LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS

Thanks for being here and taking a sip from the Fountain

This week’s newsletter dives into invaluable lessons on listening to your customers, navigating challenges, and finding inspiration in unexpected places.

Here’s what’s inside this week:

⏳ Estimated Read Time: 6 minutes

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FOUNDER LESSONS - SAXX PART 3

Last time we talked about making your first sale, and how I sold the first pairs of SAXX outside of my student union.

So you have a minimum viable product (or service) and you’ve sold a few. Money has started coming in. What do you do now? I immediately went to get feedback.

You need to understand what your customers want, because we’re not all Steve Jobs - we can’t predict what they want.

At Ivey we used to have focus group rooms where I’d incentivize students to come and talk about my underwear with beer and pizza. Tip: When collecting feedback, make it as easy as possible for respondents to join. At university it happened to be with beer as most things are.

That’s where I got the critical feedback and ideas to make the underwear better, but also to make the idea bigger. (I will dig up these videos in a few months)

The biggest insight I got from those conversations was the trend of “everyday performance.”

People wanted to wear great underwear everywhere, not just working out, hiking, or when they’re fishing. Purely performance underwear didn’t have much space in the underwear drawer.

The other insight was price. How entrepreneurs find the perfect price where their revenue is maximized based on the demand is very, very difficult. Economics classes makes it seem so easy.

Saxx was always a premium product, so they noticed the price, but they also noticed the quality. Customer feedback will get you in the ballpark of price and it will also show you the reactions when presented with a price.

Do they understand why the price is what it is? Do they think it’s a steal? Do they see the value?

Being able to balance the confidence needed to go to market with the low ego required to hear feedback without hurt feelings is something Ria talks about a lot so we put together this mindset matrix:

Axes:

Top-Left (Low Confidence, High Ego):

Top-Right (High Confidence, High Ego)

Bottom-Left (Low Confidence, Low Ego)

Bottom-Right (High Confidence, Low Ego)

If you remember the last instalment, I shared how I’ve navigated the overwhelm of entrepreneurship with gratitude, prioritizing, one-step-at-a-time and asking for help. Those are all great, but there's more! Here are four more approaches that you might find helpful in your mental toolbox:

While you probably know that, do you actually reflect on it? This YouTube video tries to illustrate the insane scale and movement of our solar system and can help us recalibrate how we see the size of our problems. I find that contemplating outer space is liberating and briefly frees me of some of the weight of my "problems".

I learned in yoga that when I feel a part of my body stressing in a pose, it quiets down when I send my attention there - instead of away from it. It seems counterintuitive but what happens is that you take away the tension and opposition, and turn the power struggle around towards a united goal. 

Exposure Therapy works in much the same way to treat anxiety and phobias. By moving towards the challenge, we learn that we can, in fact, handle it - quelling the influence of doubt and fear.

Now: imagine that thing that's really overwhelming you. Are you avoiding it, maybe putting it off? Does it involve difficult conversations or perhaps larger transitions than you feel ready for? The hardest but truest advice will be to go towards it, one step at a time, rather than avoid it, if you want to get through the ick.

The thing about all (or any) tips, tricks and strategies is that they are a practice and don't usually come easy. So please, don't be too hard on yourself. Give yourself the grace to practice this thing called Life like you would to your best friend - just reading this far means you have the heart and spirit for what lies ahead!

We talk a lot about business ideas, and this week we decided to go back to the basics on how you can find your own and actually start.

The best business ideas often come from just doing what you love, and just doing something in general.

Set aside 1-2 hours a week to dive into something you genuinely enjoy, without any pressure to succeed. These mindless, creative activities make space for problem solving and new ideas.

Think of Dude Perfect: a group of friends having fun with trick shots in college turned into a multi-million dollar brand.

They didn’t plan it, they just started. The key is to take action, follow your passion, and see where it leads. Sometimes the best ideas happen when you’re not even trying, but they won’t come if you don’t do anything.

Questions from you!

Question: When you are successful but feel a need to pivot as you have evolved how do you make space to do this?

Answer: I am inspired by Madonna - she has reinvented herself too many times to count. I love that Ria and I have humbly done very well in Fashion, Real Estate, Legal Cannabis, Alcohol, and Investing, so were an example of a "pivot" it seems every 3-5 years. Kitsch Wines we did for a decade and in Kitsch years that would be like dog years a career. 

I think we all grow as people, and also our circumstances change. When I quit baseball I was invited to Spring Training but had already decided to set a new sail and direction. 

I also think about business as a season, and you need to prepare for the season to start with a spring training. A time to get in shape, get focused, get the compete up for opening day, and gel with the team. So in your instance I would suggest to step back and assess:

Do you have a question for me or Ria about entrepreneurship or life? Hit reply and your question might help out all the other readers (anonymously) of the Fountain.