The 7 Laws of Scaling with Jim Huffman

My week doesn't start on Monday. It starts Sunday night when I do my weekly planning.  I outline what I need to accomplish for this week to be successful and what I should not do.  Here is how I attempt to avoid the fire drills that kill a calendar so I can focus on the high impact items. 

Resources:

• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

Business suits are a necessity for some, but they aren’t necessarily a comfortable or high-performance choice, and many men don’t like them. Today’s guest surprised himself and his family by going into men’s fashion to design comfortable, science-backed clothing for these kinds of situations. Aman Advani is the CEO of Ministry of Supply, a Boston-based clothing company specializing in comfortable clothes. Listen in to hear what Aman has to say about identifying pain points, what it means to tweak a product, and how to make a splash with a launch.

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

• How Aman got into the men’s fashion space
• How Aman identified a pain point and decided to flesh out the idea
• Advice for looking for a partner
• How Aman started on proving traction
• Advice for making a splash with a launch
• Tactics or hacks that worked from a growth standard
• What Aman sees in the future of fashion
• Advice for entrepreneurs starting today
• Skills Aman has had to acquire or let go of as a CEO
• Aman’s half-baked startup ideas

Resources:

• Aman Advani
• Ministry of Supply
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

How do you grow a D2C brand from idea to 8 figures?

After working with 100+ brands at my growth agency, I have seen some raise $80M and others go on Shark Tank.

Here are the 22 things to do if you want to guarantee success.

1. Get the Product Right. If Not, Nothing Matters.
2. Launch on the Back of Your Flagship Product
3. Solve a Real Problem
4. Focus on a Specific Persona
5. Get the Business Model Right
6. Create a Movement
7. Create (and Own) Your Category
8. Pick a Fight with the Status Quo
9. Build a Community Early
10. A Cool Product Isn't Enough. Test Activation Tactics.
11. Turn Your Customers into Marketers
12. Invest Early in Organic Traffic
13. Retention is the New CAC
14. Customer Service as Marketing
15. Build Your Growth Strategy Around Seasonal Dips & Spikes
16. Facebook / Instagram Ad Tips
17. Google Ad Tips
18. Don’t Reinvent the Wheel with Your Tech Stack
19. Know Your Unit Economics, Then Scale
20. Invest in CRO to Unlock Growth
21. Your Pre-Launch Strategy Gives You an Unfair Advantage
22. Continue to Learn from the Best

Resources:

• How to Grow a D2C Startup (Tweet Storm)
• How to Grow a D2C Brand (A 22 Step Process)
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

One of the types of businesses that saw the most disruption during the pandemic was gyms. So as people start resuming their normal activities to the extent that seems worthwhile to them, how can you create a workout experience that they’ll gravitate toward? Charlie Givens, the founder of PowderHeart, has ideas about the importance of culture and a unique experience in fitness. Listen in to hear what Charlie has to say about how he got people in the door, what made him want to create a fitness experience, and what Charlie has learned from his own father over the years.

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

• What PowderHeart is and how Charlie thought of it
• How Charlie got the first people in the door
• What the pandemic experience was like for Charlie
• Advice or observations that Charlie has taken from his own father
• What working with Bumble was like
• Starting an agency for fringe sports
• How to monetize pickleball
• When Charlie decided that he peaked in high school
• The nicest thing someone has done for Charlie during his career

Resources:

• Charlie Givens
• PowderHeart
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

Want to build a growth strategy but don't know where to start? Before you do anything you need to understand the competitive landscape to see what your competitors are doing and what they're not doing.

In this episode, I talk about the four free tools you can use to understand where your competitors get traffic, what their ads and emails look like, and how they turn visitors into customers on their website. 

Resources:

• How to Spy on Tour Competitors
• MailCharts
• SimilarWeb
• SEMRush
• Facebook Ad Library
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

If you want to be a successful founder, you will need to be productive. So what can you do to make yourself more productive? In today’s episode, you’re going to hear a conversation about productivity, habits, and goals that can help you discover what it is you need to do to be a more productive person and a founder.

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

• Defining productivity
• How to be more productive
• What it means to choose a system
• How to figure out what to focus on
• What time-blocking is all about
• What to do when time-blocking
• The morning routine
• Tying a good habit with something else
• Approaching the process of laying out goals

Resources:

• Effective Executive
• Getting Things Done
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• Bullet Journal
• Deep Work
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

Are you listening to lots of podcasts but not really retaining any information?  If so, here are some ways I am looking to learn by putting knowledge into action. It's costing me $80k but I hope to make an ROI on it. The list includes angel investing, joining a board as a director, joining a paid mastermind or founder organization, and hiring a business consultant. Learn what I am trying to get out of it and why I am happy to pay for it.

Resources:

• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

What stands at the intersection of Slack and Zoom? The answer is Volley: a messaging app that gives users all of the richness of video with the asynchronous flexibility of text. Listen in to today’s interview with Josh Little, founder and CEO of Volley. You’ll learn about proving traction, building the product that you’re going to market, and getting the company to the next level, plus some new startup ideas. 

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

• How Josh got onto an entrepreneurial path
• The process of looking through ideas and choosing one
• How he launched Volley
• How Josh knew he had traction
• Where Volley is right now in terms of the future and growth
• Channels or tactics to get a company to the next level
• Josh offers 5+ Startup ideas
• What Josh would do if he was starting today

Resources:

• Josh Little
• Volley
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

It's July 2021 as I record this so here is a mid-year update on my company GrowthHit.  Today I discuss the following: 

• A financial update on GrowthHit
• The good things happening at my company
• The tough things that come with growing pains
• The questions I have as a bootstrapped CEO
• What's ahead for the rest of the year

Resources:

• The Hardest Day of My Career
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

Imagine launching a brand and making a million in sales in just a week. In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Brian Lockard, who launched a brand that aims to bring nurses shoes that make them feel like the respected professionals they are. Listen to the episode to hear what Brian has to say about founding BALA shoes: why he decided to market to nurses specifically, what it was like to go in on the brand 100%, and what Brian is doing to reach the next level of growth.

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

• How Brian came up with the idea for BALA nursing shoes
• Why Brian selected nurses as a market instead of going more broadly
• How Brian approached his finances when he was starting up
• The influence that working at Nike had on the BALA 
• When Brian started to see that they had a product that people wanted
• How BALA’s launch aligns with the narrative about fundraising
• How Brian came up with the name BALA
• The most unexpected challenge Brian has had
• Brian’s favorite tools
• Advice Brian would give to a D2C founder starting today
• The nicest thing anyone has done for Brian in his career

Resources:

• Brian Lockard
• BALA
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook