Startup Confidential

Send us Fan Mail Committing to a plan is hard enough for many founders. But, if you don't do an annual diagnosis well, you will lose much of the plan's benefit. The point of planning and diagnosing is to understand WHY you did or did not hit your revenue target (or other topline goals).  This requires systematic disbelief in topline success. I call it pressure-testing, so you can ensure...

Send us Fan Mail The most efficient Skate Ramp brands earn large amounts of money in small geographies. In this episode I explain how to measure this and why it’s so important to set such a high standard for an undercapitalized business early on. You have to listen to learn the benchmark. This is contained in my book, deliberately. Sort of. Your Host: Dr. James F. Richardson of Premium Growth Solu...

Send us Fan Mail It's that time of year, folks. Preparing for 2023! The most underthought aspect of early-stage business plans is the strategic plan . It's the front half of your business plan focused on growth. And all too often, it resembles an investor pitch. In this episode, I narrate material from my Blog for a broader audience, so you can focus on a measurable plan for growth based...

Send us Fan Mail  Licensed professional engineers rarely become startup founders. I’ve met a few. They all struggled. They represent an extreme version of professionally cultivated risk aversion. The bridge must stand or you get fired. Any founder can wind up acting like this, if you let the terror of your cash situation overcome your ability to take big, calculated risks necessary to iterate well...

Send us Fan Mail Tired of throwing money at influencers with no way to understand ‘influence’ on sales in a multi-tactic marketing playbook? You should be. Introducing Fermat , a brand-new technology that enables 100% embedded shopping directly inside your favorite content, without changing its layout on your screen of choice. I normally ignore people pitching to get on my show. But, I have a snea...

Send us Fan Mail Consider this a non-violent, verbal kick in the rear. I continue to see too many digitally native founders sit on screens too much of the day. Get out in the field and meet stakeholders, including your fans. Respect the big, broad world out there that builds your brand with you. This is how you achieve an unfair advantage over others. Your Host: Dr. James F. Richardson of Premium...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I'm just going to say what SO many are mumbling. Why can't chain retailers gift end cap space to select high-performing minority founders as a market advantage? It's one thing to onboard minority founders. But, since they're wildly under-capitalized, this rarely works out well. What they need is an initial velocity surge from retail display spa...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever wanted a founder who is also an investor to peel back the real challenge of investor alignment? I've been looking for two years for such a person. It's hard to find folks like this who will talk honestly.  And Greg Shepard is one of them. Greg is the co-founder and CEO of BOSS Startup Systems, an open-source methodology developed to empower entrepreneurs. G...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever wanted a founder who is also an investor to peel back the real challenge of investor alignment? I've been looking for two years for such a person. It's hard to find folks like this who will talk honestly.  And Greg Shepard is one of them. Greg is the co-founder and CEO of BOSS Startup Systems, an open-source methodology developed to empower entrepreneurs. G...

Send us Fan Mail Enjoy a clip from the Audible version of Ramping Your Brand on why focus matters so much when scaling a consumer brand AND getting it to grow well into the nine figures. It’s short and sweet. Enjoy! Your Host: Dr. James F. Richardson of Premium Growth Solutions, LLC Premium Growth Solutions.com Please send feedback on this or other episodes to: admin@premiumgrowthsolutions.com You...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is based on one of my most popular, recent blog posts .  In it, I explain the problem that arises in the nine figures if founders built a well-timed business primarily using sales and trade techniques. Getting to $100M is getting easier and easier on the back of paced distribution and superbly timed product design, in part because inflation means you don’t have to sel...

Send us Fan Mail The last gasp of the easy-money tech venture era has been heard. There are still investors though who want to isolate the latest thing, overfund it, and blitz scale to glory. In this episode, I explain why most consumer brands have category limits to acceleration and scaling that new technologies do not. Those are cultural limits deep inside our brains and not easily altered. Alte...

Send us Fan Mail 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 sheets of various specialty food brands that exhibit there. It is their SRPs. They’re not just premium. They’re artisanal. And they just won’t scale. Pricing 100% above the market share leader in a category is one thing. Pricing 400% abov...

Send us Fan Mail This is a cautionary episode as the worst of the worst deal hunters and predators are out in force trying to find something to sell before interest rates spike. And those of you with boards may find individuals suddenly advocating for an exit. Don’t be bullied into exiting prematurely due to temporary market forces on Wall Street. Have a listen.   Your Host: Dr. James F. Richardso...

Send us Fan Mail The most practical thing for female founders to do in the face of investor sexism is a) seek money from female-only funds or b) learn how to negotiate a stronger impression to disarm skeptical male investors. But, in this episode, I want to share a structural solution publicly that investment firms could easily employ…if they wanted. Have a listen.  Your Host: Dr. James F. Richard...

Send us Fan Mail It’s not hard to groan at the crazy sums food/tech crossover companies are able to raise these days. Bright Farms was one of the early mega-fundraisers in the urban/indoor farming trend. In this episode, I explore what I’ve learned from publicly available data points on the surprisingly strong performance of this 11-year old business. It’s still an early-stage company, but, like V...

Send us Fan Mail  In this episode, I explain the history of consumer data in CPG companies and why understanding about your fans is no longer a luxury for early-stage brands intent on scaling rapidly. Yet, most early-stage consumer brands just don’t collect this info after they enter the market. They are throwing away critical intelligence they can use to iterate and optimize all 4Ps of growth. An...

Send us Fan Mail  In part two of our conversation, things get more constructive. Jeremy Smith of Launchpad shares thoughts on how brokers are better off functioning as account-specific consultants in today's world. Or as generalized retail sales coaches. He shares how he does this for clients selling into Costco, one of the more fussy and complex accounts founders will hopefully end up servin...

Send us Fan Mail This is part one of my conversation with Jeremy Smith of Launchpad on the future of brokers. Jeremy Smith is most likely the most successful Costco broker/advisor out there. We discuss where brokering went wrong, the myths, and the false promises of bad actors in the sector. You don't want to miss his amazing sense of humor. He pulls no punches. Your Host: Dr. James F. Richar...

Send us Fan Mail  In this episode, I ask founders to consider how they would feel if they took investment capital and then saw an inexperienced puppet CEO with a fancy resume replace them as the operating leader. Listen in to understand why this happens still and how to avoid this scenario. Your Host: Dr. James F. Richardson of Premium Growth Solutions, LLC www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com Please se...

Send us Fan Mail There’s nothing wrong with having a mission unrelated to the consumer experience of a product. Could be climate change. Could be recycling. Could be supporting women’s empowerment. But, you have to decide what kind of missionary you are before you use a CPG brand to pursue it. Learn why by tuning in to this episode!   Your Host: Dr. James F. Richardson of Premium Growth Solutions,...

Send us Fan Mail  Are you a ‘professional’ entrepreneur or just an amateur founder? Start-up land is full of folks new to their industry and even new to capitalism itself. The hordes of amateurs are one reason that public firm employees look down on start-ups traditionally. But, increasingly, even in CPG, there is a caste hierarchy between the pros and the newbs. Despite the disadvantage new found...

Send us Fan Mail   In this episode, I look back to explain why I tossed away $250,000 in billable work as I grew my own business and why my rationale is simply a B2B version of what you should be doing as you plot your own path to scale. Strategic growth requires saying ‘no.’ In CPG, you will actually have to say ‘no’ more as you start getting traction and industry visibility. That’s an irony that...

Send us Fan Mail Don’t be a fence-sitter. Don’t run your startup via laptop-as-remote control. You have to do all the right things internally or yourself early on if you want to up your chances of finding market validation and a way up the Skate Ramp.  Your Host: Dr. James F. Richardson of Premium Growth Solutions, LLC www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com Please send feedback on this or other episodes t...

Send us Fan Mail CPG startups rarely want to discuss anything related to their actual topline performance in press releases or interviews. So, they often beat their chest about their retail door count. And how much it has grown. Who cares, really? This episode gives you something much more important to brag about...if you actually did anything. Your Host: Dr. James F. Richardson of Premium Growth...