The Schaefer Origin Story

Schaefer wasn’t born as a consultancy. It didn’t start in strategy decks or research sprints.
It started the way a lot of great agencies do—with a smart marketer, a laptop, and a lot of hustle.

In 2019, Sidnee Schaefer launched the company as a performance marketing agency. She built it to help brands grow with sharper campaigns, better results, and a clear creative point of view. And it worked.

The very first client? Seth Waite—a fellow growth and marketing leader who’d worked alongside Sidnee for years. He hired her to solve a tough problem. She did. And the partnership stuck.

“When I started Schaefer in 2019, it was just me, trying to help brands grow one campaign at a time. I never imagined it would evolve into what it is today—a strategic partner to some of the most respected food and beverage brands in the country. We’ve come a long way, and I’m proud that we’ve stayed small, senior, and focused on what actually drives results.” - Sidnee Schaefer, Founder

What We Kept Running Into

Over the years, Schaefer has worked with all kinds of clients across categories. But again and again, we found ourselves in the same spot.

• The strategy wasn’t clear.

• The customer wasn’t well understood.

• And the team was moving fast, with no idea if it was in the right direction.

We realized something: creativity wasn’t the problem.

Clarity was.

So we started digging deeper. We ran interviews. We asked better questions. We looked for what motivated people to actually buy, not just click.

That’s when the work really started to change.

From Performance to Psychology

By 2023, the shift was fully underway. Seth had joined Schaefer, not just as a former client, but as a full partner. Together, we refocused the company entirely.

We dropped new execution only work.
And we moved fully into what we knew mattered most:
Research, buyer psychology, segmentation, and real-world strategy.

This wasn’t a pivot for us—it was a return to what we’d been doing behind the scenes for years.

We were no longer a performance agency. We were the only buyer psychology consultancy in food and beverage.

“Most marketing problems aren’t creative problems—they’re clarity problems. Why People Buy helps us get to the root: what motivates someone to choose, to switch, or to stay. When you understand that, strategy stops being a guessing game. It becomes a roadmap.” - Seth Waite, Partner

A Team That’s Worked Together for Over a Decade

Schaefer isn’t a typical agency with rotating teams and shallow partnerships. Our leadership team has built real trust over time and in many roles.

Sidnee and Seth have worked together for more than 10 years—sometimes as colleagues, sometimes as client and vendor, and often as partners solving high-stakes growth challenges inside brands.

In early 2024, John Schnettgoecke joined the Schaefer team full-time. He’s worked with Seth for 14 years across every major role—building strategy, running research, leading consulting projects, and serving as the brain behind countless big wins. He’s also worked closely with Sidnee for years, making this a natural continuation of a well-worn rhythm.

We’ve built Schaefer on trust, experience, and shared standards. No hand-offs. No junior staff. Just people who’ve done this together—again and again.

“We’ve worked together for over a decade, and that trust shows up in how we operate. There’s no learning curve, no silos, no politics—just a team that’s deeply aligned and built for speed. We stay boutique on purpose so we can stay close to the work and close to our clients.” - John Schnettgoecke, Principal Consultant

Why We Chose Food & Beverage

There’s something about this industry that just makes sense to us.

Food is fast-paced, emotional, sensory, and personal. It’s not just about what people eat—it’s about identity, nostalgia, culture, and community. That makes it a perfect fit for our buyer psychology framework and the research we love to do.

We don’t need to learn this space. We live in it.

Where We Are Now

Today, Schaefer works with food and beverage brands across CPG, manufacturing, foodservice, and restaurant. Most are preparing for a big next step—new product launches, market expansion, or repositioning.

We help them find clarity, build strategy, and test it in the real world so when it’s time to launch, they’re not guessing.

We’re still small. Still senior-only.
And still focused on what matters most:
Understanding why people buy—and building strategy that actually works.