Episode 168 - Why Startups Are like Flowers In the Desert...

A humorous exploration of my favorite analogy for the experience of growing a consumer brand, whether or not you make it onto the Skate Ramp. It's harsh out there. 

Your Host: Dr. James F. Richardson of Premium Growth Solutions, LLC www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Look, people totally misunderstand the desert. I don't understand, uh I guess it's because they they only come here for like a week and they sit at a pool. But the thing with the desert is that it's the ultimate place to be reminded as an entrepreneur that nothing is working in your favor. Almost nothing. Um the desert is a place of death. And harshness, lack of water, crazily intense sunlight. What do I mean? Look at the sun. This is this is an agent of death. This is not an agent of tanning. This is an agent of death. Yeah. So I just I don't know how else to put it to you people who don't live here. But you do you hide from the sun. I'm out here at like 7:30 in the morning because I'm gonna go hide. It's just like the entrepreneurial environment. Most of you will start and most of you will fail. Uh some will get up and start again and succeed. That's great. But you know, most most startups end like this. Dead staghorn chuya, but there's more death. Look at this field of death. Death, death, death, death, death, death. Okay? Does this look like a place that's having a party? No. This is this is a place trying to survive. Everything's trying to survive. Here's something surviving. Oh, there we go. Ah. The mesquite tree knows how to survive. It's a place where the plants are mean looking. I mean, I mean mean. Nasty. Does this look like a friendly plant? Does this look like a plant that wants to make friends? It's a very common species of Choya cactus here in the Sonoran Desert in Tucson Valley. And it's everywhere, and the reason it's everywhere is that it's highly defensive. I don't want you to take this analogy too literally as an entrepreneur, but this is a plant that's learned how to partner with the harsh environment that it's in. And that's exactly what you need to do. And you might say, well, I don't. I think this analogy is stupid, James. I think you're just sitting there next to your house trying to make an analogy fit, and it doesn't fit. Aha! But you see, it does. Because this is the same plant which uh whose cousin over here knows how to not only partner with the environment, but also flourish. Check this out. Ugly green focused mainly on just hoovering up water, and it's so good at it that it it puts out spring flowers.

unknown 2:24

Alright.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

And this is this is it, folks. In this land of death, decay, no water, and harsh sunlight. Yes, you can adapt, you can survive, and you can put out a flower. And this is you know, this here we go. Here's a $10 million brand that's gonna take over the market. No one thought it would happen because they all walked around this trail and saw the same carnage that you see here. This is what we see, and every once in a while we have this.