The PGS Blog

Why Investors Replace Founders

The poorly handled firing of Miyoko Schinner last year (which we all learned about this winter suddenly) should remind us that investor/founder alignment is not always great. This is especially true if both parties are not really listening to each other up front and are

Top Three Reasons Founders Need a Creative Brief

Writing a creative brief is one of those BigCo professional practices that should be taking place at every consumer brand startup. Yet, I rarely meet founders who even know what I'm talking about when I mention this. It's partly because it's a stuffy BigCo term.

The Key Question to Ask Your Fans

Understanding why your fans love your brand is essential to creating a quality playbook for exponential growth. Understanding who they are is less important but critical to critical aspects of execution. Founders new to consumer-packaged goods often focus only on who loves them and assume they understand why they do.   In CPG strategy, who is like the soil in your garden. Don’t think of who is like a giant mosh pit of disconnected individuals.

Losing Your Ambition? Hold On.

An under-discussed reason why eight-figure brands stall? Founders lose their ambition. Cash flow is stable and ample. The salary is very nice now. Why rock the boat with risky bets on acceleration? Nah. Just reinvest those profits into owner payouts, not growth.  I get it. There is

Holidays-Reflection-Stepping Back

One very common, under-discussed behavior on American holiday weekends? Re-examining one’s life. It happens quietly a lot, sometimes in open conversation as well.  What is usually going on is a fiery debate over priorities. And how much harder you want to push your top priority anymore. Which,

Beyond Predictable – Beyond Meat’s Struggles Are Explainable

As of 5:00 PM EDT on Thursday, May 10, 2023, Beyond Meat has created a highly seasonal, lower midmarket, negative EBITDA business that peaked at $464M in annualized sales in 2021. Here is the annual net revenue trend since 2016, which I’ll return to shortly.5   Recent

Memorability: Does Your Brand Have It?

Memorability. It's the most critical growth pillar for premium CPG brands. Why? Because you don't have the cash, credibility, or sales network with which to leap to 80% ACV in mere months. So, how do you enhance it? Design a superbly positioned innovation at the head of

Why You Should Avoid Your Peers

I tell folks to stop joining all these local ‘startup clubs’ that popped up during the glory years of easy money and low barriers to entry.  Virtually all of them were created and/or funded by the investor community as an easy, local watch list. Mostly angels.