Focusing on the Right Accounts with Cameron McCarthy
Meet Cameron McCarthy
Cameron McCarthy is currently the CEO and Co-founder of WeStock. A Techstars-backed company that makes it easy for shoppers to vote for products they want to see in stores. The company has continued to grow since launching in 2019 and now has over 550 brands and 120,000 shoppers using the platform.
Cameron was previously the sales director for Delighted By Hummus, where he grew the brand to over 7,000 retail locations including Target, Costco, and Aldi. Cameron has worked both on the distribution and brand side prior to starting WeStock, accounting for over $50M in retail sales.
Cameron has a deep passion for emerging brands and what the future of retail will look like which he discusses weekly on The Honest Retail Podcast.
Episode Highlights
During this episode of The Food Means Business Podcast, we discuss:
Cameron’s career as a sales director for multiple CPG companies
The inspiration behind his company, WeStock
The importance of focusing on the right accounts when working to get your product into stores
Innovative ways that brands are getting in front of consumers
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00;00;00;01 - 00;00;04;06
Speaker 1
Cameron McCarthy Welcome to the Food Means Business podcast. I'm so happy to have you here.
00;00;04;24 - 00;00;10;05
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks so much for inviting me. I appreciate it's been a while since we chatted.
00;00;10;05 - 00;00;22;12
Speaker 1
It definitely has. So here we're all about people that are taking the leap from their corporate jobs to starting their own business. So before we learn about your business, I'd love to hear your story.
00;00;23;21 - 00;00;55;08
Speaker 2
Yeah. So before starting, we start my current company that I've been working on for the past 40 years, I was the sales director for multiple CPG companies as I started out in Frozen Seafood, which is probably the worst category to start out in, but it was super old school, taught me a ton and definitely was one of the hardest categories and experiences start up and then went to chocolate and worked for one of the first kind of like innovative chocolate brands in New York City.
00;00;56;00 - 00;01;11;16
Speaker 2
And then before then or after that, I linked up with later, by which at the time was the fastest growing brand in the country, took that brand to about 7000 stores nationwide. I realize really it's a great brand.
00;01;11;17 - 00;01;12;16
Speaker 1
It's such a great brand.
00;01;12;28 - 00;01;34;27
Speaker 2
Yeah, I know. Great, great products, great brand, good team. We were kind of the first first brands in the space to come out with dessert hummus. So chocolate hummus. Menahem And it's like it sounded crazy at the time, but it was a really good product and it was kind of right for the time. And so that's when I kind of realized, like, it doesn't really matter how good of a salesperson you are.
00;01;34;27 - 00;02;02;00
Speaker 2
Like you really need to be representing a good product and good brand. And if you're not doing that, you're kind of behind the eight ball. But when I was there and at my previous spots too, I realized that most brands don't have the data to compete, especially emerging brands. A lot of times I was going into buyer meetings and trying to articulate why you should be carrying our product or the consumer demand we had on line for our product and the fact that the product would fly off the shelves.
00;02;02;11 - 00;02;23;06
Speaker 2
And it was really difficult to articulate that story without actual data to support it. And so we actually turned to paper request forms and told our customers, hey, you know, fill out these forms, bring them in-store. And I was really surprised with the results. And we opened up a safe week and three people asked for our product. We had a meeting with Target because to was for our product.
00;02;23;06 - 00;02;44;11
Speaker 2
And so it was really moving the needle with buyers. But at the same time, like you're not going to get a ton of millennial and Gen Z ers, like filling out paper forms and bringing into stores. And so it wasn't very scalable. So decided to start we in 2019, really high level. What we do here is we make it easy for brands to capture first party data about their shoppers.
00;02;44;11 - 00;03;05;07
Speaker 2
So through a plug in that sits on their site and their social media and their newsletter, basically anywhere where they engage with their shopper, we can see where does that shopper shop, what SKUs they interested in, what trends are they interested in, other data about that shopper and most importantly, their contact information so that we can then use that first party data to help brands get into new stores.
00;03;05;16 - 00;03;26;20
Speaker 2
Increased distribution, Tell a really powerful, data driven story. And then most importantly, once they get into these stores, they can then notify the customers when the product hits the shelf, when the products are available. And really on the customer journey from the lifetime that they're in that store. So yeah, it's it's been super interesting to see the growth over the last four years.
00;03;26;20 - 00;03;45;01
Speaker 2
And we work with about 550 brands at this point. We've captured about 120,000 shoppers. So, you know, it's took us a while to get product market fit. We are we're we're not self-funded, but we're not we've never raised like a huge amount. So we've kind of taken our time and listened to our customers. And, you know, we're at a good point now because of it.
00;03;45;22 - 00;03;56;15
Speaker 1
So that's amazing. So I would love for you to just dig a little bit more into kind of what you what we stock is and what kind of what you do. So if I was a CPG brand coming to you, how would we work together?
00;03;57;00 - 00;04;15;04
Speaker 2
Yeah, so most of the brands we work with are emerging brands. So like they're doing under $5 million a year in business. Like we really look at ourselves as like the training wheels data company like spends Nielsen are either great but they're really expensive and like yeah I don't have the budget for that. So if you want to go work with us, you can sign up easily on our site.
00;04;15;04 - 00;04;30;28
Speaker 2
It's free for the first month and we charge as little as $99 a month to start working with us. So we try to make it really cost effective. You're going to put a plug in on your kind of your website with a call to action of like, don't see our product here. Let us know where you shop or request our product in store.
00;04;31;09 - 00;05;00;11
Speaker 2
You're then going to use our plug in and your swipe up campaigns and your link tree on your newsletter. You can even turn it into a QR code when you're doing events and shows and tastings to make sure that you're capturing that consumer demand and that first party data at any point where you engage with the shopper and then you'll have access to a full dashboard where you can identify, you know, what your top retailers are, what your top trends are, what's what areas of the country you should be focusing on, you can create.
00;05;00;11 - 00;05;28;01
Speaker 2
I already reporting we just launch feedback this month, this week. So you can also capture things like qualitative feedback like how did you hear about our product? You know, would you buy this again and really create a whole profile about this customers? And yeah, I mean, we're big believers in first party data is kind of the future. You see, like all the differences in data privacy, you see all the increases in Facebook ads and iOS changes and Google Chrome changes and things like that.
00;05;28;01 - 00;05;36;26
Speaker 2
So we think that the closer the brand is to their actual audience, the better. And that even the day like first party data and giving that optimism for shoppers is critical.
00;05;38;18 - 00;05;54;07
Speaker 1
That's great. So what tips do you have for brands that are wanting to get into particular stores? I know that you this is something that you've been able to do across your career and now with a lot of the data that we stock offers brands I'd love to hear if you could give some guidance to emerging brands on that.
00;05;54;24 - 00;06;12;17
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, just focus like I think a lot of brands kind of like they're spread a little bit too thin. They they're going after multiple accounts and it really irks them that we kind of see this like spray and pray kind of situation with a lot of with a lot of brands where they're trying to get into way too many stores and way too many regions, way too quickly.
00;06;13;16 - 00;06;44;02
Speaker 2
So that's usually kind of a pain point. I would say focus on one region, go really deep on that region, develop your playbook, and then once you have that playbook and you understand velocities and how the product's moving and all of that, then take that playbook that you've created and successful and take it to another region. The other thing too is like and I tell this around all the time, like way too many brands, you distribution as a win versus the retailer like don't go to unifying at first and try to open them distribution without like retailer interest.
00;06;44;02 - 00;07;07;24
Speaker 2
That's how you're going to go out of business the fastest. You're going to end up just paying a lot for product and sending into a warehouse. Focus on the accounts and then the accounts will lead you to the distribution and then go really deep on those accounts and support them with, you know, trade spend and marketing and merchandizing and to make sure that the products actually successfully get you on the shelf is the easy part of getting off the shelf is the hard part.
00;07;07;24 - 00;07;14;03
Speaker 2
And you just kind of got to double down on making that successful for your retail partners.
00;07;14;03 - 00;07;21;22
Speaker 1
Cool. So can you talk about like ways that some of the brands you've worked on have been innovative in, you know, getting consumers to purchase their product?
00;07;22;22 - 00;07;41;28
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, you know, we've we work with a lot of brands that are smaller. They're doing like driving across the country and like stopping at each store, like in a van or ice cream truck and like doing tastings and stuff like that, right? Like, you got to get the products in people's mouths and you have to be creative, especially in this day and age and how to do that.
00;07;41;28 - 00;08;05;26
Speaker 2
So, you know, we've seen that as a playbook that works really well for people trying to think of other creative ways. I mean, obviously we've had a lot of brands that leveraged recent data to get into new accounts, which has been great to see. But I think, you know, post-COVID during COVID, what we saw was like a lot of retailers were saying no to new products and now we're seeing a lot more retailers are receptive.
00;08;07;07 - 00;08;23;21
Speaker 2
So you just really have to go in with a clear plan of how you're going to support that retailer. I think we see a lot of brands go in and pitch like, this is my brand and this is why I'm special and they should carry us and that's great. But every brand, things that they're special. And so I think you have to kind of think through like how you're going to support that store.
00;08;24;02 - 00;08;36;09
Speaker 2
And if you can really hone in on that messaging, that's usually the most successful way that we see new brands continue. Stores like there's no kind of magic sauce to it. It's you just have to show how you're going to support that store.
00;08;37;29 - 00;08;49;17
Speaker 1
If if brands are just getting started, do you recommend that they start with a kind of one natural food store in their area to kind of just show kind of show the larger retailers that they actually have some traction with consumers?
00;08;50;04 - 00;09;07;25
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, you probably don't need a distributor to start, right? Like just start direct shipping to like your natural specialty stores and just kind of build out a roster of 50 stores and make the drop offs yourself or direct ship through FedEx and just build that up that way. There's also like pod foods and fair and maple and things like that.
00;09;07;25 - 00;09;36;28
Speaker 2
So distribution is really easy right now, especially if you just want to hit a certain segment of the market. And then from there, you know, do demos, talk to the customers, understand why they're buying your product, understand you know, what their tendencies are, Look at the competition on the shelf, like understand what your velocity is and then slowly, slowly build up gradually to a point where you feel comfortable going after like a Whole Foods or a bigger regional chain and just continue to iterate and test.
00;09;36;28 - 00;09;37;23
Speaker 2
And it works.
00;09;37;23 - 00;10;01;05
Speaker 1
There for you. So we have at Hudson Kitchen, we like to celebrate a lot and we have what we call a moneyball at our our kitchen and our clients ring it when they have gotten taken on a new retail client or sometimes their employees figure when they get their paycheck or whatever, wondering like what you're celebrating right now.
00;10;02;02 - 00;10;03;20
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, for us, because.
00;10;03;20 - 00;10;03;28
Speaker 1
Here.
00;10;04;23 - 00;10;12;14
Speaker 2
There's a few things. I mean, like one thing I think will like as a startup, I think we'll have profitability next month. So that's always like a big thing, right?
00;10;12;14 - 00;10;13;29
Speaker 1
That's amazing. Congratulations.
00;10;14;06 - 00;10;15;07
Speaker 2
So we're always excited.
00;10;15;10 - 00;10;15;20
Speaker 1
About.
00;10;15;20 - 00;10;33;28
Speaker 2
That. Yeah. So that's always good for us. I mean, we've been a pretty small, nimble team, has been pretty capital efficient, so we've been like, I'm the staff for a while. So it gives us a lot of flexibility in how we want to grow the company. We're definitely like a much different, like tech startup where like we haven't really raised like a large formal round of capital.
00;10;33;28 - 00;10;54;20
Speaker 2
So we try to stay as efficient as possible. So I'll be very happy about that. And then for us too, I mean, like we have a lot of products like updates that we're super excited about, like feedback like that, something like a ring, the bell thing for us. Like we've been working on that for three months. Like we hear so many times that like brands just don't know how to deal with and organize like all their customer feedback.
00;10;54;20 - 00;11;17;15
Speaker 2
It could be like negative reviews online or just like customer questions or things like that. So for us to be able to actually handle that for our accounts now like is an awesome thing and we're super excited about it. And then we have this really new exciting product kind of hopefully will be launched in September that is really going to kind of put us more in play with some of the larger data platforms that are out there.
00;11;17;15 - 00;11;33;09
Speaker 2
So it's a lot of exciting stuff coming up. A lot to like ring the Bell moments for us. But I would say like the most top of mind one is the fact that we're all excited about hitting that break even on the profitability number, you know, over the next few weeks, which is, you know, been a steep climb for us for sure.
00;11;34;12 - 00;11;45;10
Speaker 1
That's awesome. Congratulations. So, Cameron, thank you so much for being on our Food Business podcast with Love three to tell people where they can find. We stock and all about you where they could find you as well.
00;11;45;28 - 00;12;06;09
Speaker 2
Yeah, so easily find me on LinkedIn. On Twitter too. I found like reason, like Twitter has been like a much better CPG and food community than LinkedIn. So I would definitely advocate for everyone to get on Twitter. If you're in the CPG space, like we have a nice little growing community there, so find me there. If I'm at LinkedIn, you can find us.
00;12;06;09 - 00;12;24;21
Speaker 2
If we stock that, I oh my emails camera that we start to now, I would definitely encourage all brands to sign up for a free month to try it out. And we, we definitely are not one of the subscription companies that when you sign up we just cross our fingers and hope you forget about the subscription. We, you know, we work with you.
00;12;24;21 - 00;12;32;11
Speaker 2
We're really trying to be a team will assess what your issues are and hopefully we can apply our 30 years of retail experience to your business in a positive way.
00;12;33;18 - 00;12;35;24
Speaker 1
Cool. All right. Thank you. I appreciate this.
00;12;36;04 - 00;12;41;03
Speaker 2
Yeah. Thank you so much. So I love what you're building over there and super excited for the future of the podcast as well.
00;12;41;24 - 00;12;43;08
Speaker 1
So thank you. Thank you.