Welcome to the room👋

Firstly, let me tell you what this newsletter is not.
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It's not another generic information dressed up as strategy. It's not motivational content for founders who need a push. It's not a recycled thread from someone who read about CPG from the outside and decided to have opinions.
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This is the room most founders never get access to.​
The conversations that happen after the conference ends.
The stuff that gets shared between buyers and brokers over dinner that never makes it to a LinkedIn post. The real reasons a brand scaled and the real reasons one didn't.
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The playbook that consulting firms repackage into $100,000 engagements and deliver in PowerPoint.

The CPG Insider

This exists because founders deserve better information. Not sanitised case studies. Not vanity metrics dressed as success stories. Real intelligence, The kind that changes how you think before it changes what you do.
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Here's how every issue will be structured:
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​→ The Take: My unfiltered read on what's actually happening in the industry. One idea. One POV. No hedging.
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​→ Campaign Radar: A marketing campaign worth studying closely. Not because it went viral. Because there's something worth stealing in how it was built.
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​→ Product Worth Watching: One CPG product making quiet noise. What's interesting about it strategically and what it signals for where the market is moving.
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​→ Insider Intel: One piece of market intelligence that doesn't show up in trade reports. The kind of information that makes you pause and think how did I not know this.
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​→ The Closer: One thought to carry into your week.
That's the architecture. Sharp, useful, and over before you've finished your coffee.

What's Coming Next Tuesday

I'm going to break down why one of India's most celebrated CPG launches quietly struggled at retail despite a flawless brand story and a founder the internet loved. What the numbers revealed that the press never covered. And the one decision made too late that changed everything.
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It's the kind of story the brand will never tell publicly.
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I will.
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​And remember....
​The most expensive thing in CPG isn't your packaging, your broker, or your trade spend. It's the information you didn't have when the decision was made.
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See you Tuesday.
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— Madhavan

Every Tuesday, it lands in your inbox. Free.

My name is Madhavan Unni.

I've spent years inside this industry across brand building, strategy, and the messy, unglamorous work of turning products into businesses. I've sat across the table from buyers who could make or break a launch. I've watched brilliant founders make completely avoidable mistakes because nobody told them the truth early enough.