CPG + D2C + AI: 10 Takeaways From Our Consumer Founder Forum
We recently hosted 30 founders at our office in Soho (arguably THE cobbled gateway drug to consumerism). These companies produce everything from furniture to cat food, clothing to candles and have revenues in the tens of millions of dollars. The conversation focused on the promise – and peril – of incorporating AI into growing businesses. A few standout takeaways:
💡 Tech is easy. Changing humans? Hard!
Much of the conversation focused on management challenges surrounding AI. A few examples:
🚦 Management by MarioKart?
Several founders had set up internal leaderboards to gamify AI tool adoption. A little competition can go a long way.
💥 Cross Generation Culture Clashes
Veteran employees tend to resist AI because it changes their workflow. Meanwhile, younger employees may resist it on moral grounds. Turns out “adoption friction” is a lifelong affliction!
💵 Show Me the Money
A founder offered spot bonuses for employees who identified operational improvements using AI. Adoption follows incentives!
📈 AI Tools Enables Big Goals – Without Big Headcount
One founder set an audacious target: triple the business before making a single new hire. This new wave of tools isn’t just about efficiency – it’s about rethinking scale.
🪑 AI Might Be More Useful to Analog Businesses
For digital products, AI is an existential challenge. For analog businesses, it’s an affiliate code for margin improvement.
🎨 AI Can Make Pretty Pictures and Slick Sentences. That’s Not a Brand.
Everyone has a junior designer and copywriter on staff (thanks, AI). But that just raises the bar. Brands aren’t built on good copy – they’re built by communities with shared taste.
🗄️ Everyone Thinks *They* Won’t Buy Salesforce
A founder of a nine-figure business admitted they’ve delayed adopting an ERP system in hopes of an AI-native, agent-based alternative. Every generation of founders believes they’ll be the one to avoid Salesforce. They might be right, but Salesforce may end up the cockroach of the SaaS era.
🤖 Writing for Robots (And Robots Read Wired)
Optimize sites not just for customers or Google – but for AIs. As LLMs inhale the internet, the new SEO might be about crafting content that AI can parse, summarize, and cite. PR is also growing in influence. A mention in a reputable outlet isn’t just good for credibility – it can become canonical in influential models.
💬 Chatbots as Customer Research Tools
Chatbot logs are a goldmine for understanding the customer journey – not just handling support tickets. These transcripts reveal friction points, unmet needs, and moments of confusion in the buyer’s path. A Google Analytics for customer service that can analyze conversational patterns at scale and surface actionable insights would be helpful. The data’s there, it just needs a better narrator.
In short, there is plenty of opportunity to grow D2C and CPG brands using AI – promptly!
