The Meeting Everyone Hates Might Be Your Most Powerful Business Tool
I used to think eliminating standing meetings was a sign of a healthy culture.
I was wrong.
The problem was never the meetings. It was the lack of a system.
Build the right cadence and three things happen: → Your team stops hiding problems → Leadership stops making decisions blind → Issues get solved in hours, not weeks
Why Leaders Build Weak Teams and Don’t Know It
Every CEO says they want to hire the best people. So why do so many end up surrounded by people who agree too quickly, execute too quietly, and never push back? The answer is more uncomfortable than most leaders want to admit.
The Coming Economy & the Case for Going Low-Cost
The U.S. economy shed 92,000 jobs last month, a stunning miss against economist expectations of adding 50,000. The unemployment rate climbed to 4.4%. December was quietly revised from a gain to a loss of 17,000 jobs. This jobs report is a reminder that economic uncertainty isn’t a prediction anymore — it’s the new normal.
Big things are happening at Pricklee. 🌵
The team just closed a $2M seed round and completed a full brand repositioning — evolving from a niche cactus water brand into a mainstream natural hydration powerhouse for everyday consumers.
Your marketing has outgrown your team. But you’re not ready for a $250K (or more) CMO or COO. A fractional executive is the smart move.
You’ve outgrown your home-grown marketing, but you’re not ready (or able) to commit $250K+ to a full-time CMO or COO. There’s a solution for that gap. It’s where a fractional CMO or COO comes is.
Challenger to Category Leader: The Marketing and Operations Shifts That Matter
Most challenger CPG and consumer appliance brands stall because they keep operating like insurgents long after the insurgency phase has paid off. Moving from niche to category leader requires a deliberate shift in behavior, not just more SKUs or sales channels. Here are the actions that matter most.
Just finished the initial writing of my book on innovation leadership. 🎉
After years of developing and launching innovations across diverse industries and working with countless innovation leaders, I’ve distilled the patterns that leaders repeat which inevitably lead to innovation failure.
The working title: “How Leaders Fuck Up Innovation: An Innovation Book That is Not About Innovation”
Most businesses under $100M don’t need a COO
Most businesses under $100 million don’t need a COO.
In fact, in many, if not most, cases a COO would slow down decision-making, add unnecessary cost, confuse reporting lines, and generally be a drag on the business.
But a Fractional or Interim COO like me, that’s a different story.
Why $10–100M companies need cross-functional fractional and interim executives
Most founders/CEOs of companies between $10M – $100M think their problems sit in one bucket: Sales, Manufacturing, Operations, People, Finance. But the truth? Those buckets are linked.
Most CPG founders only think they’ve made it when they reach $20M. But the real achievement isn’t $20M it’s $2M.
Most CPG founders only think they’ve made it when they reach $20M. But the real achievement isn’t $20M it’s $2M.