Will Nitze

IQBAR

Founder/CEO

Wood Mackenzie

Sales & Marketing Manager

Sales & Marketing Associate

Founder, IQBAR (iqbar.com) 🍫+💧+☕️

🍫 Founder/CEO, IQBAR (iqbar.com)
🎙️ Co-Host, "Eating Glass" Podcast
🎓 Harvard BA

We make superior brain + body fuel. IQBAR® plant protein bars, IQMIX® hydration sticks, and IQJOE® instant coffees are packed with the functional compounds you need to win your day.

Ryan Rouse

MALK Organics

President

Self Employed

Growth Advisor

HighKey 

Chief Executive Officer (acquired)

Board Member

Chief Marketing & Ecommerce Officer

Tasseo Consumer Ecosystem

Operating Partner

Serenity Kids

Head of Growth

Factor_

Co-Founder (Acquired by Hello Fresh)

Chief Marketing Officer

Chief Operating Officer

Merrill Lynch

Vice President of Sales

Growth advisor to consumer businesses with a focus on every line of the P&L | Previously, Co-Founder at Factor Meals (acquired), CEO at Highkey

Growth-minded CPG leader with deep experience across finance, brand building, and operational leadership.

After more than a decade in finance—culminating in an eight-year tenure at Merrill Lynch—I co-founded Factor_, a ready-to-eat meal delivery company that went on to be acquired by HelloFresh for $277M in 2020.

I joined HighKey Snacks as Chief Marketing Officer and later CEO, guiding the low-sugar snack brand through rapid expansion and an acquisition in 2024.

I'm currently the President of MALK Organics, a fast-growing, near nine-figure brand redefining the plant-based milk category with its commitment to clean, organic ingredients and uncompromising quality.

And I write a newsletter about what it really takes to grow—your company, your mindset, your tolerance for chaos:
​
​• The unfiltered truth about building a brand
• Why “strategy” isn’t always strategic
• What to do when everything feels on fire
• Mindset shifts that keep you sane(ish)​
• Founder mistakes, market moves, and lessons I’m still learning​
​
​Part playbook, part perspective shift.
For anyone trying to grow something—and keep their head on straight.

Sign up using the link here (or below my profile pic above): https://ryanrouse.me/

Vice President | Partner

Data driven investors in early stage consumer brands. 

The more polished your corporate language, the less your employees believe a word you say.

Early in my startup career, I'd craft these perfect all-hands emails. 

"We're excited to announce strategic realignment initiatives that will optimize our organizational effectiveness."

Translation: We're laying people off.

My team saw right through it.

And it created distrust and disengagement.

So I changed my approach.

Instead of "pursuing growth opportunities," I started saying "we're trying something new and honestly, we're not sure if it'll work."

Instead of "navigating headwinds," I said "this quarter sucked and here's why."

It was uncomfortable at first.

But the team started asking real questions instead of nodding politely.

And they started to trust me more when things got hard because they knew I wouldn't sugarcoat it.

I remember the first time I told my team "I don't have a good answer for that yet" in a meeting. 

Someone was brave enough to say "thank you for not making something up."

People don't want perfect messaging from their leaders.

They want honest communication about what's really happening and how it affects them.

Even if you don't know. 

Your team can handle the truth. 

What they can't handle is being treated like they're too naive to see through corporate BS. 

Every euphemism you use is a withdrawal from the trust bank.

And that account doesn't have overdraft protection.

Never Been on a Forbes List | President at MALK Organics | Daddy at Rouse House | Previously: Co-Founder & CMO at Factor_, CEO at Highkey

Every morning at 5:30 AM, my alarm goes off.

And I have a choice.

Hit snooze and skip my workout, or get up and move.

That's the first battle of the day.

Success isn't some climactic moment where everything falls into place.

It's winning thousands of these small fights. Day after day.

The decision to kill a product you spent 18 months developing because it clearly doesn't work. 

The discipline to skip the third glass of wine at dinner so you can think more clearly in tomorrow's meeting.

The courage to fire someone who's good but not great.

There is no one final battle.

No last job.

No riding off into the sunset.

These micro battles never stop.

And the moment you accept that?

The pressure to "arrive" disappears.

You stop waiting for some future version of success.

You start finding it in the discipline of showing up when it's hard.

In choosing the right move over the easy one.

In winning today's battles so you're ready for tomorrow's.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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The higher you climb, the lonelier it gets.

I learned this from 25 years of chasing the top.

It's odd though. The higher you get, the less people you can talk to about it. 

Can't vent to your team about the pressure.

Can't ask your boss the "dumb" questions ('cause you don't have one).

And you definitely can't admit when you're figuring it out as you go.

So I started writing.

Not corporate memos. Not LinkedIn humble brags.

Real talk about what it's actually like to lead.

The messy product launches.

The budget fights that keep you up at night.

The people decisions that haunt you.

The wins that nobody sees coming.

Look, I know how this sounds.

Another exec with a newsletter.

But if you're tired of feeling like you're the only one struggling with this stuff, I write about it every week in my newsletter.

No BS. Just truth.

Link in the comments if you're interested.

What if choosing not to be offended was the most powerful decision you could make today?

Most leaders don't realize they're handing control of their day to people who don't matter.

I've spent 15+ years in executive roles. Built teams. Navigated acquisitions. Raised 3 kids.

Many years ago, someone's criticism would completely derail me.

I'd stew on it for hours.  

But that person? Living their life. Completely unbothered.

The only person suffering was me.

It made me recognize that offense is a choice.

Not a reflex. A choice.

Now when someone tries to push my buttons, I pause and choose whether or not to engage. And how to engage if I choose to. 

I'm protecting what matters: me.

Your reaction gives other people control over your day.

Your non-reaction or calm reaction gives you back your power.

So here's my question:

Who are you letting live in your head that doesn't deserve to be there?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Being late to every meeting isn't a personality quirk. 

It's a character flaw. 

And it's costing you more than you think. 

It's like your friend who couldn't handle their alcohol and had to be baby sat every night. At first everyone's like "Oh, that's just Jeff/Julie."'

But you know what happened over time? Less and less people hung out with Jeff and Julie. 

Same goes here. 

Every time you're late to a meeting, you're showing showing people you can't be trusted with the small things.

Trust with the small things leads to trust with the big ones.

The opportunities that require trust:
- Leading a team
- Managing a budget
- Representing the company
- Taking on a big project

None of those happen if people don't trust you with the basics.

And being on time is the most basic thing there is.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Your best employee isn't the one who works the longest hours.

It's the one who says "This isn't working"…

And finds a better way.

For example, if your director of operations walked into your office and said:

"We're running the same damn report 47 times a month across three departments. It's eating 18 hours of our team's time. I built a dashboard that does it in real-time. Can we kill the reports?"

She's not asking permission to work less.
She's asking permission to work smarter.
That's the difference.

The person staying until 9pm manually pulling data? That's not dedication.

The one who automates the process and leaves at 5? That's the person driving your business forward.

Most leaders get this backwards.

We celebrate the grind. The hustle. The person who never says no.

But the real MVPs are the ones who push back:

"This meeting could be an email."
"This approval chain has six people who don't need to be involved."
"We're tracking metrics no one looks at."

They're not being difficult.

They're protecting your team's capacity for work that actually matters.

The best people on your team aren't grinding themselves into the ground.

They're thinking critically about the work.

They're questioning processes that waste time and money.

They're brave enough to challenge you directly.

Even when it's uncomfortable.

It's time to stop rewarding face time.

And start rewarding the people who make your operation leaner, faster, and more profitable.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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li_at

JSESSIONID

Talks about #business, #ecommerce, #marketing, #leadership, and #consumergoods

President at MALK Organics | Daddy at Rouse House | Previously: Co-Founder & CMO at Factor_, CEO at Highkey

I've watched good companies crumble from the inside out.

Not because of market conditions or bad products.

Because they let weak leadership linger.

Your team sees it before you do.

And every day you wait, they lose a little more belief.

Not just in that one leader.

In you. In the vision. In whether any of it matters.

The damage compounds faster than you think.

And by the time it's obvious to you, half your best people are already mentally checked out.

So when you know someone isn't cutting it, act.

Yes, transitions are messy.

Yes, there will be short-term pain.

But nothing restores faith in a team faster than watching leadership actually lead.

Congrats to all who made the Forbes list. 

I did not. Therefore, my headline remains in tact.

Being a 6/10 across many functions will serve you more than being a 10/10 in one.

But you typically have to get to a 9/10 in one area to earn the opportunity to oversee the others. 

The hard part for most people is being comfortable going from a 9/10 in something down to a 6/10 in order to create time to go from a 2/10 to a 6/10 in the others.

They can’t let go of being best in class at the one thing. 

Which limits their ability to to lead.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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You survived the launch. You got early traction.

So why does year three feel harder than year one?

Because in year one, you'd work 24/7 and love it.

The adrenaline was real. Every win felt like validation.

You didn't need sleep. You didn't need breaks.

You had rocket fuel in your veins.

But years 2-5...

The adrenaline runs out.

And when it does, the grinding reality sets in.

34.4% of founders experience burnout.

Not in year one when you're supposed to be struggling.

In years 2-5, when you're supposed to have it figured out.

Year one, you're running on pure excitement and fear.

That combination keeps you moving even when you're exhausted.

But years 2-5? That's when the wheels come off.

The excitement fades. The fear becomes background noise.

What's left is just the grind.

No finish line in sight.

Revenue looks healthy. Team is growing.

But you're running on empty.

And you don't realize it's happening.

You think you're just tired. You think it's a rough month.

You tell yourself you'll take a break soon.

But soon never comes.

Because now you've got:

• A team depending on you
• Investors expecting growth
• Customers needing support
• A reputation to protect

You can't just stop anymore.

The thing about founder burnout is it doesn't announce itself.

It shows up in small ways first.

You start dreading Monday mornings.

Emails sit unread for days.

Decision-making gets harder.

Your patience with your team gets thinner.

Then one day you wake up and realize: You don't remember the last time you felt excited about this.

The data backs this up.

Founders in their middle years report higher rates of anxiety and depression than in year one.

Not because things are going worse.

Because things are going exactly as expected.

And that's somehow harder to handle than the chaos.

If you're in those middle years right now, here's what I'd tell you:

The 24/7 hustle isn't sustainable.

It never was.

Year one, you could get away with it because the adrenaline covered the cost.

But you can't run a marathon on sprint energy.

And building a lasting company is a marathon.

Take the break. Build the boundaries. Protect your mental health.

Not because it's nice to have.

Because your business won't survive if you don't.

I spend my days analyzing consumer behavior, market trends, etc.

But my wife always points out something I completely missed.

Last month, we were arguing about why the kids kept leaving their water bottles everywhere.

I said it was a discipline problem.

She said it was a design problem.

The bottles were too heavy when full. Too awkward to carry. The lids leaked in their backpacks.

So they just... stopped using them.

I had been so focused on the behavior, I missed the product failure.

We do this in our industry. 

Blame "disloyal" customers instead of asking if our packaging is annoying to open or if our product fits in their pantry.

My wife doesn't work in CPG.

She doesn't know (or care) what a P&L is.

But she sees a ton of things I don't.

The tiny annoyances. The small frustrations. The gap between what we promise and what actually works in real life.

Here’s hoping you all have a "Lindsay" involved in the product development process.

I used to think talking about anything besides work was a waste of time.

As a founder, my life was the business.

Every minute counted.

So when team members wanted to chat about their weekend, their kids, their hobbies?

I'd nod politely and steer us back to the agenda.

I thought I was being efficient.

I was actually building walls.

Because my team had lives outside work.

Just because I had no other interests didn't mean they didn't.

The shift happened when I started asking questions. Actually listening to the answers.

Turns out, people open up when you take genuine interest in them.

The trust runs deeper. The feedback gets more honest. The work gets better.
And they stop leaving.

Relationships aren't built in conference rooms.

They're built in the margins.

The random detours in meetings that are completely off topic.

The walk to the parking lot.

The random Slack message about their kid's soccer game.

That's where teams become more than just people who work together.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Don't try to solve Day 100 problems on Day 1.

I made this mistake more times than I can count.

And I see founders do it every single day.

Here's what happens:

You're staring down a problem that's months away while ignoring the fire burning at your feet right now.

The thing is, if you solve today's problems, that Day 100 problem you're obsessing over might not even exist anymore.

At minimum, it'll look completely different.

Because every problem you solve today changes the landscape of tomorrow.

I once spent weeks worrying about how we'd scale our supply chain when we hit 10x volume.

Turns out, fixing our packaging issue TODAY led us to a new supplier who had way more capacity than we needed.

That "future problem" I was losing sleep over?

Gone before we even got there.

So be careful not to spend too much time worrying about problems that don't exist yet.

Focus on what's right in front of you.

Solve that.

Then see what shows up next.

You'll figure out the next step once you've handled this one.

P.S. "Day 1" is a metaphor to mean Today so this applies no matter what day it actually is for your biz 😉


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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You can't be great at everything.

And that's actually the point.

The bell curve is undefeated. Small percentage who are elite. Small percentage who are terrible. Large percentage in the middle.

It applies to everything - career, relationships, fitness, hobbies.

Where it gets interesting is when you stack bell curves on top of one another.

Elite in one area almost always means average or terrible in others.

The math doesn't lie.

Which means you have to pick.

Which areas of life you want to be on the upper end of the curve?

And how far down that curve do you want to go?

All those choices have trade offs. 

Personally, I want to be in the 90th percentile in family, career, and health. 

That's above average, but not elite. 

Being in the 90th percentile in all of them means I can't be in the 98th percentile in any. 

It also means I can't even be in the 60th percentile in other things that aren't on my list. 

Some people choose differently. They go all-in on one thing. Become truly elite.

They accept being below average everywhere else.

Neither approach is wrong.

What's wrong is pretending you can be elite at everything.

The trade-off is real whether you acknowledge it or not.

So pick your bell curves.

And stop lying to yourself about the ones you didn't pick.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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The DTC era taught founders a dangerous lesson.

You could skip the hard work of understanding your category.

Build a brand, tell a story, sell direct.

No need to obsess over shelf placement, competitive sets, or how retailers think about your space.

But shoppers still compare you to everything else in the category.

They always have.

Whether your product sits next to competitors on a shelf or shows up alone on your website doesn't matter.

A lot of digitally native brands tried to move into retail and got crushed. 

Because they never did the foundational work.

They didn't know their category cold.

Didn't understand how it's priced, how it's merchandised, how it's managed, how decisions get made.

That knowledge used to be non-negotiable.

Before DTC, founders had no choice but to become category experts first.

It was the only path to market.

Now it's optional.

And that optionality is killing brands.

You can't win in CPG without being obsessed with your category.

Not just your product.

The entire space you're competing in.

That's table stakes.

The more corporate you try to sound, the less effective you are.

When you just say what’s on your mind, in the way you normally talk, it’s disarming. 

And refreshing.

For everyone.

Which has all sorts of benefits. 

This is certainly true for startups, but also in corporate settings.

People want to work with people, not robots. The quicker you can establish that you are the former, the better.

Once you are past the binary risk of failure, the biggest risk for startups is complacency.

Playing not to lose vs. playing to win.

You get to the point where cash flow is positive, you're profitable, and have enough cash on the balance sheet where existential risks are minimized dramatically.

(You never remove the risk of mismanaging your money btw so let's assume you aren't.)

At that point, avoiding moves that make you uncomfortable is your biggest headwind to growth.

It's hard. You spend so many years worried like hell that you'd run out of money that once you have some, it's easy to tighten up and avoid bigger moves.

But big moves is how you got here. And it's how you'll get there.

So you have to keep your risk tolerance in tact when it comes to innovation, marketing, and supply chain decisions.

You have to maintain the sense of urgency within the company.

Not because you're scared of going out of business.

Because you want to build something that outlives you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Dear Founder, 

Doing unscalable things early isn't just hustle. it's the fastest way to compress years of learning into months. 

Handling customer service yourself, personally delivering product, talking to your customers.

These create pattern recognition that compounds when you scale. The ones who skip this step never develop the instincts. 

You don't need to automate everything from day one. I know it seems inefficient, but trust me there's a reason the best operators started in the weeds. 

They learned what actually matters by doing the work that "doesn't scale." 

Those early conversations, those manual processes. they teach you things no dashboard ever will. 

You don't have to outsource customer understanding to save time. The founders who win aren't the ones who optimized fastest, they're the ones who understood deepest. 

Find the balance where you're building systems AND staying close enough to feel the pulse. 

Your ability to scale intelligently depends on the patterns you absorbed when it was just you. 

You don't have to choose between building fast and building right. It's okay to move quickly and automate eventually, but try to earn your insights first through direct contact with your customers and product. 

You know, the kind of understanding that becomes your unfair advantage later. Isn't that worth a few months (or years) of grunt work?

Keep building 🖤


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Most people think competence is what matters most.

It's not.

It's your attitude. 

A Stanford study tracked 60 business school teams and found something wild: emotional states transfer between people in under 5 minutes of interaction.

Under 5 minutes.

That's how fast your energy spreads to everyone around you.

Think about the smartest person you've ever worked with who made everyone miserable.

Did their brilliance matter when the whole team found reasons to avoid them?

When their negativity killed every brainstorm session before it started?

I've watched this play out more times than I can count.

Incredibly talented people getting passed over because they sucked the life out of every room they entered.

And I've seen average performers climb the ladder because teams actually fought to work with them.

If you're spreading bad moods constantly, your competence stops mattering.

No one cares how smart you are if being around you feels like work.

Your skills might get you in the door.

But your attitude decides how long you stay.

And whether anyone actually wants you there.

The good news?

Unlike raw talent, attitude is something you control.

Start paying attention to the energy you bring into meetings, conversations, emails.

If people seem relieved when you leave the room, that's your answer.

And if they light up when you show up?

You've figured out something most people never do.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Every question your boss asks is really a test.

Not of your knowledge.

Of your resourcefulness.

Can you take ambiguity and turn it into clarity?
Can you move fast without sacrificing quality?
Can you solve problems they don't have time to think about?

That's the skill that matters.

"I researched this, here are three options, I recommend X because Y" makes you valuable.

"I don't know, what do you think?" makes you overhead.

Don't aspire to be the smartest person in the room.

Aspire to be the person who makes everyone else's job easier.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Will Nitze

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