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Athan Didaskalou had bet everything on a one-year-old suitcase brand called July. Then Covid wiped out travel and nearly took the business with it. What happened next turned it into a nine-figure global company. Athan came from the agency world and sold out of two businesses to go all in; his co-founder Richard Li brought the manufacturing and supply chain muscle. They chose luggage precisely because it was hard to make and dominated by a single global player. They survived lockdown on drink bottles, kept every team member, and came out the other side with a two-year head start no competitor dared to challenge. Today July has 15 tier-one retail stores in Australia, is the official luggage of the Australian Olympic Team, and is pushing into Asia, the US and beyond.
In this interview, Athan breaks down his theory of why founder-led brands beat private-equity ones, the "irrational spend" that built July's brand equity from day one, and the counterintuitive reason physical retail became their cheapest customer acquisition channel.
What you'll learn in this interview:
If you're building a DTC or consumer brand, trying to compete against a dominant incumbent, or rethinking whether retail belongs in your growth plan, this conversation will fundamentally change how you think about brand equity, resilience, and building something people actually trust.
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Jay Haddad hated being a plumber. He lived for the weekends - free diving, waterfalls, surfing, the beach - and when he and his wife had their first daughter at 23, the outdoor life they'd promised each other suddenly got hard. On his first Father's Day, they bought some fabric from Spotlight, watched a YouTube tutorial on how to thread his mother-in-law's dusty sewing machine, and made a waterproof beach pool so their daughter had somewhere safe to play. Strangers on the beach kept stopping to ask where they could buy one. That was the moment Sunny Seekers began - with zero e-commerce experience and a first sewing attempt Jay describes as shocking.
In this episode, Jay is unusually raw about the whole grind: a year of failed fabric testing, three supplier disasters in a row, the brutal reality of a seasonal product, and the personal toll of three hours of sleep a night that nearly broke him before he learned to build sustainably.
What you'll learn in this interview:
If you've boxed yourself into an identity - your trade, your job title, the industry you happen to be in - and quietly wonder whether you could build something of your own, this episode is for you. Jay had no network, no experience, and no idea how to sew. His story is a grounded reminder that the unglamorous grind of prototypes, supplier failures, and slow seasons is exactly what turns someone from "a guy sewing in the back of the house" into a founder.
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I am going to tell you about the dumbest thing I have done in 12 years of building Foundr. It is not a bad hire or a failed launch. It is something far more dangerous, because I did not even realise I was doing it. For four years I took my eye off the thing that built this entire business, and by the time I noticed, I had left years of growth on the table.
Here is the trap: when your monetisation engine is printing money, it gives you permission to be complacent about the thing that is actually feeding it. The better the downstream business performed, the less attention we gave the upstream asset driving all of it.
In this episode, I get honest about how our podcast drifted into autopilot for years, the signals that told me my core was neglected, and the aggressive refocus that brought it back.
Here's what you'll take away:
• Why "fine" can be the most dangerous word in business, and how success itself makes you complacent about what got you there
If things in your business are going "fine" right now, this episode is a warning worth heeding. Ask yourself when you last personally touched your core product and obsessed over making it better, because if it is not recent, you might already be on autopilot.
If you're loving this solo series, I'd love to hear your feedback. Email me directly at [email protected] — I read every reply. Hope you enjoy it.
SAVE 50% ON OMNISEND FOR 3 MONTHS
Get 50% off your first 3 months of email and SMS marketing with Omnisend using the code FOUNDR50.
SAVE 95% ON XERO FOR 6 MONTHS
WANT TO GROW YOUR BRAND WITH META ADS?
HOW WE CAN HELP YOU SCALE YOUR BUSINESS FASTER
Learn directly from 7, 8 & 9-figure founders inside Foundr+
Start your $1 trial → https://www.foundr.com/startdollartrial
PREFER A CUSTOM ROADMAP AND 1-ON-1 COACHING?
→ Starting from scratch? Apply here → https://foundr.com/pages/coaching-start-application
→ Already have a store? Apply here → https://foundr.com/pages/coaching-growth-application
CONNECT WITH NATHAN CHAN
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/nathanchan
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanhchan/
FOLLOW FOUNDR FOR MORE BUSINESS GROWTH STRATEGIES
YouTube → https://bit.ly/2uyvzdt
Website → https://www.foundr.com
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/foundr/
Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/foundr
Twitter → https://www.twitter.com/foundr
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/foundr/
Podcast → https://www.foundr.com/podcast
Mariam Naficy sold her first company for over $100 million in cash - two weeks before the Nasdaq crashed in 2000. Then she did something harder. She built Minted, a crowdsourced design marketplace her own investors thought was weird, watched it generate zero sales for its first month, and was one day away from shutting it down when it turned the corner and took off like a rocket ship. Today Minted does around $300 million a year, and she's now chairwoman while building her third company, Arcade, an AI-to-physical-product marketplace that's already raised $42 million.
SAVE 95% ON XERO FOR 6 MONTHS
SAVE 50% ON OMNISEND FOR 3 MONTHS
Get 50% off your first 3 months of email and SMS marketing with Omnisend using the code FOUNDR50.
SAVE 95% ON XERO FOR 6 MONTHS
If I lost everything tomorrow, the team, the audience, the network, here's the exact tactical playbook I'd use to build back to $1 million from scratch.
If I lost everything tomorrow, the team, the audience, the brand, the 13 years of relationships and network I have built, and I had to make $1 million from zero, here is exactly what I would do. This is not a motivational pep talk. It is the real, tactical, step by step playbook with no fluff.
Here is the thing most founders get backwards: they build the product, then go looking for customers. You need to flip it. Find the customers first, then build the product.
In this episode, I walk through the whole 0 to $1 million playbook, from how I would validate a physical product before spending a dollar on inventory to why founder-led content is the one thing I would do differently if I started over.
Here's what you'll take away:
• The exact three step validation process I would run before ordering a single unit, including why three star reviews are where the gold is
If you are thinking about starting something, or you are stuck spinning your wheels on a brand that has not taken off, this episode gives you the clean, no-nonsense sequence I would follow to get to that first million.
Quick heads up: this episode is brought to you in partnership with Xero, the accounting software I have used to run Foundr since day one, and they have put together a genuinely strong offer for listeners in the show notes.
If you're loving this solo series, I'd love to hear your feedback. Email me directly at [email protected] — I read every reply. Hope you enjoy it.
SAVE 50% ON OMNISEND FOR 3 MONTHS
Get 50% off your first 3 months of email and SMS marketing with Omnisend using the code FOUNDR50.
SAVE 95% ON XERO FOR 6 MONTHS
WANT TO GROW YOUR BRAND WITH META ADS?
HOW WE CAN HELP YOU SCALE YOUR BUSINESS FASTER
Learn directly from 7, 8 & 9-figure founders inside Foundr+
Start your $1 trial → https://www.foundr.com/startdollartrial
PREFER A CUSTOM ROADMAP AND 1-ON-1 COACHING?
→ Starting from scratch? Apply here → https://foundr.com/pages/coaching-start-application
→ Already have a store? Apply here → https://foundr.com/pages/coaching-growth-application
CONNECT WITH NATHAN CHAN
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/nathanchan
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanhchan/
FOLLOW FOUNDR FOR MORE BUSINESS GROWTH STRATEGIES
YouTube → https://bit.ly/2uyvzdt
Website → https://www.foundr.com
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/foundr/
Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/foundr
Twitter → https://www.twitter.com/foundr
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/foundr/
Podcast → https://www.foundr.com/podcast
Four childhood friends pooled $30,000 in a Chicago apartment to make wet
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Trieu became a dentist because he liked working with his hands and helping people - he got into UCSF's dental school as the very last student accepted, number 81 in a class of 81. Then the job started breaking his body. Aching neck, aching back, and mentors around him retiring early from surgeries.
So he tinkered with some prisms until he could sit up straight and see like he was looking through a microscope, filed a patent, and built Hero Loops - ergonomic loupes that do the job of a $20,000 wall-mounted unit. He launched it one month before the pandemic hit. He still practises dentistry full time while running the whole thing.
In this episode, Trieu gets honest about the brutal timing of launching right before Covid, the years it took to crack marketing after nailing the product, and how he thinks about building - including a psychology framework he borrowed straight from dentistry.
What you'll learn in this interview:
If you're a professional with deep expertise in a field, sitting on a product idea but unsure whether you can build something outside your day job - this episode is for you. Trieu's story is a grounded reminder that the product is only half the battle: learning to market it is the skill that actually compounds, and you don't have to quit everything to start.
SAVE 50% ON OMNISEND FOR 3 MONTHS
Get 50% off your first 3 months of email and SMS marketing with Omnisend using the code FOUNDR50.
SAVE 95% ON XERO FOR 6 MONTHS
WANT TO GROW YOUR BRAND WITH META ADS?
I interviewed the founder of HexClad about a year ago. Cookware, pots and pans, not the sexiest category in the world. But their ambassador is Gordon Ramsay, one of the most famous chefs on the planet. And when he holds up your pan, you do not need to explain anything else. So here is the question nobody asks: how does a cookware brand get Gordon Ramsay without a massive ad budget or a celebrity agency on retainer?
Here is the answer: a genuinely great product and a strategy. The same strategy I have used to build Foundr for over a decade and that I apply to every brand I advise.
In this episode, I break down the ambassador playbook step by step so you can get respected people in your market to endorse your brand, even if you are starting with zero audience and zero connections.
Here's what you'll take away:
• The three pillars of a brand that breaks through: a genuinely great product, next level design, and ambassadors
If you have been assuming that big-name endorsements are reserved for brands with big budgets, this episode will show you exactly why they are not, and give you a concrete list to start working through this week.
If you're loving this solo series, I'd love to hear your feedback. Email me directly at [email protected] — I read every reply. Hope you enjoy it.
SAVE 50% ON OMNISEND FOR 3 MONTHS
Get 50% off your first 3 months of email and SMS marketing with Omnisend using the code FOUNDR50.
SAVE 95% ON XERO FOR 6 MONTHS
WANT TO GROW YOUR BRAND WITH META ADS?
HOW WE CAN HELP YOU SCALE YOUR BUSINESS FASTER
Learn directly from 7, 8 & 9-figure founders inside Foundr+
Start your $1 trial → https://www.foundr.com/startdollartrial
PREFER A CUSTOM ROADMAP AND 1-ON-1 COACHING?
→ Starting from scratch? Apply here → https://foundr.com/pages/coaching-start-application
→ Already have a store? Apply here → https://foundr.com/pages/coaching-growth-application
CONNECT WITH NATHAN CHAN
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/nathanchan
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanhchan/
FOLLOW FOUNDR FOR MORE BUSINESS GROWTH STRATEGIES
YouTube → https://bit.ly/2uyvzdt
Website → https://www.foundr.com
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/foundr/
Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/foundr
Twitter → https://www.twitter.com/foundr
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/foundr/
Podcast → https://www.foundr.com/podcast
Tom Gozney hit rock bottom with addiction at 21 and spent nearly a year
SAVE 50% ON OMNISEND FOR 3 MONTHS
Get 50% off your first 3 months of email and SMS marketing with Omnisend using the code FOUNDR50.
SAVE 95% ON XERO FOR 6 MONTHS
I got on a call recently with a founder in our community who had everything right. Amazing product, clear gap in the market, strong differentiators, all the boxes ticked. But she had no sales. So I asked her to walk me through her days, and she said she was doing seven hour days posting on TikTok, Instagram, running Facebook ads, trying everything. And I told her that was the problem right there.
Here is what I keep seeing: the number one reason new brands fail at marketing is not a bad product. It is scattered focus. Every guru on the internet is telling you to be everywhere, and when you try to do everything, you become mediocre at all of it.
In this episode, I make the case for doing less and break down the exact framework I gave her: one product, one channel, one message, to one customer avatar.
Here's what you'll take away:
If you have got a great product but nothing is sticking, this episode will show you why, and give you a simple four step filter to focus everything down to what will actually move the needle.
If you're loving this solo series, I'd love to hear your feedback. Email me directly at [email protected] — I read every reply. Hope you enjoy it.
SAVE 50% ON OMNISEND FOR 3 MONTHS
Get 50% off your first 3 months of email and SMS marketing with Omnisend using the code FOUNDR50.
SAVE 95% ON XERO FOR 6 MONTHS
WANT TO GROW YOUR BRAND WITH META ADS?
HOW WE CAN HELP YOU SCALE YOUR BUSINESS FASTER
Learn directly from 7, 8 & 9-figure founders inside Foundr+
Start your $1 trial → https://www.foundr.com/startdollartrial
PREFER A CUSTOM ROADMAP AND 1-ON-1 COACHING?
→ Starting from scratch? Apply here → https://foundr.com/pages/coaching-start-application
→ Already have a store? Apply here → https://foundr.com/pages/coaching-growth-application
CONNECT WITH NATHAN CHAN
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/nathanchan
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanhchan/
FOLLOW FOUNDR FOR MORE BUSINESS GROWTH STRATEGIES
YouTube → https://bit.ly/2uyvzdt
Website → https://www.foundr.com
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/foundr/
Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/foundr
Twitter → https://www.twitter.com/foundr
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/foundr/
Podcast → https://www.foundr.com/podcast
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