Adam Siskin is the Founder of The Platform CPG, a firm helping emerging consumer brands navigate finance, operations, retail growth, and scale. On this episode of ITS, Adam and Ali discuss margin, trade spend, brokers, distributors, manufacturers and investors. Adam shares learnings from supporting more than 50 CPG companies.<br>See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Building with a Backpocket CFO

In the Sauce

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** In the Sauce

## Participants

- **Allison Kane** (None)
- **Adam Siskin** (None)
- **Adam Siskin** (The Platform CPG)

## Transcript

This episode of In the Sauce is brought to you by Hummingbirds, a platform helping brands turn retail presence into real-world buzz. I started this show to uncover what really helps brands grow. The people, the stories, and the small moments that make products matter. That's exactly what Hummingbirds does. They connect food and CPG brands with everyday creators. Real people who share what they love, right from their communities and grocery aisles.

Learn more at hummingbirds.com. I'm Alison Kane and welcome to In the Sauce, a podcast about building consumer brands from the ground up. I love doing this show because I get to interview everyone from production gurus to marketing and social media mavens. Anyone who can guide me on this crazy journey.

This is the story of building Haven's Kitchen sauces, but it's also the story of every growing brand because we're all in the sauce. Today, I'm speaking with Adam Siskin, founder of the platform CPG, a commercialization and operating partner firm helping emerging consumer brands navigate finance, operations, retail growth, and scale. Adam has worked with more than 50 CPG companies from pre-revenue startups to major exits.

And I have to just plug your LinkedIn because you asked a question the other day if it was like polarizing or upsetting. And it's one of the only LinkedIn's that I find actually really valuable for emerging brands. So I would follow him if you're following me. I think most importantly for brands to understand their actual economics. So welcome, Adam. And I'm so happy you're here. Thank you.

So I was thinking about this because I'm always a little bit, I'm very excited about having the finance discussions. Today, I really want to talk more about finance than operations because I think that's like where you're really, really just like the Mac daddy. Not to say that you're not, you know, good at making things too, but there are other people who I think also make things.

Um, I, I think a lot of times founders, especially product people or brand people, we are a little bit reluctant to have these conversations publicly or to write about it because we're worried someone's going to like slap us. And inevitably there's some jackass who like, no, that's not what margin is. Or like, you should know your numbers inside and out. Like, how come you don't know whatever? And, you know, and we all, we do.

But it's just that honestly, sometimes the numbers seem to not be agreed upon by everyone. What is defined as what? So I want to have a conversation. I'm going to ask questions. Everyone don't like at me. That might sound like, how could she not know that?

Most of it I do know, but some of it is, I think, worth going through a little bit more basically so that everyone is on the same page about a lot of this stuff. I had some guy c...

Building with a Backpocket CFO

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.

Building with a Backpocket CFO

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.