Fishwife co-founder and CEO Becca Milstein discusses startup partnerships and why entrepreneurs should default to being solo founders unless a co-founder is strictly essential.
Insight
Milstein: Founders must personally execute all tasks for their first two years
“I, you do everything yourself the first year, maybe two years and you should.”
Insight
Milstein: True moats in CPG are nearly non-existent without proprietary manufacturing
“The reality is, in the CPG industry, having an actual moat is very hard. It's kind of non-existent. I mean, having your own manufacturing like Brian does really can help, but that's extremely expensive”
Insight
Milstein: Unpaid influencer excitement tests early product-market fit
“It's a great way to see if early signs of whether you have product market fit or not, if these influencers are excited about what you're doing. If they're not excited at all about what you're doing, you probably need to revisit the drawing board and say, what'…”
Opinion
Milstein: Canned fish category lacked brand appeal, flavors, and species diversity
“The canned fish category, it was lacking basically everything. It was lacking, you know, diversity in the species. It was lacking flavors, but the most clear thing that it was lacking was any brand that was interesting, beautiful, compelling to customers.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Milstein: Fishwife customer demographic aged up after entering retail
“You know, our core customer has been in the four years that we've been around very much millennial women as the years have gone on, especially it's gotten quite a bit older as we've gotten into retail and also gotten more national awareness outside of just soc…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Milstein: Premium tinned fish lacked a unifying brand despite early adopters
“It was clear to me that there were a lot of people that were really excited about it, like a nice base of early adopters that were hyper passionate about Tinfish and Conservas, but the only place you could get it would be, you know, a small specialty shop, and…”