Sam Tichnor from FFUPS

Sam (00:01): Sam, welcome to Beyond the Inbox. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us.

Sam Tichnor (00:05): Of course. Great to be here.

Sam (00:07): Can you start by telling us a little bit about the origins of FFUPS and what inspired you to start the brand?

Sam Tichnor (00:13): Yeah, of course. So origins of FS came in like the depths of the pandemic where I had been previously working on new brand incubation at a mid-size C P G was on a sabbatical cause I had spent five years there and earned my free month off and was just strolling down the grocery aisle and kind of had two epiphanies. First being that every new brand was focused on some sort of health claims, but if you went down the mainstream aisle at uh, conventional grocery stores, like you wouldn't see their products there. And based on how the other brands positioned, like you wouldn't see their products there because they would be placed in a different aisle where like healthy snacks are. And the second one was simply that in the puff snack space, in that mainstream aisle, even though every other type of snack category had a bunch of different flavor options, puffs were basically just cheese.

(01:08): So I started thinking there's definitely an opportunity to do something that isn't specifically health focused and do something where rather than be another Cheetos that, you know, switching out an ingredient to be like, oh, we're better Cheetos, even though they're really not. What if we actually do something that is better for a consumer, which is flavors that they typically wouldn't find on a puff? So that, that was like kind of like the key origin story of like how we got started. Spent a ton of time like validating that with consumers and um, you know, working on branding and getting the product right. So there was like a lot that had to happen to go from like, oh this is an interesting idea to actually like, now we've got a brand and a product. But the, the key origin was just like the realization that there's a product that should exist but doesn't.

Sam (01:54): As someone who was tasked with coming up with new brands to incubate or potentially buy when you were working at Harry's, how did that experience prepare you for becoming an entrepreneur and starting fps?

Sam Tichnor (02:05): Yeah, I mean it was incredibly helpful in the pre-launch phase for sure because I had kind of been through it before. And I think more importantly I had worked on a lot of concepts that didn't quite make it to launch because we had number one, like our, our our barriers were pretty high for like what would the company be willing to invest in. But then it also helped me flex that muscle of like, is this actually a good idea or are we just going through the motions of oh well it's my job to you know, get this to launch. And so it kind of like, it helped me number one, like understand like what are the steps that need to be taken to actually go from idea to product and then where are all the checkpoints that we should have to make sure that, like, do we actually want to do this?

(02:51): Um, so, so it was almost like when when I was, you know, getting going and transitioning out of Harry's into working on this, I felt like I was like, oh I'm just doing the same job but I just don't make any money for it <laugh>. Um, and then I think secondly just, you know, working at a company like Harrys for as long as I did to just to see it both grow from where it was to where it got to and then also understanding like, well what did it take to really get going? Um, it just helped me understand like, here's all the things to learn about. Like these are the things that you need to know. So like while I wasn't responsible for all the e-commerce things, I was more on the finance and ops side of things. I had exposure to it and knew the people who were working on it and you know, through some of the work I was doing. Understood like what are the drivers that make things work and how, how should you think about growing the business?

Sam (03:42): So let's walk through some of those checkpoints. You are in the store, you have this epiphany. Can you walk us through your product development process from concept to validation to final products? What did that look like?

Sam Tichnor (03:55): Yeah, so there, there were kind of like two work streams. I did side by side first was just understanding like is there a commercial and consumer need for this product? So first thing I did was got my hands on as much, uh, industry data as I could. So understanding market size, growth rates, key competitors, what the margins look like, how hard is it to manufacture all those like certain things. And what I love to look for is an industry where there's a ton of consolidation. Cuz to me that would mean not every consumer need is being met. And when I was looking at the puff space, what I found to be most compelling was like Cheetos basically owns the category and then there is a long tail of competitors. There's probably like 15 to 20 better for you competitors that are specifically going after health claims or there's some that go after like the kids market.

(04:47): Um, so when I was looking at it, I was like, okay, so there's a big competitor. There are some brands going after some specific needs, but the thing that I'm actually interested in, no one's really touching. So like to me I was like, great, like that's an unmet consumer need potentially. And then talked to a bunch of people validate that like yes, they want more flavors on puffs. Um, so kind of, I guess it was like just analyze the data, go talk to a bunch of people. And then I finished with like a quantitative survey where um, I used just like one of those like free survey things, got about 600 responses and felt pretty good about, um, you know, not just my friends saying that they, you know, felt that there was a need there. Um, so then that kind of gave me the confidence to feel like, great.

(05:34): Like I can come up with a concept and give this to a branding agency and feel good about, you know, getting a brand on paper. At the same time I needed to validate like, can I make this product? Like conceptually sure people would buy it, but is there a thing that I can make? So what I did there was I, I worked with a, uh, firm, uh, in product development and we kind, first I I wanted to understand the manufacturing landscape. Like are there people who can make this product? I think in general like yes, it's an extruded puff. There are plenty of manufacturers out there with the one watch out for me, which I have learned the hard way over time is that the minimum order quantities are not low. So out the gate I needed to be buying a ton of inventory and so that, you know, as a bootstrap brand that made it a little bit like challenging cause it's like, great, I have to, one of the things I'm gonna have to learn how to manage is a lot of my cash is gonna be tied up inventory.

(06:30): So that was like kind of one of those like yellow flags where I was like, okay, like that's gonna probably hurt me down the road. But is that a reason not to do the brand? Like I don't think so. Um, because also like once we hit a level of scale, which is we're get, we're getting to now, like it's actually incredibly cheap to make the product. And so we can either have incredibly high margins, we can lower our prices to consumers or we can kind of do both. So then I felt good about the ability to make it and then worked with this firm on just like do the flavors that we wanna make actually taste good on a puff. And that was like, that's the big, like if it didn't taste good, we wouldn't do it. And so luckily through a couple rounds of iterations, like we felt like, all right, like no surprises, like a sour cream, an onion puff tastes good, salt in puff tastes good.

(07:18): There's a couple other flavors we tried that also tasted good. But I was like, well I can't do 'em all. And then there was actually a couple that we tried that we couldn't do, like we wanted to do like a cookies and cream oreo type of flavor early on and we just like, just couldn't, it just didn't hit right. And then similarly, our hot chocolate skew that we have now was actually originally conceived as a s'mores s skew. And it just like when we were going through the process, I was like, this tastes really good, but it doesn't taste like a s'more, so why don't we just like call it something else rather than like, you know, continue to bash our heads against the wall trying to make it s'mores. Like, so I guess like once we kind of hit those two and I guess like they weren't like fully parallel, but we got through the branding and kind of consumer commercial stuff probably within like four to five months. And then the product development took a couple more months after that.

Sam (08:10): When you go on the website you are met with this headline that says not healthy just delicious premium corn puffs. I love that headline and I love the copywriting for the website in general. Can you talk a little bit about the role copywriting plays in positioning the product?

Sam Tichnor (08:24): Yeah, so I, I think it's incre, it's like the thing that matters most to the brand. When we were going through our branding and like picking what direction do we want to go with, there was a ton of options that I've worked with this agency called Day Job. They're incredible, they do a lot of great work and they presented me that like 15 options of like different brand concepts as a start. And the one we chose, which is the one we have now obviously is very simple. Like there's not too many crazy design elements and in, and it's a way like I love the simplicity that makes it stand out in like kind of a sea of like a lot of brands are saying so much on packaging and like we're just like, hey, like we're tasty tubes that are not healthy and here's a little out of the box flavor name.

(09:07): Uh, so for us with the simplicity, our copy needs to be really, really good. Uh, so luckily like they gave me like an initial copy bank to work with and I've kind of just like tried to channel as much as like with myself as the first consumer of this, like what would I like in a brand knowing that there are a bunch of other people that feel the same way. So yeah, copy copies everything. And I, I think what's cool about our brand is like we can take risks with it cuz that's like the whole point. Like we literally say we're not healthy on the packaging. So like we have license to kind of within reason say a bunch of weird things that like, kind of like, like premium corn puffs is not a natural thing that people would say, but when we put it with our brand, like it kind of makes sense.

Sam (09:52): So I wanna talk about the website. In our pre-interview you said, and I'm paraphrasing here, I'm not trying to optimize for conversions, I'm trying to optimize for memorability. Can you tell us how the website helps do that?

Sam Tichnor (10:04): Yeah, I guess like number one, we have an incredibly user unfriendly experience where if you're just like sitting on the webpage and doing nothing, a bunch of puffs will just pop up and eventually take over the screen. And it's just like one of those things where it's like, yeah, like that probably annoys people, but at the same time, like it kind of gets them back engaged and, and so like that's like one thing we thought about. And then the second is like we're, we're like honest with ourselves about who we are as a brand and long term where people are gonna buy us. Like we're not meeting a specific health need that people are like researching online then, then clicking a link and then buying it because they don't think that they can buy their thing in the store that's near them. We're going to be in every shelf in the country at some point in the next decade.

(10:53): And and our strategy is like we're a retail brand. People wanna buy, you know, one bag at a time once every other week for the rest of their life. And so when I think about what role DTC plays, it really needs to be like a flagship store where like if someone wants to buy in bulk, like that's awesome and they can get it at a much fairer price than they would on shelf. But then also like how do we use the website as a way for people to just say like, oh that brand has a really cool website. I remember clicking on it or seeing it or a friend sh shared it with me. And then when they see us in store they'll be like, oh, that was the brand with a really cool website. So that, that's kind of like how we think about it. And so like we obviously have some work to do. Like we, we kind of had the V1 go up when we launched last year and I think we're going through an exercise now of like, how do we take that and knowing what the role is and where the brand is going and how do we make the website even less salesy and more like, this is a cool brand, you should try us. We're fun.

Sam (11:50): You and I were speaking before and I think there's something that I find fascinating about your journey. A lot of D two C brands, they start as D two C and then they want to move into retail. You've done the opposite. And I would love to hear your thoughts on is that something that more brands could benefit from doing, do you think?

Sam Tichnor (12:10): Yeah, I think so. What our approach was just very much like, let's just like see where it takes us. And so like when we, when we launched it was just on our website cause like that was the only option. And if I had more industry connections with grocery stores, I would've loved to have been in grocery stores. But at the same time, operationally as like a one guy shop working outta my apartment there, the the level of like what you need to really execute in a grocery store well, like I probably couldn't have done by myself and it, it might not have been the best. And you know, we've iterated on the product and a bunch of things to make things better over time, but I mean I really think it's just like l listen to the consumer and understand the market. Um, I think for us to have tried to do a bunch of paid social ads to try to trick people into buying things from us on the internet, like that's actually just like not right for our product.

(13:03): And so I think pretty early on, like we had pretty good organic, uh, sales at launch and then, you know, we started talking with consumers about like, hey, you ordered once, why didn't you make a second order? And the answer was like, I just wanna buy this in a store. Like I don't wanna spend 30 bucks, 35 bucks on like cheese puffs. Like I'll just buy it one at a time. But like, I really like them, they taste really good, but like I don't need six bags of cheese puffs sitting in my small pantry. And so it's really just like it going in eyes wide and like that's kinda what we thought it was gonna be like, but just like going in eyes wide open to say like, this is how people want to interact with the product, so don't force someone into an unnatural behavior.

(13:46): And so for us, we were able to, you know, within like a month or so of launch, like we were in maybe like 30 to 50 stores and we've kind of been slowly building on that. Um, but yeah, and that's where we see like our best. And I think for, for folks launching, you know, retail's really hard like to to launch in a hundred door chain off the bat, like you need financial resources that most brands don't have and like ours included and what worked really well for us was some of these like quick commerce platforms like a, like a dash mar or a goPuff or a Guttier, um, where it's like it's retail relationships but it's kind of like unlimited shelf space. Dtc. Like Amazon is another good hybrid, although like that's obviously a little bit harder. Um, but yeah, so like that, that's like, I think just like we are going retail because that's where the consumer wants us to be and I think there's a lot of other brands that are probably in the same boat.

Sam (14:40): How do you strike that balance between, with so many e-commerce brands driving repeat sales through email marketing and automations, how do strike that balance between these people that are saying, Hey, I just wanted to buy one bag and wanting to turn them into lifelong customers. How do you, how do you strike that balance?

Sam Tichnor (15:00): Yeah, it's, it's hard. I think our approach to it is let's just treat it as brand exposure and brand building. And so it's of course we'll do like a sale email every once in a while, but I think for the most part it's how do we like edu educate people on the brand and how do we get people excited about it in a way where like we get a response from someone where it's like, that email was really funny versus like, and I'd rather get that than, you know, a couple sales cuz like, you know, it's, I mean maybe not, I prefer the sales, but you know, I think it's just the reactions of like how do you integrate that? Like when we talked about like the website and what role does that play? Well I think email is an extension of that where it's just giving somebody an ex an experience with the brand that just reminds them that we exist so that in two weeks or two months or two years when they see us on shelf, they'll just remember like, oh, I had a very positive interaction with that brand and I think they're really funny and I, and they get me and, and that's kind of what we're going for.

(16:07): Um, so it's, it's like a slow play but I think it's, if we can just like consistently, you know, do things like, you know, explain to them why do we have a flavor that's called semi historic sour cream and onion. Like why do we call our puffs tasty tubes? Like just continually just like doing those over time versus a like act now or like this sale goes away tomorrow or like, you know, some of the hacky things like yeah we can try and I'm sure we will over time, but I think at least as we're building out the brand and really meeting our earliest consumers, like we kind of wanna be opposite of that.

Sam (16:46): So you're not using any welcome flows or post-purchase flows or anything

Sam Tichnor (16:50): Like that? Oh we do, we do like the the welcome and the post-purchase for sure. But like I, and I think in the post-purchase, like a lot of what I wanna do is like, can we get a review? Can we get feedback? Um, cuz the, cuz the thing that's hard to, for us and we're still learning is like again, like with the insight that we got was actually from a post purchase flow around, you know, people prefer to buy in store and not spend, you know, $35 on cheese puff, which like I probably wouldn't either. Um, so yeah, like using that for consumer insights just as much as it would be like trying to get repeat sales. Um, yeah and like welcome flow, like it's, it's a, it's, for me it's about brand education. So how do we have that if someone signs up for the email newsletter from a pop-up or just coming to the site, um, just like what are they signing up for and getting to know the brand versus doing something that's more like, thanks for signing up, here's $5 off then like, like you didn't use your $5 off code.

(17:48): Like those types of things are like probably less for us. But again, like it's just about the consumer. Like there's like, I was buying socks online a couple weeks ago and, and that's a situation where just like, I don't really care about the brand, I just need socks, but I like abandoned car cause I forgot I was doing something else. So then it's like, oh cool, now like I'm doing the thing that I want and I'm getting it for cheaper. Like it's a little bit more transactional and for us, like I just view it as like probably less of a transactional process.

Sam (18:18): I wanna ask you about successful marketing campaigns or strategies. What works at the start and what is working right now for you?

Sam Tichnor (18:27): Yeah, so at the start I think we just made a bet that people will discover our brand and they'll think it's cool and that like works to an extent where, you know, we definitely got a lot of like, you know, friends and family people like that buying friends of friends, like third level people who like heard of somebody posting it online and they were like, oh this is cool, I'll try it out. Um, so, so that was like, you know, obviously like word of mouth incredibly helpful early on, you know, getting featured in publications like the Snapshot, uh, they've been incredibly helpful for us. Um, just like kind of, you know, being one of those brands that like, hey, they're doing something different. It's not like just another bland like FS is cool. And that was like a really nice validation for us. Um, and we've tried like everything, um, within budget to like see like what could stick.

(19:21): So we, we've tried doing paid social ads, we've done podcast stuff, we've done out of home stuff and I, I think really what what works is just like giving people product to try, which is like luckily fairly cost effective as well. And that's kind of where we settled into um, at least like with a limited budget for now. Like it's really just like every once in a while on Instagram doing things like first 10 people to DM us will send a free bag to, cuz like for me it's like now I can have 10 people try my product, a couple of them will come back and place an order, A couple of them will find it in a store near them at some point. And so like, no one's been like, eh, like I didn't like it. Cuz again, like it's, it's junk food, like it tastes good.

(20:04): So I, I think like that, that's been for sure the most effective. Um, we started doing that a lot more in like, you know, probably like August of last year and just been a consistent thing for us. I think what hasn't worked is like trying to do influencer stuff. Uh, I think snacks are such a personal thing to people that like, yeah, like there's the opportunity to maybe like go viral on TikTok as like a TikTok snack, but like you can't build a business model off of that. And so like maybe that'll come one day, but like, I'm not like planning on it. But I think what's, what's interesting is like snacks are such a personal thing that it really comes back to like, I don't really care that somebody else likes a certain snack, but if I try it and I like it, then I really do care. Um, so that, that's kind of how we've thought about it and I think going forward what we wanna do is start doing more like maybe a flavor collab and using kind of like our, our whole flavor positioning as a way to do something a little bit bigger and kind of, you know, get a couple new things out there but do it in a way where like there's some distribution from another party that that can help us out.

Sam (21:11): I wonder if influencer marketing hasn't worked as well because so many influencers typically promote products that are quote healthy and mm-hmm <affirmative>, this product really is in a category of its own. And I'm wondering if, like you say, snacks are so personal, you almost don't wanna share that snack with other people and I wonder if that's part of the reason why.

Sam Tichnor (21:31): Yeah, I think it, it wor like so organic, so there's like kind of like the nuance of like organic social has actually worked fairly well for us. And I think it just, it has to be organic, it has to be like, you know, people talk about U G C but like U GC is not actually U gc, like that's like kind of just like a misnomer. Like we need like actual U G C, like u like people who we don't know who are just posting stuff cuz they think it's cool. Mm-hmm. And, and that's where we've seen the most success where like someone's like, oh, like a close friend of mine brought this to a party and I tried it and I liked it so I went and bought it at a store and that's happened. And so like that's kind of like what we need is just really the organic side of things and, and that it's a slow build, but it over time as we get more distribution and as we can just like build awareness and that's again going back to like what role does the website play? What role does email play? What role would paid social play? Like are we optimizing for making the sale today or do we just want someone to know that we exist? So that like yeah, that's, so that's kind of how I think about it.

Sam (22:36): You mentioned it's just yourself right now. I'm curious, do you plan on expanding the team?

Sam Tichnor (22:41): Yeah, so we're um, you know, in the, hopefully by the time this is out we will have completed a, a small fundraise and we've got, you know, a couple not full-time, but um, just some like consultants and a couple agencies that, you know, I've been in contact with that I think will, you know, bring on and bring aboard. And I think what that'll let me do is like really focus on building out sales and just what are the things that I can take off my plate so that I can focus on building distribution and just making sure that we're in more people's hands quicker. I think with like our website as an example, like our conversion rate, like even though we're not optimizing for conversion, like we're actually converting not at such a bad rate almost because maybe people see oh, they're not optimizing for conversion, like this isn't so salesy, but you know, obviously like how do we get more traffic like that? That's what I'm thinking about, like how do I get more people to be potentially interested in buying? And so that's I think what what we're really gonna focus on and think just having people who know what they're doing, like my background is more like finance ops strategy, like what could we do? And so if I can bring in some folks who are like really experienced at like, here's how you can rock e-commerce, here's how you can rock retail. Um, that'll just like really help, help blow us open.

Sam (24:03): I'm curious, can you talk about any specific trends or changes in the food and beverage industry that have impacted the way you approach marketing and product development for fbs?

Sam Tichnor (24:12): Yeah, so I've kind of, that's, that's a really good question. I've kind of ignored trends and my view on that is like, I just have this memory of like growing up it was like my whole family went to my grandma's condo in Florida and she was doing like the Atkin Atkins diet at the time. And of course like all the food in the house was like Atkins friendly. And we reached to a point where like my uncle was like, I'm tired of this, like, who wants Subway? And so we like all had these like subway sandwiches on the beach and that just like, that was like kind of like my first memory of like food trends and diet trends and like I've always kind like, yeah, there's like all these brands like snackwells from like the early two thousands or or nineties like trends come and go.

(24:55): Like there's keto, I mean glu I would say like gluten free maybe is not a trend cuz that's like a dietary need, but there's like a lot of these like trends that are like coming and going and I just kind of want to, if I want to build a brand that's around for 50 years, like I don't want to be subject to something being, oh this is not the trend anymore. So we can think of it from flavors and like, I've definitely seen like the cinnamon churro trends happening a lot with flavors across products and I think that's interesting. I mean I'm glad we have a skew for that. Uh, but, and again, like we built our product there around Cinnamon Toast Crunch, which has been around forever. So I think what I, what I think about is like what's a, what's a trend in what's a real and how do we focus on that?

(25:37): And you know, right now like there's kind of like, there's like this diet culture I think in the US is like incredibly toxic. And so for us, like we just wanna make sure that like we're actually like a brand that's like, hey, like we don't, like, no, like people should be able to eat whatever they want and within reason, like, don't eat five bags of Fs in a day, that's probably not good for you. But like if you have a bag like once a week or like a couple times a week, like it's not gonna kill you cuz like there's really nothing that bad in it. So like that's kind of how we think about things. Um, and and that could be a trend, like we're hoping that there could be like a wave of hey, like you don't need 15 grams of protein in your cheese puff.

(26:23): Like, like let a puff be a puff. And that's like hopefully a trend that we're starting or on the forefront of. But um, in terms of like other trends, like, you know, like there's, there's some things that are good. Like I think like non GMO as a thing is probably good whether like I haven't done the research, like whether or not it's kind of like one of those just like money grabs by an organization. Like I don't know. But I think in general like yeah, like higher quality ingredients should be a thing. So it's kind of like how do you parse out that versus like some sort of ingredient that has a moment and then everyone's like rushing, oh like we have to do this oil instead of this oil. Like I don't care about that. Like that that's like, you know, not, not something we're gonna spend our time just like spinning our wheels on, but I think there are like important cultural shifts that we do need to be aware of. So there there's kind of like that distinction.

Sam (27:11): It's a really interesting point because I do agree, I do feel like the health wellness industry is almost about to turn upon its head and it's interesting that you mentioned that you are potentially starting this trend. Where do you see the brand in the next couple of years?

Sam Tichnor (27:28): Yeah, I think for us, like we have to just keep our heads down and execute and just make sure that as we, you know, take on external capital and really try to grow this thing now that we've like validated that there's like people that want to eat the thing that we make, I think we just need to get to a point where we're on as many shelves as we can be in the country. We were working on our rollout strategy now of like, well how do we do that in a way where we're not like spreading ourselves too thin and you know, we wanna make sure we can drive productivity. Um, but I think like the vision is like be everywhere. People buy snacks. Um, we always joke cuz like everywhere besides like Sprouts and Whole Foods, but like, hey, like if they want like our, I think our ingredients actually hold up to their standards so like they're listening and they want to take us like, we're not actually against you, we just kind of a marketing thing.

(28:15): But um, yeah, like I think just like be be anywhere people wanna buy us and kind of be a, the next like iconic snack brand. And I think it's, it's a big vision. Like I think building a billion dollar brand is like a crazy thing to say, but when you look at like the Fritos and Cheetos and Lays and Pringles of the world, like that's who we're trying to be. We're not trying to like build out a niche and then expand our product portfolio across a bunch of different categories. Like we're a Puffs brand and that's kind of all we ever intend to be and we wanna like own the flavored puff category.

Sam (28:53): I think that's a great place to start wrapping up Sam, where can our listeners go to learn more about fpps?

Sam Tichnor (29:00): Um, fpps.com FFPs.

Sam (29:02): Perfect. Well for everyone listening, I will put the link in the show notes and I encourage you to go and check out the website. It really is something to behold. Sam, I wanna thank you again for taking the time to join us today and all the best in the future with fbs. Cool,

Sam Tichnor (29:15): Thanks. Appreciate it. It was great to chat through, you know, what we're building and you know where we're going.