Marketing budgets don’t stretch far when you’re a food founder. Ads get expensive fast and digital noise drowns out small brands. So how do you get products into customer hands? You literally put them there.
Martinis are everywhere right now — except at home.
At the bar, they’re ice-cold and glamorous. At home, they’re a mess of half-empty olive jars and wasted brine.
Halli Segal and Shelby Sims built Quincy to fix that. One jar with brine and garnish, making dirty martinis without the mess. Now their mixer is shaking up 100+ stores nationwide and bringing the bar’s most glamorous cocktail home.
Refresh a stale category. Mixer options hadn’t changed in decades. Bottled brines were too salty, too weak, or full of extra ingredients. Quincy’s founders saw a chance to refresh the category.
Validate before you build your product. A survey of 500+ consumers confirmed what they suspected: martinis are a top order at bars, but rarely made at home. That gap became their opportunity.
Start with old fashioned door-to-door sales. Halli and Shelby walked into a Brooklyn butcher shop with product in hand and left with their first order (soon followed by a celebratory drink next door). Today, Quincy is in 100+ stores nationwide.
Show up where your customers are: Martinis are social, and so is Quincy. Instead of spending on ads, they sample at art nights, vintage shops, butcher BBQs. Social events help build both discovery and community around a single jar of brine.
Market insight → Consumers are craving IRL connection. The most memorable brands aren’t flooding feeds. They’re the ones showing up in unexpected places, turning products into social moments.
A martini-tiny effort opens the market
Build awareness in unexpected places
When budgets are tight, showing up beats spending. The fastest way to create awareness is to meet customers where they already are, and surprise them in the process.
Map hidden venues. Where does your customer already gather (gyms, galleries, boutiques, local cafés)?
Design for the surprise factor. A cookie at a coffee shop? Expected. A martini at a butcher BBQ? Memorable.
Keep it hyperlocal. One block, one event, one shop. Local word-of-mouth compounds faster than you think.
Measure engagement, not impressions. If people try it and talk about it, that beats clicks every time.
Sampling matrix: Cost vs. impact
Not all tastings deliver the same ROI. Use this framework to rank demo opportunities before you invest the time and money.
High impact / low cost: Local shops, partner events, community groups
High impact / higher cost: Trade shows, food festivals
Low impact / high cost: Paid influencer unboxings, cold DTC sampling