I recently went one-on-one with Brad Woodgate, founder and CEO of Joyburst.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
Brad: I didn’t get here because I made all the right decisions. I got here because I made plenty of the wrong ones and survived them. I’ve spent more than 25 years building consumer brands. Across my career, the companies I’ve been involved with have generated more than $3 billion in global CPG sales. I’ve launched hundreds of products, built large teams, and expanded brands into dozens of countries, all without venture capital. However, if you asked me what shaped me most, it wouldn’t be the wins. It would be the $75 million loss. Years ago, I built a company called NxLabs that ultimately collapsed. I lost approximately $75 million. At the time, it felt like my entire career was falling apart. But failure has a funny way of stripping away the things you think matter. I learned more about cash flow, people, risk, and leadership from that experience than I could have learned from ten successful companies. I also learned that you can lose a company without losing yourself. Today, when something goes wrong, I don’t ask, “Why is this happening to me?” I ask, “What is this trying to teach me?” There’s usually a lesson hiding somewhere inside the mess. You just have to be willing to look for it.
Adam: How did you come up with your business idea? What advice do you have for others on how to come up with great ideas?
Brad: I don’t sit around trying to come up with billion-dollar ideas. I look for things that make me say, “Why is this still done this way?” That’s where most of my ideas come from. With Joyburst, we looked at hydration and saw a category dominated by plastic packaging. We believed consumers wanted better-for-you hydration, but we also saw an opportunity to rethink the package itself. So we put hydration into a plant-based Tetra Pak. Then we kept asking, “What else is wrong with this category?” That mindset has led us to develop products like protein soda, protein coffee, and creatine soda. My advice is to become obsessed with problems, not ideas. A great idea doesn’t have to be something nobody has ever thought of. Sometimes it’s something everybody has thought about, but nobody has solved properly. Look at what frustrates consumers and ask yourself, “Can I make this 10 times better?” And don’t fall in love with your idea. Fall in love with the problem you’re trying to solve. Ideas are replaceable. Problems aren’t.
Adam: How did you know your business idea was worth pursuing? What advice do you have on how to best test a business idea?
Brad: You don’t. That’s the honest answer. You can do research, build spreadsheets, run focus groups, and talk to experts. But eventually, somebody has to pull out their wallet. That’s when the real research begins. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is asking people whether they like an idea. People are incredibly generous with other people’s money. They will tell you they love your product, tell you it’s brilliant, then you put it on the shelf and they walk right past it. So I like testing behavior instead of opinions. I don’t ask, “Would you buy this?” I ask them to buy it. Even better, see if they buy it again. A first purchase can be a curiosity. A second purchase starts to look like a business. You don’t need to prove that your business will be worth $100 million. You need to prove the next thing. Can I get 10 customers? Can I get 100? Will they come back? Find the customer first. Then build the company around what you learn.
Adam: What are the key steps you have taken to grow your business? What advice do you have for others on how to take their businesses to the next level?
Brad: There are two things I think about constantly: product and distribution. You need a product people genuinely want, and you need to make it ridiculously easy for them to find it. I’ve seen entrepreneurs spend years perfecting a product and then wonder why sales aren’t happening. A great product sitting in a warehouse isn’t a business. With Joyburst, we focused on building distribution across major retailers while simultaneously creating consumer demand. We want retailers to know consumers are asking for us, and consumers to know where they can find us. The other major step is knowing when to change your role as a founder. At $1 million in sales, you can probably touch everything. At $10 million, that gets difficult. At $50 million, it’s impossible. Your job changes as the company grows. Early on, your job is to do everything. Eventually, your job is to build a team that can do everything better than you. I would also tell entrepreneurs not to confuse growth with progress. Revenue can grow while your business gets weaker. If margins are deteriorating, cash flow is getting worse, and your team is burning out, that’s not really growth. That’s just a bigger problem.
Adam: What are your best sales and marketing tips?
Brad: My best sales advice is to stop selling and start solving. Nobody really cares how great your company is. They care about their problems. If you’re selling to a retailer, don’t walk in talking about how amazing your product is. Tell them how you’re going to help them grow their category, attract consumers, and make money. Marketing is similar. You’re competing for attention, and attention is incredibly scarce. I’ve always believed that if people aren’t talking about your product, you have a marketing problem. At Joyburst, we’ve partnered with Disney, created products people haven’t seen before, sampled millions of products, and leaned heavily into social commerce. We are not trying to look like every other beverage company. We want to make people stop and say, “What is that?” Because curiosity creates attention, attention creates trial, trial creates repeat, and repeat creates a business. The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing; it feels like something worth talking about.
Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
Brad: I think great leadership comes down to four things: clarity, accountability, courage, and humility. Clarity means your team knows exactly where you’re going. Accountability means you take responsibility when things don’t go according to plan. Courage means you’re willing to make difficult decisions when you don’t have all the information. And humility means you’re willing to admit when you’re wrong. That last one becomes increasingly important as a company gets bigger. When you’re the founder, it’s easy to believe you should have all the answers, but you shouldn’t. If you’ve built a great team, there should be people around the table who know more than you about certain things. That’s a feature, not a threat. I don’t need to be the smartest person in the room. I need to make sure the smartest people in the room feel comfortable telling me when they think I’m wrong. The best leaders don’t create followers. They create more leaders.
Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?
Brad: Hire people who are better than you. It sounds simple, but it’s one of the hardest things for a founder to actually do. Early in your career, being the smartest person in the room feels like an advantage. Later in your career, it’s a liability. You want people who challenge you, see things you don’t see, and aren’t afraid to tell you when you’re making a bad decision. I also believe strongly in ownership. If someone is responsible for a result, they need enough authority to actually influence that result. You can’t give someone accountability without giving them control. And culture starts with who you allow into the organization. People watch what leaders tolerate. You can put all the inspirational words you want on a wall, but if you tolerate someone who behaves badly because they’re a big producer, your team notices. Your culture isn’t what you say. It’s what you tolerate. Finally, don’t be afraid to make changes when someone isn’t working out. Keeping the wrong person in a critical role because you don’t want to have a difficult conversation can be incredibly expensive.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?
Brad: 1. Make the decision. Indecision is a decision. You will almost never have all the information you want. Make the best decision you can with the information you have, then adjust when you learn more.
2. Protect your reputation. You can recover from losing money. You can recover from a failed company. You can recover from a bad decision. Your reputation is much harder to recover. Do the right thing when nobody is watching.
3. Stay in the game. There are going to be years when someone is ahead of you. Someone will raise more money. Someone will get the big customer. Someone will have the bigger valuation. Don’t let someone else’s chapter make you question your entire story. I’ve been building companies for more than 25 years. The biggest advantage I’ve had isn’t that I was smarter than everyone else. I stayed in the game. You don’t have to win every day; you just have to keep showing up.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Brad: “Never get too high on the highs or too low on the lows.” That advice has stayed with me throughout my career. Business can be incredibly emotional. One day you’re celebrating a huge win. The next day a deal falls apart, someone leaves, or you get a phone call that changes your entire week. If you allow every high to become a huge high and every low to become a huge low, you’ll exhaust yourself. Stay even. Celebrate the wins.
