u/maschera84

Bit of background. I'm italian, spent most of my career in business development (tech).

A friend of mine makes specialty italian food, small operation, product is genuinely good, and he's been trying to get into US retail for a while with not much to show for it.

I told him look, finding the right people and getting in front of them is basically what I've done for 15 years, let me help you.

But I'm a bit lost atm.

Figured step one was just building a list of who to even approach, which turned into me going through every specialty retailer and distributor vendor submission page I could find. Got to 103 before I gave up.

The things I did not expect:

- a quarter of them just funnel you into RangeMe. Lassens literally says contact outside RangeMe "will not be considered". so that's a paywall between my friend and a buyer, effectively

- about half have their own form. the rest is a pdf you're meant to print and mail (in 2026), a plain email address, or a portal you need a login for

- requirements are all over the place. Wheatsville wants $2M liability, a UPC and a food manufacturing license. Hunger Mountain only wants you if you're in Vermont or within 100 miles, which rules him out immediately, etc etc.

The thing that gets me is I do this for a living in another industry and I still spent weeks just making a spreadsheet.

No idea how someone running production, sales and everything else is supposed to find the time.

What I want to know from people who've actually gotten into retail:

how did you build your target list in the first place? did you just google and make a spreadsheet like an idiot and launch a cold outreach campaign, use a broker, or did a distributor bring you the accounts?

Is cold email outreach worth it? Perhaps for smaller retailers?

Thanks for your help

Back when I was CRO for a vertical payments company, I usually hired 50% SaaS sales reps and 50% industry (F&B) sales reps, F&B being our niche.

The F&B reps who didn't even know what HubSpot was outperformed the SaaS reps on BD and sales overall. But they were a mess with the CRM and wouldn't religiously follow a playbook. They were also harder to source, since they weren't as LinkedIn-savvy.

My regret is I never gathered hard data comparing the two cohorts. I wish I could go back and actually measure it.

Curious if other vertical SaaS founders are seeing the same: are you hiring industry experts vs. SaaS/tech sales reps, and how's that decision working out for you?

Hi folks,

We're a fast-growing UK-based AI startup in the e-commerce and retail space. We're post-revenue, founded by a very senior team, and we tackle complex challenges for high-volume, high-consideration e-commerce.

We're not the typical "voice AI concierge" startup. We get into our customers' enterprise workflows and run as a managed service. That's why we have 0% churn as of today.

As a co-founder, I'm looking to bring on a business connector who's happy to introduce us to some of their contacts globally (we focus on Europe, UK, USA, Canada), ideally in the 20–500 employee range - call it SMB/mid-market.

The two ways we're looking to collaborate:

1. **Connect-only:** you introduce us to a decision maker, we run the sale, you get a generous finder's fee when the deal closes.
2. **Sales support:** you introduce us, we handle the demo and the technical side, but you own the close, and if you want recurring revenue, you keep the customer from churning.

Annual ATV is EUR 70–100k.

The team is small and friendly, tho very senior (former C-level at unicorns), and I come from a Chief Revenue Officer background, so I understand sales. But we're bootstrapped for now (at least until the end of the year), so we don't want to spend tens of thousands on marketing. The flip side: we can be generous on comp, since we have no VC constraints.

We prefer warm intros.

If you have a book of business in e-commerce or retail, I'd love to talk. Not just product companies either, travel, services, anything with a product sold or service rendered online and high phone volume.

Hi folks,

We're a fast-growing UK-based AI startup in the e-commerce and retail space. We're post-revenue, founded by a very senior team, and we tackle complex challenges for high-volume, high-consideration e-commerce.

We're not the typical "voice AI concierge" startup. We get into our customers' enterprise workflows and run as a managed service. That's why we have 0% churn as of today.

As a co-founder, I'm looking to bring on a business connector who's happy to introduce us to some of their contacts globally (we focus on Europe, UK, USA, Canada), ideally in the 20–500 employee range - call it SMB/mid-market.

The two ways we're looking to collaborate:

1. Connect-only: you introduce us to a decision maker, we run the sale, you get a generous finder's fee when the deal closes.
2. Sales support: you introduce us, we handle the demo and the technical side, but you own the close, and if you want recurring revenue, you keep the customer from churning.

Annual ATV is EUR 70–100k.

The team is small and friendly, tho very senior (former C-level at unicorns), and I come from a Chief Revenue Officer background, so I understand sales. But we're bootstrapped for now (at least until the end of the year), so we don't want to spend tens of thousands on marketing. The flip side: we can be generous on comp, since we have no VC constraints.

We prefer warm intros.

If you have a book of business in e-commerce or retail, I'd love to talk. Not just product companies either, travel, services, anything with a product sold or service rendered online and high phone volume.

I'm an Italian, based in Torino, but I spent the largest part of my adult life abroad (US, UAE, UK, Australia, etc).

My father runs an agriturismo in Tuscany, so I've spent my life around small food producers.

Between him and my own network I probably know fifty producers I'd genuinely vouch for. Cheese, oil, wine, cured meats, preserves but also textile. Small operations, second or third generation, product that holds up against anything on a shelf in London or Dubai.

Almost none of it leaves Italy.

The problem isn't quality and it isn't willingness. It's that they have no idea how to find a buyer abroad, and no way of making themselves findable.

No English website, no export person, no understanding of what a foreign buyer actually needs from them. Their whole strategy is one trade fair a year.

So I've been thinking about pulling them together properly: vetting them, getting them export-ready, and building something buyers can actually work with rather than fifty separate websites in Italian.

Before I do that I'd rather understand the demand side, because I only know my half of this.

If you import products from Italy, how do you find suppliers like this today?

Is it all fairs and agents, or is there a directory or platform people actually use?

And when you find one, what usually kills the deal? Volumes, paperwork, price, or the producer just not being able to operate at your speed?

Thanks!

I'm an L10s Ultra owner and it's time for a change. I'm overall satisfied but I'm looking to upgrade to a model that actually cleans its own base without me having to deep clean it every week.

I know that there's a bunch of models that claim to do so (like the L50) but I don't trust marketing photos as much as I trust experience.

What model do you guys recommend that has zero maintenance requirement?