It is possible to double your store count every year in an exponential ramp up of distribution. If your product is good, you will achieve a stable (i.e., not declining) velocity plateau. Great. You’re doing better than many brands. This will still appear ‘slow’ to the
When folks take my Riding the Ramp training each quarter, I ask them to do a live, rough draft of a competitive strategy statement using the theory in my book. Then, they send it to me for critique. I regularly get folks who write down emotional
The problem with consumer brand financing that few discuss openly is that the most mature, decent institutional firms don’t invest in brands selling less than $25M in ARR. Or rarely do, and only if the operating team is legendarily trustworthy (e.g., John Foraker's Once Upon
There is a significant likelihood of a Trump administration triggering a recession with a protectionist trade policy and mass removal/detention of illegal immigrants crucial as a proportion of the total workforce to agricultural operations, construction trades, and the home-building industry. Lack of labor would cause
As a public figure in the CPG industry, I get a fair number of inbound messages, mainly on LinkedIn (and I answer every single message!). And some of them still are from folks in a hot hurry to get referred to this or that specialist.
The notepad in this photo, folks, is not for order-taking. It’s a listening tool. Make no mistake the therapist is driving the therapy, not you. This may be obvious to many of you. I have no idea. Perhaps this teacher-student dynamic is clearer when you’re hiring
Some of you may have seen my recent controversial LinkedIn post about fractional marketing executives. I think it’s worth explaining my opinion in more detail. I have no issue with fractional finance executives, for one thing. This is a function that, in a focused LittleCo, does
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.
You might think saying ‘no’ is simply a luxury of an established business that has the privilege to turn down an opportunity that isn’t absolutely dead-on perfect. But you’d be wrong. Saying ‘no’ is one of the fundamental business skills never taught in school, especially in business
The primary reasons to exit early (early being Phase 2 or Phase 3) is that a) you are sick of operating the business and cannot find a suitable person to step in (or quickly enough OR b) you want an ‘entity’ to finance its growth