How to Bootstrap Your Startup to 7-Figures In Under 10 Years with Caroll Lee, founder Provenance Meals
You're viewing an archive of Get Sh!t Done Weekly Email Traction Briefings. Join free to receive your weekly 5-minute growth playbooks & grow alongside thousands of entrepreneurs
"I knew that I already failed at a business, and what went wrong. I learned so many lessons from that failure, so when I started Provenance, I knew what I didn’t want!" - Caroll Lee
Hey, It's Alex here
Have you started a business or a project and failed at times along the way?
Lemme tell you, you won't learn unless you fail.
The catch is to fail quickly and develop an understanding of why you failed.
Is that easy? Nah. You have to shift your mindset towards careful introspection and disciplined response.
What you'll find in this traction briefing:
How failure is an asset for future businesses.
How to scale a capital intensive company with little to no capital through strategic partnerships.
How to craft a successful go-to-market strategy.
How to leverage influencers and strategic partners to market and increase your company’s visibility.
How NOT to layoff your employees
Founder: Caroll Lee| Company: Provenance Meals| Location: New York, NY
Where was she before Provenance Meals?
Caroll started her career right at the brink of the dotcom boom. She ventured into helping to launch ecommerce and tech businesses before embarking on her true passion - helping people access healthy food!
Problem
Where can busy professionals access healthy, nutritious, sustainably-sourced and ready to go meals?
For Caroll Lee, Provenance Meals was more than a business - it was a passion. Although her journey as a food entrepreneur was rough initially, she knew that she was in the right industry. Her dream was to help more people have access to healthy, nutritious, and ethically sourced foods. Foods that could be used as medicine. Food that busy professionals on the go could prepare easily and quickly.
Provenance Meals was created to show that quick meals can be healthy and tasty at the same time.
Here's what you'll learn...
Fail Successfully
A lot of successful business people have failed at at least one other business. But how do you use that failure to your advantage? When Caroll Lee started Provenance Meals, she had already failed at one other business. How was she going to make her new company different?
Lesson - Use your past business failure as a lesson for what you do not want to do going forward. Failure is scary, but it gives you information and skills you wouldn't have had otherwise.
High-Quality Product = High-Quality Brand Experience
With increased competition in the meal kit industry over the years, marketing has become even harder. Businesses need to learn how to set themselves apart from the other products within their market.
Lesson - High-quality products speak for themselves! Provenance Meals has had a long-standing reputation of not only providing high-quality meals, but also providing an all round high-quality experience.
Influencers, Celebrities, and Industry Partners Can Be Your Biggest Marketing Asset - When Used Strategically
How do you bring a new product to market? With no visibility, Provenance Meals leveraged content marketing strategies early on but with more businesses entering the space, they needed to find a new strategy.
Lesson - Influencers, celebrities and industry partners can be your strongest marketing asset. The trick is learning what differentiates a good partner from a bad partner. Learn more here.
Here's Your Weekly Tea
How NOT To Layoff Your Employees - The Story Of Better.com
Better.com is soon entering its third round of layoffs. The first two can only be considered a hot mess and there some key lessons we can takeaway from that experience.
Here’s where they f**ked up:
Mass Layoffs that ARE preventable: Similar to many high-growth companies, Better.com laid off 900 employees over Zoom. Venture-backed companies get put in a pressure cooker in order to get to some sort of an exit in 5-7 years (no more than 10) As soon as that big check comes in, startups spend and spend fast because their VC's are telling them too. One of the first major investments is usually human capital. Unfortunately, just as many people that get hired all at once, inevitably get fired just as quickly because hiring a ton of people can NEVER solve for a business model that still needs work.
NEVER Call Your Employees Dumb: We hoped this went without saying but clearly not everyone got the memo. Layoffs are difficult times for those affected so compassion is key. Transparency and kindness can go a long way here.
It's Not About You: As difficult as it is for you as the founder, it's hella difficult for your employees who now have to figure out their next move to pay bills. Leading through empathy by acknowledging the error and taking accountability matters. Statements like, "The last time I did this, I cried." do nothing to make the process easier for the people who are now unemployed. While founders also need a supportive outlet in making that difficult decision, your employees ain't it.
Key Takeaway: If you were an employee, how would you want to be laid off? It's as simple as that. There's no perfect way to layoff an employee or employees, but you can always show your humanity in the process.
TRACTION TOOLS: How to get it done...
Here are some tools that will help non-profits scale<3
Curious to learn about influencer marketing and if it's the right marketing strategy for your business? Learn more here.
Failure is an asset, and never an endpoint. If you have experienced failure before, pivot and re-strategize.
To raise or not to raise? Here what some of our founders had to say on the topic here.
Your customers eat with their eyes first! For entrepreneurs within the food industry, here's why the first visual impression matters so much.
JOIN THE COMMUNITY
Explore community membership here.