Walmart Open Call is next week, and if you applied and didn't get the invitation, this one is for you.
Most of the founders I talk to who didn't get in think it was the product. It almost never is. Walmart isn't looking for the best product in the category. They're looking for the one that's already proving it sells, run by someone who can actually ship it. That's a different bar, and you can clear it in twelve months if you start now.
Here's what I'd do between now and next year's application window.
Sell somewhere else first. Regional grocers, independents, a specialty chain, Amazon. Walmart wants to see that your product turns on a shelf somewhere before they give it one of theirs. By the time I sat down with a Walmart buyer in 2012, BooginHead had been selling in other retailers for years. I didn't walk in with a product. I walked in with numbers.
Get on Walmart Marketplace now. It's the one place you can build velocity inside Walmart's own system before you ever meet a merchant. A buyer can pull those numbers. That's credibility you can't fake.
Walk the Walmart set. Not once. Go every month and learn it like it's your own shelf. Who's in the modular, what the price points are, where there's a gap. Next year you won't be pitching a product. You'll be pointing at a hole and telling them you fill it.
Get your operations ready before you need them. EDI, packaging that survives a Walmart distribution center, case packs, and enough cash to fund a first PO on their terms. A yes you can't fulfill is worse than a no.
Then apply again, and this time walk in with a story that's about their category, not your journey.
The founders who get invited next year are the ones doing this work while everyone else is watching the Bentonville photos.
Retail is my superpower.