We’ve been there, done that, and decided we were going to improve an entire industry. Our mission is to give startup and emerging CPG brands the fair shake they deserve in retail with the best technology and services in the industry.
Once upon a time, back in 2006, Yuval Selik and his wife Alla had a big dream for the skin care brand they created called L’uvalla. One of the first organic skin care lines on the market, it grew quickly – with an army of brokers, they were able to expand into nine regions of Whole Foods in less than two years!
But then as quickly as success came, it was gone. With a rapidly expanding number of doors, promoting everywhere became an increasingly challenging, expensive, unmanaged, uprofitable, tangled mess. A growing number of stores had become unhappy, and then came the final blow: the financial crisis of 2008. Soon after, L’uvalla was dropped from all but one region.
He observed that the vast majority of hopeful early-stage CPG brands go down a similar path and make the same mistakes with trade spend and promotion. Most don’t survive the journey.
Although L’uvalla ultimately found a new life online, the experience of watching his product die on store shelves was very difficult for Yuval. There had to be a better way, he thought, to help new founders and startups navigate the minefield that is promoting in retail. And thus the idea for Promomash was born.
Dynamic Duo.
Odd Couple.
Yin and Yang.
These are all phrases that come to mind when describing Yuval Selik and Chris Ambarian. Two very different personalities that somehow just work better – together. One day back in 2011, the pair met through their wives. After a few evenings smoking cigars in Chris’ backyard cabana in Pasadena, an unexpected and epic business partnership began.
See, Yuval had this crazy idea for a business based on his struggles in CPG – the third for this banker by day and serial entrepreneur by night. And Chris – a successful 30+ year engineer-turned-marketing executive looking at early retirement – was listening. And so, the vision that became Promomash began to develop – and two strangers became lifelong friends and business partners.
2015
Promomash was founded on a simple realization: that CPG brands with limited resources and/or promotional expertise need a lot of help if they are to compete successfully with bigger, more established brands. Here’s a brief look at our journey and how we got here.
The vision for TPM: replace clunky and error-prone spreadsheets with one unifying platform that allows executives to easily see, manage, analyze and optimize the many moving pieces (and dollars) associated with promoting in stores.
Yuval always knew he wanted to run his own business. It just took him three tries to get to “the” idea that would change his life. Once the idea for Promomash came along, he never looked back – but for the first few years of the company’s life, Yuval did not quit his day job as a banker. As Promomash grew and onboarded hundreds of brands, he felt the squeeze, burning the midnight oil – sacrificing many other parts of his life, including (almost) his marriage.
As a firm believer in “CANI” (continuous and never-ending improvement), Yuval began to learn more about how to obtain and maintain life fulfillment while building a business – and in the process, transformed his own lifestyle. That’s where his idea for The 7 Hats Podcast came into existence.
Launched in 2021, the podcast, created for and by like-minded entrepreneurs that want to do more than just “succeed” in business, has attracted a growing audience and an impressive roster of guests across many realms.
Listen to the podcast
Taking on an industry that serves virtually every man, woman and child and saying you can make it better is pretty audacious. We knew that to do this we were going to have to assemble an extraordinary team. We also knew that it would be a lot of work. And we knew that we didn’t want all that work to suck. So right from the beginning, culture has been the #1 concern for the company. Culture is so much of a concern for us that we have a living document called The Promomash Constitution that each employee must read and agree to – a constant reminder of what it is to be a Promomasher. It articulates everything that makes Promomash such a special place to work.
We were always 100% remote – even before it was cool. We give our team members the freedom to work whenever, wherever, because we don’t measure hours – we measure results.
People come first, and how our people are treated – and treat each other – is the heart of our culture.
Our core purpose is to lift CPG brands, the industries in which they do business and the people that work in those businesses.
Email us your resume: careers@promomash.com
Sometimes in life, you encounter a special person who you click with immediately – and who, if you’re lucky, inspires you to greater heights in life than you would have achieved without them. If you meet two, well, you’re blessed. Jason and Doug were two such people.
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