As my hair gets ever more “salt and pepper” and I approach 30 years in business, one of the true highlights of my career has been partnering with business founders. I think I have worked on over $35bn of M&A but the transactions that mean most were when I was fortunate to acquire a business from a founder. There is no greater privilege and compliment than when someone trusts you with their life’s work AND the team they have nurtured, grown and been in the trenches with for years. Many of those founders have become friends and I have learned more from them over drinks, dinners and storytelling than any other part of my professional life. In the Alchemy-Rx team we love working with founders and support up and coming growth businesses on a paid and pro bono basis as often as we can, because we can learn so much.
Many big brand teams and corporations often feel it is very difficult to compete effectively with the best insurgents. The theory goes that they are too agile, too fast and too innovative for a mature brand to match. That hasn’t been my experience. There should be terrific innovation and marketplace agility in any successful brand, regardless of size and ownership. None of us should ever hide from that or accept anything else. I actually have found many founder-led companies more thoughtful, reflective and consultative on key decisions than corporations. The big brands can actually be at their best when they make rapid big decisions because they have the resources to take more risk and the data to be sure that it works. There’s also a time bias. Senior corporate leaders like to place bets in their short tenures leading business units as it gets them noticed and makes them stand out. By contrast, founders often want near unanimity from their team to reach a consensus that allows them to move forward together.
So what was the special sauce of the founder led brands I have got to know well? It was focus. The business had started with - and been obsessed with ever since, a very fundamental idea of product and what made them better. They tried to improve every day on that single minded ambition. That pursuit of excellence and why they were better dominated their sales pitches – it wasn’t about brand spend and big activations, it was about why they exist and what they can do for the consumer. It was backed by huge resources. Not money or advertising, but pride, passion and persistence. They became the most strategic businesses I knew because they had total clarity and a willingness to keep adapting execution to better fulfill that promise. There is a reason that corporations love guest speakers at their events. Often, they are adventurers or sports people who come with extraordinary achievements and inspire the audience. The stories they tell match the founder’s approach. Laser focus on a single minded and consistent view of success with constant, daily application. Doing the hard training and adapting to execute better against a singular, enduring goal. We can learn a lot from founders. The best should inspire us all.