The $200K Lesson Every CPG Founder Needs to Hear

I once approached a $200K launch the way I approached $11M launches and it taught me something every founder should know.

Four years ago, I interviewed for a mid-size CPG brand and got the prompt: “How would you launch X product with a $200K budget?”

At the time, I was coming off $5M–$11M big CPG launches… so let’s just say my answer reflected that.

Now I regularly build launch plans on $10K (sometimes less), and when I think back to that answer, I laugh — not because it was wrong, but because I didn’t yet appreciate how surgical small budgets force you to be. Limited dollars make you brutally disciplined about what actually drives adoption.

Here’s the framework I use now — built for scrappy brands trying to grow without lighting money on fire:

1. Start with what’s already working.

Use existing signals:

• Where is your target discovering you?

• What converted?

• What engaged?

• What offers moved volume?

2. Identify where the funnel is actually breaking.

Awareness? Consideration? PDP drop off? Repeat? Your plan (and tests) should target the leak, not the symptom.

3. Go all-in on low-cost, high-impact channels.

Email (#1 most slept-on channel), organic, onsite, reviews, PR hooks, retail readiness. These do the heavy lifting long before you spend a dollar on paid.

4. Pick 1–3 big bets to test — but keep each test clean.

You can test multiple strategic ideas. But for each one, only change one thing so you know what actually worked.

• Test a new segment → keep the message the same

• Test a new message → keep the audience the same

• Test a new channel → keep the creative the same

Keep it clean so the data means something.

5. Build a simple measurement plan.

Measure each stage of the funnel so you know what broke and what to optimize next time. Keep it focused:

• What success looks like

• Leading indicators (early signals)

• Lagging indicators (final outcomes)

• How you’ll adjust if you’re off-track

• Which big bets to scale vs kill

If you don’t measure it, you can’t learn from it or repeat it.

Small budgets force clarity.

If you want someone to sanity-check where your launch dollars will actually matter, DM me.