How to Build a Product Business Without Owning the Factory - Jen Millard

Speaker A: This episode is sponsored by B2Bware, the B2B commerce platform that replaces your email orders, your manual data entry and your integration. Mess with one system that runs on your ERP. Check them out@b2b where.com but I know

Speaker B: that alcohol is declining 50% year over year. And I know like Southern Glaciers is the largest alcohol distributor in the U.S. the only other product they've taken to market that's non alk would be Red Bull actually. And so when Southern Glaciers call you because they recognize not a lot of alcohol is leaving their truck. I think uh, this is the perfect time, opportunity and a little bit of luck that I am in the swirl as a small woman owned brand manufactured in Maine with a big focus on US Manufacturing.

Speaker C: Hello and welcome to the E Commerce Podcast. I believe that there is more than enough content focused on E commerce marketing and uh, not enough content celebrating the real heroes of E commerce, those running the operation. Each week we find and interview an E Commerce operations expert to share the secrets behind how some of this industry's most exciting businesses are run. I'm your host, Norbert Strapler, the CEO of Syncspyder.

Speaker D: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Ecomops podcast. Today's guest has one of the most unusual careers we have had in the show. So she started on the retail operations floor at Sears in 1989, worked her way to to SVP at Saks 5 Avenue, then spent two decades in fintech and ventures as a 0A AH VP at Mastercard and an entrepreneur in residence at Sutter Hill Ventures. She has been part of four exits, she holds two US Patents and then she went back to physical product. She co founded Main Love, a uh, canned water brand built on distribution, uh, manufacturing model across Maine. And she's now navigating the very operational challenges. She used to advise other founders through Jen Millard, welcome on the show. So happy to have you.

Speaker B: Thank you, Norbert. Grateful to be here.

Speaker D: Before we dive in, I mean, how do you explain your career, uh, without it sounding like five different lives?

Speaker B: I always say it's three actually. Usually three, not five. But really my career has really been based on consumer and consumer sentiment. Whether you're in retail or the work I did in fintech, it was all around consumer intention and that's what pulls me through all the way to cpg. I have done one other CPG product, a company called Life Factory. About a decade ago we did exit that business. I was grateful to return shareholder value. There I was. Not a exquisite exit, but in hindsight it was probably a decade too early. It was to get plastic out of people's families, from baby bottles to food storage. And honestly, the lesson learned, Norbert, that's why we don't use glass here today is I already had an experience with glass.

Speaker D: Oh, okay. And um, what was after working in Ventures and Fintech, it's completely different. What, what pulled you back into physical products?

Speaker B: I'd say there's two, uh, two main pulls. I loved my career in Fintech and all the colleagues and the great efforts like of building software and, and teams. However, candidly, I was tired of raising millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker B: With the pressure of a VC who wrote the largest check, probably 20, 30 million with that foot on your neck the entire time. And so I wasn't planning on doing another company, to be honest, Norbert, but I got a call back to Maine from my college. I was a first gen student to go to Colby College. I'm very grateful and my give back in my life has been to the entrepreneurship program at Colby and I got asked to join the board of trustees. I had also been working on a couple alcohol projects for artists at the time. Everybody had to have their own tequila or their own vodka. And that was 2023. And I was doing the research for those clients. And in that research you find no one is really drinking alcohol. This now is not the time to be making another tequila or another vodka. And that led me down this path of non alcoholic. I actually started the concept as a mocktail concept. However, if you walk 50 retail stores, your ingredients for mocktails are all over the store. They could be in juice, they could be in soda, they could be in alcohol. And just didn't feel like the category was mature enough to handle a, uh, mocktail kind of block. And so all mocktails are made out of water. Why don't we start with water?

Speaker D: That's very interesting. And water is needed from everyone. It's everywhere. And it's actually a cool brand

Speaker A: for

Speaker B: having the best water in the lower 48. This water that we use is 2 out of 5 mainers drinking water. It is not filtered before it gets to my house. So it's sanitized with chlorotamide. But when it gets to my house, it has not been filtered for floaties. We do filter it because I don't want anyone to find a, uh, floaty in a can. This is the gold standard of water for beer. And so really what we've done is use the factories that are connected to that water. Source. And candidly, Norbert got them to vertically invest because I have a rising tides thesis here. Right. Everyone wins together. Got them to invest. And now I have three breweries that have isolated water lines. So we're no longer hose switching and doing a bunch of chemical engineering. And they're in position to run water 24 hours a day if I need it.

Speaker D: Okay, this is nice. How does the distribution model actually works? They have the water and uh, do the brewery and then you're marketing the.

Speaker B: Yep. So this thesis is an asset light thesis. This I don't own anything. I own a pallet. Jack Norbert, that's literally the only thing that I own. If you actually look at the industry, there's capacity on every truck in every backhaul. We are a distributed wholesale product. We work directly with distributors and I'm super proud to say that we're at Cisco, US Foods, pfg, Aramark, major alcohol suppliers like Southern Glaziers. And so it's not unlike any other business that it's relationship forward business. But you are working with small business owners that own um, distributors. So it's a little chaotic.

Speaker D: Okay, and what does that mean managing those relationships like a uh, day on day job?

Speaker B: Yeah. These are big brands right. That carry a lot of other products. So to stand out you must give them a lot of personal attention. We are moving by DMA essentially by market for Boston now down through Rhode Island, Connecticut. I have two individuals that focus on that market and their whole job is to manage distributor relationships and get ahead of them to sell. And then I have a beautiful crop of interns for the summer. Norbert. I have four beautiful interns and they'll be doing a lot of events and activations and all the fun stuff.

Speaker D: Got it. And those are uh, those processes you actually still do manually. How is the regular ordering happening?

Speaker B: We are not EDI enabled. That would be the next step for us would be to grow up to be edi. I am just shipping to Walmart next week. They will probably push me to edi. We'll see how long I can get away with it. Yeah, I think it will be pretty fast. It's time. Right. So I think because of my tech and software background, I'm also grateful that a lot of people on my cap table came money to the company from previous lives that I've helped make other people money. We are probably more automated than most companies approaching a million dollars. Our bol process is built on lovable for examp physical filing here. Right. Everything is workflowed and then all approvals run through Slack. Our biggest challenge is we produce custom cans for hotels, hospitality and teams. And that adds a little more complexity to the mix because of the artwork approval. And they tend to be smaller runs. We are working on isolating that process right now. And it would be a good example of we're ready to grow out of asana. Once you get it done in asana and then move it up to workflow.

Speaker C: Got it.

Speaker D: And those are produced also locally, those cans. Or do you order them in Asia?

Speaker B: No, most of the aluminum in the US Comes through Canada. And so we work with a Swiss company called Arda and a division of Arda called Heartprint, which is a digital. Our cans are digitally. Digitally produced. That's what makes them so.

Speaker D: Oh, nice.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker D: That's cool.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker B: This is actually a hospitality can. This is a college in Maine, Bates. And so this is a custom can for them. But to get that high vibrancy, this is digitally printed.

Speaker D: Okay, got it, got it. And that's really a cool thing. So you have actually always the product. Water is actually the main product. And you pro produce a lot of different objects around it that can be sold in different manners.

Speaker B: Little wedges. Right. Custom water. Everyone loves to see their name or their Donna can. It also adds a little bit of, I think, a, uh, mastige halo. When you move to aluminum. We have gotten colleges, golf courses, some events, stadiums, some vending companies to convert to aluminum and to eliminate the single use plastic that they were serving. We always love to see that, but we always position ourself as a consumer choice. Not everyone wants to drink out of plastic, but there aren't a lot of choices for alternatives. So. So we don't position ourself as we want you to get rid of all your plastic. That's up to you. Consumers will make the decision, but I really want it to become a frenemy to liquid death because they're lost on shelf all over every store. And try to help retailers really define an aluminum category on shelf so consumers can see it as a physical alternative.

Speaker D: And how do I buy from you actually, as a consumer? Do I call you? Do you have online store, a B2B store, or how does that work for the company working with you?

Speaker B: Yeah, all our distributors are electronic orders, typically POs through email. A direct consumer can come to us on our website directly and we can, uh, satisfy their needs there. And as I mentioned, I'm just moving to Walmart.com and we'll be there before the July deal days. And so that will be sort of our launch on Walmart and really for sports and 50 state shipping.

Speaker D: Cool. Your background is retail. What operational mistakes do you young CPG founders? What do they typically do as mistakes? Or what should they not do wrong when they try to start something?

Speaker B: I think I had a, uh, significant advantage by not having a beverage background because I don't know all the obstacles that other people see as obstacles. And so, Norbert, we run this like a fintech company. I run two week sprints, whether we're a, uh, CPG or a software. So we do these sort of intense pulses, if you will, and then we'll do a little rest and recovery and then we'll do it again. We work hard to not be like other beverage companies. People are always like, jen, how did you manage to get over 20 licenses and all the distributors lined up in 18 months? Because I didn't know better. I didn't come from a world where people were like, jen, you should slow down. Which is what I get all the time. Jen, you're just moving so fast. You really need to slow down. It just doesn't work that way. So I think that intense from fintech into CPG is what has, uh, enabled our success to a degree. And to your point, it's not my first rodeo. So let's make sure we set up the company with all the learnings of my history to make sure that we have the most opportunities for success. And in this case, I'm very grateful to my early investors who came in on a convertible note who are believers in me and this concept. But it's really for the love of Maine, to bring the water economy to Maine and to enable the water economy to stay in Maine. And the monies around the water movement

Speaker D: to stay local is always very interesting factor, and I hear it very often in podcasts and also from my customers, that this is always a motivation when you're coming from out of a region and you want to keep the business a bit around in that region. That's, I think, very, very generations Maine.

Speaker B: Norbert. You know, it doesn't get more Maine than me, honestly, and my family. I'm grateful to be coming back to do something for my state after building businesses in three other states. I also think if I hadn't lived away, I would not have understood the precious value of the water in Maine. And so when I first started the company, Norbert, I would get, Jen, if you want water, just go get some at the faucet. Like, that's the point. That's the Whole point is we haven't lost trust in faucet water. In Maine. I could show you a picture of my water in Austin. It's brown. You wouldn't, you wouldn't like to drink it. They say it's okay to drink. It's a little rugged. California, New Mexico, Chicago, Detroit. Every place that I have lived has had poor water quality or water scarcity.

Speaker D: Yeah. And this is something I'm living in Austria. We don't know about something like that at all. We have the best super water, the best water. Yeah. But even we have water in the supermarkets. We can, even, we can buy water. I mean mostly it's sparkling water, but it's also just mineral water that you're going to buy. And it's typically then something from the mountains because we believe the mountain water is the best. Of course, of course it's in plastic can. So this is another story. But even, even Red Bull produced water. They produced lunar water. They filled it, uh, at full moon.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: It's actually you can sell everything. Okay. We have one city in Austria, they even sell air. So they put air into can. Yeah. And then they sell it to our Asian guests. So it's an interesting thing. So you can say actually everything. Well, I'm interested in a bit. You said already you're using the ideas you had in Fintech or how Fintech is working. You use that because you didn't know it better to get a lot of those distribution channels within a very short time frame. What did you do different there? Uh, you didn't know it, but you know now what you did to get them.

Speaker B: But I know that alcohol is declining 50% year over year. And I know like Southern Glaciers is the largest alcohol distributor in the U.S. the only other product they've taken to market that's non alk would be Red Bull, actually. And so when Southern Glaciers calls you because they recognize not a lot of alcohol is leaving their truck, I think this is the perfect time opportunity and a little bit of luck that I am in the swirl as a small woman owned brand manufactured in Maine with a big focus on US manufacturing. And I think it's a unique, uh, opportunity to show others. I work with a lot of students, Norbert. If they're not mark Zuckerberg by 30, they feel like they're failures. Right?

Speaker D: Uh, Ah, come on.

Speaker B: Exactly. I'm 58. Um, I have a young team. Right. I always say I'm teaching a small business school every day. It is I, everyone. I have a. I love youthful enthusiasm and honestly I wouldn't have all the distribution that I have today if it wasn't for the youthful enthusiasm because they just don't know that they, that it can't be done. And I talk to people in the industry for Southern, they're like, how. How did you do that in three weeks? I'm like, it can be done. They're like, normally there'd be RFP did it. I'm like, this is water, not alcohol. It can literally ride with gasoline. It's not restricted like alcohol. And so getting them over that mindset and then really integrating with their, uh,

Speaker D: product catalog and what I think is a differentiator between, I say those younger people and the elder generations we. And I'm also, I'm 46 now, so a bit younger still. But I also think I'm part of this generation who was able to just pick up the phone and give someone else a call without having a bad feeling about it.

Speaker B: Very true. And I see that in my young staff as well. A lot of what they do, uh, a lot of what my interns do is actually walk the street. We literally walk into a store and try to find the owner or the buyer to engage them in a conversation about why they should have water. And so, uh, you know, we put interns into those roles for that exact reason, Norbert. Most of them are uncomfortable talking to people. How do we create the future of sales? Right. Future of sales, especially in beverage is not going to necessarily be an AI tool. It's still going to be relying on trucks with wheels to get to all the locations we try to use smartly. Process automation for the things that I know can be repeatable and scalable. But distributors are literally working in 1985. Even to get a full data picture from all my distributors is nearly impossible because not all providers give you that data in an actionable way.

Speaker D: Yeah. And, um, I think Excel is still one of the most important tools when

Speaker B: it comes to sales. Never go away. I had a good friend, Yobi Benjamin, who actually built at some for Lotus123. That was his gift to them was he created sum. It's like I think people are going to want to need to add up columns.

Speaker D: Oh, great. I love that. Well, Jen, before we wrap up today, we always ask our guests questions from our previous guests. And Lynn Herman from abm, marketing manager at Canto, she actually asked what's a, um, manual task that you are currently doing that you know, that you should automate, but you are attached to it and terrified to let it.

Speaker B: I have A wall of calendars. And, uh, we put all our events, all our, our team events. Like, we do a lot of activations, right? So where's everybody going? Who's on vacation? Like, all those. And my team, all who are under 30 for the most part, think I'm ridiculous. So slowly but surely, they've been moving calendars into Google so that they're all electronic. But I still look at. I still look at the calendar on the wall and everyone rolls their eyes. So that's probably the next go. The young, the younger generation will train

Speaker D: me, I think, uh, I like that as well, by the way. So I like to have a calendar where you can just take a look on the wall and just see it. It's a different way. How to look at the calendar. It's more about the annual calendar with an overview. Interesting.

Speaker B: Well, it's also a way to show the whole team the intensity of what's happening that week. And I don't think you feel the intensity in an electronic calendar as much as you see on a physical calendar. You wake up and you're like, oh, next week we have four events. Right? That's a heavy week. So we try to be a couple weeks ahead, but I'm definitely a calendar girl and my, my team is trying to wean me off of it.

Speaker D: As long as there are no desktop calendars.

Speaker B: There you go. Yeah, there you go. Or faxes. Yeah, we'll be all right.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. Jen, it's now your turn. What's your question for our next guest?

Speaker B: I always kind of like to ask the. It was on one of your questions, Norbert, but who shaped your thinking throughout your career? Because I wouldn't be able to do this if I hadn't worked at Sutter Hill and done all those things where you just had to be brave. You just had to be brave and show up and you would figure it out or people would help you figure it out. And that's the way I was raised in the tech industry was you just have to be brave. You can be fearless, you can be scared. You still have to be brave. So I would say, you know what? Who shaped your thinking? And I can think of three distinct individuals who've been very influential in my career. I think most people can.

Speaker D: Then it's the time now to tell me because this is my last question for you anyway. Who has taught you the most about what you are doing about commerce and e commerce in your career?

Speaker B: Obviously learned a ton through my retail career. Consumers every day. And I think that's where my consumer empathy comes from. And when I was at Sears I worked for a woman named Pat Rechtenwald and she was a force of nature. She ran all of retail operations for over 800 stores. And I worked for patients. And I saw how she fought for stores and fought for people because uh, you know, anytime there was sort of a capital takeout they would come to Ops to try to trim payroll. But she really advocated for the stores and the lowest common denominator that touched the customer. So incredible respect. And I think of Pat. If I say something I'm like, Pat is still with me. The other person who shaped my thinking was my co founder at my first fintech company which was true Axis Shor Setivolo. He was a uh, IIT engineer from India. He's been a VC partner. He's off doing another startup right now. We were backed by Bessemer. At the time I was the only non engineer. And so uh, I learned very quickly how to maneuver around engineers. I would say delicately but really what I learned from Schwarc is how do you, how do you make people want to work together?

Speaker D: And that's ultimately very important thing. Very important thing.

Speaker B: So uh, we only had 12 engineers when we got bought by MasterCard. How do you work together? They were a little shocked that we were such a small team. We were probably one of their smallest acquisitions. But because of the talent that was of the 12 you could be of significance because the engineering talent was just so great. And Swork really taught me a lot about how do you do a uh, how do you do a fast paced startup when you don't know what the product will be in the end zone? You have a thesis, you have signals, you're probably 80% right, you're not going to be a hundred. So how do you just light it up to then tune it to get to 100 and to take that risk. And I'm very, I'm very grateful to Schwarck to this day. And then I would say I can imagine the last would be Ajay Banga of all people who was the CEO of MasterCard. He is currently the head of the World Bank. He was the former chairman and CEO of Citibank. I had the pleasure of working at MasterCard for three years and one day, Norbert, you know the drill. Ajay is the CEO of my dreams. I could only wish to be as elegant and as co, you know, thought Coke co. Here I go. Thought cohesive as Ajay, but still with an incredible heart for people. And I think you see that as he moved over to the world banks. I'm so grateful for the people throughout my career that I'm not even mentioning because it is the other people around you that help you accomplish. You don't have to be the smartest, you don't have to know everything. I didn't know much about water. My chemistry is pretty good now, Norbert. But trust in the process and in your own personal faith to do it. And those three people really are significant to me.

Speaker D: Wow, this was really a great final thoughts from your end. I love that and it summarizes also a bit this interview. What we've seen today is how important people are. It's not everything is about digitalization, about putting another thing and automation or something like that. It's also important, even more important, to have the right people in teams or the right connections to talk to those people, to learn from people, to work together with people and to have a team that really understands what they are doing and everything will be perfect. And I think this is a nice story and nice ending. Thank you so much for your time. Chan. It was really a pleasure talking to you guys. We'll see you in the next episode of the EcomOps podcast with new guests and inspiring topics. Talk soon and see you soon. Bye bye.

Speaker C: And that's it for this episode of the EcomOps podcast. If you enjoyed listening and would like us find and interview more e commerce operations experts, Please search for EcomOps podcast in your favorite podcast listening app and then subscribe, rate and review. Until next time.

Speaker A: This episode is sponsored by B2Bware, the B2B commerce platform that replaces your email orders, your manual data entry and your integration mess with one system that runs on your ERP. Check them out@b2bware.com.