6 CRUCIAL Brand Building Lessons You’ll Never Learn on MARS Training Programme by Beige Geoff in Beige Chinos who Scoffs Beige Biscuits

you’ll never learn this gold on MARS Training Programme

MARS training programmes taught by Beige Geoff in Beige Chinos who scoffs Beige Biscuits are great. But they’ll never teach you founder mode.

First, the 3 issues not knowing about FOUNDER MODE

**caveat: these are huge broad, brush stroke generalisations. There’s tonnes of amazing operators who get "founder” mode. Tonnes of amazing legends who cross the chasm from corporate to challenger seamlessly.

This is just what I’ve learnt from interviewing over 200 amazing challenger founders + reading a fascinating essay.

the issues

1. Aspiring founders leaving big FMCG firms with dreams to scale a brand, not knowing Founder Mode = you’re in for a serious shock.
   

2. Well Meaning Managers from Unilever or Mars join a challenger brand. TOTALLY out their depth. Miles off the pace. It’s unfair on them. It’s unfair on the founder. It’s unfair on the brand.

3. Scaling founders get insecure as they get bigger and hire a BlueChipBoffin to run their business. These kind-souls, often, not always, and sadly don’t understand founder mode = conflict.

   you wouldn’t get a cricket coach to coach rugby, would ya?

Second, what the Fucking Fuck is Founder Mode?

Founder Mode is a superb essay by Paul Graham. The donny and founder of Y Combinator who funded: Dropbox, Air B n B, Twitch, coin base, Reddit, Stripe, Eight Sleep

The Essay is based on a talk, Brian Chesky, founder Air B n B gave to 100 of the most successful founders in the world (think my invite got lost in the post, Brian)

Recommend reading the essay before you read this. But some quotes I loved:

“Why was everyone telling these founders the wrong thing?”

“They were being told was how to run a company you hadn't founded — how to run a company if you're merely a professional manager. But this m.o. is so much less effective that to founders it feels broken. There are things founders can do that managers can't, and not doing them feels wrong to founders.”

“There are as far as I know no books specifically about founder mode. Business schools don't know it exists. All we have so far are the experiments of individual founders who've been figuring it out for themselves.

I hope in a few years founder mode will be as well understood as manager mode.”

The 6 Founder Mode Modules You’ll Never Learn on a MARS training programme

1. CookingWithout A Recipe: The BASIC BARRY Way of Explaining Nassim Taleb’s Stochastic Tinkering

2. Building Sites give Better insights Than I-Am-F*cking-Bored Rooms.

3. How To ACTUALLY Read for Hyper Manic ADHD Founders?

4. Sell. Sell. Sell. Sales is NOT Slimey.

5. The Hard Science of Hustle: rejection, rejection, rejection

1. Cooking Without a Recipe: the BASIC BARRY Version Nassim Taleb’s Stochastic Tinkering

Grad programmes love giving Grad Programme Recipes to produce Predictable Results

Managers love recipes.
Founders hate recipes.

Managers are methodical.
Founders are probabilistic.

Managers hate risk.
Founders love risk.

Managers work.
Founders play.

Managers love predictability.
Founders love serendipity.

Managers love using data to defend their decisions.
Founders love using intuition and being bold.

Managers love recipes. Using recipes (aka consumer long-winded research reports)= they’ll never get fired.
Founders hate recipes because they’re constant tinkerers.

We need to teach founders and managers to cook without a recipe.

Cooking without a recipe: gives you the opportunity to find HUGE unforeseen incredible results.

Cooking without a recipe: gives you the tinker.tinker.tinker mindset, the 1% improvement mindset to excellence.

Nassim Taleb “Stochastic Tinkering”

Stochastic definition: having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analysed statistically but may not be predicted precisely.

This is where the concept of "stochastic tinkering" comes in handy. Stochastic tinkering refers to taking an experimental, trial-and-error approach to innovation. It's about trying out random ideas, features, or tweaks without much rhyme or reason, and seeing what sticks.

The word "stochastic" itself means random or probabilistic instead of methodical. The core idea is that when facing uncertainty, you can let randomness and pure luck have their place in the creative process.

For startups, stochastic tinkering enables rapid iteration and leaning into serendipity. Instead of over-analysing or making elaborate plans, entrepreneurs can simply take a stab at building something to put in front of customers.

So for startups trying to find elusive product-market fit, stochastic tinkering can unlock creative magic.

Having the freedom to play around with ideas without being constrained by planning can lead to novel solutions

Stochastic tinkering is like cooking without a recipe. It enables rapid iteration and leaning into serendipity.

Last Sunday, whilst enjoying my Mummy’s Sunday Roast.

I went off piste
I stochastic tinkered
I made a Pigs In Blanket Sarnie, using two Yorkshire Puddings as the bread and White Mausu Chilli Oil in there.

The result?
Fucking glorious.
That’s stochastic tinkering for 2 year olds.

Rude Health were stochastic tinkerers stumbling upon Dairy Alt Milks.
PerfectTed discovering Matcha espresso pods is stochastic tinkerering.

Stochastic tinkering is READY. FIRE. AIM.

Stochastic Tinkering is Tinker. Tinker. Tinker. Trial. Error. Trail. Get Better. Get Better.

The issue?

food & drink founders hire corporate managers who’ve never made a decision without outsourcing their thinking to a research agency because they’re scared shitless of making poor decisions and being fired.

The Watch Out: we lose our ability to tinker, to find luck, to create opportunities out of nothing. We ultimately lose our speed.

The Balance: great brands don’t lose their ability to tinker but also keep a strong level of focus. Operating in the the Tinker <> Focus tension is a strong barbell.

2. Building Sites Give Better Insights Than Bored AF Board Rooms.

Being a founder and starting a food and drink brand comes with lashings of Rock Star Romanticism.

It’s high status to say you’re a Founder at Dinner Parties in Hackney.

Humans loves Hero and Myths. We adore “The Heroes Journey” a la Joseph Campbell.

We’ve levitated founders to the status Modern Day Gods.

We revere Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Sam Walton.

I am a Founder has become a sort of religion.

Harsh Reality check:

Building a brand is more like working on a building site. Shit tonnes of grit. Rolling your sleeves up. Getting in the trenches. Suffering. Pain. Hope. Masochism.

Issy Sharp, Founder Four Seasons: “I was a builder.
William Chase, Founder Tyrells and Chase Distiller: “I am a builder.”
Stuart Forsyth, Minor Figures “I am a masochistic builder, I grab it and pull it over glass”.

Graduate Programmes simply don’t teach this level of grit.

Well Meaning Managers don’t get it.

Manager Mode:
Well Meaning Manager Warren creates a 50 Page Power Point Deck and GANT Chant and SWOT Analysis on: How to Pick Up a Shovel

Founder Mode:
Just pick up the fucking shovel. Get in the trenches. Graft. Graft. Graft.

3. A Reading Orgy for ADHD Founders: How To Actually Read?

The issue with MARS training programmes. You’re force fed cookie cutter information.

Manager Mode: force fed predictable information to create predictable results.

Founder Mode: requires huge levels of curiosity to swim around obstacles.

Some thoughts on founder mode reading

1. Pick up a book - read the first 100 pages - if it grabs your attention keep reading. Otherwise fuck it off. Simple. Reading is about fucking off books you don’t like vs. sticking with through.

2. Read with a pen and write notes in the columns. The best way to read/learn is to have a CONVERSATION with the author. Reading Issy’s book with a pen is me having a conversation with the Four Seasons Founder.

3. Read Weird Shit. Different Inputs = Different Outputs. I’ll almost NEVER read a book that’s on a best seller list. Ever other man and his dog is reading it. And, let’s be honest, the thought of Reading Happy Sexy Millionarire Stevey Berk-lett gives me the howling fantods.

4. The Lindy Effect - Nassim Taleb - is a heuristic (clever cloggs way of saying rule of thumb) the longer something’s been around, the longer it’s likely to survive. Read old books. Read Old Books.

5. Reading Biographies > Business Book. As a heuristic, I’ll always big a biography or autobiography over a Business book. Every. Single. Day. Of. The. Week.

Sales. Sales. Sales. Sales is Not Slimey. Sales is EVERYTHING.

Naval Ravikant. Some rich WAVE DON. Has this graph. I love it so much I got it tattooed on my Hampton.

YOU NEED A GREAT IDEA, BUT YOU ALSO NEED TO KNOW HOW TO SELL IT! EVERY. GREAT. IDEA. REQUIRES. SALESMANSHIP - Rory Sutherland

Sales is LITERALLY everything.
Every founder I’ve sat opposite is a Master salesperson.

Society HATES the word sales. We do everything in our power to avoid the word sales.

We label roles “Customer Success Manager” or “Partnership Manager” or “Business Development Manager” or “Key Account Manager” or “Commercial Controller” or

It’s all sales people.

We label founders “visionaries” or “pioneers” or “mavericks” or “geniuses” or “serious operators”.

They’re just great sales people.

Charles Darwin, great at sales.
Ghandi, great at sales.
Steve Jobs, great at sales.

The ability to SELL is SO crucial in founder mode.

The issue is when founders bring in operators who can’t sell as well as them. Can’t tell stories as well as them. Can’t paint the vision as well as them.

The art is to create a strong tension where the founder paints the vision and the operator fixes the details.

David Ogilvy:

“If you’re trying to persuade people to do something or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language they use everyday, the language in which they think”
Founders vs. Operators often don’t speak the same language meaning it’s very hard to motivate a team.

On paper this seems easy, but is inherently fraught with difficulties.

Storytelling is the Ferrari of Sales

Sales is a great.
Sales is a lovely hotel for your customer. Maybe a Hilton. Or a Holiday Inn.

But, Storytelling, well, that, my friend is a different beast.

Storytelling is the Four Seasons in Bali with a cocktail in your hand, melting pink and orange sunset, sand rolling through your feet bathing in a happy halcyon.

The Best Story Wins - Morgan Housel
The Storyteller Is The Most Important Person In The World - Steve Jobs

Will Storr:

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea”

Whoopsie… cuff me… soz… off side?! how’d that happen… but here I am selling to YOU. Selling my wears. Selling my soul.

I ran my Challenger Sales Workshop for VITA COCO.

Here’s What MD Tim Rees.

“Vita Coco have had years of DOUBLE DIGIT growth driving our core product, and we decided to innovate, but our sales team had gotten a bit comfortable championing the easy sell of the core.   We asked Dan from HUNGRY to come in and focus the guys on how to story-tell differently, to be remembered when using up the precious time of buyers and excite them into supporting our launches.  In 2025, you will see this has worked.  Highly recommend Dan’s energy and creativity for sharpening up your sales approach.”

Wanna turn your sales team into a bunch of Hungry New Business Weaps?

HMU braaaaah.

The Hard Science of Hustle: rejection, rejection, rejection

No MARS graduate programme prepares you for the level of rejection you’ll face working in a challenger brand.

At MARS you click your fingers and land a meeting with Sainsbury’s.
At Unilever you waddle your toes and get a spread sheet sent to you.

I deeply believe every Big Blue Chip Operator or CEO or CMO joining a challenger start up should do a weeks field sales as part of their onboarding.

It will give them a reality check on how to actually roll your sleeves up.

It will create more empathy between the founder and the operator.

It will create an understanding of how much rejection you face at challenger brands.

Being able to suck up the heavy blows of rejection is vital for building a challenger brand. But it’s something you’ll never learn on a training programme.

How I reframe No?

1. Confidence is Your Relationship with Failure Not Success

2. Go for No

3. No is The Way To Yes.
   
   FANK YOU FOR READING!!

Btw - Monday is the latest poddy with Man Like Rory - so get ya chops round it!!

Popey xx

Still Hungry? Course you are…

Please feel free to gorge on the most downloaded podcast episodes of all time (these are CERTY: BANGERS)

1. Rory Sutherland: Why Challenger Brands Must Never Follow Logic to Truly Disrupt Categories 

2. Waitrose CEO: How Challenger Food & Drink Brands Can Win and Build Profitable Partnerships with Waitrose - James Baile

3. Spencer Matthews: How Spencer Matthews Built Unshakeable Resilience and Raised + £10m to Launch Clean Co. in Sainsbury's, Tesco and the U.S.A. 

4. How Grenade Exited to Mondelez for £200 Million and Lessons in Unapologetic Authenticity- Juliett Baratt

5. Tyrells Tycoon: How William Chase built and sold Tyrells for £50 million and sold Chase Distillery to DIAGEO 

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