Episode 135 – What is YOUR Founder Superpower?

 

February 1, 2025

 

American culture constantly goads us into believing that passion and grit alone will take you across the line. If there is anything well-intentioned and useful here, it is reminding us that without extreme motivation and persistence, many entrepreneurs talk themselves out of running businesses with potential. Simply because the early roller-coaster is something they can not endure emotionally. Look, unresilient entrepreneurs are everywhere, and, yes, they quit early. 

 

In this episode, I want to talk about another problem that a lot of us want to avoid – the absence of a Superpower that gives YOU, the underdog brand some kind of initial competitive advantage against premium brands ahead of you and the market leading brands that control each category. 

 

 If at all possible, to up the odds, you want some kind of lucky strength before starting your venture.

 

1) A Massive Social Platform – Think 100,000 or more followers where post engagement routinely hits the 1000s of likes. If you have a niche audience before you start, you have an enormous advantage as an undercapitalized brand. Hopefully, your brand is not totally unrelated to this audience. If you’re launching a DTC brand in 2025, you better have this kind of platform already OR have millions to play with testing content that drives orders. 

 

2) Killer R&D talent – This is an understated superpower for food and beverage companies especially, where too many mediocre products slip out into the market every year. If you are a offering a culinary innovation, especially, you should possess this superpower now or have access to leading development firms like Culinex. 

 

3) Superb storytelling or visual design skills – This is the most rare of superpowers. VC funded brands like Olipop simply bought this talent, but this won’t be available to you as a typical consumer brand.

 

4) Creepy amount of interpersonal charisma – I can not believe I am saying this as a pathological introvert, but THIS…THIS folks is the master superpower. And very few founders tend to have it in my opinion. I’m talking about a degree of charming that has allowed you, for all your life, to get others to do crazy things for you for no clear return at all. I’ve met lots of these folks in the founder ecosystem. They do very well despite having no particular operating skills at all. They convince others to help them and to work for them at little to no pay. They can sell anyone on their vision. I call it “creepy” because I’m clearly envious. Full stop. 

 

5) $1M of seed money you can afford to waste – One of the most shocking things I witnessed form 2017-2020 when I wandered trade shows before the pandemic? THe number of totally underfunded businesses. When your Expo West appearance is 100% of your marketing budget for the year or, even worse, 50% of your last year’s sales, I want to cry. Yes, I discovered these folks. No one likes to prevent an entrepreneur from starting in America. We make it far too easy to take poorly thought out risks. Way too easy. And the dominant stakeholders all have ways to make a lot of money off of founder foolishness. In a world without Silicon Vally Bank, low interest HELOCs and other debt, founders simply must raise a lot more seed money from their own assets and close network of friends and family. And,, more importantly, this must be money that you and your network are comfortable flushing down the toilet right now. You can afford to lose it all. You’d be surprised how many founders did not do this honest self-assessment. It what leads to misleading investors and lawsuits later when you try to dissolve the company or use investor funds to pay off debt and run. 

 

6) Operational cofounder who is an expert in the industry – Most founders of consumer brands are visionaries. They are not detail-oriented freaks. They are not engineers. Or lab scientists. Or supply chain geeks from consumer packaged goods. The latter especially is a highly undervalued expertise for new folks launching brands. Most founders have to learn ops by screwing up. As with failing to raise enough seed money, operational incompetence is a top reason why brands fail early in Phase 1. Not asking enough questions up front with every stakeholder is a huge problem for new founders. Not applying a ‘if it can fail, it will’ risk-management approach to managing your co-man, ingredient supply, your distributor, etc. will certainly increase your odds of a premature face plant. And very little of this wisdom is actually shared by those who know it, not publicly. If you have a tricky, nonstandard supply chain or production process, it’s essential to be the operational genius or find one early on. In some cases, THIS should be your first hire, even before a national sales director.

 

I call these six superpowers “lucky” because you had one or more of them BEFORE you thought of an idea for a CPG brand. It was pre-existing, like your teeth and your brain with all its accumulate skills.

 

PS – You can attract other superpowers if you have No. 4. (but very few pull this off)

 

What doesn’t add much value by itself?

 

– a unique supply chain

– a novel idea with a large market

 

Just having an idea or a source is the riskiest way to start. No matter how much effort you put in. Yes, you could be the next Dude Wipes or Spanx. The odds are less than 1% without one of the superpowers.

 

And an ocean of service providers is ready to monetize your ego and passion before you start, even when they believe you have no chance in hell.

 

Wait to launch until you have more than one of the above items lined up. You’ll be happier if you do. Or, do the bootstrap route and understand the enormous risks you are taking. Slower starting growth is your best bet, if you come in with no industry expertise at all. This will give you time to learn…