2 founders answer

What's the most valuable lesson Sam learned as a founder?

To just do. In the early days Ethan had absolutely no experience in the food industry — what compliance is required on a jar's label, food safety repercussions, how to get into supermarkets, how to scale, or a reasonable wholesale price to match retailer margins. It was all unknown to him.
— Ethan Yong, Umami Papi (Ep 20)

2 founders on this question

Different founders, different playbooks. Here's how each answered — preview first, full take one click away.

EY
Ethan Yong
Umami Papi · EP 20

To just do. In the early days Ethan had absolutely no experience in the food industry — what compliance is required on a jar's label, food safety repercussions, how to get into supermarkets, how to scale, or a reasonable wholesale price to match retailer margins.

Episode ↗
See Ethan Yong's full take

This was pre-ChatGPT, so he had to Google things and learn from trial and error rather than hiring a consultant he couldn't afford. His advice: stay hungry for knowledge, be really relentless about obtaining information in an area you've never explored, and use the power of writing things down — when you write things down you collect data you can reflect on to make improvements and build processes that make the business more efficient.

SR
Sam Richardson
Butter · EP 13

Shipping and iterating — and learning to just figure things out. Starting as a solo founder, Sam says you won't have a lot of cash, things are more expensive than you think, and you need to be creative, have hustle, and teach yourself.

Episode ↗
See Sam Richardson's full take

He taught himself to code, built the website himself, designed the product, built the brand and designed the logo — all without a tech background, by figuring it out. His takeaway is that being scrappy is so important, and doing absolutely everything you can yourself in the early days.

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