Startup Confidential
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Startup Confidential
Who is it For? Founders of CPG start-ups. What is It? Zero B.S. perspective on running your start-up well, understanding the biases of industry stakeholders and getting the industry to work for you, not the other way around. When? Every month. Your Host: Dr. James F. Richardson of Premium Growth Sol...
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151 Episoden
Episode 151 - Rising Stars Series: Yoni Reisman of Tip Top Cocktails
This episode launches a new series I’m calling Rising Stars - Founders new to CPG who have defied the odds, built growing eight-figure businesses with...
Episode 150 - Poppi vs. Pepsi Prebiotic : WTF?
Every creative mind on LinkedIn has railed against the upcoming launch of Pepsi prebiotic. That’s because it’s NOT very creative. Growth strategy for...
Episode 149 - From Sales Execution to a Modern Growth Strategy
Hopping from buyer meeting to meeting may get you into the seven figures, but it won’t garner your business fast growth through $100M and beyond. Not...
Episode 148 - Founder Archetypes - The Creative Founder
How could creativity be a founder liability? When it distracts you. This is the third installment in my series on founder archetypes. I think many of...
Episode 147 - Founder Archetypes - The Finance Founder
This is the second installment in my series on founder archetypes. While I’m glad to see MBAs and finance-trained folks launching CPG brands, they do...
Episode 146 - Why Saying No is the Critical Founder Skill
Business doesn’t teach you how to say “no” to bad deals. Yet, it’s the most important skill you have to learn, not just to deflect unsolicited pitches...
Episode 145 - Hiring Execs Who Can Ride the Ramp Begins With Your Attitude
If you want to Ride the Ramp, you must hire superb functional executives. Hold on, though. What makes you think you’re ready to do this? In this episo...
Episode 144 - A One-Page Plan To Launch
You do not need a 85-page defensive Powerpoint plan. But you do need a plan. And one-page is more than enough to keep your business disciplined in the...
Episode 143 - Broaden Your Positioning to Accelerate - Poppi and Dr. Squatch
Many founders worry about diluting the quality of their product in order to scale. Understood. Yet, diluting the ‘quality’ of your audience is essenti...
Episode 142 - Planning Your ACV Build
I finally spent some time to prove to all you door-counting crazies that doors do not equal value to your business. In the process, I developed a too...
Episode 141 - Founder Archetypes - The Missionary Founder
How do mission-driven founders get in their own way? It’s not that hard, depending on how ideological your company’s foundations. The most fundamental...
Episode 140 - Rapid Growth Is Not For Everyone w/Sarah Delevan
It’s time for a contrarian view. Most founders in CPG should not be focused on rapid growth. It is far easier to create a stable, satisfying seven-fig...
Episode 139- The Problems With Early-Stage Marketing: Doubt and a Design Bias
It’s not uncommon for brands to scale mostly as B2B enterprises with minimal emphasis on sophisticated consumer marketing. When product design carries...
Episode 138 - Knowing When To Shut Down
I never urge anyone to become an entrepreneur. Ever. That’s because I am one. Sometimes, continuing the business could endanger more than your finance...
Episode 137 - How I Built This
Believe it or not, I used the same fieldwork techniques to build my own B2B brand that I urge you to deploy in my book. In this episode, I explain how...
Episode 136 - Updated Edition of Ramping Your Brand!
In ten days, the updated and expanded edition of Ramping Your Brand goes live in all formats. In this episode, I go over what has changed and why you...
Episode 135 - What is YOUR Founder Superpower?
American media loves to reinforce the ideal of the visionary entrepreneur who ‘bootstraps’ to glory with no initial resources. The reality is that tho...
Episode 134 - Why Artisan Pricing Doesn’t Scale in CPG
One of the more common problems lurking at the Fancy Foods show, if you’ve ever been, is sitting at every booth in plain sight. It’s on the sell sheet...
Episode 133 - Food Innovation for GLP-1 Users?
Despite one or two “diet” food brands like Atkins that are still kicking around, diet food innovation is generally a graveyard of CPG innovation. But...
Episode 132 - Why Most Startups ‘Market’ Instead of Entertain
A lot of us are sick of hearing about Liquid Death, the entertainment brand that happens to sell water. In this episode, I explain why it’s so hard fo...
Episode 131 - A Startup’s Recession Playbook
In 2025, the Trump administration’s stated policy moves may easily trigger a recession in the U.S. by late in the year or in 2026. This is a great t...
Episode 130 - Your Year-Round Horror Show - The Death Funnel
The perils of the first $500,000 in recurring sales are many. Most are related to cash flow and getting paid by distributors or retailers. Without the...
Episode 129 - The Six Elements of a Good Strategic Plan
It’s that time of year, folks. Preparing for 2025! The most underthought aspect of early-stage business plans is the strategic plan. It’s the front ha...
Episode 128 - One Industry Pro Please
You may be an amateur with an idea. A great idea. And you may be smart, organized and well-funded. But you still should have at least one other person...
Episode 127 - Getting Real on Seed Financing
Let’s get real on seed financing. Judging by the sheer volume of founders complaining about all the hidden costs in third-party distributed retail, it...
Episode 126 - Top Five Mistakes Courting Investors
During this funding lull, we should all step back and absorb the key mistakes that so many amateur founders made in the 2010s and the pandemic. In thi...
Episode 125 - Quant-Curious Founders Win
The most important thing founders can learn from private equity investors is quant-curiosity. It comes in at least two forms. The first is deep curios...
Episode 124 - Regenerative Agriculture - New Mega-Trend or Splitting Organic Hairs?
With two dueling regenerative ag certifications in motion, I feel like it's 1999 all over again. You know, the time when "organic" had multiple certif...
Episode 123 - How To Filter Advice
LinkedIn has accelerated the distribution of unsolicited and solicited advice on anything. For founders of consumer brands, though, knowing how to see...
Episode 122 - The Next Phase of the Smoothie Wars
Disclaimer: I am an advisor to Once Upon a Farm, which produces smoothies for tiny kids but do not hold equity in the company
The battle for th...
Episode 121 - The New CPG Funding Gap
As wealth has concentrated in the 1%, there is a lot more private money looking for ways to diversify and generate income. Not in savings accounts or...
Episode 120 - A Conversation with Samyr Lainé of Freedom Trail Capital - Part Two
Part Two of my conversation with Samyr Lainé, an expert in the intersection of A-list celebrities and CPG startups and how to make this work for ever...
Episode 119 - A Conversation with Samyr Lainé of Freedom Trail Capital - Part One
I rarely have investors on the show, but Samyr is doing things differently. He is an expert in the intersection of A-list celebrities and CPG startups...
Episode 118 - Founder Archetypes - The Creative Founder
The majority of CPG founders exhibit this archetypal orientation. They got into this because they're innovators. They're category geeks. Some, even sn...
Episode 117 - Founder Archetypes - The Finance Founder
Founders are not snowflakes after all. They tend to come in a finite array of archetypes. In this series, I begin by discussing the Finance Founder. H...
Episode 116 – Finance Your Strategy, Not the Other Way Around
It can be very tempting to look at your balance sheet or cash flow and then pick only tactics you can afford based on your present snapshot. The probl...
Episode 115 - Direct to Consumer is Toast for Founders
Scaling a consumer-packaged goods brand via the DTC channel is more or less dead to all but the super-wealthy founder. It's important to note that the...
Episode 114 - The Death Funnel is Even Deadlier
The perils of the first $500,000 in recurring sales are many. Most are related to cash flow and getting paid by distributors or retailers. Without the...
Episode 113 - How Athletic Brewing Becomes the Next Billion Dollar Brand
Non-alcoholic beer has been on a tear since 2017. That's when Heineken and an unknown brand, Athletic Brewing, appeared on shelves to shake things up....
Episode 112 - The 2024 Shelf Grab Has Begun
The final wave of failing Covid-19 brands is the eight-figure businesses that used initial raises to make it through Covid supply hell and COGS inflat...