544: Foundr’s BEST of 2024: Hear From The World's Greatest Entrepreneurs [VIDEO]

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0:39Just head to omnisend.com forward slash founder without the E to get started. All right, now let's jump back into the show. Hey guys, welcome back to a special episode of the founder podcast. As we say goodbye to 2024 and gear up for an even bigger 2025, Looking back, 2024 has been nothing short of a whirlwind. We've seen innovation accelerate at a rapid, unprecedented pace. AI is transforming industries. Market dynamics have been unpredictable. And founders everywhere are navigating through this exciting yet challenging landscape. As founders, we're always chasing the next big goal, the next big breakthrough, the next big milestone.

1:23But before we plunge into 2025, I want to remind you to pause, reflect on how far you've come, take a deep breath, recharge and acknowledge your journey. To help you gear up for what's next, we've pulled together some of our best lessons, insights and stories and strategies from 2024. Throughout the year, we've had the privilege of speaking with industry disruptors, seasoned entrepreneurs and founders, and visionary leaders who've really shared their hard-earned wisdom. And these conversations have been jam-packed with practical tips, game-changing strategies that we can all apply to 2025. So sit back and enjoy this recap of this year's most valuable insights and let it fuel your ambition and inspire you to make 2025 your best year yet for you and your business.

2:14Hear the stories, learn the proven methods and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Founder Podcast with Nathan Chan. So up first, we have Eric Litke sharing his experience collaborating with Kanye West and how their partnership really reshaped Adidas' approach to innovation and creativity. Eric dives into the challenges and rewards of closely working with a visionary like Kanye, who really pushed the boundaries and demanded a level of attention that transformed not just the Yeezy brand, but the entire company's mindset on what's possible through collaboration.

2:57I think, listen, I mean, there's a lot of stories of working with partners, and I think partners are critical. And whether it be Lionel Messi or whether it be Kanye West, you know, whether it be partly for the oceans, they're all unique little subsets and require a different approach. I think what I would say is from a story standpoint is, you know, you've got to always look at these partnerships from a win-win perspective. And you've got to be able to say, okay, what is going to, what does winning look like for you? And, you know, and you have to be prepared for that, for that, um, goalpost to move quite consistently.

3:33And, um, yeah, Kanye, Kanye, Kanye demanded a certain level of attention, uh, which, uh, which I was happy to provide that with. And so he didn't like being delegated down into the organization to do stuff. He's a creator, he's a maker, he's a thinker, he's a doer. He required the highest level of, of, um, of attention. So usually he would seek me out on a Sunday evening in German time when he was getting up. So you typically be around Sunday, dinner time, you know, you're settling down. Okay. You're getting ready for the work week and the phone would ring and my wife will look at me and I'd look at her and she'd be like, it's Kanye, isn't it?

4:12I'd be like, yeah, I'll be outside for another hour or so. So, you know, he wanted to talk and I think that's, that's part of the the commitment you need to make to doing these, these big brand partnerships is giving yourself accessibility to, in, you know, to, to these, to these individuals because they need to be heard and you need to be going into that as a, as a, as an opportunity to be heard. And some people say, Oh, it's Kanye. Like you're either crazy to talk to that guy because of what he stands for. And this was before all the, all the, you know, all of the horrible things he said come out about, you know, the, the, the Jewish, the Jewish religion and the people.

4:47But I think he was always, you know, having things that he wanted to talk about. And typically, they weren't always the most flattering. So it took a little resolve to make yourself accessible to that every Sunday. Was that hard, like working with him? And like, did he burn you out? Yeah, I mean, he was interesting. He's a creator, right? So to me, he taught us a lot about how to create and how to never compromise and never be done. things and never settle for something that we've done before. So I think his attention to detail, his focus on consumer and his ability to redefine what's next were certainly inspiring.

5:32But having said that, he was very, very challenging to work with on a regular basis. For the teams specifically, again, my access to them, my exposure to him was very limited. um i was only there as an escalation for him the teams on the ground i think he was very challenging with from a from a detail standpoint and just from a expectation and sometimes inappropriate behavior yeah wow there you go um because the thing is right like if i think of the times and the you know the nike versus adidas competition and that that kind of endless pull for ambassadors to build the brand, I truly, you know, standing from a bystand standpoint, the Yeezys were and still are very cool, right?

6:21Like that was a really cool play. And, you know, I often think about a brand and what makes a brand cool, right? And that particular product behind Adidas and, you know, Kanye, know that collaboration that that was a big move for adidas and i think it was it was a really solid one um was that something you said you you really handled the the collaboration and kind of the in-between was that was that your thinking to like talk me through how that came about and yeah because i think it was a brilliant move in many ways yeah and i think i think listen it's it's i'd love to say i had the the vision to how to how to make that everything it was but the reality is I did not sign Kanye to the Adidas brand that was done by my predecessor, Herman Deininger.

7:14When I was appointed to the board position where I assumed responsibility for that business, the Yeezy business, as well as the Adidas business in general, I had great people running the business, working on the business, developing the business with him. It started as very small. It started with Kanye wearing the Ultra Boost, if you remember that product and some of our great innovative running product and really highlighting that on the stages that he would present himself on. And then that worked so well that we're like, okay, now let's take the next step. Why don't we give you an opportunity to create some of your own product?

7:51And then he would go and he'd come to Herzogonark in Germany where we were headquartered. He'd work in the atelier shops with the creation people, the designers, the developers nonstop. And we got to see firsthand wow this guy is really a creative um force i mean just to see how he goes you know 24 hours a day you know we'd have to rotate people into work with him from a garment creation standpoint and what have you and and he would just like go just like he'd be um just like he'd be you know making music i believe and this learning from him as far as his creation creation methodology and then i remember he was the first person that i experienced from a from a collaboration standpoint that would go to Asia, go to China himself to work in the factory because he wanted to see how things were being made.

8:35He wanted to understand how to create things. So there's a lot of richness there to learn from what a collaborator, if you give them the permission, you give them the keys to some of your infrastructure can really do. And so much so that he even sang about it. If, you know, one of the songs he sang about all I need was the infrastructure to prove my vision. It's not unlike some of the things I know about his music career. Ultimately, we kept doubling down. And so then we built a sample room, a factory sample room in Calabasas. And there was a music studio next door where he could create his music and his product at the same time.

9:09And he could go back and forth because that's kind of how he was oriented himself. And he was never really finished. And he would, again, work with teams that we'd have on the ground there. So it was a learning experience, to say the least, from my own personal view. And then for things to go so badly so quickly i wasn't there for the the end of the the yeezy relationship with adidas but i certainly was aware of it and and and uh and witnessed it and had talked to kanye enough to know that you know things were not a good place for him you know mentally as he's self-admitted but also for the things he was saying and what and the anger and pain he was bringing into the world with some of his comments were um quite you know um upsetting to myself personally and i know a lot of people that work for adidas so it's it was a it was a it was a story that uh someday you know a few of us will have to tell in its entirety because it it was it was it was challenging um but it also was something i don't want to i don't want to dismiss because of some comments he made afterwards or during i think it was i think he also taught um taught a powerful lesson to adidas and the industry on how to create and build things okay so up next we have allison ellsworth sharing the exciting story behind Poppy's Super Bowl ad debut.

10:27What started as a creative idea evolved into a last-minute opportunity that almost didn't happen. With just four days to go, Alison and her team secured a spot right before halftime, and the ad success tripled Poppy's brand awareness overnight. So we were ready to start running media. linear streaming cable TV. And so up until that point, we had just created some fun flavor spots that were just all about flavor and bubbles and can and juiciness. And we're like, what is the next evolution of that? So we went into a creative process and came up with what our Super Bowl ad was. But we did not make that as a Super Bowl ad, which I think is really interesting.

11:14It was just a piece of creative that we thought was like an evolution of poppy. We created it and we started testing it and it was performing really well. People were connecting with it and we're like, this is special. Maybe we should throw this up on the Super Bowl. Not a lot of brands can one, say that or two, actually follow through and do that. I get that. Not a lot of people can wake up and just be like, I'm going to do a Super Bowl. But we just felt with the brand and our community and the momentum and our growth. It was like our moment and our time. Well, there was a problem. We couldn't quite find a Super Bowl ad.

11:48They were all sold out. So we started calling around like crazy. I was part of this group, found someone, sent emails. We ended up, anyway, someone called us, look, hey, we got a Super Bowl ad for you. This was four days before the Super Bowl. Wow. And the thing is, we'd been wanting one for a while. We'd been looking. So we were fully prepared. We had the creative. We had the budget. We were like ready to go. It wasn't like we were like fumbling trying to get it last minute, but it ended up coming through four days for the Super Bowl. But the crazy catch was it was a floater ad. So a lot of people don't know.

12:21We didn't have an exact spot. We didn't know when it was going to air. And we just knew that it had to air within the Super Bowl before the end of the credits said, and thank you for watching the Super Bowl. It could have been like after, right? We decided to go for it. No, we did not get a discount. And we were so lucky. It aired one minute before halftime, right before Usher went on. It was like the most magical moment where everyone's getting ready to watch like, you know, the halftime show. And it just really hit home for people because it wasn't Celebrity Soup, which every soup bowl ad has like 38 celebrities in it.

12:58And it was just this anthemic piece of why we are soda and Poppy is soda. I think we said soda 17 times and it was actually like crazy. We counted. and we tripled our awareness overnight. Our household penetration went up. Just the amount of people being like, wow, poppy a soda for the next generation, just like overnight happened. All right, now let's hear from Noah Kagan who highlights one of the best traits that separates successful founders from everyone else, which is taking action. Noah shares candid advice on how he tests ideas without needing capital and why speaking directly to customers is the key to validating demand.

13:38Coming back to the beginning of Million Dollar Weekend and what I've seen be the difference of success from someone being at a zero person, being in a millionaire person, is that they started. And what they use as capital is an excuse to actually do the hard part, which is to see if there's really customers. And how you get a customer is you ask someone to be your customer. The cyber truck. Cyber, when's a coming out truck is what it should be called. That was six years from when he pre-sold it and validated people wanted it until he actually delivered it. I think the Model 3 was about 10 years.

14:11And so from when he announced it, full self-driving, it's been 12 years and I don't think it's out fully, still on beta. This is just one example. And so the reality is how do you see if people actually want something before you go and invest a lot of time or even get investments? So I built AppSumo without investment. I built my previous million dollar company without investment. And so how do you actually do these things? and really it's not about the capital and coming back on a side comment you said well you know you guys are maybe tech bros like yeah i i was very fortunate to work for mark zuckerberg i was very fortunate to be able to be around peter teal and be around like literally the elite you know not whether the separate politics just like elite thinkers in business and so be able to learn from them and then be able to apply it and kind of teach it to you know i live in texas to the rest of the world outside of silicon valley and i was talking with justin mayors you know you know justin from kettle and fire yeah he and i've gone up and back on email that guy's a beast that that's a that's a big company kettle and fire dude yeah yeah i think it's like a hundred million dollar business selling soup yeah and i remember asking him because he's he interned at app sumo oh really there you go yeah he's a smart marketer yeah yeah yeah he hired somebody that used to work for us yeah yeah he's he's a really great guy he lives in austin as well and i remember asking him i said why doing soup you know like you're like you're smart and he's like dude i don't want to compete against people like you are smarter like in the soup space i'm competing against like normal people and you know someone like him or someone like larry janeski i just did put out a video on the youtube channel where he i believe he's a billionaire if not beyond he does over 650 million dollars a year doing plumbing and basements wow and he said for him to win most of the time it's that he they show up on time and sober now i'm competing against like harvard and stanford mit and caltech competitors showing up sober and on time that's a lot better and that's just plumbing and basements and so i know one of the businesses i'm most excited about is lawn care and house care because it's universal and it's recurring.

16:22You don't do the lawn, the lawn dies. You don't take care of your pool, it goes out of water, and the fam's not happy. And so that's a great, if you want MR and AR, there's no competition over there. And you could put on, like, send me a text when you come to my house, otherwise they just show up and they don't tell me anything. Or let me request things via, like, an app potentially. And you could validate all those businesses yourself, knocking on a few doors, calling your neighbors, asking at church, wherever that is, and find out very quickly if you can get customers to do that. and I don't think you need a lot of investment to mow lawns you sell some customers you can go even rent one and that the same goes for tech if that's also what people want to do which that's been my whole that's how I've made all my money so what I do is tech but it doesn't mean it's exclusive to how people can get successful and I think through my youtube channel especially I get excited when people are getting rich in weird ways like one of my favorite I'm still trying to interview this guy the guy that creates urinals you know you know urinals he creates a little the scents the ones you put on them when you go to the bathroom yeah there's a brand in america called echoes and i'm just like i want to meet the guy that they're doing urinals there's just there's so many ways of getting rich it's awesome and it's available to everyone and i believe truly that where people are and where they can be where they are and where they can be is much closer than people realize much much closer and you can get rich doing cookies you can get rich doing this cap.

17:40I'm drinking a coconut water, making caps. There's just so many interesting ways of getting rich, but it's getting started, getting good at asking people for things, and then following a process, which is what I laid out, to make it available for everyone. And I don't believe you need capital. I don't believe you need a bunch of other co-founders. I don't think you need to use AI. You can. You can do all these things, but I don't think you have to. I think you have to find real customers with real problems. And then from there, yeah, we can build these other things that help support that. But most people just do it the other way.

18:07Are you hesitating to take the next step in your e-commerce journey? Founder Plus has you covered. With proven frameworks tailored to your business needs for fast results, a supportive community of over 30 ,000 like-minded entrepreneurs, and weekly live mentorship sessions, Founder Plus is your key to success. Try Founder Plus today for just$1 for seven days and start building your dream business with confidence. You can visit founder.com forward slash start dollar trial or click the link in the description to claim your trial. Yeah, it's so crazy how it's the most obvious thing just to speak to prospective customers or speak to existing customers, but it's something that people just avoid like the plague.

18:52Yeah, I can tell you why. It's because they're afraid. It's easier for them to talk to strangers and get rejected than to their friends and feel embarrassed. When in the reality, your friends are the ones who want to help you the most. They're the ones that want to make you succeed. And one of the best ways to be successful in entrepreneurship is look what assets you already have. Look at what your unfair advantage is. There's a gentleman who works with NBA teams who I met. And he went and started a newsletter. He's like, I can do health and fitness. I was like, you're an NBA health coach. Write about the NBA.

19:21You can't copy that. Or like on YouTube, no one can copy Nathan talking about Founder. No one can copy Noah talking about AppSumo because that's just me. And so, you know, thinking about what do I have an access to is which people like I've been in Silicon Valley. So I kind of knew when I started AppSumo, I was like, well, maybe I can cold email or get referrals to people over time, which I was able to do. I was able to work with Tim Ferriss and work with these different people from just being in that environment. And that's available for everyone. Like, who do you know? This guy that Jake that came here recently, he plays a lot of golf.

19:51I don't know. I don't know how to play golf. I just do the driving range and margaritas. Jake plays a lot of golf, a lot of people. He has an advantage there. Or maybe it's a geographical advantage. Maybe you're in India. Maybe you have something in South America, wherever it is. How do you take advantage of that and compete unfairly in these areas, which is what I encourage people to do? It doesn't mean he can't other ways. It's just people make it a lot harder on themselves. Okay, up next, we've got Shay Mitchell, who talks about the creative concept behind the base wash pop-up. So instead of shying away from customer complaints about the light colored luggage getting dirty, she leaned in and set up a luggage car wash complete with custom scrubbers, bubbles, and drying fans.

20:34And it was more than just cleaning bags. It was about showing customers that base goes the extra mile to make things right. So turning a common issue into an unforgettable brand experience. Pop-ups are a really fun one for us because we are majority D to C. it's that time where we can get to be meet our consumer in real life and I think you know we don't have that commitment that we would necessarily have if we were in brick and mortar and so when we have that pop-up I mean this one was super short it was like three days two really two and a half um which is crazy because I'm like that was a lot of work for those two days but But it's fun because we get to like go crazy with our design and think about it.

21:22You know, we first started our first pop up was at the Grove and that was about a month. And it was our base motel. And I wanted to start with motel because I knew that eventually we'd go into a hotel. And it was that small little pop up there. And I just I wanted to be able to create this sort of experience for our consumers who had never seen us in real life to be able to come in into this curated experience. and like get to see the product in a normal setting, like this motel setting. We had a little check-in desk, you know. We had a little like – at that point, it wasn't our hotel yet, so we just had a little waiting area and like a couple shelves, but they could see the product in like a space like that.

22:02And that was really fun. And then we moved into the base hotel, and there we took it another step further. We had a check-in counter. We even had an elevator, and then you went into the room, and we had a bed on the side of the wall so you could see like where your product would look in a room. If you were traveling, we had, you know, the little cosmetic case in a bathroom that we had. We even had a patio space. Like it was really cool because people hadn't seen anything like that. And I didn't want to just create a store atmosphere. I wanted to create an experience again because being so heavy on D2C, we never get that opportunity to see people in real life and to bring an experience.

22:38And then with the base wash, that was an idea that came because we were launching this new color our clean slate collection. Clean slate, top of the year, fresh start. Our campaign that we had actually shot in November for it was like this car wash, you know, cleaning the luggage. It was this like cool icy blue color. And the whole thing was just like fresh bubbles, all of that. And then I had kind of seen some TikToks on social people being like, I got this color and it got dirty, you know, and my suitcase has, you know, a couple stains on it. And I'm like, okay, you know, on one hand, I'm like, Oh, man, does Nike feel this way when people like get their Air Force ones dirty?

23:21You know, do people get like mad at Nike? I don't know. When you got the bag, it was brand new. It was clean. I can't control what happens to it when people are hucking it down the thing into that airplane. But they still come for me. And at one point, I'm like, okay, let's just tone it in i get really sensitive about it because base is truly like my first child it's my company i put everything into it so of course i feel it more i don't care when people speak about me but when you speak about the brand and my baby i'm like oh so anyways bringing it back i was like okay people are saying that this and the lighter color luggage obviously are getting dirtier let's create this experience where we can do like a service for them and we can clean up their bags.

24:04And this is all about fresh bag, fresh in the year, clean slate, you know, let's have this sort of base wash, car wash vibe. And from there, it was just like, boom, I visited so many car washes, I pulled so many revs, I knew that I wanted an old coffee machine in there, I wanted a water station, I wanted buckets everywhere, I wanted sponges, you know, we partner with Scrub Daddy, and they came out with like, our own little suitcase scrubbers, you know, and then this wall, I wanted to use the material to create our base logo that then had like, drying, sort of fans, you know, like when you're going through that car washing it fans off your car, I wanted that for the little photo op, and I want bubbles and all of this stuff.

24:49And it's just such a fun way to play for us, because I'm like, oh, we get to have them come into our experience and create this whole vibe for our consumers. And the cleaning of their bags, you know, was just sort of like our give back to them for just being awesome. Whether you bought something or not, if you had a base bag, we would clean it for you. And yeah, I wanted to do that. I also, though, am the complete opposite. I love when my bags are all batted up and I love stickers that are like taken off of them. I want it to look travel, just like I want my passport to be like full of stamps.

25:28I feel that way about my suitcase, but not everybody does. So for those people who don't, we cleaned it up for them. All right, up next, we've got Alicia Scott, who shares the story behind her brand's name change and how a trademark dispute turned into a blessing in disguise. So she opens up about launching under the name Skinny Dip Cosmetics, receiving a cease and desist letter shortly after. and really how that experience led to the birth of Range Beauty. It's funny because initially the entire theme, the name was completely different. So we were originally called Skinny Dip Cosmetics because I loved the idea like skinny dipping.

26:05You're at your freest moment, right? And so that's how I wanted you to feel. Even though it's makeup, I still wanted you to feel free. I wanted your skin to feel free as if you weren't wearing anything like skinny dipping. And so that was our initial name. and you know we were very clinical girly so lots of pinks and glittery and all of that and our first initial order came under that name and it came um when we added our website to our social media so I had a landing page with the wait list and so once the the page went live those people who were on the wait list were notified and so um and we were also hosted on Squarespace initially.

26:45So our first order came through Squarespace and we operated under Skinny Dip. I believe I was, I maintained it live for a month before I was sent a cease and desist by what's called Skinny Dip. It's a company out of London. And they actually started off with phone accessories and then they went into fashion, I believe. And then they launched their own makeup line. And they emailed me and my little self, they emailed me and said, hey, you're infringing on our trademark. And so we can go to court or you can shut down. And I was, gosh, like I'm so small. I didn't even, it's fine. So I shut down. And that's what led me back to the drawing board and how range was actually born.

27:31So this is an interesting experience because I had something similar happen to me in the early days founder. So when I started founder, it wasn't called founder, It was called Key to Success Magazine. And we were sued by a big business magazine out of the States, one of the biggest ones, for trademark infringement. They didn't send us a cease and desist, though. They lodged proceedings. So I got a FedEx package basically saying that I needed to appear in Dallas, Texas on this date for trademark infringement. and this was the first four months of starting founder and i remember waking up in the morning and receiving that letter and being like oh my god and just like was so scared and i'm like i remember speaking to my mentor at the time and i said he's like i said i'm so scared and he's like what do you like he's like do you have any money and i was like i was like no and he's like well because i was scared i was going to go bankrupt and he's like we have any money and i I was like, no.

28:37And he's like, well, what does it matter then? And yeah, it's a scary feeling, right? It was scary because I remember getting it and I do recall ignoring it at first because I'm like, no. And back then I did, obviously it was my error, not, you know, I filed for my LLC, but I didn't look up to see, okay, is this trademark? and that I was thinking well I spell it this way and you spell it that way and I'm doing this and you're so then I can't be infringing and they repeatedly they kept sending emails and said okay we can take these to court and and I remember I sent off an email like you know I'm a small business I just I'm just getting started you know for you to come at me this way but you know it was fine I think I was fortunate where at the time I was hand labeling bottles so I didn't do a run where let's say I had bottles printed with the name, but at the time I did have boxes.

29:39I had outer packaging with the name that just went to waste. Obviously the website, our social media, like going through the process of changing everything, but it was scary. And at the same time, it made me feel, am I doing something that landed me on your radar enough? Where I have barely launched, our so at the time our social media was very much buzzing i will say um but it was it did give me that little what did i do that would land my small brand on your lord because they were sold in top shop they were sold you know and all these different stores in the u.s as well as their uk presence but it did make me feel like okay i have there must be something that you feel a little threatened by maybe so yeah no that's awesome and I don't know about you but my experience was it was a blessing in disguise because then that's how I got the name founder right exactly it was absolutely a blessing in disguise because even at the time our tagline was clean beauty for the forgotten shades and I was nervous to really push our story of being for acne and eczema prone skin because, you know, we're in an industry where flawless skin is pushed and we're in an industry where conventionally pretty is pushed.