The 5 Insight Decks you Absolutely Need to guide your strategy for scaling CPG brands
"We kinda know what we want to launch, so we might just do it."
That's what a CPG founder told me last week.
They were launching a different product format in an adjacent category.
I asked: "Who's the consumer target — your current customers or a new segment?"
Pause. "Probably both?"
"Okay. So is the goal to get your current customers to buy more from you, or are you testing whether your brand has permission to play in a new category?"
Another pause.
Here's what happens when you launch without answering that: The product doesn't bomb, but it doesn't take off either. Now you've got inventory sitting, team focus split, and six months you can't get back.
The risk wasn't "will this product work."
The risk was "do we own enough equity with our current customers to expand their basket, or do we need to earn permission in a category where we're unknown?"
That's not a question you answer by launching. You answer it before you commit.
Most lean CPG brands skip consumer insight — not because they don't value it, but because they think it requires a Fortune 500 insights org.
(****Consumer Insight Friends — look away now****)
You can get 70–80% of the way there without perfect data. You just need 5 foundational decks, built scrappily.
The 5 insight decks every scaling CPG brand needs:
1. Consumer Understanding
Who's buying, why they switch, what job your product does.
Answers: "Health-conscious millennials" vs. "People who buy us when meal prep feels impossible and need something in 15 minutes."
2. Usage Occasions & Benefits
When and how is your product used? What matters most in that moment?
Answers: "Healthy dinner" vs. "Weeknight backup plan — speed beats nutrition when cooking isn't happening."
3. Category Structure & Dynamics
Who's winning, where, and why. What's growing, what's dying, where can you play?
Answers: "We compete with frozen meals" vs. "We compete with meal kits and takeout, not Lean Cuisine."
4. Path to Purchase
How do people find you, evaluate you, decide?
Answers: "SEO drives discovery" vs. "SEO drives awareness, but conversion happens at shelf."
5. Competitive Context
What changed recently? New players, packaging shifts, pricing moves.
Answers: "Velocity dropped because of seasonality" vs. "A competitor reframed the shelf with new packaging."
None of this needs to be statistically perfect. It needs to be decision-ready.
Go into stores. Watch people at shelf. Stop shoppers. Run scrappy surveys. Talk to 20 who bought and 10 who didn't.
If you're between $5M–$30M and still making six-figure bets without knowing who you're selling to, that's not scrappy — it's expensive.
I break down how to build these without losing speed in my newsletter.
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