As I’ve shared over the last few weeks, I’m helping a friend scale his start-up. His company sells its own branded physical product. For the last few weeks, I’ve been learning how the product is manufactured and everything involved in getting it from an international manufacturer to US warehouses that ship orders to consumers.

I’m still learning, and the manufacturing relationships are evolving, but my takeaway so far is that the logistics involves more moving pieces than I first realized. There are various LTL carriers, customs, multiple warehouses, and, don’t forget, parcel companies like UPS. Unless someone is familiar with these types of companies, their head would spin trying to keep it all straight.

To me, it feels like a puzzle. You’re trying to get all the pieces to fit together. When things go smoothly and customers get the product when they expected it, you have a sense of accomplishment. But one hiccup can throw off the whole plan and send you into a reactionary mode, which isn’t fun for anyone.

I’m still learning, but I think there are lots of opportunities to streamline this for my friend and get his product to his customers faster and at less cost.

I recently had a conversation with someone who used to work for a small, private company (i.e., one with not very many employees). It’s in a non-sexy, traditional industry and sells relatively inexpensive products (think $10–$20). He surprised me. That “small” company was doing $100–$200 million in revenue and had extremely high profit margins.

Digging in, I learned that the company’s secret sauce was distribution. They had a large social media following, which they used to drive consumer awareness of their new products. This strategy created a massive amount of social buzz, which was basically free, top-of-funnel marketing. It translated into sales and put them on the radar of larger retail merchants, who began placing large wholesale orders.

This company did a great job of building distribution directly to consumers before they needed it. So, they effectively had no marketing costs when they launched their products, which saved them a ton of money. Their social media strategy caught the attention of large retailers, who stocked the products, which further expanded their distribution.

The company is in a sleepy, slow-moving space that isn’t highly competitive. When I ask my friends about the company, they have no idea what I’m talking about. But the company sells a lot of products every year, generating a tremendous amount of cash for the owners.

You don’t have to be in a hot industry to build a great business. Some of the best businesses have been in non-sexy categories selling simple products for a low price to the average consumer.

Today I was reading up on Kobe Bryant’s routines and work ethic. I came across this quote from him:

Confidence comes from preparation.

In this video, he explained that preparation through thousands of reps helped him understand what he was comfortable and uncomfortable doing. So, when he was in a high-pressure situation, he was able to be calm because what he was about to do was just another rep of something he’d exhaustively prepared for.

I love this quote. It shows us why Kobe had outsize success.

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This week I caught up with a friend who started a company last year. The company has customers and is growing slowly. She recently realized that the market dynamics being what they are, the company likely won’t be the grand slam she originally envisioned. So now she’s considering what to do next: push along with the company even though the odds aren’t great, or begin looking for another problem to solve.

During our conversation, she said something that caught my attention: Building the current company was fun and gave her something exciting to work on after leaving her nine-to-five job every day. The idea of not having another idea to work on immediately is unsettling. She wants to stay in building mode.

The entrepreneurial bug has bitten my friend. She tried it and she loves it. The idea of working only her corporate job isn’t appealing because she feels like she’s just going through the motions there.

When people who are wired to be entrepreneurs get a taste of it, they don’t want anything else. The idea of not working on a company becomes foreign to them. It’s why many entrepreneurs say they’re unemployable. Being an entrepreneur and constantly racking your brain to solve problems makes entrepreneurs feel alive. Seeing how your hard work and cognitive effort turn into a product or service that others use is rewarding on a level that only entrepreneurs can understand.

And that’s why I’ve always felt that entrepreneurship is addictive. When people get a taste of it, there’s often no going back.

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.