We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Daniel Scharff a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Daniel, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

I had come from Big CPG (Mars Chocolate) when I moved to San Francisco’s hot FoodTech scene in 2016. I really enjoyed the better-for-you side to the business, and was eager to connect with people at other companies. I started organizing meetups, and through the people I met, learned there was a real opportunity for events and community, and because I had a great job, I could keep it free for the brands (there are enough people they have to pay!) I soon realized the only offerings out there were local groups, and thus, Startup CPG was born – a national community for emerging brands and industry experts, providing free help and resources via a digital slack group (now 30,000 members), fun events where brands can sample and meet retailers, and highly educational podcasts, webinars, and more. Through all the growth, we’ve maintained it as a free community, brands can sign up via our website (startupcpg.com).

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’ve been in CPG for 12 years. I love tangible products with fun branding – the opposite of the ‘back-office cost reduction’ I did during my consulting years. And while I loved my time at Mars Chocolate, I found that I needed to work on better-for-you products to feel good about how I spent my days.

I’m really proud to have built a home for all brand founders. A place they can learn all about the industry, find the best partners, meet retailers and distributors, and find their CPG founder crew as well. I have a wonderful team of people who love our mission to help emerging brands, and we have a total blast while doing it.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I’ve always had one guiding principle for everything we do at Startup CPG, and that is “What’s the best thing for the brands?” It helps me make decisions about our content, guidelines, resources, partners, and so much more. As long as we keep this guideline in mind, we’ll provide the most value for brands, and continue building our reputation as the most valuable resource out there for emerging brands.

How did you build your audience on social media?

You can’t plan to go viral. You can plan to deliver authentic content that you test and learn from, and be consistent over the long term. For Startup CPG, our social media is a platform to feature & educate emerging brands. We’ve learned they like to see their products in stores, see their brands featured, learn about exciting new products and founders, laugh at memes, and so much more.

For anyone trying to figure out their social media, my only advice would be to really figure out content you can produce that will resonate with your audience. It may not be the thing that shows off your beautiful brand the most, or teaches them the things you want them to believe about your brand – rather it may be the thing that just engages them the most. Once you find that and build an audience, you’ll find ways to bring them along your journey as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.startupcpg.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupcpg
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danscharff
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@startupcpg

Image Credits

Startup CPG