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.

Picked this up a few days ago and couldn't put it down. So good.

My favorite take-aways:

1️⃣ If you're world-class at one thing, you can absorb *tons* of mistakes in other areas of your business as you scale.

For Sam, this was his promo strategy. For you, it might be sales. Or product. Or distribution. Or whatever. But you GOTTA be world-class at something.

2️⃣ Competition is great! It allows you to "borrow" your rivals' best ideas and forces you to iteratively improve.

Everyone takes ideas from everyone, so you might as well do it well. Sam's Club does $90B in rev; Sam snagged the idea from Sol Price in the early 80's.

3️⃣ Create a culture such that The Best Idea Wins.

Sam was strong-willed, but intellectually humble. He reversed his opposition to tech investments when his lieutenants made compelling arguments for them.

4️⃣ Obsess over costs.

People focus on sales / growth / fundraising. "Fun" metrics. But defense wins championships. Walmart's expenses-to-sales ratio has always been ultra low.

5️⃣ Spend a TON of time on the front lines.

Sam did a crazy number of store visits (WMT + others). He talked to a crazy number of associates and customers. His finger was *always* on the pulse.

Any who...give it a read. I think you'll enjoy.

🍫 Founder & CEO, IQBAR (iqbar.com)
🎙️ Co-Host, Eating Glass (eatingglass.com)
📈 Purveyor of random startup learnings
🎓 Harvard BA

Founder/CEO, IQBAR 🍫💧☕️

Bumped into the great and powerful Blake Mitchell yesterday while jogging.

Before I knew it, we were discussing whacky branding ideas in the sauna the following morning.

Moral of the story: be careful while jogging.

It’s a baddd day to be toilet paper.

Sam N. and team just put Big TP on notice with their rebrand.

Epic branding. Epic product. Epic group of operators and investors.

Very bullish on this company (and category more broadly).

Consumers accept MAJOR trade-offs if you over-deliver on their priorities.

Take Trader Joe's...

→ never enough parking capacity
→ not a great produce section
→ few options; even fewer healthy options
→ smaller stores / shopper congestion

But boy do they CRUSH IT on...

→ price
→ customer service
→ unique / carefully curated / fun items
→ simplicity and consistency

For millions of consumers, the second list massively trumps the first.

Point being: your top priority is your customers' top 3-5 priorities.

- - -

Footnote: check out the "Acquired" podcast ep on Trader Joe's. It's great. My favorite tidbit was that Trader Joe's invented packaged almond butter.

Socialize with people who are chronically satisfied.

Work with / for people who are chronically dissatisfied.

Marry someone who is the right combination of the two.

As you scale, your definition of a "win" fundamentally changes.

You're goal shifts from "A great thing happened this week!" to "Ahhh...nothing blew up this week."

This isn't good or bad - it just is what it is.

To be clear, you still have to play offense. You still have to chase breakthroughs to achieve growth. But...you'll be playing TONS of defense as a mature org.

Point being: learn to love defense, or sell your business.

There’s only one place and time of year I can wear these and not get made fun of:

Miami Art Basel

“Speed wins” is true, but too vague.

You gotta prioritize *which* activities you do fast (sprinting in the wrong direction will bury you).

For us, it’s:

1. Product enhancement
2. Margin enhancement (e.g., COGS)
3. New SKU dev / launch
4. Production capacity expansion
5. Distribution expansion

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