Building Your Brand in Public

How was everyone’s Super Bowl Sunday?

I am now in crippling debt after spending my savings on novelty products from Temu in an attempt to shop like a billionaire. I am hoping to rebound shortly, but my family is having a hard time forgiving me.

That aside, let’s chat about CPG celebrities today. Not the celebrities who are in CPG, but people who are celebrities because of what they have accomplished in CPG.

Who is on your CPG Mount Rushmore?

Hamdi Ulukaya, John Foraker, Seth Goldman, and Indra Nooyi might be a good four, but I am sure everyone has that one CPG founder that you bump into once in your career and are just awestruck by the encounter.

I want to start highlighting founders through On-Shelf that I think might be heading toward a similar trajectory as those four. I thought a lot about multiple founders that I could do a deeper dive into, similar to my post-mortem issue, but I kept having a hard time finding conviction around the one I wanted to focus on for this issue.

Then I realized that the answer had been in front of me the whole time.

One of my core memories of my childhood is my dad prioritizing health and fitness daily. I remember him running almost every day and I remember being very embarrassed by the length of his running shorts, pleading with him to change before going out in public with me.

I always ran recreationally but started to ramp it up in 2020 during the pandemic. I ran my first marathon in 2022 and then I ran the New York City one shortly after. I fell in love with it and it helped me escape mentally while building the business.

Now I am the one who will get to embarrass my children with my short shorts.

With anything I like, I just can’t like it, it is never enough, I have to obsess over it. So, I don’t just run, I consume a lot of running content, and one of the first creators I started watching was Nick Bare.

Nick Bare is a Nashville-based founder who after actively serving in the military turned his side project into his full-time passion which is now known as Bare Performance Nutrition.

Nick does what all great brand owners should do, he documents his journey and that documentary-style approach makes his content seem real and it makes the end consumer feel like they are part of the journey.

His content is usually centered around fitness and his next challenge, but he always tastefully shows how his products are aiding in the journey.

You will see him go through his morning routine while he takes his Strong Reds and Strong Greens products on camera.

You might be watching one of his training runs and he will crush a Go Gel or Go Bar to power through his last few miles.

He isn’t just pushing the product, but also, he is educating the viewer on the how and why of his product.

This is when you should take this product, this is the best delivery method, and this is why I am taking it. These questions get answered naturally as he documents his life, he isn’t telling you, he is showing you.

This storytelling approach resonates and the result is not just him selling more products, the result is that he is selling more products AND training better customers.

And in training better customers, he is creating future advocates.

It’s this cycle of genuine content and product creation that feeds itself into a fully sustainable product-content workflow. He has constantly shown over the years his manufacturing facility and team growing consistently, to the point where now as a viewer you think it’s cool to have been on his content and products from the “early days”. You also feel like you had a hand in the success that you are watching unfold.

The idea that the next set of CPG Mount Rushmore candidates is going to be both content and product-led is not something groundbreaking, but I do think it might feel discouraging for founders when they look at an Emma Chamberlain or a Mr. Beast who are both known for content first and then created CPG brands. You might think, how are you supposed to compete with those founders who already have a massive audience?

This is why I made this choice on who to spotlight first. I wanted to talk about Nick for two reasons.

The first is that he has been religiously devoted to consistency. He is consistent in his approach to health, family, and his business. The gains might be unnoticeable some days, but he is going to show up the next day and continue to stack success no matter how big it might seem.

Consistency is something we can all hold ourselves to. It doesn’t matter how niche your product is. If you are consistent with your approach to content and documenting your journey, you will see results.

The second reason I wanted to highlight Nick and BPN was because I don’t ever hear about him or the company in CPG circles.

From what I was able to find online, BPN is going to comfortably cross the $50M in annual revenue mark this year, and I am probably underselling that number quite a bit based on what is publicly available.

They are sold primarily online but have expanded into a host of different retailers like Vitamin Shoppe, HEB, and Central Market. The brand is very intentional with its distribution strategy. It is also commendable that the brand is a hit in a category where there is so much saturation it can be hard to cut through the noise and disrupt the established players.

Most CPG founders love the product side and the content and marketing piece can seem like something that is always put on the back burner. What I respect about Nick is that he has slowly built a product-first business. The brand was established in 2012, long before the Youtube channel eclipsed 1M followers.

He built his content after he conceptualized the product line to support the brand and he slowly chipped away to get the product and audience to what it is today. Although health and fitness is a large niche, he knew his sweet spot and let everyone in as he went on this adventure.

I am in CPG circles and conversations daily, constantly engaging on Linkedin, and rarely see a mention of what Nick Bare and his team are building.

I believe this brand and founder can be a great example for brand owners worried about opening up and building in public. You don’t need a massive audience or a certain level of followers to get started, you just have to be consistent and determined in your approach.

I think there is a good chance that in the next 5-10 years, Nick Bare might show up on some people's CPG Mount Rushmore and I look forward to continuing to watch the growth unfold for everyone to see.

I can't wait to spotlight more rising star founders and potentially get some interview-style On-Shelf issues in the pipeline.

If you have a founder in mind that I should dive into, please let me know!