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 Solutions, LLC www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com If you want to take my founder's Quiz to see if you are ready for exponential growth, please visit : www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com/founder_resources and sign up for my e-mail list to download it. Transcripts and an entire episode library are on my podcast site. https://www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com/podcast
Episodes
141 episodes
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 issue with missionary zeal, when you do not channel it professionally into scaling a discipli...
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Episode 141
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7:27
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-figure CPG business if you let go of a need to scale (and grow fast to get there). In this episod...
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Episode 140
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21:27
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 you that far, it can be easy to overlook the marketing department. Then, when you turn to ask...
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Episode 139
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5:57
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 finances. In this episode, I give you five clear signals that, when combined, make it clear you shoul...
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Episode 138
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13:07
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 I used a flywheel of goodwill connecting tradeshows to LinkedIn to build my business. Fans ar...
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Episode 137
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10:34
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 should grab a copy even if you have the 1st edition.
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Episode 136
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8:54
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 those who do pull this off usually have one or more superpowers as they started. My growing case ...
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Episode 135
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9:02
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 sheets of various specialty food brands that exhibit there. It is their SRPs. They’re not just prem...
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Episode 134
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13:04
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 GLP-1 drugs raise the profile of a different outcome, indirectly supporting weight management&...
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Episode 133
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10:59
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 for the average CPG startup to build an entertainment-based brand. It’s not the category. That’s...
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Episode 132
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9:23
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 time of year to create a Plan B for your marketing playbook to adjust how re...
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Episode 131
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6:28
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 proper seed monies, many companies evaporate despite the power of their innovation. In this e...
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11:54
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 half of your business plan focused on growth. And all too often, it resembles an investor pitch....
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9:06
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 on your team with 10 years plus functional experience in the early stage world. Most likely, ...
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9:03
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’s clear to me that way too many middle-class people tried to jump on the bandwagon designed f...
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10:42
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 this episode, I start with the big one: You started looking way too late. Want the rest....
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11:50
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 curiosity around the financial inner workings of your business. The second? Have a listen to find ou...
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8:03
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 certifications and not much clarity for consumers - until the USDA launched a regulated symbol in 20...
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10:43
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 seek out and filter advice is critical, especially quasi-advice attached to sloppy critique of yo...
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11:01
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 companyThe battle for the freshly blended home smoothie is on. You would think this is something for bag...
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11:54
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 CDs. In your startup. Angel and family office money is more plentiful than ever, but instituti...
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15:12
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 everyone. He is especially keen on A-list celebrity founder-operators and equity-for...
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18:41
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 and how to make this work for everyone. He is especially keen on A-list celebrity founder-ope...
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21:40
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 snobs. But the real weakness these folks have to accept and address somehow is that they are NOT...
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10:30
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. His/Her orientation to money and ROI over-determines every decision they make. For good and for...
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14:21