What founders say
How founders actually got their first doors — what the conversation looked like, what it cost, and what they would skip if they did it again.
“I would go into my local grocery stores or liquor stores and pretty much just pitch my product… we had so many places say yes, we had some places say no.”
She expected a wall of rejection and got three to five. Founders routinely over-prepare for the pitch and under-prepare for the pricing conversation that follows it — which is where Osia actually struggled.
“on a block, if there's five liquor stores and you're the only person selling non-alcoholic drinks, I mean you're gonna get a lot of new customers, especially younger customers.”
The pitch that worked was not about her product. It was about the retailer's competitive position on their own street. Sell the buyer their upside, not your ingredients.
“everything just takes over a year to get into like large retailers. You don't present the product and then just get in… some retailers only take new brands in once a year.”
National retail is a calendar problem before it is a product problem. If you miss a category review window you wait twelve months, so map the windows for your targets before you build the deck.
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