Jordan Buckner (00:00)
When Lindsay Hancock first joined me on the podcast, it was December 2024. My Better Batch was still at the beginning of its retail journey. The product hadn't even hit store shelves yet, and Lindsay was navigating buyer meetings, category review calendars, and the long time between pitching a retailer and actually getting a product on the shelf. I encourage you to go back to listen to episode 201 to hear that full story. But a lot has happened since then.

My Better Batch has expanded into thousands of retail locations, working with retailers including Target, Wegmans, H E B, Kroger, Albertson, Hevy, Fresh Market, and so many others. And yeah, the one comment she gets all the time is that I see your brand everywhere. But as a founder, I really want to kind of unpack things behind that. Lindsay has also been documenting something even more important than the retail announcements. Through her series on LinkedIn titled The Real CPG Journey, she's been sharing what happens behind the scenes from the cash flow.

pressures that comes with growth to balancing life as a mother and founder. I've invited Lindsay back on the podcast to talk about what building a CPG company actually looks like beyond the headlines. Lindsay, welcome back to the podcast.

Lindsay | My Better Batch (01:04)
Thank you, Jordan. It's so nice to be here and have this conversation.

Jordan Buckner (01:07)
Yeah, so a lot can happen in, you know, two years since we last talked.

Lindsay | My Better Batch (01:11)
Yeah.

Jordan Buckner (01:12)
And you know, you're weighing on those retailer decisions and talking about how difficult that waiting period could be. Now you're operating on the other side of many of those c yeses. What has surprised you most about what has happened after a retailer says yes and once you got into those accounts?

Lindsay | My Better Batch (01:28)
Yeah, I think one of those things is that it is just as hard to be on the shelf as it is to get onto the shelf the first time. and so there is still pressure and stress and a lot of, obviously a lot of really positive things, but there's also a lot of challenges that come with gaining distribution and gaining distribution quickly.

Jordan Buckner (01:47)
Yeah. that's wild. What are some of those biggest challeng what have some of those biggest challenges been?

Lindsay | My Better Batch (01:51)
Yeah, so I think I think one of them has been brand awareness. you think about your own buying habits and we probably shop very different than normal people shop, but think about somebody the mom who's super busy has to run into the grocery store between soccer practice and you know, picking a kid up from school, and you know they have a list, they're going in for something very specific, and they're really not stopping to look around to see what innovation is on the shelf. and so

So just because we're there doesn't mean that people are finding us. It doesn't mean that people are picking us up for the first time. And I think brand awareness is really something very important that doesn't come along with just distribution gains. So that has been one challenge. I think just getting people to pick it up for the first time kind of goes along with that. I feel very confident that once people try the product, they will come back again and we will be able to retain those customers. But just getting that customer for the

First time has been very challenging and it's very expensive to do, especially when you're trying to manage cash flow and budgets. And I think, you know, just generally speaking, cash flow. We've had a couple of in and out opportunities, both through seasonal product and Costco rotations. And there's a lot that has to be paid for up front. And then there's this lag time in getting paid for it. And so while, you know, you get that yes, and you're super excited about those

big numbers and shipping truckloads of product, there are some difficult things that come along with that.

Jordan Buckner (03:21)
Yeah, speaking of Costco, I remember years ago when I was running T Squares, we had an opportunity from a Costco buyer who wanted to bring us in for a rotation, but we were self-manufacturing and the increase of scale of equipment purchases, ingredients, all of that that we would need to support one kind of Costco test or rotation. we could not support that because there's no guarantee that those further sales would come after. Of course, we hope it was, but it's such a big

Lindsay | My Better Batch (03:42)
Yeah. No, yeah.

Jordan Buckner (03:45)
investment to do.

Lindsay | My Better Batch (03:46)
Absolutely. And nor would it make sense for you to make those investments for a 12-week rotation in one division, right? So it's awesome to have that type of business, but you do have to make some really tough decisions on whether or not that's the right move for the business or not. Fortunately for us, we use a co-manufacturer to support our operations. and that was something very intentional in the beginning. I wanted to make sure that we could scale very quickly. I wouldn't be able to do that if we were self-manufacturing. So finding a partner.

who we know can scale, is bigger right now than we need them to be, and is really kind of leaning in and taking a chance on us because they see the potential. That has been super critical in our early success and being able to fulfill some of these commitments that we've made.

Jordan Buckner (04:29)
So Lindsay, you've started documenting your experience every week through well not quite every week, but quite often through your real CPG journey posts. What made you decide to start telling this side of the story?

Lindsay | My Better Batch (04:38)
So I think what's interesting is, I social media plays such a really big role in all of our brands, right? how we individually are portraying ourselves on social media, how the brand is portraying itself on social media. And I think one of the things that we do is we really only communicate, I call it rainbows and unicorns, right? It's the things that make you smile, the good things. You know, some of us do talk about the bad days, but those are few and far between. And and

And so what I saw on LinkedIn especially is that I found myself looking at other founders, not necessarily in my category, but in CPG, and comparing myself to what they're doing, right? So looking at their posts, really positive posts, man, they're getting into this place, they're developing this new product, they're doing this partnership. And I was like, I'm not doing those things, and that is making me feel really bad about myself, although we are making really incredible forward progress. And I I just

Felt like I needed to communicate that it isn't all rainbows and unicorns, that with the really good things come some really challenging things that you've got to work through. also, being an emerging brand is just not, it's not easy. The world of CPG was not built for helping emerging brands succeed. And I think that's a really real thing. and I was reminded of that that this week, just going through deductions from a distributor

who

you know, we've gone back and forth probably five or six times and he finally had to like write out why each banner processes their deductions in a different way. And it just it makes no sense. It's just the way, it's just the way it is. And I'm like, I'm not the only one experiencing this. For sure I could help validate other people's feelings that, you know, although you're seeing all this positive stuff, like there are people just you out there who are struggling through their

Let me make sure that I'm clear. there are really great days and there are a lot of things to be thankful for, but then there are really hard days and sometimes those come almost in the same breath, which is a very odd feeling.

Jordan Buckner (06:41)
It's really powerful to

really share both the wins and then also the challenges and how you navigate and overcome them because that's really the core of being an entrepreneur. I always remember describing it as being on a roller coaster where it's constantly going up

and down right after

Lindsay | My Better Batch (06:56)
It is

Jordan Buckner (06:57)
the the next one. And so that's such a powerful

Lindsay | My Better Batch (06:59)
It is, yeah.

Jordan Buckner (07:00)
effect.

Lindsay | My Better Batch (07:01)
It's

like getting slapped in the face. You go this way and you go this way. And and so yeah, it can be really, it can be really difficult. So I think that more came out of me being able to communicate some of those things and get them off off my chest. There are some things in this world that, you know, really fire me up, deductions being one of them.

and so, and what was really interesting about that post in particular was that it fires up a lot of other people too. I had like an 87 cent deduction that had a $35

admin fee tack to it. And so it just that puts me into this rage. another interesting one that actually caught the eye of of the team at Target and they asked me to kind of expand on

the cost of a yes that we're all, in this industry as emerging brands, we're all trying to get that yes. But what does that yes really mean? and so the cost associated both upfront and then when your product is on the shelf to be able to stay on the shelf. And I think, you know, it's easy. I've had the the the advantage of being in this world for a really long time. And so

Sometimes I think that's a positive. Sometimes I think that's a negative. ignorance sometimes is bliss, right? And so you just don't know what's coming. But you know, just to be able to communicate those things and maybe help somebody as they're navigating through the process.

Jordan Buckner (08:14)
Well let's talk about that a little bit more because founders spend so much time trying to land the retailers, the getting the account can feel like the finish line when in a lot of cases just the start. I know that's hard to hear when you're like not on the shelf, but once you get there,

Lindsay | My Better Batch (08:26)
Right.

Jordan Buckner (08:27)
you realize like, wow, there's all this that happens afterwards. And so

Lindsay | My Better Batch (08:30)
Yeah.

Jordan Buckner (08:31)
what are some of those costs that come up once that retailer

Lindsay | My Better Batch (08:37)
Yeah.

Well, I think there's a lot up front, whether that be in slotting or opening up a new DC for a distributor that requires like an off-invoice allowance or requires some sort of promotion period. So already up front, you're kind of handing over this check in a lot of cases of just to be able to get there, I'm throwing money basically into a pot that doesn't help me sell anything. and so some of that can be negotiated. And I would encourage founders to who are similar.

similar

in in my position to really

negotiate those things and and have them work for you when you can. but then once you get to the shelf, just because you're there, like I said, doesn't mean that people are going to find you and pick you up. And so there are so many marketing marketing things that need to be put into place to help you actually sell units. I mean at the end of the day, you're staying on the shelf when you are meeting velocity thresholds. And sometimes you really have to like

Manufacture that velocity in the beginning until you get your feet under you. And you know, I can't stress enough how important brand awareness is. You think about my category. You walk down the baking aisle and you just see colors and you know who those brands are. These are the brands that have been around forever. We've shopped them, our parents have shopped them. And so it just getting, you know, two facings of My Better Batch on the Shelf doesn't necessarily help us to be successful.

selling the product. So there's just a lot of even even after it's there, just a lot of activity that that needs to happen in order to help that customer

pick it up for the first time. and I I will be very honest in sharing. Like I have not figured out the right combination of things to make that happen. I'm very fortunate that we have some really incredible retail partners who see potential and are willing to give us a little bit of a lead time. I'm I keep them up to date. I'm very transparent in making sure that they understand that we see what's going on. We're reacting to what's going on. Here are some of the marketing activities that we are doing that we

Hope will make a difference. Here is how we're measuring that. Here are the adjustments that are being made. But you know, just having those open conversations is so important.

Jordan Buckner (10:50)
When I first started in retail, this reminds me of a really important foundational fact I learned, which was the idea that, you know, there are tens of thousands of individual SKUs in the grocery store. When you think about your own shopping behavior, you might actually only even be aware of five percent of the products that are actually in the store, right? You just don't even look at the other ones. You have no idea what brands, what products are there because they're not ones that you shop for.

And then even amongst that, maybe you purchase one percent, like if that

Lindsay | My Better Batch (11:19)
Yeah. That's right.

Jordan Buckner (11:21)
of the any given product at a store. And so

Lindsay | My Better Batch (11:23)
Yeah.

Jordan Buckner (11:24)
a lot of times you will think about this at like a chain level, like we want to get into this chain, but at the same time, every individual store matters. And you think about how many people walk into that store, even know your product exists, let alone is interested in purchasing it.

And I think that is a huge way of thinking about how do you build your business both one store at a time from the bottoms up and top down. I remember there's a brand called Bromy and they Bromy and they have a espresso drink and they were doing demos, basically like multiple demos every single day in all the stores.

That they were selling their drinks because they want to make sure that they could just sample every customer. They want every customer who ever shopped at that store to know that their product existed. And then of those, find the ones who are interested in it that could add those to their decision set. Right. And that was a lot of work. It was a lot of money. And they had to start in just a few stores to really drive that velocity up because otherwise

Lindsay | My Better Batch (12:21)
Absolutely.

Jordan Buckner (12:22)
most people would ignore you. But as you mentioned, that's incredibly expensive to have a person in the store.

So much.

Lindsay | My Better Batch (12:30)
Yeah.

So I think you have to be, I think as a brand you have to be aware of what your constraints are and what your limitations are. And while it's nice to be able to say that you have thousands of doors,

It may not be possible for you to be able to support all of that. And so going one band one chain at a time may make more sense. And being able to support that chain with all of the different things that it is is gonna require, you know, demos and TPRs and digital coupons and paid search and all of that. I think you really have to there's there's no one way to do this. I wish it came, I wish CPG brand building came with a user manual because I'm really good at following.

instructions, but it doesn't. And so you've got to you've got to do what works best for your brand.

Jordan Buckner (13:13)
One of my favorite posts you've written starts with a simple question, right? Of people asking you, how's business? Because the answer

Lindsay | My Better Batch (13:19)
yeah.

Jordan Buckner (13:20)
might simultaneously be very exciting and being very stressful. And so how have you learned to hold those two realities at the same time?

Lindsay | My Better Batch (13:29)
I don't know that I'm doing it very well, honestly. yeah, that is an interesting one. I think it depends on who's asking the question. I was just with a friend this week. I was up in Michigan, and we had a line review and I was staying with a friend.

And her daughter was working on a project, an entrepreneurship project, and she had to do a presentation and she was like, I do not want to do this presentation. And I said, You just need to be very confident because when someone answers your questions in a very confident way, you believe what they're saying, right? Regardless of what they're saying, and if it's true, you believe it. And so, in a in some ways, I feel like I very confidently answer that question.

But I also am transparent when I can be about, yeah, we have all these good things happening, but here are a few of our challenges that we're working through right now. and you know, some days I get asked that question and they're really hard days. And I do just very confidently say things are great, and they're not. And and so I guess that's just reality. but yeah, that's an interesting one. And that one hit at a time where we were.

We were getting huge distribution gains but we also were struggling because we had come off of a seasonal rotation, we had come off of Costco, we were still making kind of the money all work together. I'm looking at our PL and I'm just feeling this tremendous amount of stress. And so yeah, it's that's an interesting, it's an interesting one.

Jordan Buckner (14:57)
Especially around I found cash in the business because as you were mentioning some of the seasonality, a lot of people giving into the entrepreneurial business think that, you know, they see the charts of like business going up and to the right, essentially, that you're constantly making more money and that you're winning.

Lindsay | My Better Batch (15:10)
But you're winning, right? And it's like,

yeah.

Jordan Buckner (15:12)
And I think some of it comes from too the software space, right? if a lot of times if you're selling a software that has a subscription, you add more customers and then there's steady revenue that's going up. But one

Lindsay | My Better Batch (15:21)
Right.

Jordan Buckner (15:22)
thing that I didn't realize, at least for me and for other entrepreneurs, that really hits you is the seasonality and the spikiness of business,

Lindsay | My Better Batch (15:27)
Mm. Yeah.

Jordan Buckner (15:29)
where you might get a large order for the holidays if you're a holiday seasonal product.

And then January and February look really bad from a financial standpoint because all the money was sold earlier. And then maybe you're even waiting sixty, ninety days to get paid. And so there's this like weird valley in between. And that could be really tough, I think, to navigate, not just from a business standpoint, but emotionally. I think

money is very or very emotionally charged and we don't talk about that enough as founders. And so I'm curious if like you've gone through situations like that where it'll looking at finances, looking at cash flow has gotten kind of this emotional reaction that leads you to think about like how do you manage that part of the business and the decision making.

Lindsay | My Better Batch (16:11)
Yeah, I think a lot of that emotion for me has come out of just surprises that have popped up. I feel like I can plan pretty well for a lot of things the day-to-day, but it's the it's the things that I hadn't planned for that that get me. it is the customer who takes their payment terms discount and pays you and then comes back to you and says, we just applied all your promotions and now you need to write us a check for $10,000.

And it's like, but there are no, right? You you're coming off of the holiday season, you're in a slower season, there are no POs against it. And it just, you know, need to write me a check. And those are things that I just didn't think about or

or plan for. Now I do. Now I can see it, but because we hadn't gone through it, it just is not something that I thought about. I also think financial transparency is important. I think you tend to stress when you don't see what's happening and you think you know, but you may not have all the details. And so I would say it's definitely for us because I'm operating in a very lean, lean team. That's an area where I do need to spend some extra time and attention. I do need to make sure that we have

everything in our system so that I can see what's coming, so I can see what our burn rate is, so I can see, you know, are we gonna need more money? and so I think you know, I I think for me the emotional part comes out of not wanting to let anybody down and then not feeling super confident just because I don't have visibility to everything. And then I think third would probably be

what don't I know? What haven't I prepared prepared for that's gonna come back to bite me? Yeah.

Jordan Buckner (17:44)
I think that's really powerful. happens

all the time, right? In that uncertainty. And especially I know there's a lot of people that talk about with distributors and chargebacks are like, all that information is in the the contract and the agreement that you sign. Except it's not really true because yes, there's some in there's some information in there, but the scope, scale, and timing

are not clarified,

Lindsay | My Better Batch (18:03)
You're exactly.

Jordan Buckner (18:04)
right? there might be fees associated, but you don't know when they're gonna happen. And as you mentioned, sometimes they'll bucket them together unexpectedly and then you end up having to actually write them a check. And you're like, I knew this could happen, but I didn't think it would happen all at once.

Lindsay | My Better Batch (18:19)
That's exactly right. I think, when you are gaining that new customer and you are needing to set up a distributor for the first time, you really, as a an emerging brand, even bigger brands, you don't have the ability to to negotiate, right? So it's either you've said yes to Kroger and you want to ship them and you need to set up a distributor to be able to do that and you sign the forms as is.

Or you say, sorry, Kroger, I don't agree with the P and P for the distributor, and so I don't feel comfortable moving forward, and you walk away from that business. And it that's tough. I think making sure that your PL can

sustain some of those things you can create this cushion is something that is really important. And a lot of times as an emerging brand, right? We're operating, we're, you know, if we're using a co-manufacturer, we're not necessarily the most efficient in our ingredient purchasing and our tolling fees because of how much product. There's like this, it's just very, very hard in the beginning because the things that you need to do to be able to make your product

the most cost effective, you're really not able to to move those levers until you gain more velocity. Well to gain more velocity, I need more customers, which means and so there's all of these, in order to make this work, I have to do this, which is going to cost me a lot of money. and that's really that can be really tough.

Jordan Buckner (19:41)
It is. Lindsay,

and your your posts have touched on all this, including motherhood, guilt, uncertainty, and learning that you can't control every outcome. And so after everything that's happened since our first conversation, how has building My Better Batch changed your definition of your own entrepreneurial journey and what success means for you in the business?

Lindsay | My Better Batch (20:02)
That is a really great question. I think I have a a mentor and an advisor who says you don't need to throw the ninety-yard touchdown pass. You just need to gain a yard.

And I think that really resonates. I was thinking about that yesterday. And I think success is making forward progress, even if those are little, even that it doesn't have to be that doesn't have to be big things happening. Those are little things that in combination and conjunction with one another allow you to just move forward. and it also takes into consideration that you're gonna take a few steps back along the way, but as long as you end kind of ahead.

Of where you started, you're in an okay position. I think success just by nature is gonna come with a lot of.

Failure too, and that's okay. That's there. That's just not something we all like to talk about because it's hard to be vulnerable. You don't want to be judged. You certainly don't want people to think that you failed in any way. And so you know, but the reality is it's there. We all have it. and so yeah, I think maybe just to give myself a little bit of grace along the way, that it is you know, it's definitely harder than I thought it would be.

More expensive than I thought it would be. I think the really good thing is that with the product that we have, I see customers really responding or retailers responding that they are looking for innovation in this category. And so I think we're onto something. So that to me is success because I see this early acceptance of the product. So yeah, I mean, I I think we're kind of fine-tuning what success looks like, but it certainly doesn't look the same as it did the last time we talked two years ago.

Jordan Buckner (21:40)
And you

Lindsay | My Better Batch (21:40)
Please.

Jordan Buckner (21:40)
love to have you back on in another year or two to talk about what even has changed since then. And, you

Lindsay | My Better Batch (21:43)
Yes. Absolutely.

Jordan Buckner (21:45)
know, along with that, what are you most excited for coming next, either with the business or how you run the business or anything that is on your mind?

Lindsay | My Better Batch (21:55)
So I think, with the distribution gains, I look at that as we we've built this framework for the business that now we have to build upon. So now I'm really hunkered down. You know, it's very easy to have these. I had this category review meeting yesterday, and one of the questions that always comes up is, what's new? Like, what do you have that's new? And it's like, well, we've really only been on the shelf for a year. It's very easy to spread yourself very wide before you go deep. And I am very focused, laser-focused on building our core products, so our

Flavors of Cookie Mix out to be able to build brand awareness, to be able to drive velocity, to create these efficiencies operationally so people know who we are before we expand and doing other things. And so now that we have this foundation of having distribution, I am most excited about the levers that we can pull and test to see what we can do to drive velocity. And so I'm excited about what the what the opportunities are. And you know, I think.

There's tons of white space still to grow with our core products before we begin to expand on what that looks like. But I'm excited to really make sure that we have the strong foundation to be able to be successful in Cookie Mix and beyond Cookie Mix.

Jordan Buckner (23:08)
excited as well and I can't wait to continue following your journey as always a pleasure and I am here supporting and reading you on. Lindsay, thanks

Lindsay | My Better Batch (23:14)
Well, thank you so much.

Jordan Buckner (23:16)
so much for being on the podcast again. And if you would like to check out my better patch, we'll put info in the show notes and definitely support Lindsay and her journey. Thank you.

Lindsay | My Better Batch (23:24)
Yeah,

thanks.