Jaime shared her experience scaling a CPG brand from her kitchen table to a 9 figure exit, and how she’s used that knowledge to create exceptional businesses making an impact in Web3. Recorded on July 18, 2022 for Crypto Packaged Goods Genius Call series.
Jaime Schmidt is Founder of Schmidt's Naturals, the natural personal care brand that she scaled from her kitchen to acquisition by Unilever in 2017. And in the process, Jaime led a movement of modern brands bringing naturals to the mainstream. Today, the brand is sold in over 30 countries and 30,000 retailers, and Jaime continues to support their global expansion.
Follow Jaime at https://twitter.com/jaimeschmidt
Follow Club CPG at https://twitter.com/CPGCLUB
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Mikey Piro (MP)
I am going to just do a little preamble here for everybody who may not know who you are, which I would find shocking, but here we are, this genius call. Thanks to Janet, first of all, for doing so much hustling for genius calls behind the scenes. We all really appreciate the work she's doing there and she was very much a main facilitator here for us to get together. And thank you for the time today. I know you're super busy with BFF and we're going to get all into that. But for those who don't know, we are talking with Jamie Schmidt today. Jamie is the founder of the CPG brand Schmidt's Naturals, which she scaled from her kitchen to a plus $100 million acquisition by Unilever. She's also the co founder of Color Capital and Club CPG. But most of the time today she spends on building BFF, which we'll talk a lot about today as well, which is a brand that helps women and nonbinary people get educated and connect in web three, I had the tremendously good fortune of having been exposed to Club CPG through a number of folks in SF. And that tale kind of brings us here or brings me here to talk to Jamie. And I want to just preamble it with one small caveat. So a little story to get us going. And I don't know if I lost Jamie, but it seems like she's still there. But the twelve days of GPG is where I got my token. And I've said this a whole bunch before, but I was so emotional and I was so thankful that I got it. And it really like I dove in. I had gone through the list of folks that Jamie and Chris had assembled for CPG, and I was, like, overwhelmed and impressed with everybody that was there because it was all these hardcore builders and people who had a lot of success in their career already, things that I aspire to do. And then immediately there was a Secret Santa that went out and I'm like, okay, I can kind of hide in this group. Maybe I'll get somebody who's not that great and I can kind of like, figure out how to do this web three secret Santa. And of course I landed Chris and I was like, oh, man, how am I going to figure out what to get Chris, who seemingly is, like, rocking his punk and is just, like, gobbling up all sorts of fun alpha all over the place. And so in my deep dive of like, all right, how do I figure out how Chris and Jamie are? I pulled down Supermaker and I read it in, like, a day and it just was this wonderful exposition of the journey that you've had. And so for today, I kind of wanted to revisit a little bit of Supermaker and give a plug for it because I think it's like a really handy, practical, insightful and inspiring book. And also, I think because of the timing of it, there's this angle of, like, your philosophies and how you present yourself on Twitter are so strong and you know exactly how you believe in the world and how you want to move through it. And maybe that wasn't always the case, but it feels that way from us that are watching. And how has web Three in that journey juxtaposed against Supermaker kind of brought it there? So I'm going to make it easy. I'm just going to go back through time and go like, where'd you start with your brand and I think then periodically just ask them questions about, like, is it the same or different for Web Three? I've already spoken for four minutes and I'm uncomfortable doing that. So I want to turn it over to you and give anything that I've missed. But welcome and thank you so much for putting up with my preamble. How are you?
Jaime Schmidt (JS)
Hi, Mikey. Thanks for the nice intro. I appreciate your compliment about how it seemed like I know how to move through the world because I don't know that that's true. I've had some major accomplishments, but I think I'm still learning every day and changing every day. And so it's good from the outside that I'm presenting with such confidence and having an impact. So thank you 100%.
MP
So in Supermaker, you start with where you started, which is your kitchen back in Portland. And I think, again, I'm going to play this like nobody knows who you are and that you're going to go through this from the beginning. And so tell us about how that started and where you launched it. I'm going to try and stick to the 25 minutes and then open it up for folks, but I think we can kind of amble through this.
JS
Yeah, I'll dumb down. Not dumb down, but shorten, I guess. Again, some of my more lengthier. Generally I can ramble, but, yeah, I started in Portland back in 2010. I had been on this quest for several years to find fulfillment in my work. I think a lot of people here can probably relate to that. You find yourself on this career path, you start second guessing yourself and thinking, is this the best use of my skills? Do I enjoy this? Do I want to keep going on this trajectory? And it got so extreme for me that I decided that I wasn't going to settle. And I didn't know what that looked like. I knew I had to get my hands dirty to figure it out. But I tried several things. I had moved cross country from Michigan to Portland, and Portland was the most creative city in the country. And I thought, if I'm going to find myself, this is where it's going to happen. So everybody there was like a maker, an artist, a musician, and I, for one, felt like a kind of a big nerd. I was like, what can I do that's cool? How do I fit into this scene? But also, what can I do that's fulfilling? And what can I do that I'm actually good at? And so I tried lots of stuff, settled on making personal care products, and it worked out beautifully because I was pregnant at the time, I was paying closer attention to the product I was using in my skin. So everything was sort of just aligned. So I started making things. They were working. I had a deodorant that was working amazingly well. I had been using different natural deodorants. A lot of them fell short for me. So I thought, you know what? If this works for me, it's going to work for other people. So I went out to the farmers market, still sort of naive to what was in front of me with the business. Instead of shop, every weekend, different markets. Some were incredibly slow, some were busier. But it was the perfect chance to meet customers, to learn how to be a business person and truly recognize the opportunity and what I was doing. So I decided to go all in, named it after myself because I didn't know what else to call it. It was supposed to be a temporary name, but it ended up sticking with me for the long term. And then from there, I just started taking the business very seriously, recognizing what I could do in terms of wholesale and distribution. But fast forward seven years later, and as you mentioned, Mikey, I sold the business to Unilever in an acquisition. Never could have imagined it from day one standing out there at the market. And so much happened in those years, and I ended up building out our manufacturing facility. Zero experience doing that. Figured out what that meant, scaling from my stovetop to a full fledged manufacturing facility with about 150 employees working over two shifts. Today I want my story to be that inspiration for people who think, like, I can never figure this out. I'm not that person. But you are. Like, everybody has that potential, and I'm the perfect example of that. Because if you'd ask me in my younger years what you want to be when you grow up, I wouldn't have said running a deodorant factory, because there's no way how I could figure that out. But I did, and here we are, and life has changed a lot, and it's great to be here with Club CPG, sharing story and hopefully inspiring some people.
MP
Oh, 100%. I want to rewind a little bit to the Portland and the makerspace. I think there's some interesting historical things that I think you and Chris kind of hit in terms of Nasancy, of the parallels in Web two and how your brand started to evolve there. I would love to understand how you feel that Portland vibe of meeting all these amazing artists, creators and makers. How does that parallel to how you're experiencing Web Three right now? Because what comes to mind is, like, this global environment we have for Web Three, but there are these amazing makers, and some of them are carryovers and artists as well. What are you seeing in Web Three that reminds you of that origin story in Portland?
JS
Yeah, I love that. I would say there's no right way to do things or there's no one way to do things, and it's so personal. The NFT projects are just a beautiful example of that. A lot of us start as artists in this space, zero business experience, not knowing what the hell we're doing, but just, like, following our intuition and what resonates with us on a personal level and just trusting that that is so key. And that's what got me ahead in Web to building my brand, was that I didn't obsess over what others were doing. I didn't know enough about what other people are doing. And that naivety was actually a blessing for me. I see that definitely resonating with a lot of the Web Three companies today, too. And we're all running businesses in Web Three. And of course, once you get to a certain point, like, you have to really kick it into gear and professionalize things and standardize things. But in those earliest days of scheming your concept, I think it's so important just to let your mind go wild and just explore that side of yourself. No playbooks. That's what I like about Web Three right now. There's literally, like, no playbooks that exist. Web Two is like, oh, you go to the bookstore, the shelves are full of, like, how to build your business, how to build a brand, how to market. And now with Web Three, it's like, we're just starting to build those playbooks, but we are the ones writing them, which is awesome.
MP
For BFF, it's been just awe inspiring to watch the partnerships coming out of it. I mean, the team that you've assembled there, I see a bunch of folks here that are there. The quality of that team, it's just really inspiring to watch it in your journey. You really liked it. Very fast forward from the inception of Schmidt's to your exit and then post, you have a couple of points in Supermaker about make it yours is, like, one big part of it, which I think is what we're sort of covering now. And then make it exceptional in the scale up. And right now, you're in the throes of that scale up for BFF. What are some of the parallels that in that phase of Schmidt as you were making things grow and what you're seeing now in BFF? Are there parallels and what's kind of different?
JS
Yeah, there's certainly a turning point for any business, whether it's Web two, Web Three, where you start to look at the business from a different lens, right? You've got your customers, you have your community, you have this mission that you set out to accomplish. But as you get bigger and as more people are invested, whether it's a customer or somebody in your community, there's more at stake, right? And so these things, as I mentioned earlier, have to become a little more professionalized, right, or standardized and keeping the beauty of, I guess, building without looking too far ahead, that's always been key to me. I never looked too far ahead and I think that's what got me ahead. But it's balancing that with also like having systems and having goals and things that you're working towards. And so there's definitely that crossover, whether building a web tour or web street business. I also think about leadership and just team management that's going to apply no matter what type of business you're building and what web. You have to be a leader who inspires the team and to deliver and makes it clear what those deliverables are. But there's different rules, right? Like ours are less structured. You're not showing up to make the ordering in the factory from nine to five. It's more like these are the tools and work with your schedule to get us there. And I think one thing that gets overlooked in the beginning for some web three brands, I think is just the significance and the importance of budget. I think a lot of us don't know how to manage budgets and I was guilty of that in my first business. It took some getting used to and some scary moments and scrambling to get things in order. But that is so key for any business. Now, these web three companies, especially like right now, during a better market, what does it mean to have a budget? What does it mean to assess your spend and understand what things are delivering and what things you might need to eliminate? And so that's really hard but also incredibly important. And I think that's going to be one of the differentiators from the brands that do survive this time.
MP
It's fascinating to see this front loaded infusion of capital and the brands that really have or in the teams that know how to do this, how much they're racing ahead of teams that are figuring it out. Not that there's a right way, like you had mentioned, I think with my BFF going back to Supermaker, you make two points about making an impact and making it last. And I just want to say, like, for my BFF, for me, the value set that was put forward was magnetic and has a very big vision and is one that is just doing a lot of good in the world. And so you deserve more than a thank you. You deserve that team. Everyone is. When you won at Nftnyc, it was like I was talking to Christine, I was like this is a no brainer for you guys to win, and that best onboarding. It's doing a lot of great work, not just for web three, but the whole community is benefiting from it. When you went into starting my BFF and assembling this vision, what was top of mind for setting that foundation for you?
JS
Yeah, I had a lot of confidence because I had a business partner who also built some successful brands in her past. And just in our conversations, I just knew we were on the same page, we wanted the same thing. It wasn't entirely clear on how we're going to get there, but we knew what we wanted and that we could get there. We started with our events in January on YouTube. We had 5000 people show up to learn about the basics of web three. And NFPs everybody that came, they got an air dropped BFF friendship bracelet that lives in all their wallets today. And for many, that was their very first entity, their first exposure to web three. So that was just an awesome experience to help people just understand what it all was and what the opportunity was. And as that landscape changes and as we evolve as a brand, yes, we won this award recently for best onboarding experience for new users and we weren't surprised. We were honored and we were like just ecstatic. We were like, hell yeah, we deserve that. But now, what's next? We won't be the onboarding brand forever. That'll be a big part of who we are. But then we have to think bigger picture. What is BFF really after? What more can we deliver? Okay, we've onboarded this huge group of people who are really eager to explore new opportunities in web three, but now what does that mean for us as a brand? And so we're doing a lot of strategizing and soul searching and sort of putting things into place so that we can best articulate phase two of BFF.
MP
It's wonderful. And yes, now you've evolved. I feel like there's this moment that you're coming out and you sort of just alluded to it, like there's a lot of strategizing going on and you've sort of talked about it on Twitter and I hope to kind of gain some insights from you. There was this point at Schmidt where you had a number of SKUs and a number of products and you and Chris were debating like, no, we're going to skinny it down to one. And it was a big decision and it was one that was not easy nor apparent, I think, at the time, and in hindsight was great. Where do you see web three in terms of BFF and in general, like, needing to focus that one SKU going forward, and maybe not just for BFF, but like, in web three. What's your opinion on how we have this very broad umbrella of web three? And now we've had this kind of reckoning of some things getting shaken. Where do you think it needs to settle out and reducing the number of SKUs?
JS
Yeah, I like that parallel. I hadn't thought about that. But it's so true. You can't be everything to everybody and I think as a new brand, sometimes you try to be because you want to put your eggs in all the baskets and see what sticks, and I think that's important. But once you get to a certain point, you figure out your strength and who your niche customer community member is, and then you really have to own that and you have to figure out and be able to explain how it is different and how it's unique and how you're going to continue to expand on that. That's critical for so many brands right now. Club TPG is a great example too, right. We're not going to try to be everything to everybody and we never claim to be, but now more than ever, it's like, how do we articulate that specialty? How are we different? And I think it's hard for founders to figure it out and especially as there's more and more brands and more and more communities popping up all over the place, it's hard to figure out that special stock that you have. And for us at BFF, we're really confident in what that is, but it's going to be important for us to be able to grow and how we articulate that, right. We actually have some fun announcements coming in the next month or so and what that looks like for us.
MP
Fantastic. I'm going to take this moment. We're about ten minutes from when we had decided we're going to pull over a bunch of questions. So if folks have both ones they want to ask live and also ones they want to throw in the chat if they happen to be in a place where they can't speak, please start getting those queued up into the chat right now and we're going to answer as many as we can in those 30 minutes. I am super excited because we get some really great questions that come in and I think that this is going to be just really insightful and I really appreciate that. We're kind of freewheeling a bit on this. I want to turn the attention slightly more now to Club CPG and how Genesis kind of started and how the gates have opened there when you started CPG. And I'm just going to go from my own recollection. Like. You had the site and you had given out these Genesis mentor passes and then those mentors were then given an extra pass and those were redeemed and you build this kind of close knit society of folks that there's like some people that are in that group that when you talk to them. They're like. I'm never getting rid of this NFP I don't care what it's worth. And that's what it's morphed into. Talk a little bit about your intentions of starting it, and maybe there's some Color Capital background in here as well. What were you aiming for with that mentor path and that collection from your perspective? I think we know what Chris wanted. I want to hear it more from you.
JS
Yeah, well, Club CPG dates back before the crypto package goods and Tea collection launched, and I will give a little more history on kind of like how Color started and where Clip TPG originated. So after we sold Schmidt's Natural in 2017, chris and I, just for clarity, Chris was there alongside me, helping me build Schmidt. And so together we've gained this incredible wealth of knowledge on what it takes to scale of a business. And so we thought, okay, we have these resources financially, of course, but then also we have this expertise and this experience that is pretty unique in the industry. There aren't a lot of CPG brands who go through an acquisition and then kind of hang around to help others do the same. A lot of people take off or retire, go missing, whatever it might be. We wanted to do more. So we started our fund, Color Capital, and the intention there was to invest in other PPG brands, and we got excited and made some early investments there. The fund has evolved a bit to include some Web Three, of course. So that's been interesting and really fun to operate together. It's just the two of us. We have no LPs, so we can make our funding decisions just together, what resonates and where we think the best opportunities are and we can best support and then Club CPG. So that really started on Clubhouse. It was around the earliest days of COVID. Everybody was gathering to hang on Clubhouse and we were hosting conversations around brand building, marketing, acquisitions, whatever it might be, and it started to grow this community that was really excited to engage in these talks, and it became more regular. And then we decided to brand it Club CPG. So we did that for a bit, several months, and during the height of Clubhouse, and then things are shifted, of course. So we started to explore opportunity on Discord and then taking things a little bit more to Twitter. And that community followed us. Right, so we have this really devoted group of whether they were thought leaders or people who are actively building in the early stages, just this group of people who are really excited about CPG. And then we saw the opportunity for the NFP Collection. So this was mid 2021, where everybody was starting to think about NFPs and how they could launch their own collections. And for us, it was really obvious we wanted to bring together people at that intersection of consumer and Web Three because it didn't exist. And there was so much opportunity at that intersection in terms of acquiring new customers, new ways of marketing your business, and just so much potential, but no one really knew the extent of that potential. We thought, let's get everybody together and figure it out as a group, as a community. So you explained to the mechanics of it, how we had given some passes to mentors and then the mentors gave to their mentees, and then we all came together on Telegram. There was so much enthusiasm, so much hype, and just so much naivety and vulnerability in the group in those early days where we were just talking about things we were excited about and sharing resources, and then it became a little some of the conversations became more technical and we built out new channels for different interests and it's a very active community still today. And then we saw the opportunity to expand that through Pop, and that's when Pop launched. We thought, all right, what we've built with the Genesis collection is incredible. How do we bring that value to more people? So that's when Pop came into the picture. And Chris, of course, has been leading that. Everybody knows Chris at the forefront of the brand. Together we scheme a lot of ideas. Still, every day we go and walk together and talk about what it means and what we can do now and into the future. And so it's just awesome and just wild to look back on sort of the journey of what got us here.
MP
I think the piece for me, and it's beautiful how you've laid it out from that progression. The thing that keeps coming back into my mind and the thing that I keep experiencing firsthand, is that your intentions are and have been to pay it forward through the community. And I think when you come into Genesis and you ask anybody for help, like I did, like, I flat out of the gate. I was like, hey, I need some help with figuring out some logistics on my side. And people answered. And I think it doesn't take a lot to help other people. And you have continually set that as the culture. And I think what I would love to have people here from me and from your saying it, and I'm just trying to underscore it, is that's really like, the foundation of Pop is that we're all building here? If you got into Pop and you're just going to sit on it, cool. But if you actually take the time to come in with that same spirit that Club CPG was founded on, you can get way more out of it than you think you can just by asking questions, being vulnerable like you just stated, and also helping somebody else out. It goes so far to just pick up somebody's question and be like, yeah, I can help you here. And that bond, which spans through the Internet, has really been like your track record from Color Capital all the way through. What's your thoughts on how Web Three has a lot of pseudonymity and then we have this very authentic community. And having a pseudonym does not mean that you're not authentic. But what do you think is the conditions that set Web Three to be what it is in this time where scams are rampant? But now we've got this reckoning. How do you set that environment on a daily basis for BFF and for CPG, for that authenticity? Because you come across and you are I've met you in person, I've talked to you on the phone, a whole bunch, you are the same person. This is not an act. And I think that's a really important part of our Web Three experiences. When you meet somebody, you're getting who you're actually talking with.
JS
Thank you. Yeah. I think what's most important is that people show up how they want to show up and that looks so different for everybody. Whether you are anonymous or you're fully exposed, that's up to you. And I'm here to support all of it. And people have reasons for how they show up, right? And maybe at certain points in their lives, maybe things change for them over time or whatever it might be. But I think back to the authenticity piece, I think that bringing that to your communities is what's going to help you grow as a person, right? Whether it is your fully docs or you are showing up more reserved, just showing up in an authentic way is going to help you grow and just leaning on each other and trusting one another. And I think hopping between communities and see which one resonates. I'm totally proponent for exploring other communities. Like, yes, I think my communities are great, but I also think maybe there's a better fit for somebody somewhere else. And I think we should all feel free to explore and support people on that search and on that journey. And it's just like such a unique time that we're living through right now. And I think it's so great for personal development along with professional development too. Kudos for everybody. Just for showing up and being part of PPG and a pop or BSF or whatever it is. Just kudos for trying it out.
MP
Be yourself and be authentic. That's awesome. So we have about two minutes till the bottom half of the hour. I ambled around and covered a lot of different ground. I want to give you two minutes to do whatever it is that you want that maybe we didn't cover or something that you had in mind before we got here. And while you're doing that, I'll have queued up. If folks are able to who are listening, if you can, raise your hand now, we'll get that queued up. There's a couple of them in the chat as well, and then we have them lined up. So for the next two minutes, like, final words, what are some things that you really are feeling strongly about and want to just share with the community.
JS
Yeah, that's a tough one. I think back to, I guess, the Schmidt story and there's so much that we had to skip over and thanks for shouting out my book, but I think if there's some key lessons there or takeaways that I think are relevant to probably most of you who have shown up today, I mentioned definitely don't be afraid to get your hands dirty. Right. You have to know what you're good at and what you like. And being honest with yourself is the secret. We all convince ourselves that we're enjoying something or that this is the path we're supposed to be on. And so I think just being real with yourself and refusing to settle is just so key, no matter what you're building or what you're going after, if you're a leader of a brand or a community, like, listening to your customers, listening to your community, it sounds kind of cliche, but it's so key. I started my first business, no one knew who the hell I was, and so I leaned on my community to help. I still thankful that they trusted me right. With their product. And so that relationship is just so key as you're growing, no matter how big you get. Right. And maybe today more people do know who I am, but that does not take away from how seriously I'm going to take their feedback and their input. And that's on the same token, though, you also get to a point where you have to be selective in the feedback that you take or you drive yourself crazy. And so one thing I always tell people, look for patterns in the feedback that you're getting. If there's something that you're hearing consistently, maybe there's something there that you should explore more. If it's a one off, you listen and you think about it. That resonates with you. But some things you just have to say no to, right. Because you can't do all of it and so know what you stand for, what your values are on a personal level, on a professional level, and as a brand, and just stick with that.
MP
Wow. Yeah, it's fascinating. I'm going to go over and just react to that a little bit. The growth through the pandemic and having this really massive global kind of crisis hit everyone, I think, has shaken a lot of people that had gotten into this grind to really take a step back and look at it. And I think you touched on this whole confidence in yourself to really look at, like, I just actually don't enjoy this and I'm not going to do it anymore. I do enjoy X and I'm going to do that. I feel like something that has been cracked open and exposed for a lot of folks the past couple of years and that just resonates with me so strongly because I'm a pleaser and I'll just BOP along and do things for people and instead of being like, actually, I don't like doing this, so I'm.
JS
Not going to know. You're pleased to yourself sometimes, too, right? And you're just like, I'm doing this because I'm supposed to, or like, I was raised under this environment and this is like the expectations that maybe my parents had of me or whatever. These are things my friends are interested in and this is the path they're on. And so it's so important to step back and check in and be like, is this really what you want? And I think it's one of the hardest things, but, yeah, you're right. This is a good time to do it. Like the bear market. Things are a little slower, we have more time on our hands and maybe we're cutting back on certain spends. We're sitting in the house more or whatever it is. And that's a good time to have the self talks, I guess, and insightful moments with yourself.
MP
Sweet. Well, we're going to turn to the chat now. I can't guarantee that any of these are softballs, so I won't, but yeah. So this one is from Michelle Laura, and her question is, would you have done anything differently with Schmidt's if you were building today, given what Web Three makes available or is available?