My Biggest Lessons with Chris Meade

Chris Meade used Gorgias to generate over $1,000,000 in retail sales, learn how he did, and you can too.

Shray Joshi joins Chris to share big mistakes they've made during BFCM in years past.

Sign up for Chris' weekly newsletter Cross Commerce here, and connect with him on Twitter and Linkedin.

Chris Meade is the co-founder & CMO of CROSSNET, the world’s first four-way volleyball game. Chris was honored with Forbes 30U30 for the 2021 Sports category. CROSSNET combines elements of the childhood game four square and volleyball in a competitive game to 11, win by 2. CROSSNET is now available at 3000+ retail stores such as Walmart, Target, DICKS, Academy Sports, Sam’s Club and 20+ other retailers.

Chris Meade used Gorgias to generate over $1,000,000 in retail sales, learn how he did, and you can too.

After starting an Instagram account about the life of a baseball player. It grew into a community, and before he knew it a brand. This is his story, and the lessons learned along the way.

Key moments in this episode of My Biggest Lessons

4:35 Professional athletes who have made it to the big leagues

5:30 Waiting until 1M in sales before spending money on advertising

7:00 Founder dynamics with a large age gap and working with your wife

8:00 College World Series the fire Marshall set up.

10:00 Business never escapes us Chris audiogram

10:30 Hiring a fractional CEO, and what you get from hiring them. When you need to spend more money.

17:00 getting into stores like Sheilds

18:00 Driving retail sales and sell through

19:45 Generating $5000 a day in sales from a single pop-up

Sign up for Chris' weekly newsletter Cross Commerce here, and connect with him on Twitter and Linkedin.

Chris Meade is the co-founder & CMO of CROSSNET, the world’s first four-way volleyball game. Chris was honored with Forbes 30U30 for the 2021 Sports category. CROSSNET combines elements of the childhood game four square and volleyball in a competitive game to 11, win by 2. CROSSNET is now available at 3000+ retail stores such as Walmart, Target, DICKS, Academy Sports, Sam’s Club and 20+ other retailers.

Chris Meade used Gorgias to generate over $1,000,000 in retail sales, learn how he did, and you can too.

Cael Schwartz is head of product at Birddogs, he stopped by the DTCX studio in NYC to talk about their growth, Shark Tank, and advertising on platforms like Pornhub and Grinder.

Key lessons in this episode.

5:00 The Impact Chubbies had on two ecommerce founders

6:13 Backlash from marketing emails

7:45 Funny stories

11:13 Day in the life of a head of product at an ecommerce company.

14:00 Inventory fuck ups

16:00 Begging suppliers to slow down after Shark Tank

21:00 Ordering 6 months of back inventory by accident

22:00 TV ads and alternative advertising networks including Pornhub and Grinder

28:00 Why Birddogs keeps everything in house

Sign up for Chris' weekly newsletter Cross Commerce here, and connect with him on Twitter and Linkedin.

Chris Meade is the co-founder & CMO of CROSSNET, the world’s first four-way volleyball game. Chris was honored with Forbes 30U30 for the 2021 Sports category. CROSSNET combines elements of the childhood game four square and volleyball in a competitive game to 11, win by 2. CROSSNET is now available at 3000+ retail stores such as Walmart, Target, DICKS, Academy Sports, Sam’s Club and 20+ other retailers.

Learn how Chris closed over $1M in wholesale business through Gorgias, and you can too. https://www.gorgias.com/customers/crossnet

Kenny Flowers is run by Kenny Haisfield, who founded the brand in 2015 when he quit his corporate consulting job in NYC to move in with his grandma in Bali and start making Hawaiian shirts for his friends.

Key moments in this episode

3:24 Going to College and Coming out as an entrepreneur, and telling your friends and family you’re starting a business.

4:03 Visiting a family member living in Bali as a nomad before it was popularized.

6:25 Making connections with manufacturers.

7:38 Fuck ups early on in building a clothing and apparel business

9:18 Being deep in SKUs as a modern resort brand.11:32 The power of friend and family support

14:20 Tips for working remote - you have to be disciplined. You don’t think of the founder working behind a computer.

16:10 Separating working relationships

19:16 There are fires every day

20:14 Fighting iOS 14 issues and working with A list influencers.

26:41 what would you tell your younger self

Chris Meade used Gorgias to generate over $1,000,000 in retail sales, learn how he did, and you can too.

Emanuel Storch is the founder of Blackbird foods, based out of NYC the OG plant protein and frozen pizza. Based Now the fastest growing pizza brand. Prior to this, he was the founder of Simpli gum.

Key moments in this episode

0:00 Intro and how Blackbird Foods became the best plant based pizza and fastest growing pizza brand in the world.

3:00 Getting started with plant based meats to restaurants for plant based meat. 60% of the business is selling into food distributors.

5:00 Increasing sell-thru instores through sampling, and allocating budget into in-store samples and trade spending and going up to 20% trade spend.

9:00 Horror stories rolling up into retail. Bad promotions like individual slides and trying to get new ideas to shop.

11:15 How Blackbird Foods has changed from their first iteration, and growing from a plant based audience to a more wide appeal for flexitarians and adventurous foodies.

12:45 Selling on platforms like getter and Uber Eats.

14:30 How they were able to get into Whole Foods with regional and national buying. Emanuel started regional focusing on the North East including their home town of New York. They also launched in the South West region including Texas where the Whole Foods headquarters is.

16:30 Lessons learned from bringing Simply gum into Wal-Mart, Target, and Whole Foods. 17:00 Funding the business and keeping things simple including the best things being done in-house, and finding the right hires early on.

21:00 Lessons learned from product line expansion. Just because something is good for restaurants, doesn’t mean that it will be a great fit for a restaurant.

Sign up for Chris' weekly newsletter Cross Commerce here, and connect with him on Twitter and Linkedin.

Chris Meade is the co-founder & CMO of CROSSNET, the world’s first four-way volleyball game. Chris was honored with Forbes 30U30 for the 2021 Sports category. CROSSNET combines elements of the childhood game four square and volleyball in a competitive game to 11, win by 2. CROSSNET is now available at 3000+ retail stores such as Walmart, Target, DICKS, Academy Sports, Sam’s Club and 20+ other retailers.

Chris Meade used Gorgias to generate over $1,000,000 in retail sales, learn how he did, and you can too.

Pete Sena is a creative entrepreneur and forward-obsessed business builder and founder of Digital Surgeons. He brings over 20 years of experience with him, working on brands like Lego and Hershey to American Express and SalesforceTopics and Lessons.

Lessons Pete has learned, and shares with the audience.

Get your contract signed before giving away work. (Working with two major celebrities created a breakthrough campaign but had to chase the money)

You have to start by defining success. Success isn't just working with great clients and making financial gains. How i've leaned into frameworks to shift and evolve my thinking.

Where our focus goes our energy flows. It took me 15 years to realize that speed comes with systems and smart workflows. Now I lean into automations and frameworks to grow. DON’T build a business AROUND you.

Key Moments in this episode:

2:30 Getting qualified to work with brands from someone who knows how to design and code from first iteration to going public and big names like Kanye West and Lady Gaga.

4:00 Choosing the right agency partner is about working on what the agency is best at. If they’re a PR agency, focus on PR, not website design.

7:30 When a $100,000,000 digital turnaround strategy doesn’t go as planned.

9:30 Lessons from Nik Sharma on branding through different tactical lenses. Branding is always happening. It’s easier to brand first then to go back and try to overhaul and fix things.

12:30 Measuring brand vs other aspects like conversion, and how those investments early on make a difference.

14:00 The first advice Pete would give to someone starting an agency is don’t start an agency. Sometimes it just happens, but other times it’s a way to work on your craft. You don’t need to start an agency to do what you want to do.

16:00 Working at an agency is a great way to work on a few different things without bouncing around jobs. Starting an agency is starting a service based business.

18:30 The world of instant gratification and ease of getting started leading to a lack of patience. Diversification helps, but it won’t help you chase passion. Knowing yourself is the most important thing when it comes to waiting for an overnight success.

22:00 The green zone, or the zone of genius is where you can be motivated to work and you’re good at. Some people might love data entry whereas others love more creative work.

24:00 Staying motivated and thinking beyond the metrics when there are other things to think of. Crossnet is more than daily sales, it’s creating memories and beautiful days with friends and family.

30:00 Finding your purpose and making it easier to have the genius zone.

Sign up for Chris' weekly newsletter Cross Commerce here, and connect with him on Twitter and Linkedin.

Chris Meade is the co-founder & CMO of CROSSNET, the world’s first four-way volleyball game. Chris was honored with Forbes 30U30 for the 2021 Sports category. CROSSNET combines elements of the childhood game four square and volleyball in a competitive game to 11, win by 2. CROSSNET is now available at 3000+ retail stores such as Walmart, Target, DICKS, Academy Sports, Sam’s Club and 20+ other retailers.

Chris Meade used Gorgias to generate over $1,000,000 in retail sales, learn how he did, and you can too.

Dan Demsky is a co-founder of Unbound Merino. A premium apparel company made for travel.

3:45 Getting started and positioning a premium brand online 9:35 How do customers understand about Merino and the properties.

11:35 Do customers come back or buy more.

13:25 The skills from a video production company that helped to launch an ecommerce brand with customers instead of clients.

15:20 Biggest lessons and mistakes, including hiring much faster than they could keep up with.

Sign up for Chris' weekly newsletter Cross Commerce here, and connect with him on Twitter and Linkedin.

Chris Meade is the co-founder & CMO of CROSSNET, the world’s first four-way volleyball game. Chris was honored with Forbes 30U30 for the 2021 Sports category. CROSSNET combines elements of the childhood game four square and volleyball in a competitive game to 11, win by 2. CROSSNET is now available at 3000+ retail stores such as Walmart, Target, DICKS, Academy Sports, Sam’s Club and 20+ other retailers.

Chris Meade used Gorgias to generate over $1,000,000 in retail sales, learn how he did, and you can too.

Mike Fata is the founder of Manitoba Harvest. A company that makes natural hemp foods sold online and in-store. Get in contact with him, and learn more about mentoring here.

2:00 Thoughts on college and university and educating yourself. There are more ways to educate yourself than traditional channels.

4:30 How Mike funded the original iteration of Manitoba Harvest. Now as an investor, Mike shares what types of investments he makes in products, and founders he'd like to have in his house, and singing high praise for Jake at Mid Day Squares.

7:30 It's a much more competitive world now, but there are more tools you can use.

9:00 Lessons learned the hard way, including not trying to fight the government. Even if you win the battle, you could be paying a lot more down the road.

10:30 Being an entrepreneur is a competitive sport, and you have to eat and train like an athlete. Chris shares the benefits of doing yoga or Pilates twice a week.

13:30 Bootstraping, putting in your own capital, and building out your own board of advisors. Mike shares resources for setting up an advisory board without being taken advantage of.

16:00 The race to profitability with lowering valuations and the importance of making money. The journey from $5-$10M and then to $50M requires a ton of capital. A true 50% gross margin with discounts and overhead gives you the ability to tap into growth.

Sign up for Chris' weekly newsletter Cross Commerce here, and connect with him on Twitter and Linkedin.

Chris Meade is the co-founder & CMO of CROSSNET, the world’s first four-way volleyball game. Chris was honored with Forbes 30U30 for the 2021 Sports category. CROSSNET combines elements of the childhood game four square and volleyball in a competitive game to 11, win by 2. CROSSNET is now available at 3000+ retail stores such as Walmart, Target, DICKS, Academy Sports, Sam’s Club and 20+ other retailers.

Chris Meade used Gorgias to generate over $1,000,000 in retail sales, learn how he did, and you can too.

Athletes treat pain with many different remedies, but many have side effects or other bad stuff. That's why Ryan Gresh started the Feel Good Lab.

2:37 Mark Cuban tackling pharmaceuticals.

3:46 Creating products without bad ingredients for transdermal delivery, but keeping the ingredients that work.

5:20 Getting customers to trial a new product when you're in chronic pain through authoritative

8:30 Selling on QVC and making the claims around brand level natural messaging.

13:00 Learning how to use fund raising to drive retail sales in stores like Target vs bootstrapping and then raising money when you need it.

19:30 The mistake of paying part time employees full time wages.

21:00 Ryan's biggest lesson of treating the business like a family and not a sports team. Not everyone will treat the business the same way as you.

Sign up for Chris' weekly newsletter Cross Commerce here, and connect with him on Twitter and Linkedin.

Chris Meade is the co-founder & CMO of CROSSNET, the world’s first four-way volleyball game. Chris was honored with Forbes 30U30 for the 2021 Sports category. CROSSNET combines elements of the childhood game four square and volleyball in a competitive game to 11, win by 2. CROSSNET is now available at 3000+ retail stores such as Walmart, Target, DICKS, Academy Sports, Sam’s Club and 20+ other retailers.

Nik Hall is a follower of Christ, husband to the best wife, and the cofounder of vitafive, an emerging gummy vitamin brand with high quality ingredients and now a lower sugar gummy vitamin alternative that we have launched into Target and HEB (while previously scaling our sugar gummy into over 7,000 retail doors.

Key times in this episode

3:30 Why people stop taking their vitamins after a few weeks and lifetime value drops.

5:30 Managing regulations and following best practices.

9:30 Good vs bad partners. Stay away from drug stores like CVS and Walgreens.

15:30 Breaking down the math of increasing LTV

17:00 Go slow and build methodically vs trying to do everything all the time.

20:00 Changes in marketing spend now vs 12 months ago, and mastering Amazon ad buying budget.

23:27 Nik’s biggest lesson is to have faith that the process and everything will work out.

Sign up for Chris' weekly newsletter Cross Commerce here, and connect with him on Twitter and Linkedin.

Chris Meade is the co-founder & CMO of CROSSNET, the world’s first four-way volleyball game. Chris was honored with Forbes 30U30 for the 2021 Sports category. CROSSNET combines elements of the childhood game four square and volleyball in a competitive game to 11, win by 2. CROSSNET is now available at 3000+ retail stores such as Walmart, Target, DICKS, Academy Sports, Sam’s Club and 20+ other retailers.