Shelf Awareness
I ask the same question at every panel, every workshop, every room full of founders I’ve ever stood in front of.
Who here considers themselves an expert in their category?
And every time, the room does the same thing: One or two founders raise their hands confidently; a few others follow, tentatively with eyes full of apology for their self-perceived hubris; and the rest of the room? Silence, frozen in space like a student willing a teacher to not pick them. A quiet, collective look questioning my direction.
That questioning look, that beat of silence is why I’m writing this.
That questioning look, that beat of silence is why I’m writing this.
Here’s what I’ve learned from sitting across the table from hundreds of founders: the ones who build lasting brands aren’t just experts on their product. They’re experts on their category. There’s a difference and it’s bigger than most people realize.
Product expertise is inward-facing. It’s knowing your formulation, your origin story, your supply chain and hopefully your margin (that is another essay entirely). It’s table stakes. It’s why you have a product in the first place. BUT building your brand on product expertise is like building a house on a foundation of styrofoam and hope. It might look nice, and hell — you might even have a comfortable stable home for a year or two, but eventually something will shift and you’ll be left wondering “what happened?” Product expertise is foundational, but it alone is not enough. And it’s not what makes a buyer lean forward in a meeting.
Category expertise is different. It’s outward-facing. It’s knowing the trends driving your space — what’s arriving, what’s falling off, and why. It’s understanding how your category performs at retail, whether it’s growing or declining, and what that means for how you, and what that means for how you need to position yourself on the shelf. It’s knowing your customer so precisely that you can describe not just who’s buying, but who isn’t buying yet and why that gap exists.
I call this Shelf Awareness. And it’s a discipline, not a credential.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to learn this. I think I’d been in the industry for 10 years before I saw it clearly. It was our first year of the accelerator, and we were in interviews for the second cohort. The merchant in the room asked a question I’d never heard asked of a founder before: What do you see happening in your category over the next few years?
The founder didn’t see it coming either and stumbled. And the merchant did something I’ve thought about many times since: he didn’t move on. He leaned in and said, essentially — I want your point of view. Your POV is unique. It has value.
That moment changed how I think about what founders bring to the table. The ones who can answer that question, who have actually done the thinking and have a real thesis about where their category is going, those are the founders who build stronger relationships with their retail partners. They understand the power of incremental innovation. They’re not just selling a product. They’re contributing a perspective. And that perspective is currency.
I saw Shelf Awareness up close not long ago in an interview with Fable Fish founder Meghan Luck. During her interview, someone asked about salmon being a divisive ingredient. She didn’t flinch. She said, plainly and honestly: not everyone likes salmon, and if you don’t like salmon, this probably isn’t the product for you.
I wanted to clap.
Not because of the confidence — though that was there — but because of what came next. She didn’t stop at who the product wasn’t for. She rolled forward into who it is for: customers seeking whole, clean ingredients, prioritizing protein, who tend to snack. She knew her customer. She knew her category. She had done the work.
That’s what Shelf Awareness looks like in a room. You feel it immediately.
The opposite is just as recognizable — and honestly, more common.
I’ve sat across from founders who knew their product cold. The sourcing, the process, the taste profile, every last detail. But the category? How it actually works at retail? That part was a blind spot. One founder insisted his product was premium enough that running a promotion would damage the brand. What he didn’t realize: 75% of his category was private label. When that much of a shelf is store brand, the game isn’t about protecting your premium positioning from a distance. It’s about getting into baskets first, making your differentiators impossible to miss, and earning the loyalty that justifies the price over time. Promotional strategy isn’t beneath a premium brand. It’s how a premium brand survives long enough to become one.
He didn’t know that. Because he hadn’t done the research.
Shelf Awareness is built from three practices — and none of them are passive.
Know the Room: develop genuine fluency in your category’s trends, trajectory, and competitive landscape. Not just who your competitors are and what they’re doing, but the whole shelf. What’s arriving. What’s falling off. What the data actually says about where your category is headed.
Understand Who’s Not in the Room: identify the customer your category is failing or hasn’t found yet. This is harder than it sounds. It requires you to look past your current buyer and ask honestly — who needs this and doesn’t know it yet? What’s keeping them out?
Paint the Room: develop a real point of view on where your category is going and be willing to defend it. Not a hedge. Not “it depends.” A thesis. The founders who can do this don’t just pitch better — they become the kind of partner a retail buyer actually wants to stay close to.
None of this happens by accident. It requires showing up consistently, reading the data, walking the floor, having the conversations nobody assigned you to have. It requires treating curiosity as a business strategy — not a personality trait, but a practice.
So. Back to my question.
Who here considers themselves an expert in their category?
If your hand isn’t up yet — you have some work to do.
Start with research.
Download the Shelf Awareness framework at epicappetite.com/pantry.
Views expressed are my own and do not represent Amazon or Whole Foods Market.