Listen closely to your customers and understand what they are saying and what they are not saying and apply behavioral science to deduce what the underlying issues that motivate their behavior are. For Wellow, we have a corporate structure where consumer feedback is delivered regularly to the senior management team. Listening led us to launch our wildly successful “wide calf” version of Wellow for consumers who relayed to us issues with fit from the original line.
Sartups have such a glamorous reputation. Companies like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Uber, and Airbnb once started as scrappy startups with huge dreams and huge obstacles. Yet we of course know that most startups don’t end up as success stories. What does a founder or a founding team need to know to create a highly successful startup? In this series, called “Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup” we are talking to experienced and successful founders and business leaders who can share stories from their experiences about what it takes to create a highly successful startup. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Aaron Flicker.
Michael Aaron Flicker is a serial entrepreneur who has been starting, growing and building successful businesses since he was in High School. He’s built a highly successful marketing firm XenoPsi Ventures, now in its 25th year that has evolved over the years to encompass four separate brand offerings. And most recently he applied his learnings as an entrepreneur to disrupt the compression socks market launching Wellow compression socks in late 2021. This bamboo-based “direct-to-consumer” brand introduced a revolutionary level of compression in a sock that is easy to put on and comfortable enough for daily wear. This year, sales are forecast to grow 400% over 2022 levels to $20 million, with a “wide calf” line extension adding to its explosive growth. His view on how to create a successful start-up begins by finding an industry ready for disruption, adopting a “whole brand” approach before launch, partnering with a growth accelerator to provide C-suite experience rather than hiring those roles full time, listening closely to customers to address issues and concerns and constantly evolving your brand to meet new needs. He’d love to talk about these 5 things you need to create a successful start-up.
XenoPsi was launched when I was in high school. My founding partner and I started the company to perform computer programming on the internet and eventually to help local businesses brace their computer systems for the then impending “Y2K” at the turn of the millennium. “New media,” as we called it, was just coalescing to become the commercial ecosystem we use today. As we matured with the internet, it was a natural transition for us to morph into a professional services firm specializing in advertising and marketing, which we did. We continue to operate in that space via two companies we subsequently launched: Method1 and Function Growth.
I came to realize early on that the compensation model for ad agencies made no sense. Typically, remuneration was based on a percentage of the media that was bought to run the ads or some arbitrary hourly pricing model for services rendered. On top of this, revenue streams were always at risk. If your client hired a new Chief Marketing Officer, the chances were better than good that you could expect her or him to fire you and bring on their “own” agency. It is an endless “rinse, repeat” cycle of engagements. I wanted to change that for XenoPsi.
I began negotiating remuneration packages based on performance of outcomes or tied to acquiring equity and revenue shares in our client’s business. This put our “skin in the game” and married our success with the client’s. We became partners, not vendors. Two of our start ups, Function Growth and Method1, work with companies that way. In 2021, I decided to apply decades of learning in building brands for others to doing it for ourselves. XenoPsi Ventures launched a wholly owned brand: Wellow compression socks. Supported by our other operating companies, it is on track to 4x in sales this year. We intend to launch more “owned and operated ‘’ consumer brands in 2024. Our plan is to share risk and rewards with the businesses our professional services companies partner with and to own our own consumer brands.
My father started his own law practice and was his own boss. That inspired me to and want to be my own boss. It was based on the importance of having freedom — both to plot my own path in terms of where to invest my professional and personal time — but also the freedom to pivot as needed to create the best opportunity for myself, my family and my colleagues.
We strive to nurture a culture that fosters a high degree of psychological safety and cognitive diversity. We want team members to feel safe in expressing their opinions — about their experiences, about our work and about the type of company we are becoming. This is crucial to getting the best out of the best and brightest who join our distributed team. With 100+ people working every day together from over 17 countries, we benefit from the cognitive diversity of experiences of people from many races, creeds, traditions and life experiences all around the world. When our teams open a Zoom window, it is common for one person to be in India, another in Pakistan, a third in South Africa and two more in different US cities. To me, that is a level of diversity, equity and inclusion I’m very proud of.
XenoPsi Ventures has introduced Wellow compression socks, which brings the circulation benefits of compression to a much wider audience than had ever been reached before. After crossing our first 100,000 customers, we realized there was an underserved market of full-sized people who would benefit from the creation of wide-calf socks. So we designed a new line of compression socks to allow them to experience the benefits of compression socks which have been wildly popular.
Wellow purchasers can also designate a charity to which we will donate a percentage of sales to as part of their purchase.
Focus, persistence and drive are the antidotes to any setback.
XenoPsi launched when I was in high school and continued when I was in college. One college football game day my alma mater, Boston College, was playing Maryland. That morning, XenoPsi was due to launch a website for a client. I remember vividly enjoying the tailgate before the game. Much fun was had by all. But as the launch struggled, my friends left me and my laptop in the flatbed of a pickup truck to attend the game. For many hours, I worked nonstop to help get the project launched. While I missed the game, the site went up and XenoPsi had delivered another critical project at the time in our history.
Entrepreneurs tend to believe that there is no one who can do the job the way he or she can. That she is the “secret sauce” behind the success of the company, and the only one who ever will care as much about its success, is a fallacy. It is bad for your staff and likely so intense it’s bad for your own health. It’s a scarcity mindset when there is a wild abundance of opportunity, and of talent in the world. I would steer all leaders away from believing that.
One summer in college, my founding partner and I had cleared our entire summer to work on big client projects. We had been lining them up for months and had grand visions of how we’d be filled with super exciting work and tons of financial reward from a summer well hustled. For one reason or another, all of our projects pushed their timing, canceled or changed and we were left with many weeks of sitting in the same room, staring at one another with absolutely nothing to do… and making no money. It was a great learning lesson about always having a backup plan, always having multiple opportunities lined up and not taking it too hard if any one plan doesn’t work out.
On this journey of the “discovery of the unknown” (XenoPsi’s loose translation from Greek) I’ve learned to:
I’ve come to believe a few things since I started as a high school entrepreneur. Among them:
Embrace a “whole brand” approach to the venture before launching. For Wellow, I immersed myself in every conceivable aspect of manufacturing a bamboo-based compression sock overseas. That includes making it, transporting it, importing it, marketing it and then distributing it. It is not just having an idea. Then I engaged Function Growth, a growth accelerator, to create the brand, the marketing and data management and customer service on a “snap in” basis. This gave Wellow seasoned C-suite experience without the cash burn of hiring those positions full time. While Wellow’s situation is unique to XenoPsi Ventures in that we owned both companies, any entrepreneur can and should seek out the “snap in” expertise of a growth accelerator. No startup can achieve the level of sophistication in marketing and data management without one.
As to funding, regardless of the way you go, I’d always advise young founders to ensure your successes are aligned with anyone who is giving you money. The worst problems comes from when folks don’t have the same desired outcomes. Then, as for whether you should bootstrap or take outside funding — it should really determine the type of business you are starting. Product companies with millions of dollars of start-up capital required to launch will likely need outside funding. Professional services start-ups that can be profitable from day one might not need outside funds.
We have been fortunate that we bootstrap our launches from our other company’s profits. XPV’s growth accelerator — Function Growth — works on an equity-based and revenue share partnership model with young companies. Seeking out partners willing to share risks and rewards is a great thing to consider.
They don’t embrace the “whole brand” approach before launching. They believe they are the secret sauce to the business and it can’t run without them so they don’t trust anyone
Personally, absent a crisis, I don’t think about XenoPsi from Friday evening until Monday morning. On Monday, I am refreshed and enthusiastic to engage again. I encourage my managers to do the same, and relay that on to their team.
Whatever your trick is — every leader needs their rest-and-recharge model that allows them to be their best self for their customers, staffs and companies
We have a deepening anxiety and depression problem in this country. Some stats show that up to 1 out of 2 college students are in therapy and feel inhibited in their daily lives because of this. If I could do anything, to help anyone in the world, I would love to help those affected by this.
We are blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
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Follow us on LinkedIn at:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/wearwellow/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/function-growth-agency/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/xenopsi/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/meetmethod1/
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!