's that's the biggest thing I look for is if people are trying to posture um to to save face like it's that's not that's the worst that's the biggest red flag right I think it's like that humility you know there's a I think a lot about ego right because it's I'd be easy to say ego is not you know attractive at all and and it's and it's not you know especially if you're building a friend uh you know that's that would say something I don't look for but I think you need a little a little bit of ego um in terms of what you're doing just to have that the conviction that warrants that more than hundred percent all in I'm not saying that always needs to exist but I think that I've seen you know areas where where it's it's not bad to have a little a little edge to you as well as long as it's not over the top as long as it's still coupled with humility um you know and some other factors that are important and I think also just how you treat people you know how you like when you're talking about team dynamic it's really um you know leadership is all about you know getting in the trenches rolling up your sleeves and being being the first one in the office and and setting the example and and not asking people to do things that you're not willing to do yourself when you guys see a founder that you know maybe they've gotten some really like early signs of product market fit they got really strong taste like they've got a they've come up with a great product the brand is is dialed in but they have pretty limited experience they've never done anything in CPG before uh well Justin didn't come from CPG you know with bot hands you know an example yeah Ste Steven and Alison Miguel and Veronica at CTA um if you look at some of the other companies that you know have done really well I guess Janet Goulds had had some experience in CPC so you know if you go through I'd say about 50% of the founders who've really taken their business and done something with it and never step foot in the industry prior to to their first company so I think we have enough experience with founders to know that you know it's probably as much as an advantage uh to have not been in the industry than it is to have been in the industry I guess this is the way you might look at it it's just some I also think when when when there is experience there it tends to lead to higher valuations and at the early stage like one of the things that we look for is a proper trajectory for the valuation of the business yeah I think a lot of times stuff can get overvalued or overhyped in the beginning and just create it it it creates um something that we talk a lot about which is you know we're hunting a particular return profile and when you start to pay too high a price from the very beginning knowing that the kind of dilution that's coming in this industry um you know you just have to account for what you want your target ownership and what your return profile to look like from the very beginning and and and so when you when you're starting in a place where it's overvalued just from where the business is regardless of the experience that's around the table that's supposed to mitigate the risk you know for us it's just less attractive I think that in our experience I think the other piece is there's just a a trajectory that makes sense like you're if you're overvaluing the business from day one you're also you're playing a dangerous game you know cause on one level you're saying alright we're gonna dilute a lot less now and it's gonna be great you know on the other end it's like the next time you go to raise which you're most likely gonna have to in the early going if you if something doesn't go as planned which happens all the time you're setting yourself up for a potential down round or just to make the fund you're gonna spend a lot more time on fundraising trying to get the next step up you know so I think it's what we always try to coach is like it's not always in your best interest to overprice yourself you know and what happens is I think when there's experience in the industry or you're drafting off of some other success that tends to be more of the case and so it tends to make a shy away a bit more and so I think that that's what leaves the door open for folks that are maybe more reasonable in terms of where their starting point is and maybe not coming from the industry or not having a whole ton of you know credibility to stand on yeah P investor on the show a little while back and he was talking about there are just so many talented food scientists formulators out there that these days that it can obviously take a fair amount of time but making a really good product maybe is not as defensible as it maybe used to be and that building just a really differentiated brand is a lot of ways really the key to building a really strong moat and I guess whether you agree with that general premise or not I'm kind of curious how you guys think what what is a truly differentiated brand like look like today in this market and how do you know that they've carved out kind of a defensible place from a brand standpoint cause obviously it's more than just a good looking logo and and good looking packaging so Adam will you take that one first yeah I don't know it's it's almost kind of category dependent too like you could take something like just the gummy category right um there just there seems to be such a surplus of these better for you or functional gummy products that I don't know we've probably seen maybe a dozen in the past year you know um 18 months in addition to all the brands that are out there in market and um it's not a exactly difficult product to go out and find a co manufacturer to to put to produce um not incredibly difficult to formulate so I feel like in there's there should be almost more barriers to entry but these days there you can go out and contract with anyone you need to go and get take a product to market right um and I think that there's there's there's often times when there's a kind of a hot trend or there's a shift in consumer preferences you'll see the first two brands kind of come in get entrenched a little bit and then everybody else there's a tidal wave of brands that come behind that and um brand will help I think some of those companies stand out speed all of a sudden becomes a factor right so like we've looked at some opportunities just knowing fully acknowledging like you're not gonna be able to fund off a bunch of other competitors here you're gonna have to invest in brand you're gonna have to just move through the system more quickly to try to realize you know an outcome or to to carve out a real kind of pole position for yourself so I would say speed comes into consideration there but I don't know what do you think Chris anything else I think speed is the biggest thing that we're gonna see change in the next 10 years I think you see like with social media and AI and um and uh you know major shifts happening still in retail and will continue to be happening in retail and and you know ecom and delivery and like we're we're you know we're in it every day but when you step back and look at it it's like things are just gonna go faster and faster that said though I think there's gonna be a lot more noise and so what I what I would recommend and this is true going backwards as well I see a lot of the time products get dictated by the copacker you know in other words like you could do the formulation you could do you know you could find the copacker they're not creative people you know and I say that lovingly right but like it's they need to be they need to be pushed to see like they're not gonna see your vision they're gonna see what they know works cause they're cause they if they exist as a command they know what works you know from their perspective they're not we don't know what's gonna that your great idea is gonna work right so I think there's a big gap between kind of the formulators that you work with and the people are actually gonna produce your products and what I see a lot of time is that that conviction is not strong enough to maintain the integrity of your original idea and so it gets diluted and if it and like I said if it's not 100% if it gets diluted to 95% probably has less of a chance and so I yes there's gonna be you know access to more formulation yes you know AI might help you formulate your product in a way that you've never heard of uh you know all those things but it comes down to the conviction of what you want to accomplish that I still think is gonna be where the most value lives coupled with the brand mode brand mode is always gonna be the most important thing I think in this game I think brand still matters I think that anybody who look there's good arguments to be made for brand doesn't matter as much anymore I I just don't I don't believe that I think brand where's brands are so ingrained in our culture for so long that I can I think they're gonna continue to be a really powerful mode but you know when I look at you know I I get I'm like less interested in patents and more interested in trade secrets you know around formulation so I think being really intentional from that from the get go and really having conviction around what you wanna do and and I think you know being willing to take a risk if it costs more and you change and you have to your strategy has to match the risk that you want to take on the formulation side there's still a lot of a lot of the people like as accessible as formulation and and manufacturing are the real secret sauce is is in in what you can create you know what you can convince people to create frankly especially if you're talking early stage right and especially if you don't have credibility yet you know that's the biggest opportunity as I see it yep that makes a lot of sense um on the topic of building that brand early Adam in my experience like the quality that a brand and packaging design agency produces is like largely dependent on the brief that the brand actually provides it's kind of that you know I don't know quality in quality out garbage in garbage out kind of concept and I know you ran you know brand packaging agency at a pretty large scale for a while I'm kind of curious from your perspective what is a good quality brief look like to you from in terms of what a brand puts together and and delivers to that agency and kind of what's included you know there's some firms that you could go to some agencies you can go to and you don't have to have a brief prepared they're going to help you prepare a brief right they're gonna help you to be introspective as a brand gonna figure out what the real kind of formidable bedrock of the brand is gonna be built around but there's a good chance that you don't end up at an agency that that's gonna do that and instead it's just you know open dialogue on a couple of conference calls about what you wanna do with this company where you wanna go and and you're gonna get some sort of kind of mixed up condensed soup back in your concept so that's where having a brief that can focus a creative team I think is really instrumental is just being very diligent about that I think that if the founder can create it themselves to start um and then the firm the agency can help refine that and almost kind of translate the intended spirit and meaning that the founders put in their brief into something that's going to work and resonate really well with consumers out in the marketplace accounting for all the other signal brand signals and brand stories and narratives that are out there I think I think agencies are really an interpreter between a founder's vision and idea and what is actually going to resonate with consumers out in the marketplace I think that's the greatest strength of of hiring a firm outside of getting you know design work that you couldn't do yourself yeah no that that makes a lot of sense actually Chris a bit of a different side it's I know um you know you spend a lot of time at Dirty Hands which you can give it a quick overview what that is too if you want but I'm kind of curious that experience how does that impact your and where to focus and how to get the most out of your your dollars yeah dirt well dirty hands is a full service merchandising company and they they focus on final mile execution with full time people so in other words people that have relationships at store level that can get stuff done you know whether it's optimizing shelf or packing out products and solving out of stocks or expanding your space or driving in caps like things like that right that that you know every day when you show up and and do those things they move the needle and it was you know I before you know spending six years helping grow that business I was on the brand building side myself and and part of what LED me to that was running a brand that grew really fast and realizing how hard it was to execute um you know through when you're running through Broadliner distributors and you don't have any visibility and you don't know where you are in the shelf or if you're in the back stuck in the back room or whatever it may be I really got obsessed with wanting to learn about the final mile execution side of brand building cause I would consider it brand building and you look at some of the best companies in the world like the Pepsis and the Frito Lays and the and these DSD's that own the shelf right like when you think about like the impact of a DST it's like when you you're in charge of reordering the product not the store like that's the ultimate to me you know cause you're you're kind of controlling the space the real estate you know and obviously that works well when you have brands that sell really well that's what motivates the the distributor to do the work and and sell in products is when you've got something that that moves exceptionally well and so we we called ourselves DST without the trucks but for me you know cause DSD doesn't really doesn't exist in the same way in natural channel that it does in conventional channel you know Pepsi's not necessarily you know operating as a DSD within some of these natural accounts and so for me I had the luxury of working with over 1,000 brands in that time frame across category and I just really Learned a lot you know it it was really going to school and and then also just networking with so many of the people that we're building the the most successful playbooks for the highest velocity most successful brands and so you know what I realized is like and if you don't have that execution lined up you know you're missing sales you know but I also think it's just the you know the exposure to what the game actually looks like at an intimate level day in and day out over the course of years yeah I realize now as being on the investor side of just how big of an advantage that is when you're looking at brands and evaluating brands but I I think it's something that we try to share as much as possible our experience you know with founders we try to leverage the network and the capability and the access and and and all those things to help give them an edge but you know I think it's a massive thing if you're building a brand in CPG in retail especially you know understanding how your product's gonna show up every day is a big part of the game and that's why I part of why I hate door count as a metric because I know from firsthand experience that more doors means more resources that you have to you know to drive velocity and and kind of show up in a retailer successfully so my best advice to founders is start in a small footprint optimize your you know your performance and your velocity and build that relationship and once you feel like that's really solid then you then you think about expanding that you know and I know it's easier said than done with things like Moqs and other factors that entrepreneurs are facing but really you know um if you're not working in one of the doors you're in you need to fix that before you expand yeah totally last question for for you guys um last kind of two questions for these earlier stage founders that are actively raising you interact with so many of these on a day to day basis they're about to start raising in you know today's market what does a really dialed in fundraising process look like and then on the other side what are the most common ways that you see founders really shooting themselves in the foot along the way in in this process yeah so what a dialed in process looks like you know I could speak to this a little bit because Chris and I have been fundraising for the past what 8 months or so six months for supernatural but I think it's one keeping you know a good CRM in place right so you're gonna you're gonna create a lot of contact and I think that the the next best thing to a yes is a fast no just getting to know where you stand very quickly with investors but always updating like your CRM or your tractor with where you are in the conversation who needs followed up with who gets the phone call who gets the text or who gets put on the email update list right and I even think like a founder kind of keeping tabs on everybody in a CRM and even if you get ghosted or even if you you get put on pause or you get a a rejection a decline still worth keeping those people up to date on the developments of the business on the development of the fundraise presenting you know the business to them through something that's not too obtrusive like an email update you never know when somebody kind of catches a wild hair up their nose and decides that you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna circle back around with this founder I'm gonna get it or they're gonna forward that email newsletter to you know to somebody who they think might be a fit for so I think that's that's half of it is just keeping track of conversations and just deploying the right follow up protocol in a timely fashion and you know there's all these other little things too is you wanna create a little FOMO it's about you know shooting all your shots at once kind of I like the strategy of going and saying alright if I've got 20 investors I wanna reach out to my approach would be let me find the bottom five that if I sign them it'd be a a miracle or you know I'm I'm maybe indifferent and let me let me run batting practice with them kind of take your your C&D accounts and kind of run through your presentation with them and um work your way up to your critical prospects but I think the biggest mistake that you can make is and I used to do this when I was younger um you know you have money I need money give me money doesn't that make sense it's like don't start in a transactional place you know I think is the biggest thing and I have I can't tell you how many incoming messages come in through LinkedIn every time I wanna repost it cause it just drives me crazy but like would you be interested in this you know I've never met you and you know quick like hey it's not really on our thesis well do you have anybody in your network that you could connect me to I don't know you I'm not gonna connect you to my network you know like if you approach fundraising from a transactional perspective you're gonna waste your time more importantly than other people you know and so it's just a waste of time so I think that you need the biggest thing is like is this is what I like to say and that and as Adam said we're fundraising right now for ourselves but our approach is really and and I I genuinely mean this most people are like I hate fundraising if that's your approach you're not gonna be good at it right I really genuinely like fundraising and the reason is because I get to meet so many cool people some of our LPs that I didn't know before we started this process are literally becoming really really good friends you know and I think that that's the way that you know fundraising I I like to say fundraising is an opportunity and it's because of that reason it literally is a time in your life it's a span of time it's always gonna take longer than you think but if you approach it in an organic way where you're just searching for alignment you know if you believe in what you're doing you're sharing what you're doing if somebody has alignment and responds to that and and also is interested in in and believes in that with you there's gonna be an alignment and it's gonna happen really organically and if you're trying to force that just to get the dollars in a lot of times the worst case scenario is that somebody does write you a check and it's not a good fit and there's not alignment you know and that can lead to a lot of disruption later and so I think that um you need to be thinking about okay um not only is this an opportunity to meet amazing people who who I can find alignment with but then I think from there the more that you that you build your investor base the more those are gonna be the people that are gonna be most likely to help you not just complete your raise cause they've got friends and networks themselves would also add value to your business and then you know when you wanna do the next raise they're most likely gonna be the ones to step up and help you fill that round and they're also gonna be the most you know after you exit your business successfully they're also gonna be the investor base that is most likely to invest in you again so I think if you just take the Long View in terms of how you're approaching your raise I think it's gonna put you in a position of approaching it much differently and much less transactionally and that's the biggest mistake I see is treating it that way versus looking at it positively and and in the long term view how impactful this process can be to your your network your life your business you know not just what you're trying to accomplish from a I need this to grow X but from a um you know a personal development perspective yep man that's really helpful too really helpful I know we're uh we're getting over an hour here but yeah what's the best place to follow along with with you guys like both personally and then best place for both I guess founders and investors to follow along with Angel Group and then also supernatural as well yes Angel Group our teammate Emily Morgan she does a pretty good job of keeping us active and posting on there and I know she's in the DMS a lot with with some of our friends and followers so that's always a good place to get in touch we are the Angel group.com our our handles that's our website handle there's a there's a form there where brands wanna take the plunge and submit their information for review for consideration to present to our syndicate there's a form there we always recommend just kind of reaching out personally either to Chris Maddie uh Maddie Serviente or myself via email I don't put my email out there too liberally but if you can find it you can email us um and then I would say LinkedIn too is always a great place to connect perfect how about yeah and supernatural supernatural uh what's our URL Chris do you remember Supernatural Dot Ventures yeah I think that's right I think that's right yeah it should I'll get her and put it should get you to the right I'll put the right one in the notes and confirm for him yeah for sure um I think we're pretty we're try to be pretty approachable but if you're gonna come at us come at us authentically and don't right you know be prepared don't come as don't come as transactional yeah for sure awesome guys appreciate the time this has been great and thanks for coming on what are some of the kind of key things you look for in when they're fairly early will you guys make make a bet and like I had a like a um a gross stage uh yeah I think it's critical um hey guys this has been great really appreciate the time all the investors you talk to what is your guys' general kind of checklist look like the must have metrics for you guys in terms of when it comes to cogs margins some of the most common ways that you see and any red flag that you've kind of Learned over time