Innovative Channel for Startup Products | Greg Rollett from The Grommet

Ernesto Quezada: Pathmonk is the intelligent tool for website lead generation. With increasing online competition, over 98% of website visitors don’t convert. The ability to successfully show your value proposition and support visitors in their buying journey separates you from the competition online. Pathmonk qualifies and converts leads on your website by figuring out where they are in the buying journey and influencing them in key decision moments. With relevant micro experiences like case studies, intro videos, and much more, stay relevant to your visitors and increase conversions by 50%. Add Pathmonk to your website in seconds. Let the AI do all the work and get access to 50% more qualified leads while you keep doing marketing and sales as usual. Check us on pathmonk.com. Welcome to today’s episode. Let’s talk about today’s guest. We have Greg from Grommet. How are you doing today, Greg?

Greg Rollett: I am fantastic, man. Really excited for this and looking forward to having some fun.

Ernesto: Definitely. And we were talking a little bit before the show. You know, it’s exciting what you guys are doing. I’m glad someone’s out there doing what you guys are doing. But let’s get to what the listeners are tuning in for. In your own words, Greg, can you tell us a little bit more?

Greg: Yeah, man. The Grommet is one of the largest product discovery platforms for new and emerging brands to connect with millions of shoppers in those early days. We all know what it’s like. We made our product. We’re super excited about it. We just got a thousand of them, 10,000 of them sent over, and now they’re sitting in our garage, and we’re like, oh crap, what do we do now, right?

Do we hire an expensive agency? Do we create content and focus on it? Whatever “it” is, we want to be the place where you get your first sale, and not just your first sale, but your first hundred sales, your first thousand sales. We help brands in that one-to-1,000 stage.

Grommet has been around since 2008 and launched more than 3,000 products. We just built a brand-new platform last August that we’re super proud of. We’ve launched more than 500 products since August of last year. We launch 20 products every week, and we’ve got a shopper community of more than 3 million people.

The best part? They love supporting independent makers. They love supporting the little guy. They love buying from you directly. They love not going to Amazon and just buying the knockoff or ripoff that’s cheaper. They want to support the person that put in the blood, sweat, and tears to make that product. That’s Grommet, and we just absolutely love helping makers, inventors, and small business owners.

Ernesto: That’s great to hear. Like you mentioned, there’s a competitor like Amazon, and then there’s you guys. But I think, like you mentioned, supporting the guy who put in the blood, sweat, and tears is super important. And there are great products on here. I think I’m already looking at one for traveling. It’s great to see that.

What would you say is the key problem that you solve for your clients?

Greg: Yeah, I think in those early stages, when you’re trying to get your product off the ground, we go to our family and friends first. We go on Facebook or whatever social media choice, and we’re like, “Hey, I’ve launched my product. Go buy it.” You’re able to sell ten, 20, or even 100 units to people in your community.

But then it’s that “what do I do next?” For many people, it’s looking into paid media. Paid media is hard, right? Facebook will take your money. They are happy to take your money. Google is happy to take your money. But it’s very difficult for some of these brands to get that initial traction.

We wanted to build a community that could help these brands go from undiscovered to unstoppable and create that initial momentum.

Another big problem we saw in the marketplace is that every marketplace trying to help brands and get them sales owns the customer. We believe that for a business to really grow and thrive right now, you have to own your relationship with your customer.

How are you going to remarket to them? How are you going to sell them another product during gift-giving season? How do you say, “Hey, you love our products, why don’t you buy one for a friend?”

When we rebuilt Grommet, we focused on two things. First, how do we level the playing field so whether you’re a big brand or a mom-and-pop shop with $0 in the bank, you both have the same opportunity to get in front of shoppers? Second, how do we send those shoppers back to you to purchase?

These are the big holes we saw in the marketplace. That’s what we wanted to solve when we rebuilt Grommet from the ground up.

Ernesto: Definitely some great stuff from you guys. So then, who would be your ideal ICP? Would it be that first-time dreamer starting a brand, or is there a specific vertical you go for?

Greg: Yeah, I love that. So we kind of have two ideal customer profiles because we’re a conduit between shoppers and the brands.

On the shopper side, over the last 16 years Grommet’s been around, it’s really catered to that 45–50+ affluent female who is buying for herself, her husband, her kids, and her parents. A lot of buying power with those folks. That doesn’t mean we don’t have men shopping on our site, or teens and grandpas. But that’s the head of the household buying for themselves and others.

On the brand side, it’s someone creating something new, unique, and useful that solves a problem in the marketplace. We want to stay away from brands that are just slapping a sticker on a generic product and calling themselves a brand. That’s not what we stand for.

We want someone who’s put their blood, sweat, and tears into this, who has a maker story. Maybe someone in their family got sick, and they discovered this amazing thing that improved their health. They couldn’t find a solution, so they made it themselves. That’s who we want to work with.

We have a wide range of products—from a $3,000 camper that turns any truck into a camper to a $10 necklace shortener for special occasions. It’s all consumer-driven, but the products must be unique, useful, and solve a problem.

Ernesto: Great to hear that. So how would somebody typically find out about you guys? What’s your top client acquisition channel?

Greg: Great question. On the brand side, we have a healthy mix of inbound and outbound strategies, which is very important for businesses today.

Long-term, we all want inbound. Someone listens to this podcast, thinks Grommet sounds amazing, and reaches out to us. That’s ideal because they’re already excited to join.

But outbound is equally important. We have a team dedicated to product scouting. They find cool products and reach out to brands, bringing them into our funnel.

For inbound, content is key. We’re creating short-form content daily for TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts. We also have a big SEO strategy with long-form content on YouTube.

Another big strategy is leveraging other people’s media—podcasts, webinars, and speaking at events. We were just at CES, for example. We focus on adding so much value to other people’s audiences that they want us there, and their communities are happy to see us.

Ernesto: Definitely awesome to hear. I’m here on the website, so for our listeners, they can check you out at thegrommet.com. What role does the website play for both brands and shoppers?

Greg: When we acquired Grommet 18 months ago, the previous owner had shut it down. The site had been online since 2008 and had insane SEO juice. When we acquired it, we pivoted to newsletter marketing initially because we could reach 3 million people instantly and drive sales through email.

But the number one thing we heard from shoppers was that they still needed a destination. Whether it’s a wedding, holiday season, or a birthday, they wanted a place to search for cool, unique products.

So we rebuilt the website, but we didn’t want just another marketplace. We were inspired by Product Hunt’s model of letting the community upvote products, so we applied that to the B2C e-commerce space.

Now, the website is a destination for discovery, and it’s where the community decides what’s trending. It also gives us valuable data on what people are shopping for, allowing us to double down on successful products and refine our strategy. Plus, the SEO benefits have been incredible for top-of-funnel discovery.

Ernesto: Great to hear that. Let’s switch gears a bit and talk about you as a leader. What are some key tasks you focus on in your day-to-day work?

Greg: I sit as the director of growth, so I’m always thinking about how to 10x what we’re doing. If we have 500 brands, how do we get to 5,000?

You can’t just do 10x more of the same. You have to rethink your strategy. For example, how do we go from 30,000 Google searches to 300,000? That’s a completely different approach.

I spend a lot of time on strategy and figuring out high-leverage opportunities for exponential growth. At the same time, I get my hands dirty. I’m in the trenches tweaking landing pages, fixing YouTube titles, or brainstorming new ideas.

Our mantra is to be great, not just good. We don’t want to be a team that makes the playoffs; we want to win the whole thing. That’s the mentality I bring as a leader.

Ernesto: That’s awesome to hear. Let’s jump into our rapid-fire questions. Are you ready?

Greg: Fire away!

Ernesto: What’s the last book you read?

Greg: The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma. I’ve read it twice now. It’s all about setting your day up for ultimate success.

Ernesto: What’s the one thing your company is focused on the most right now?

Greg: Go fast. Adapt and go fast. Stop waiting for permission. This is our year of exponential growth.

Ernesto: If there were no boundaries in technology, what’s one thing you’d fix for your role as a marketer?

Greg: Dashboards. It’s frustrating piecing together data from different places. I’d love a unified solution.

Ernesto: What’s one repetitive task you’d automate?

Greg: Sending personalized Loom videos. I shoot 20–30 a day, and while I love the personal touch, it’s not scalable.

Ernesto: Lastly, what’s one piece of advice you’d give your younger self as a marketer?

Greg: Focus. Don’t try to do everything. Identify the one or two levers that will drive results and double down on those.

Ernesto: Great advice. Thanks so much for being on the show, Greg. What’s one thing listeners should remember about your company?

Greg: Product discovery. If you want to go from undiscovered to unstoppable, especially in those early growth stages, come to Grommet. Let’s put you in front of millions of shoppers.

Ernesto: Definitely. Listeners, check them out at thegrommet.com. Greg, thank you so much for being on the show. To our listeners, thank you for tuning in, and we’ll see you on the next episode of Pathmonk Presents.

Greg: Thanks, Ernesto. This was amazing.