As I’ve shared over the last few weeks, I’m helping a friend work through logistics and operational challenges at his scaling start-up. The company sells physical products, so my experience running a company that sold physical products has been useful. And I’m getting something I hadn’t planned on: a front-row view of the launching of a new brand via marketing. Marketing is my weakest area, and I want to understand it better. Working with my friend, I’m seeing how he’s using various marketing strategies to launch his latest product. It’s been cool to see the step-by-step, day-by-day actions and thoughts that led to results that have exceeded all our expectations.

I’ve learned a lot about new-age marketing so far and am looking forward to learning more.

Yesterday I wrote a post (see here) about the prove-it mentality and how that mindset propelled one Atlanta-based company from five people to a behemoth worth tens of billions of dollars that trades on the stock market.

Today I read a quote from Mark Twain that reminded me of the story from yesterday’s post:

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.

Being certain about something you haven’t proved to be true and being wrong about it can get you in trouble. Having a prove-it mentality helps you avoid that situation.

Whenever I hear someone say something isn’t possible, I think about a conversation I had with the founding CTO of a publicly traded Atlanta company. Jim helped scale that company from five people to an IPO with thousands of employees. He’s a problem solver at heart and always believed the impossible was possible. I asked him what the secret to his company’s and his team’s success was, and he said his team didn’t blindly trust anybody or anything. Their motto was “prove it.”

As the company grew, it was pitched every product and service imaginable. Whenever they asked why they should buy the product or service, the answer was “All the big companies are using it.” To Jim, that answer was illogical. He and his team gave that rationale zero weight in their decision-making process. Instead, they tested everything to figure out what was possible and which products and services were the best. Often, they found that the big companies weren’t using the best product. Jim and his team would find better products, often at lower prices because the companies were smaller and hungrier. Knowing which companies were using subpar products helped his company understand others’ shortcomings and gave his team insights on how to differentiate their company to their customers.

In the end, this prove-it mentality became a huge competitive advantage for Jim’s company, but only because Jim and his team did the tedious grunt work of vetting everything to truly understand what was possible and what products were the best. Over time, that work compounded to the point that their technology platform was lightning fast and the best in their industry. When customers got a taste of how much better their platform performed, they were hooked, and the company developed a cult following.

Just because someone says something isn’t possible, that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. And just because everyone says something is the best, that doesn’t mean it is the best. If the decision is material, it’s worth digging in yourself. Often you’ll find that what others say is impossible is very possible or what others say is the best is far from it.

I’ve been getting up to speed on the latest in e-commerce as I help a friend with his new company. The game has changed a lot since I was actively in the space. Two big things have jumped out at me so far.

First, AI is drastically changing e-commerce. Each person can do more, and AI can handle some tasks, so fewer people are needed to run an e-commerce company. I’ve heard that some large, branded e-commerce companies are running with only 8% of their revenue going toward SG&A expenses. That’s extremely low. AI is also changing marketing. Companies can produce ad creative faster, creating and testing more ads in less time without having to substantially increase overhead.

Next, a ton of branded e-commerce companies are doing over $100 million in annual revenue. Companies’ ability to drive awareness and sales has drastically changed with platforms like TikTok Shops. And it’s easier for companies to scale functions such as importing, warehousing, and fulfillment on a dime through platforms like Flexport, FBA, and FBT. The result of all this is rapid scale for some companies. When I was first starting in e‑commerce, it would take well over a decade to reach $100 million in revenue. That’s if it ever happened; it was rare, with only a handful of brands achieving it after a decade or two of grinding. Now companies can hit those numbers in two or three years!

Overall, I’m learning that the world of e-commerce is transformed. The new class of e‑commerce companies is doing more with less and going further faster.

Earlier this week I came across a quote that made me laugh:

An idiot in motion goes further than a genius at rest.

I love this quote. Imperfect action by an average person beats perfect inaction by an exceptional person. Why? Because action produces information. Even if the action is wrong, you’ll learn from it and have a better idea of what you need to do to succeed. No action means no information and no progress.

When you’re doing something that doesn’t have a defined path to success, the only way to uncover the path is to walk into the unknown. Take action.

If you’re interested in hearing more about action producing information, consider listening to Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong’s views on this. You can see the link to that interview in this post.

As I’ve discussed in previous posts, I’ve been working with several entrepreneurs and moderating a monthly accountability group for them. We had our third meeting this week, and it went well (lessons learned coming in another post). I’m considering working with another entrepreneur on this project. I had a good conversation with him this week. He recognizes the value in these groups and has been in one himself. The idea is that together we could moderate additional accountability groups. I’m not sure what will come of our conversation, but it’s encouraging that other entrepreneurs are open to moderating these groups alongside me.

I was thinking about yesterday’s post (see here) about entrepreneurs completing a daily report card. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this would be best done with peers. Isolated, you could lose motivation or let it slip through the cracks. But having peers holding you accountable would add a competitive and supportive element to it.

I also think that sharing daily reports could be a great way for entrepreneurs to accelerate their learning. In my report, I have sections for what I did wrong that day, what I did right, and what lessons I learned. If entrepreneurs were to do something similar and then share these daily report cards, peers would be learning from each other’s successes, failures, and lessons.

I need to think more about this and how it would work, but I like the idea of entrepreneurs having daily report card partners.

This week I listened to an entrepreneur describe how he determines whether he had a productive and positive day. He readily admitted that his criteria are subjective and that he isn’t tracking them anywhere. He’s figured this out in more of a hand-wavy, finger-in-the-air reflection over the past couple of weeks. He also described how impactful it is to string together consecutive productive, positive days.

A few weeks ago, I began experimenting with completing daily report cards (see here). I’m still doing them. I’ve had a positive experience, and I’m wondering if my report card (a modified version of the one discussed in my previous post), could be a useful tool for entrepreneurs.

I’m going to think about this more and chat with a few entrepreneurs to see what they think. But my gut tells me yes and that I need to find two or three entrepreneurs willing to experiment with this for a month.

Today I listened to a podcast on which a man who’d had outsized success as an investor was interviewed. One thing he stressed was the need to set deadlines when you’re learning a new skill. If you don’t, learning the skill will take longer than it should.

What this investor was talking about is covered by Parkinson’s law, which says, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

People have a natural tendency to pace themselves based on the time available to complete a task (e.g., learn a new skill). If that window is short, they’ll work really hard. If it’s longer or infinite, they’ll work slowly.

When I’m learning a skill (or doing any task, for that matter), I benefit tremendously from setting a deadline. Putting time constraints on what I’m trying to do forces me to figure out how to work efficiently. When I haven’t had a time-limited goal, it’s taken much longer than it should have.

Parkinson’s law is true and reflects human nature. I’m not immune to it, so I use deadlines as a constraint to avoid being falling into its trap.

I had a debate with an entrepreneur this past weekend about AI and software companies. The question was whether AI will disrupt mission-critical software companies. Think ERP, CRM, and HCM software like NetSuite, HubSpot, Salesforce, Workday, etc.

Having built an ERP system with CRM functionality, my answer is no. In the short to medium term, these software companies will continue to have a strong moat. I believe this for two reasons. First, these systems are very complex and run functions that are mission critical. The risk of replacing one of them with a system that doesn’t work as well is too high, even if the upside is saving money. Disrupted operations can lead to significant financial losses and tarnish a company’s brand. Most companies don’t want to take those kinds of risks (start-ups might, though).

When I was running my company, there was zero chance you could get me to change from the ERP/CRM system we built for ourselves. The risk and learning curve associated with switching were too high. Even if someone had given me the software for free, I would have said “no thanks.”

Cost is the second reason I believe mission-critical companies aren’t about to be disrupted by AI. Having AI build a system as complex as the ones mentioned above would take significant time and energy and cost a ton via tokens. Then there’s maintenance. You can’t just build it and forget about it; you have to maintain homegrown systems, which can require material resources. When a company thinks about the time, energy, and cost required to build and replace a system, they’ll keep what they have and allocate those resources to high-return activities.

My company’s internal software was a living thing. We were always making improvements and changes to it. I learned over the years to budget a certain amount of salary and team bandwidth for maintenance of this software.

Complex, mission-critical software is the backbone of many companies. If one of these systems stops working, a company is flying blind and in some cases can’t operate at all.

As of today, I don’t think these companies are at risk of losing customers. Whether they’ll continue to grow at historical rates is a legitimate question. I think the probability that they will is high, because I doubt that company leaders want to start building these types of systems from scratch. The return on the allocation of resources doesn’t make sense.