Brian's decision to expand into painting and house cleaning services was driven by serendipity. He encountered a unique painting service that promised to complete an entire house painting in a day without compromising quality, which he believed could be successfully franchised like 1-800-GOT-JUNK.
Brian believes that a founder's voice and story are unique and irreplaceable, which can significantly contribute to the brand's identity and connection with customers. He emphasizes that while founders need professional managers to scale the business, the founder's persona and passion are crucial for the brand's authenticity.
Teresa considered diversifying her product line due to production challenges with her flagship cracker product, which was costly and inefficient to manufacture. She explored other products with better margins to maintain profitability.
Brian advises Teresa to focus on her core product, the crackers, and solve the production challenges rather than diversifying. He suggests testing other products lightly to see customer preferences and then scaling the most popular ones.
Jake struggles with determining whether to market his customizable powder face cleanser as a travel-friendly product or as a customizable skincare experience. He is unsure about the messaging and target audience for his ads.
Brian suggests Jake test his product with a diverse group of potential customers, including micro-influencers, to gather feedback on what they love about the product. This can help identify the most compelling benefits and target audience.
Theo faced challenges because he tried to scale his business too quickly without the necessary support or experience. He was overwhelmed by the high demand and the need to handle everything himself, leading to operational difficulties.
Brian advises Theo to calculate the value of his time and delegate tasks that are less valuable or that others can do better. He suggests identifying tasks he loves and is good at and outsourcing the rest to free up time for more critical activities.
Brian wishes he had known that failure is a valuable learning experience and that each failure contains a gift of insight that can lead to future success. This perspective could have helped him be more forgiving of his mistakes and more open to learning from them.
1-800-GOT-JUNK? founder and CEO Brian Scudamore joins Guy on the Advice Line where they answer questions from three early-stage founders.
First we meet Theresa in Denver, who’s wondering if she should diversify her edible flower products or double down on a core offering. Then Jake in Los Angeles, who’s seeking clarity on his customizable skincare brand’s target customer. And Theo near Sacramento, who wants to nail a second attempt at drastically scaling up his live poultry sales company.
Thank you to the founders of Flouwer Co., Notion Skincare, and Fox & Hen Fine Poultry Co. for being a part of our show.
If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [email protected] or call 1-800-433-1298.
And be sure to listen to 1-800-GOT-JUNK?’s founding story) as told by Brian on the show in 2017.
This episode was produced by Carla Esteves with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Neal Rauch.
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