Best Day Ever: A conversation with Rooted co-founder Ryan Lee
Episode 16: The one where we speak each other's language.
Chatting with Ryan Lee, co-founder of Rooted, feels like talking to a kindred spirit. As start-up founders in the consumer space, we’ve shared similar challenges and joys, and also a deep understanding that rapid learning and adaptability are requirements for success. Ryan explains it all pretty simply: “To thrive and survive in this space, you really have to be able to take a lot of pain and translate that pain into learnings, expertise, and skill set, and then turn that around really fast.”
We got to riff on the Best Day Ever phenomenon, that thing that happens when the business is actually on the way to becoming successful. The audacity of when it actually goes well:
Ryan: “When we started, we were like ‘let’s create a fun direct-to-consumer brand in home and garden.’ You don’t think about what you have to do if this goes well. You’re just banking on ‘we’re gonna make a ton of money, we’re gonna sell this business someday…’ but no, no, no, literally—consider what happens when you hit $5 million as a business. [At the beginning,] you don’t think about the operational problems or financing issues or team management or HR issues that you’re going to encounter on the way.”
Sam: “The best day ever, right? That feeling that you’re chasing—you know, the namesake of the podcast. What we’re all looking for is that best day ever feeling. And my jaded joke is the next day is the worst day ever because oh dear God, we were successful.” And surviving your own success is every bit as hard as surviving failure.
At GIR, our seminal best day ever was a huge PO from Sur La Table back in 2014. That was THE moment—the one with the power to take our business to the next level. Champagne all night. But then you wake up hungover and in uncharted territory. More units than you’ve ever had to make, requirements you’ve never seen before, super tight deadlines, and real penalties for any mistakes. Very quickly, you have to figure out how to operate at the next level—and the next, and the next. Surviving your own success is every bit as hard as surviving failure.
Ryan and I talked about so much more, exploring the future of consumer brands, where funding hurdles spur resilience and innovation—surviving success, and surviving failure. Our joint venture, Hologram Capital, also enters the chat. Catch the entire convo right here and tell us your Best Day Ever story in the comments.