Predicting The Turn W/ Dave Knox

Today’s guest on Predicting the Turn knows all about keeping it real, meeting consumers where they are, and staying on the pulse of what consumers want.  Meghan Asha is the CEO and founder of FounderMade. She’s got thoughts on why consumer brands are the new hot thing for entrepreneurs, and what it takes to be successful in this market. We talked to Meghan all about: What it takes to stand out as authentic in a crowded consumer goods market. The one thing you need to focus on as a high-growth brand. What consumers are looking for when selecting a brand.

In 2003, Firehouse Subs had 65 stores. Today, they have 1,170. So, how did they achieve such incredible growth? On today’s episode of Predicting The Turn Don Fox, joined me to talk about how the company has achieved such impressive growth, even while facing significant disruption in the industry. Here’s what we talked about: How verabilizing the mission statement has been a catalyst for the company’s growth. Why Firehouse is so committed to giving back to the community. How they’re addressing disruption from third party delivery services.

Myspace changed marketing contracts between consumers and brands were forever. Consumers had a platform to distribute content in their own voice, and for the first time, consumers could tell brands what they thought about them. Fast-forward to today, and former Myspace employee, Heidi Browning, now the CMO of NHL, is using marketing to help fans have more control over their experience. Last season’s NHL Playoffs were the most-watched in the past twenty-three years. Game 7 was the most viewed game in history. Sports betting lets them take a look at a lot of data, and this data has many interesting new uses for marketers. For instance, they have new technology that allows them to put trackers in the puck and the jersey to analyze things like puck time and use it for broadcasting purposes. Leaderboards, coaches, and on-air broadcasting gives real-time experiences to fans. Experiential marketing takeaways from sports: -Everything is experiential in sports. There’s no better sport to watch live than hockey.

As a leader in the marketing space, Jason White — currently CMO at Cura Cannabis Solutions — has worked with some of the world’s most renowned brands. Think Nike, Tide, and Beats by Dr. Dre.  On this episode of Predicting the Turn, Jason came on the show to talk about his experience working with these brands and what he learned about marketing and the fundamentals of branding along the way.  We discussed issues including: why it’s so important to learn to sell the “boring” stuff first, how to embrace culture without making costly missteps, and how to avoid being overshadowed through celebrity partnerships.

After Season 1, we took a short break from Predicting the Turn. But guess what? We’re back! As great as our podcast’s first season has been, we’re incredibly proud to be bringing you even more excellence in Season 2. So, on this episode we’re highlighting our favorite takeaways from Season 1 and giving you an inside look at what’s to come in Season 2. 

Scott Kirsner, CEO and Co-Founder of Innovation Leader came on this episode of Predicting The Turn to share highlights from their most recent quarterly research report.  We discussed all things startup engagement, addressing topics like: how to be more strategic about startup engagement, how to think about innovation, and why accelerators have become so popular.

Chieh Huang is the Founder and CEO of Boxed.  And he still interviews every candidate before they're hired. That’s quite unusual. So, why does he do it? Well, that’s what we talked about on this episode of Predicting The Turn. As a two-time startup founder, Chieh has a lot of wisdom to pass along.  So, in this show, he talked about why “we” is so important, why micromanaging stifles your team, and how you can manage changing consumer expectations.

Any venture capitalist wants to be lucky enough to invest in a company that defines a generation. They want to find the next Google or Amazon. But when you look forward 20 years, those generation-defining business will look very different. When you look at data around purchasing behavior around millennials and Gen Z, it’s very different than the behavior for baby boomers.  Baby boomers are thinking about “value” when they make a purchasing decision. High-quality products at an affordable price. When you ask millennials or Gen Zers, they care most about “brand values.” It’s illuminating. Listen in to hear Taylor Greene, Managing Director at Collaborative Fund, talk about how this generation-defining change in spending affects what he looks for as an investor.

In today’s business landscape, if you want to succeed, you’ve got to swing for the fences. That means being proactive, focusing on innovation, and not being afraid to place the bet.  On this episode of Predicting the Turn our guest is Stu Willson, Co-founder and CEO of Radicle. Stu came on the show to share his expertise on how to be proactive, focus on innovation, and think about bets, and why these keys are crucial to creating value for your business.

BarkBox started with three levels of personalization for small, medium, and large breed dogs. Then one day they got a very important phone call. It was from a customer who needed their box a little more personalized.   Now, they customize about 120,000 boxes each month. So, how do they do it? Matt Meeker, Founder and CEO of BARK, came on the latest episode of Predicting the Turn to talk about his entrepreneurial journey and how BarkBox emphasizes the customer in all they do.

Millennials. Supposedly they’ve killed homeownership, department stores, chain restaurants, and a whole host of other things. But what if they’re not killing the world? What if they’re just forcing it to adapt? Matt Britton was a guest on Predicting the Turn podcast recently and had a few thoughts on Millennials and how businesses should be adapting in response.

Big brands often can’t get out of their own way. That’s why disruption is just waiting to happen in so many industries. One of those industries is cleaning. In this episode, Jon Bostock, former President of Big Ass Fans & CEO / CoFounder of Truman's, shares his experience at GE and Big Ass Fans before diving into the mess that is the current state of the cleaning supplies industry and how Truman’s is using authentic human connection, straight-to-consumer delivery, and safe, quality products to change the way cleaning supplies are bought and used.

After working at Procter and Gamble and Coca-Cola, Tim Kopp made a huge mark on the B2B world. How? The color orange. Tim is the former CMO of ExactTarget. Now, he’s in the venture capital space at Hyde Park Venture Partners. At the time he made the leap into B2B, there were very few CMOs. But he thankfully did it anyway. In this episode, Tim talks about how tapping into the brand colors at ExactTarget was one of the most important things he did. He also talked about how B2B companies can use the best practices from consumer marketing, where marketing is headed in 3-6 years, and the seven different personas of a CMO.

On this episode of Predicting The Turn our guest is Shiv Singh, a former executive at Visa and Pepsi and Founder of Savvy Matters. Shiv talked about the responsibility we have as business leaders to leave a better world for the next generation. How do we do this? By staying savvy.

Everybody organizations similar desires. They want to grow their business. And our guest today, Mark Irace, former CMO of FanDuel, has a blueprint for how he advising companies to get that growth. Most companies he advises want to acquire customers, retain customers, and build a great brand. Don’t we all? Surprisingly, he’s found that the blueprint to do that is pretty consistent across industries.The desires and needs are all the same, but the way to execute the solution is different. On today’s episode, Mark walks us through the blueprint he uses to identify weak spots in companies that want to grow.

What comes to your mind when you think of venture capital? Is it startups, secret back rooms, fancy cars, and slick deals? What if you learned venture capital wasn’t just for small financial firms? What if someone told you that 75% of Fortune100 companies have active venture capital groups? What if you learned that corporate venture capital groups participate in a third of all venture deals and that the number of corporate VCs has tripled since 2011?

Disruption isn’t an option. We can disrupt ourselves, or someone else will. Large companies face this modern dilemma every day. Enterprise businesses can embrace their own disruption by reinventing and transforming themselves ... or they can be surprisingly disrupted by an external force. Rudina Seseri laid out the podcast. She’s been in every camp: She worked at Microsoft, founded her own startups, and is now Managing Partner at Glasswing Ventures, where she’s funding the future of AI, ML, and predictive. In her words: “Today's large incumbents, maybe tomorrow's fallen empire.” But the answer for enterprise isn't surrendering. It’s collaboration. Find out how on this episode.

Love him or hate him, it’s hard to argue with the fact that Elon Musk has captured our attention. Every time he launches a rocket into space or sends a car into orbit, we’re rooting for him. We want him to succeed? But why? Why are we rooting for these seemingly crazy ideas? Because he’s offered a point of view that we can get behind. One that says, “Even if this project fails, eventually, it’s going to succeed and we’re going to get to Mars. So does your company offer a clear point of view? One that speaks to the heart?

In my book Predicting The Turn, I talked about the concept of disrupting the disruptors where the Fortune 500 can take inspiration from the startups that are out there. To see a perfect example of this we spoke with David VanHimbergen Head of Springboard at The Kraft Heinz Company, which is the food giant’s startup incubator, accelerator, and partnership-seeking initiative. “We have to be comfortable with disrupting ourselves or else someone's going to do it for us,” says VanHimbergen. But Kraft Heinz is at the top of the pyramid. Why are they doing this? “For products within the Kraft Heinz portfolio, we've got number one, number two brands, but there's a lot of disruption coming,” says VanHimbergen. “So we need to figure out how do we start building capability and partner with folks on the outside that are building these authentic propositions.”

B2C winners know the math behind performance marketing. But they've also ingested the lesson of brand. There’s been a realization that, you can know the math and run the economics, but it's a long game. You've also got to know the customer and create incredible experiences for them So, understand what the math says from a performance marketing perspective. And understand the experience that you've got to create. Then apply your own judgement to create an experience that's at the intersection of the two. That takes the best of both worlds. Oh, and if you want a role model... Don’t just figure out who’s the best in your space and try to be better than they are. Figure out what space is the best at each facet. Then try to be as good as the best player in that space. This is advice from Jeff Weiser, CMO at Shopify. Predicting The Turn podcast to talk about everything from his journey from strategy and analytics to becoming a CMO, to giving advice to large companies striving to respond to the rise of entrepreneu