My Biggest Lessons with Chris Meade

Ross Mackay is the CEO and Co-founder of Daring, a chicken alternative available in 10,000 grocery stores and 1000 restaurants around America. He chats with Chris about scaling retail sales, and taking a be where chicken is approaching.

Key Moments in this episode

0:30 How Adam started Daring getting into grocery stores and restaurants.

4:15 Identifying their ideal customer for profitable distribution.

7:00 Being where people buy chicken which is rarely online.

10:16 Driving retail sales through 

12:46 How a carnist like Chris Meade can enjoy plant based chicken.

16:00 Hiring for aptitude vs experience.

Engineer turned Entreprenur Austin Maxwell started out on Shark Tank, and now he's selling coolers around the country.

Austin shares his secrets to:

Generating his first $100K in sales to get on Shark Tank

Dominating trade shows as a sales channel and form of lead generation

The Shark Tank impact on a growing business

All ships sink eventually, including the partnerships you launched your business with.

How Austin is currently finding high ROI on Tik Tok.

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.

Tiffany Krumis auditioned for the first ever episode of Shark Tank – and struck a deal with Barbara! Hear how she grew and sold her first business, and the lessons she’s taking into her next one

2:00 Intro and be coming an accidental entrepreneur, and casting for the first ever episode of Shark Tank and making a deal with Barbara.

4:00 Convincing a shark to make an investment with no prior experience.

5:00 What’s it like working with a shark, up to selling the company.

6:45 How has Shark Tank changed? There are very few inventions now, it’s all established businesses. If it weren’t for Shark Tank, Tiffany wouldn’t have made it.

10:00 Discounting is fine as long as it’s part of the marketing strategy, and growing aggressively month over month through organic growth. Turning television opportunities into sales opportunities. The power of keeping relationships. 14:00 Not being taken advantage of as a new brand.

16:00 Lessons that may have worked at the first company.

18:00 Getting smart about managing inventory.

22:00 What’s the biggest lesson you’ve taken away? Be extremely passionate about something related to what you do. It’s a long road that if you’re only doing it for the money, and being able to talk about it day in and day out.

Adam is the founder of Crown & Paw, a brand that sells totally unique products to every single customer. He scaled from Zero to $10 Million in 9 months in a space where serious scaling appears to be impossible.

Key moments in this episode.

0:22 Going to 10 million in revenue through print on demand

4:30 Print on demand is not dropshipping. 

6:00 Keeping customers happy while automating the entire process.

7:00 Dealing with payment processors and credit cards amid delayed orders.

8:30 Dealing with customer service going into the holiday season

10:00 Pivoting to a pet lifestyle brand versus a novelty brand.

11:40 Planning for an exit with a healthy business versus a one time lift in sales.

15:00 Dealing with 2000 back orders, and overloading Zapier with automations.

19:00 The uncomfortable conversation around letting people go.

Tim Sheilds invented a sport! He joins Chris to share his biggest lessons, along with his journey of inventing and launching a sport!

1:00 Recent success of UBall, and what it is.

2:00 What if James Nasmith invented basketball today?

3:30 The painpoint that lead to the product being invented.

4:45 Growing the sport and learning lessons the hard way

6:30 Manufacturing issues.

8:30 Quality testing to make sure the product can survive, and not testing in extreme heat.

11:10 Working with big names like Lonzo ball, and motivating them to continue to post.

16:00 Importance of email marketing to be able to tell your story.

19:30 Messaging and availability for your customers

21:47 Afterpay and other payment options, and sneaking it into the abandoned cart flow

23:00 The Biggest Lesson - not following up and staying in touch with personal relationships. Pick 5 relationships to foster and talk to them on a weekly basis, and what to talk about when you’re hanging out with friends

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.

Sean Riley has gone from being on Shark Tank to millions of dollars a year in sales.

Clean your butt. https://dudeproducts.com/

1:17 with the story of how it was created, and launching a company while having full time jobs.

4:50 Going from some cool learnings to making it a full time with less than 100K in sales by going through an incubator, and taking part time jobs to make ends meet.

6:00 Getting into more retail stores and sections, and launching complimentary products that grow bigger and faster.

7:30 Raising capital and working with Mark Cuban. They used the money toward inventory, and that’s the best place to put capital early on if you can. This let them build relationships with banks to open up lines of credit based on sales and accounts receivable. [email protected] This is a good audiogram.

10:20 Be patient and let the capital come.

10:50 $702,000 in Amazon Prime sales. Using previous data to place bets for home runs and use the inventory for future orders.

13:10 Mark Cuban’s best advice early on was don’t drown in opportunity. Spend your time with what’s working. They learned during COVID how to prioritize their loyal retailers who reordered and slotted in toilet paper isles.

15:00 Most of the budget is spent putting towards getting new trials. Their NASCAR was a partnership with Wal-Mart. This means looking at ROAS less directly for direct sales through the website.

17:35 Sean is unapologetic about sharing wins and addressing competition from big brands of toilet paper players like Royal and Charmin.

20:00 Sean loves getting involved with billboards and out of home, including the virality of online presence.

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.

Connor Renton is a 3x founder and has been featured across Canadian Media platforms including BlogTO, Global News, and Sixbuzz. He runs one of Canada’s Largest Men’s basketball leagues - Brodie Rec League - with over 10,000 annual players and is cofounder at Boostbear. The worlds first better for you protein candy which has amassed over 75,000 followers in under a month all from organic content. Visit boostbear.com to join the waitlist.

Key moments in this episode.

1:00 How Chris and Connor go connected via cold email

2:45 The history of Booster Bear

4:00 The struggles of going through various food manufacturers

8:00 Power of learning from the mistakes they’ve made.

9:00 Learning Tik Tok and growing through documenting what they’re doing. Even if it’s content that was filmed 3 years ago.

12:00 Dealing with supply chain issues when sourcing protein.

13:00 building an audience os 20,000 emails, and over 75,000 followers on Tik Tok

15:45 Wholesale strategy early on, but not before owning an audience.

18:00 Ability to get your products to your customers early on.

19:36 The Biggest Lesson screwing up forecasting when working with Loblaws

Connect with Max, Cofounder of Bala Bangles on LinkedIn. Bala Bangles reinvented the way people work out by wearing the weights, and looking at how people work out at home.

4:30 Talking about the first iterations of the product and messaging, and blurring the lines of fashion and fitness.

7:45 Not relying on performance marketing and discounts earlier.

11:30 Almost being bankrupted with large orders from big box retailers, and lessons from Mark Cuban.

14:30 Working with retailers where you stand out vs blend in.

17:45 Being burned by retailers and influencers that rip you off or don't perform.

21:00 Finding your swim lanes when working with your significant other, including adding a safeword and reminding people that they're doing a good job.

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.

Michelle and Nikki started Elavi to fulfil their own need for  Functional, shelf-stable snacks designed to go with you anywhere and help with cognitive focus, balanced mood, athletic recovery, and overall vitality in a delicious, convenient way.

4:00 Starting by bootstrapping, which is amazingly hard to

5:20 Balancing full time focus form one co-founder without both having to deplete their safety nets and the importance of having a co-founder. Making contribution of both sweat equity and capital equity and managing the dynamics.

9:30 Starting their retail strategy local to keep acquisition costs down, and find out what their sales and follow up strategy looks like.

12:00 What types of sales collateral do you need? What unexpected customers did you get.

15:00 Working with distributors to work into big box retail

18:00 Hard lessons learned including shipping LTL truck loads to residential SF addresses, and working with retailers.

20:00 Discussing DTC or retail sales strategy and creative marketing strategies to connect with customers.

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.

Ash Melwani is cofounder and CMO at Obvi, a health and wellness supplement brand. He joins Chris Meade to talk about the growth of their brand to over $30M in sales over the last 30 months.

3:30 Setting up partnerships with legacy brands like Entenmann's and Reese's for partner and customer value and understanding.

9:00 Advanced marketing and collaborating with other brands.

12:00 Ash shares his biggest lessons which include not testing enough, bad flavours.

15:00 Keeping it simple with unanimous approval in house for flavouring.

17:00 Power of their Facebook community for R&D.

19:00 How the 3 co-founders came together to play to each other's strengths.

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.