Entrepreneur vs Operator: Notes on my 12 year journey at LifeAid entering 2024

I’ve had quite the journey over the past 12 years co-founding LIFEAID Beverage Company, LLC , first as some scribbles on the back of a notepad to an established, multinational beverage company selling millions of cases a year.  This past year has forced some deeper thinking on my journey, the key milestones we accomplished (and missed), the individuals that have come and gone, and my own personal development throughout.  It’s been an amazing ride for which I am truly grateful and still remain inspired.

I’ve come to realize (especially given the present, restrictive environment in the CPG space) that the mindset often shared by entrepreneurs, which might be necessary for the creation of a successful business, might later be at significant odds with good corporate management.  The hard reality is that the transition from a successful entrepreneur to successful operator is a tough one.  (Some of the challenges currently faced by arguably the greatest entrepreneur of our generation, Elon Musk, come starkly to mind). 

As entrepreneurs, we are conditioned to want to continuously build, think big and bold, take quick action, live in abundance, and maintain a thrive versus survive mindset.  These are themes ever present in podcasts.  There is an entire industry of books committed to the subject.  But I’m finding that a blind adherence to such thinking can actually serve as obstacles during certain cycles in the economy at large and in the business.  As it so often does, the truth always lurks in the gray areas.  My soul searching has led me to this truth: to be a successful and profitable founder-led organization, a balancing act is required.

Here are some themes that I have had to reconsider to successfully navigate 2023 and which will persist in 2024

1)     Sometimes, the best addition is through subtraction.  This past year we went to work subtracting all sorts of things in the business.  It’s only when you deprive yourself of something that you can truly understand its importance.  Through this tough exercise I can confidently say LifeAid is now at a place where we know what’s mission critical and where we may have cut too deep.  This can lead to transformational understandings of how to win in any environment.

2)     Sometimes thinking small is better than thinking big.  This year we turned our attention to small, incremental improvements in the business.  Flavor, process, laser focus on our spend, and ensuring we have the right team, not necessarily a big team.  It is times like these where thinking small can yield better results than thinking big.  Small, incremental improvements to products and businesses will lead to big successes in outyears.

3)     Sometimes core is better than more.  We increased our focus on our core community, core products, and core distribution channels.  What we found is our core business is incredibly robust with plenty of blue sky.  Your core is your low hanging fruit.  Leaders should not reach higher until the core has been fully harvested.   

4)     Sometimes you need to survive more than thrive.  Stress and anxiety are survival mechanisms.  There are times when you should allow these emotions in rather than shun them.  If you don’t have the right balance between stress and elation, you might be focusing on the wrong signals in the business and worst of all, you might become content.

5)     Sometimes scarcity can be better than abundance.  Too much growth, money and success can lead to future failure because it obfuscates business fundamentals and often favors short-term objectives at the expense of long-term results.  We put our business on a keto diet of sorts and it yielded transformational results.  Those that survive this current environment will be battle tested and able to grow their businesses in more sustainable ways.

Wishing you success in all your endeavors and pursuits in 2024.