Just snapped this photo during my weekly reconnaissance mission…
Each yellow “Last Chance” tag tells a story of market rejection.
The clearance rack at Whole Foods isn’t just a place for bargain hunters.
It’s a CPG product graveyard—and my personal laboratory of market feedback.
Those 365 “energy support” pre-workout stick packs?
The right idea, wrong retail context.
The INBLOOM wellness powders?
A founder’s dream with premium positioning.
The Vega “all in one “protein shakes?
Caught in a saturated category bloodbath.
Point is: Great ideas don’t automatically translate to market success.
These products weren’t necessarily bad—they were just mistimed, mispositioned, or misunderstood by consumers.
The clearance rack teaches us humility.
I’ve launched plenty of products that ended up here.
It stings.
But each failure taught me to validate market readiness BEFORE scaling, not after.
Innovation requires courage.
But product-market fit requires listening. Carefully.
The trick isn’t avoiding the clearance rack entirely—it’s learning why these products landed there in the first place, so you can chart a different path.
——-
What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned from a product that didn’t find its market?