In 2008, a Target program most founders had never heard of put my first product on the shelf. Target just opened another door like it. Most founders never saw it.
Target approached me at my very first trade show to be in their new Parent Invented Products Program. They put us on the shelf for six months and advertised the heck out of it. That is how I actually got into retail, and it's what launched my business.
How that almost didn't happen is its own post.
This year's door is Target's first Essentials & Beauty Discovery Day. Beauty, baby, health, personal care, pet. A day at Target HQ in Minneapolis on November 12 to meet the buyers, show your product, and hear how Target thinks about the category.
Here's how it was announced: a merchant on the Target Accelerators team posted it on LinkedIn. The application window was about a week. Her last post about it said "today is the last day to apply."
If you're a baby brand and this is the first you're hearing of it, that's the lesson.
Back then, Target had to find me. Now it's a calendar. Walmart has Open Call. Target has Discovery Days, one for food and beverage, now one for essentials and beauty. Sephora has Accelerate. The retailers built a front door, and the front door has a deadline.
The founders who get in aren't the ones with the best product. They're the ones who knew the window was open.
So do three things this week.
Fill out Target's supplier intake form. It's free, it takes twenty minutes, and it's how the Accelerators team finds out you exist before the next event.
Follow the merchants and the accelerator teams for your category on LinkedIn. Not the corporate page. The people. That's where these get announced, and it's usually the only place.
Put the next window on your calendar like a PO date. Because when it opens, you'll have a week.
One more thing from 2008. The program opens the door. It doesn't keep you in the building. After those six months it was the old-fashioned way. A lot of calls and a lot of persistence to get back on that shelf years later.
The door is easier to find now. You just have to be looking at it.
Retail is my superpower.