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From Grit to Growth
Welcome to From Grit to Growth! With a combined 50+ years of executive experience in retail, technology, and financial services, Mark and Jennifer have played pivotal roles in the success of several Fortune 500 companies. In this podcast, they'll talk about the key factors of successful founders, what holds them back from growth, how to find the why behind what they do, and much more.
Episodes
19 episodes
19. The 90-Day Test for Real Leadership
What would happen inside a business if a founder stepped away for 90 days? That question cuts straight to the health of a leadership team, and most leaders know the answer the moment they hear it: things would fall apart. In this ne...
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18:19
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18. Founders Burn Out Before the Business Does
Founders talk endlessly about growth, discipline, and execution, but very few of them stop to ask a more personal question: where does your energy actually come from, and where does it disappear? This conversation explores how daily choices, st...
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31:59
17. 3 Things That Make Strategic Planning Actually Work
Picture this: you block off two full days for strategic planning. The room is booked, the decks are polished, energy is high… and by hour six, everyone’s half-present, half-checking email, wondering how much of this will actually stick.T...
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23:31
16. The Books That Changed How We Lead
Most founders can point to a moment when the work stopped being about products, channels, or growth tactics and started feeling more personal and harder to explain, because it involved managing people, energy, conflict, and expectations, not ju...
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19:23
15. How Founders Build Boards That Drive Growth—Not Tension
Most founders think about the board only when a fundraising round forces the conversation. But that room can either become a real advantage or a constant source of tension, depending on how it’s built and how it communicates. In this episode, M...
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20:58
14. Seeing What Others Missed: How Jules Pieri Built The Grommet and Changed Product Discovery
Jules Pieri built The Grommet at a time when big-box retail was crowding out the makers creating the most interesting products. Instead of accepting that trend, she paid attention to small signals: creators experimenting on their own, customers...
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47:21
13. Simple Body: Building a Clean Beauty Brand Before It Was Cool with Founder Jewels Burdick
Jewels Burdick never set out to build a beauty brand. She was trying to help her mom, make sense of a health scare, and clean up her own routine, but one small decision to learn more turned into weekends spent experimenting in her kitchen, long...
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38:41
12. Loyalty Blindness: The Hidden Risk That's Costing Founders Growth
As the year wraps, Mark and Jennifer have the conversation most founders avoid: how the business actually performed — not how it felt.They unpack the three areas that never lie in a growing company: people, cash, and focus. Through a pra...
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16:57
11. Your Gut Instincts Are Your Greatest Operating System
The early days of e-commerce were chaotic. No Shopify, no Klaviyo, no attribution dashboards. In this conversation, Jennifer turns the tables and interviews Mark about the path that began with a phone call from a man selling hammocks in Washing...
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46:17
10. How FrostBuddy Grew From a Backyard Idea to a $70M Rocket Ship
FrostBuddy didn’t start with a pitch deck or a perfect plan. It started with two brothers in a small Illinois town who were curious enough to chase an idea and resilient enough to keep going when the market got crowded.In this conversati...
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49:39
9. The Mom Who Built a Multi-Million-Dollar Brand from Her Basement with Julie Cole
When Julie Cole left the courtroom to start making waterproof name labels in her basement with three other moms, she didn’t know she was building a category-defining brand. Twenty years later, Mabel’s Labels has become a household name, helping...
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37:21
8. Growing at the Right Pace: How GURU Pet Company Reached $2.5 Million in Revenue in 3 Years
When Amy & JJ Stone founded GURU Pet Company in 2023, it was like stepping out from behind the curtain to take center stage in a play. After more than a decade inventing pet products for some of the biggest pet brands in the world, the Ston...
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40:16
7. The 5 Most Common Reasons Founders Fail
Founders fail for a variety of reasons, and it’s almost never because of a bad product. Over the years, Mark and Jennifer have had front-row seats to a multitude of startups, and they’ve spotted patterns that separate the successes from the fai...
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42:00
6. Do You Really Need Capital Right Now? Critical Cash Management Tips for Early-Stage Founders
Cash is king. No one knows the truth of that statement better than a startup founder who suddenly finds himself owing his suppliers, his employees and his landlord all within a week of each other. Growth is exciting, but it’s easy to lose sight...
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47:50
5. Culture is More than a Ping-Pong Table in the Office
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” It’s a common saying in the business world, and it’s also one of the most important truths that the most successful startups understand. Too many founders think that culture is as simple as putting a ping ...
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27:24
4. How Every Founder Can Leverage AI to Get Better
More often than not, when we ask founders how they’re implementing AI in their day-to-day, we’re met with blank stares. Artificial intelligence is changing the landscape for businesses everywhere, so why aren’t more founders leveraging it to ma...
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42:22
3. Healthy Founder, Healthy Startup: Why Physical Health is Key for Growth
Welcome back to “From Grit to Growth,” where we discuss what it takes to be a successful founder. In this episode, we’re talking about health. While many people don’t make the connection between physical health and success at work, we find that...
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39:04
2. The Numbers Every Founder Needs to Know (Hint: It’s Not Revenue or ROAS)
In this episode of “From Grit to Growth,” we’re back with our thoughts on cash. Mark shares a story about a founder who wanted $1 million for desks and “probably a CTO” and a few other things. Mark’s response: “If I gave you that $1...
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18:52