How to Get Your Product in 10,000 Retail Stores - Hustle Con 2015

About this video

Alejandro Velez and Nikhil Arora, co-founders of Back to the Roots, recount how they grew mushrooms in college dorm buckets, cold-pitched Whole Foods with a paint bucket, and eventually scaled across 14,000+ grocery stores globally. They discuss their expansion from mushroom kits to aquaponics systems to organic stone-ground breakfast cereal, emphasizing the critical role of retail partnerships, in-store demos, product design, and staying true to their mission of reconnecting families to food.

Key takeaways

• Getting into a retail store is one challenge; getting products to actually sell requires persistent in-store demos and building genuine relationships with buyers over time—Alex and Nick demoed across hundreds of Whole Foods stores in a rented purple car
• Curiosity and willingness to learn outside your expertise drives innovation—visiting a Milwaukee aquaponics farm and learning about stone milling practices led to new product categories they never anticipated entering
• Packaging and design are as critical as the product itself; their aquaponics system failed in stores with artistic packaging until they redesigned it to be clear and vibrant, and they had to emergency-rebrand after retailers rejected their initial approach
• Finding the right manufacturing partners who excel at their craft—rather than trying to do everything in-house—dramatically improves quality and allows founders to focus on their core strengths like product development and distribution
• Building authentic relationships with key retail buyers and being willing to demo to a new buyer (even the CEO) after setbacks can unlock major opportunities, as demonstrated by their eventual 800-store Kroger expansion and Costco success

Episode details: published May 13, 2015 · 41K views · 32:22 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. The business ideas, figures and results discussed are the hosts’ and guests’ own claims, shared as brainstorming and entertainment — not verified facts and not investment advice.

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