Elon is the Kanye of Silicon Valley. Elon and Kanye both grew businesses and personal brands around ordinary fans and then lost almost everything due to their persistent, extremely anti-social behavior. Elon's fall has only begun folks. And I predict there will be NO redemption offered by
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
As you move farther up the Ramp, the risk of losing focus grows. Why? Well, now you have the cash to entertain all manner of distractions you quickly ignored early on: adding lots of new UPCs, extending into new categories, paid marketing in dozens of forms, national
The likelihood of a recession is getting higher every week under the new administration. It will be a challenging year for specialty food and beverage brands trying to grow with a hedonic or purely sensory positioning. Historically, this is the component of CPG where middle-class consumers
The iconic Skate Ramp's growth doubles annually, based mostly on velocity gains and less on distribution growth. But there is a shallower ramp and an equally impressive one. As capital remains aloof and barriers to entry have risen, this Slow Ramp may become dominant for all but
Many of you ruled out Direct-to-Consumer as a sales channel in the past four years due to the pandemic-induced upsurge in shipping fees. Or because you have no pathway to a large enough AOV to ever ship for a fee (the default expectation of most
Premium CPG founders face serious headwinds trying to scale. Most never do. The ones who do scale take 7-10 years on average, though we all get distracted by a tiny group that does it in 2-3 years. This is why I always recommend that founders
On Wednesday, I went through tips to boost the effectiveness of your consumer marketing work as a founder. Sampling, PR and cultural insertion inside events remain the most cost efficient, controllable communication vehicles for brands in the early years of development. Tossing a whole lot of
I discussed this topic at length in the Spring of 2020, as the pandemic caused a massive drop in economic activity followed by months of lockdown uncertainty and malaise. In recessionary environments or any environment of sustained consumer uncertainty, such as the one we are experiencing
When you are new to an industry and your company is young, stakeholders don't take you too seriously or are extremely indifferent to your existence. Initially. And as you play marketer, finance whiz, sales guy, and ops lead, you get overwhelmed. You feel amateurish. Things seem