TME Ep38_Full Episode
AccountfullyMay 29, 2024 at 3:24 pm35min
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00:01Brad Ebenhoeh
Welcome to The Month End CPG community chat, The Month End will provide emerging CPG brands real life knowledge into the accounting, finance and operational world. Our guests will be key stakeholders from those same brands as well as other key contributors in the industry. Welcome to Episode 38 of The Month End podcast today we have Tom Lango from brand Jack Dre. How're you doing today, Tom?
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00:23Tom Malengo
Good, Brad. Thanks for having me here. Happy to happy to chat with everyone.
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00:27Brad Ebenhoeh
Yeah, yeah, looking forward to learning more about your background and what that Brandjectory does, but also kind of discuss a lot of the experience and knowledge and foresights that you have within the CPG space for what over three, four decades here? So is that right?
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00:42Tom Malengo
10, where we've been working in it fully and another 20 Plus, where we were very much advocates of this industry and getting to know it and learn it and be part of it.
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00:51Brad Ebenhoeh
Awesome. Well, we'll chat about how things have changed the last several decades. But let's get started. Just go ahead. Give us your background and kind of like, you know, walk us through those kind of last several decades and kind of what what you do within the space as well as then, once you talk about that, let's talk about Brandjectory.
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01:07Tom Malengo
Okay. Well, story, my story is very simple. I had a corporate career and banking for 30 years at a national bank. 20 of that at the C-level, I had a chance to take a buyout. My wife Susan, Bryenton said, "No more winters in Cleveland", and we moved to Scottsdale. But as we were discussing before, Brad, Susan and I were lifelong foodies. We were the type in late 80's, early 90s', were running around looking to try to figure out how to eat healthy, we were kind of doing that, hey, we're going to eat for the, for the for the, for the health of our whole full life, you know, and watch ourselves. And we kind of grew up with the industry, even though we had other careers. We kind of grew up with the industry. So we those were those early advocates of brands like Pamela's, and Barbara's and Amy's and, and Annie's, you have to be older than yourself to know that to know those, you know, but this was a time when Pirate's Booty was considered better for you. Okay, you know, because there wasn't anything like that on the market. So we, you know, we did road trips, places. And if we saw Whole Foods, because we didn't have one in Cleveland, you know, we would stop and load up the car and buy stuff. So when we had that chance for a second career, we wanted to work with young brands. And so we thought we could take our business skills and our knowledge of the industry. And we were the type that were going to trade shows in the industry. Before we were part of the industry, we're going for fun to learn products, because we just so we knew people. So we decided to invest, advise and consult with young brands. And we did that for a number of years. And then we continue to want to bring more of what emerging brands needed. In terms of the knowledge of the CPG industry. So many brands get into CPG, so many founders getting CPG. And they're not they're not CPG experts, they're they're really coming out from other industries, whether it's their first, it's their first take it being an entrepreneur, and CPG is a little bit different. Investors look at things different, there's a different way of dealing with folks. And we wanted to bring some of that to as many people as possible. And with some partners, we formed Brandjectory, which is basically an education and engagement platform for brands in CPG. That's in the whole foods you can be on in Brandjectory on Brandjectory for brands under 10 million in sales. So we want to be that seed to series A sort of lifetime accelerator for a brand so where you might get 13 weeks in an incubator and accelerator if you get accepted of intense mentoring and, and and contacts and connections. We want to be there for the life of a brand. And that's why we offer Brandjectory is sort of the accelerator is going to help you throughout those growth stages. meet the right people talk to the right people get to know the right people, and maybe really sort of speed up your overall growth by learning the CPG industry making more contacts in the CPG industry and hopefully avoiding some of the down the down the downturns that you might run into by not knowing who to turn to and who to ask the question of
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