In Pacvue’s new interview series, The Exit, Pacvue President Melissa Burdick talks with founders, executives, and agency leaders about their journey to partnering or merging with another company to take their business to the next level. Viewers will learn valuable tips on building and scaling companies directly from today’s top voices in retail media
In this episode of The Exit, I got the chance to sit down with Lynn Graham, the founder and former CEO of Beekeeper Marketing. Beekeeper Marketing, Acquired by Advantage Solutions in 2018, represented over 100+ natural and/or organic CPG brands across the Amazon ecosystem. I’ve known Lynn for years – ever since she started Beekeeper back in 2007!
We’ve seen the industry change a lot, so I was excited to get the chance to talk to her about her agency’s journey to acquisition and what she thinks will be the biggest trends in ecommerce and advertising in the future.
To watch the episode, click here.
Read a summary of our conversation here:
What inspired you to create Beekeeper in the first place?
I never had a plan to start my own business. It was more about following the opportunities that sparked my passion. In the first stage of my career, I was a high-tech product manager and ended up going to business school. I had always been interested in entrepreneurship, as well as health and wellness.
I had an idea for a natural products business and worked on a plan during my MBA with a professor. He was working on an incubator for healthy, functional products. We ended up raising money to get these brands started. One brand went viral with the Weight Watchers community. Our sales took off and we had a ton of success, but then the market tanked.
This is about when I was eight months pregnant, so I had to find the right balance. People at Amazon didn’t have time to set up the buyers, so I ended up taking on a couple of businesses and word started to spread. My specialty was organic foods and there weren’t a lot of people focused in the space.
I loved it because the brands were mission-based. They’re working for fair trade and great for the environment. I felt like my work was having an impact and I could get my feet under me with two young kids. I was really lucky to be in the right place at the right time with the right mindset.
What Made Beekeeper Different?
We really specialized in mission-based brands and our culture was remote-first, even back then. We had a great team – a lot of type A Moms like me! – and, early on, I realized how critical it would be to have expertise around the service we were providing. Even as Beekeeper got bigger, I always kept one client that I did most of the work on. You have to know how to do it. So much about the service industry is about having the best processes. That’s the only way you will be able to have a perspective on strategy and efficient processes.
Our other focus area was all about Amazon. Amazon is constantly changing. Part of being an expert is noticing those changes. My special sauce was looking at the small evolutions across the platform and tools and understanding what those implications were at scale.
If you’re seeing key changes around something like the buy box, for example, you can watch closely, pick it up, and figure out the implications of the change at scale.
How did you choose to work with Pacvue?
Amazon Advertising wasn’t around when I started. We built our own data analytics platform at first to help with reporting. But as more competitors got picked up by multinational companies, I realized we needed to be able to keep up so I could focus on brand management and optimization for media campaigns.
We chose Pacvue, because what Pacvue is doing is above and beyond. Pacvue has reporting that you don’t get on Amazon and takes that to the next level with forward-facing share of voice. And the technology behind the optimizations gets better results for retail media network execution.
Knowing how to run ads against catalogs of thousands of product just isn’t something you can do manually – and Pacvue helped us get there.
Did you hire a banker or a consultant during the acquisition process?
Advantage was one of the first companies that approached me about selling. We were less than ten people when they made an offer at first. I still had a lot of runway to go and we had something so special with the Beekeeper culture. I’m a huge team player and it felt good to be on a high-performing team. I didn’t want to risk that.
One thing I learned is that saying no on the path to acquisition isn’t saying no forever. People who work in acquisitions are used to being told no.And when you know what you want, they respect that.
Over the next couple of years, I was approached by four or five other companies. I wasn’t looking to sell, but kept the information just in case. Advantage kept in touch and eventually acquired another agency, Sage Tree, similar to us. So I talked to the founders there to understand their experience. They had thought it out and they stayed when they didn’t need to. That said a lot to me.
When I realized we would have to keep growing in a new direction and the company felt mature enough, I started looking at what was happening in the marketplace. I hired Propellor, an agency that works through things like payroll, and expanded their scope to M&A. Jeff Gutenson, a founder of Propellor, really helped me navigate the process. It made sense, since they already knew our books and financials. I can’t say enough about Jeff and Propeller. It wasn’t just about negotiation.
What’s life like afterwards?
When you sell, you give up your company and you can have a bit of an identity crisis. My biggest priority is my kids, but I want to keep my toe in things. Beekeeper was perfect, because it scratched so many itches. I look at life like a big pie and you give your time to different slices of the pie. Beekeeper was a big slice for a long time. Now, I’m working on new pieces of the pie: my tennis game is getting better, I’m an advisor for Kainos Capital, and I am working pro bono for PitchSlam in the bay area to hear all sorts of different dreams from entrepreneurs.
Next up, I’m working on a website called Hustle and Flower. It’s my own personal thesis on what I want this next chapter to look like.
When you look at eCommerce in 2025, what trends are you seeing and how can brands be successful?
Because I’ve been in CPG so long, I can say that it’s definitely harder. Amazon was a democratic platform. You could get up and running with just a few people and access consumers. Now, you’re competing with those ad spots with some of the largest companies in the world.
One big trend is figuring out how to drive the discovery of new brands in mature categories. New platforms like Tik-Tok can have a big impact here. It’s an interesting model I’m trying right now.
Another trend is figuring out which industries are still newer to the ecommerce ecosystem. There are pockets where the basics haven’t been done yet, like auto parts. So that’s been really exciting.
Want to tell your story about your Exit plan or acquisition or learn more about how Pacvue can help drive success for your business? Send Melissa Burdick a message on LinkedIn. And be sure to subscribe to her newsletter!
