An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

I wish someone had told me that there are very few experts in any new marketplace and that you will spend time and money learning that the hard way. Along these lines, I also wish I had known in advance the heavy impact that bad actors and their lousy products can have on retail access in general.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tom Kurz.

Tom is a seed/growth stage company executive operator and investor with 25 years of experience building and advising organizations in technology, entertainment and consumer goods. After receiving a Bachelor’s Degree from Tulane University and an MBA from Suffolk University, Kurz began his career at Lehman Brothers before moving into the world of venture capital. Most recently he co-founded Remedy Products LLC, producers of the Remedy+ line of plant-based, performance supporting nutritional supplements, topicals and snacks. Today, Kurz serves as Managing Member, driving operations in R&D, product management, sales, distribution and marketing. He has also established himself as a product and brand innovator within his industry.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I had a fairly typical American upbringing. Though I was born in Sweden to European parents, (German father, Swedish mother) my folks emigrated from Europe shortly after my birth and we ended up settling in Westfield, NJ. I have 3 younger siblings, all born in the US. I was definitely a bit of a nerd growing up in that I loved watching Star Trek and other reruns, and playing Dungeons and Dragons. I was also always looking for ways to make money- whether it was cutting neighborhood lawns or shoveling driveways — in order to support my album buying habit. Things weren’t always easy peasy and adjusting to life in America posed certain challenges for my parents which, in turn, impacted family dynamics. But my folks instilled a certain work ethic and drive that remains etched in my DNA. They also taught me to be curious about things and that opportunity is out there if you are willing to get after it.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Be Curious!” There are certainly different variations and attributions to this but as I touched on above, it’s a mantra that keeps me motivated in everything I do. It’s what drives both learning and innovation. When I think back to collecting stamps as a kid, it was really borne out of my curiosity around geography and the world that I couldn’t yet see or experience. When I left Wall Street to pursue venture investing in the new “internet” economy, it was because I wanted to be at the forefront of this new digital universe that was beginning to form. Today, it’s a core ethos of Remedy Products. Curiosity around design and ‘what can be’ fuels our product R&D as we look to harness the power of plant-based compounds in ways previously unthought of. It’s easy to say this is the way things are done and then rinse and repeat. But if you want to go beyond and create new things never before envisioned or completed, you need to be curious.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

As it pertains to books, I love pretty much everything penned by Malcolm Gladwell. He is so good at telling stories and providing cause for questioning preconceived notions and expectations. In terms of movies, there are 2 films that immediately come to mind. ‘To Sir With Love’ and ‘Good Will Hunting’. Both movies center around a relationship between teacher/counselor and rudderless students. And without being preachy, both do a great job at debunking stereotypes, finding good where others couldn’t and celebrating the joy that comes with defying expectations and overcoming odds.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

Making the transition from idea to actual business operations generally requires a combination of due diligence, intelligent road mapping, access to capital, operational execution and lastly, a bit of luck. I would also emphasize that there is no one size fits all recipe for getting something off the ground. An individual running a freelance copywriting operation as a side hustle does not require the same effort as a team that might be looking to bring a new video game or industrial enterprise software solution to market.

This said, any entrepreneur or team of entrepreneurs should first take some time to do due diligence on their idea and the ecosystem that their idea fits into. It’s extremely important to understand how one’s product or service will impact the way things are currently done. Are you planning on completely disrupting an industry in a way that requires distributors, wholesalers or customers to rethink how and why they might make a decision? Is your offering an order of magnitude better than anything out there? Does the customer buying the product or service really care if the offering is better? These are just some of the things that need to be considered. The more ‘hard’ questions you are able to ask of yourself, the better. And although not specific to due diligence, it’s also super important to make sure that the founding team is completely committed to the endeavor and that each member is contributing something essential to the success of the business that is commensurate with their stake in the company. Boats that are unbalanced will capsize. Startups are no different.

Once you have determined that the team is good and the endeavor worth taking on, you will want to map out a plan for developing and bringing the product or service to market. Again, there is no one size fits all for how to do this but this can be a great place to seek the advice and counsel of experts in the ecosystem you are looking to penetrate. Obviously, one needs to tread carefully here so as to not let your idea slip into the wrong hands. But understanding how decisions occur between the time you make a product and the time it ends up in a customer’s hand is very important. Likewise, having an awareness around potential external factors that can impact operations will be important as you map out your Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy.

Simultaneously to mapping out your pathway into the marketplace, you will want to consider capital requirements and what is necessary to launch the business. Can you bootstrap your way into the marketplace or do you need to raise capital? If you are planning to raise money, then the first two things I talked about will become even more important as you will have to demonstrate your understanding, not just of your product or service, but of the entire ecosystem you are seeking to disrupt.

If you’ve made it this far, that is, you’ve done your due diligence, assembled a top-notch team, mapped out a smart GTM strategy and raised necessary funds to launch things, now you’re ready for the hard part. Execution is extremely key and no classes or books can properly prepare someone for the challenges that come with taking a business live. This said, I have found it extremely helpful to break any business down into operational buckets. With Remedy Products, I break the business down into the following buckets: 1.) Product Management, 2.) Systems & Logistics, 3.) Sales, 4.) Marketing, 5.) Corporate & Administration. Each of these buckets will intersect with one another at different levels but it is really important to make sure that operational buckets are functional and able to deliver on what is expected from them.

I know I also mentioned something about needing a little bit of luck. That can come when you are doing all the other things correctly. You can’t build luck into your business model, but if you take the time to do the little things correctly in the beginning, then good things tend to follow.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

Initially, I would simply use search engines testing for various relevant words and phrases. If I wanted to go deeper, I might research companies that operate in the ecosystem I am interested in to see what they are up to in terms of new products and innovation. And if you are considering filing a patent for some type of idea or product, you might want to consult an IP attorney to see if there are any holders of patents that might cover concepts or designs that you are interested in protecting and monetizing.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

As I alluded to before, there really is no ‘one size fits all’ approach, but let me take a stab at some of these points. I touched on a few important considerations earlier, specifically, the need to stress test an idea to determine if it’s viable and worth the endeavor. That means answering tough questions around market need, competition, viability, etc.

But let’s say we have established a market opportunity, assembled a great team and completed a demo of sorts to share with potential investors, distributors and customers. Where should one go from here?

For starters one should absolutely look to protect intellectual property where possible. This is why startups, brokers, investors and established operators often ask for mutual NDAs to be signed before entering into any discussions. For products or services that are potentially patentable, I would strongly recommend having a conversation with an experienced IP attorney, and preferably one with expertise in your area of interest. This is especially important if you plan on outsourcing the production of your product. It’s important to note that your IP attorney may indeed be different from your corporate counsel that advises you on other matters. If you don’t have direct access to a list of IP attorneys, your corporate counsel should be able to direct you.

When it comes to sourcing a manufacturer for your product, the obvious areas of consideration are price and quality. Everyone wants quality production for the best possible price. But there are other less obvious things to consider when evaluating manufacturing partners. For instance, does the potential manufacturer produce similar products for competitors? This can be helpful in evaluating a facility’s capabilities. If a company can manufacture something for the satisfaction of ‘XYZ’ Fortune 500 company, then perhaps they should have some underlying qualification to produce on your behalf.

You may want to know if a manufacturer is set up for large scale production runs. While you might not need to do a large scale run now, you will if your business takes off and then you will want to scale. On the other hand, you might be faced with a manufacturer that is only willing to do large scale runs at affordable prices in which case it might be cost prohibitive to work with them when you are just coming out of the gate. Along these lines you will also want to know what the lead times are for getting on a production schedule. Contract manufacturers will work with numerous companies seeking different sized production runs and typically larger runs will get precedence over smaller runs on the production calendar.

You will also want to gauge whether a manufacturer typically stores parts or ingredients crucial to your production runs or do they purchase items on an as needed basis. This is an extremely important consideration given current supply chain challenges. And if you rely on parts or ingredients from overseas, it becomes even more important to the overall analysis.

Is your potential manufacturer cGMP (current Good Manufacturing Practices) compliant? While this rating and others such as NSF (National Sanitation Foundation) might not matter to you, they will matter to your distributors and retailers. If you plan on reaching customers via major retail channels, you want to make sure you give consideration to such rating systems.

Lastly and perhaps most importantly, you will hope that you can figure out if your point of contact at the manufacturer is someone you can rely on. Is he or she readily available and responsive to questions, emails, calls, etc? There may be times when production runs are tight, orders are backed up and quality control (QC) is not where it needs to be. It’s during these times that you need a responsive partner at the facility. Sales reps can be great at winning business. The question becomes are they great when you are actually in business with them.

In addition to choosing a manufacturing partner, you will need to determine where you will store your product after it is manufactured. If you don’t have your own warehouse and logistics system in place, you will likely seek out a third party logistic provider (3PL). These companies will store your product until it’s sold and can help with packaging, inventory management and distribution when it comes time to ship goods.

Which takes us to the last point of the question, specifically how do you find a retailer willing to take your new product on their shelf. As with everything else, there is no one right answer or pathway and each industry will have its one unique way of doing things. But broadly speaking, most retail driven industries are populated by middlemen (brokers and distributors) who act as gatekeepers and product evaluators for category managers and buyers that work for the retail channels. The reason these gatekeepers exist is simply because there are just too many products and brands for retail channels to deal with and evaluate on an individual basis so they rely on trusted relationships to bring them products that they expect will move quickly off their shelves. Shelf space is extremely expensive and if you are looking to bring something new to the market, you will need strong representation along with a well-funded marketing plan. None of this happens overnight and you can’t expect that everyone will love your product no matter how great it may be. But if you have done your homework, built something special and stay on point with regards to the underlying value proposition, you will have a fighting chance of breaking through the clutter and landing on a shelf somewhere.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

Hah, well aside from all the challenges posed by Covid and the lockdown, I wish, when we were mapping out the launch of Remedy+, that someone had told me…

1. …How expensive and complicated it would be to market products containing hemp compounds. To be more specific, I wish I had known from the beginning that Google and Facebook were so restrictive when it came to promoting anything with Cannabidiol. Digital ad spend and effectiveness is largely ruled by these two organizations and understanding what works and doesn’t is of vital importance when trying to target by way of interests and geography, new audiences that are consuming news and entertainment through their mobile devices. This ties into the second thing I wish I knew early on.
2. I wish someone had told me that there are very few experts in any new marketplace and that you will spend time and money learning that the hard way. Along these lines, I also wish I had known in advance the heavy impact that bad actors and their lousy products can have on retail access in general.
3. We figured this out fairly early and were fortunate we did so I think it is worth mentioning how important it is to have your storage and fulfillment operations (or ‘3PL services’) within a short driving distance when you are first starting out. Operationally, so many things come together in these facilities. The flip side to that is that so many things can go wrong, especially when you are in the early life cycle of your business. As an example, we were once faced with a production run that did not complete as expected. There was a whole bunch of unusable inventory that was mixed in with ready for shelf stock. We had to go in and sift through everything to separate the good from the bad, and then we had to go back and modify packaging to account for new production dates. Had we been faced with managing that process from afar, the costs would have been significantly higher and the quality control much worse.
4. I wish I had known how difficult it would be to secure quality representation as a start-up. I mentioned earlier how important it is to work with quality brokers if you want access to major retail channels. In this regard, the food & beverage industry is somewhat similar to wall street. There are thousands of brokers who claim to have relationships but in reality, the number of firms and individual brokers with inside game and connections is much smaller. Developing strong ties to quality representation is key.
5. I wish someone had prepared me for the fact that the food & beverage / supplements & nutrition industry moves at a much slower pace than the financial, technology and media industries. This by itself is not a big problem and understanding the logistics and numerous other things that must work in sync with one another, the slower pace makes sense. However, having spent so much of my previous work life in the other industries, I found myself having to adjust expectations on multiple fronts.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

As I mentioned earlier, I think it is very important that any ‘would be’ entrepreneur go though some serious self-examining due diligence. Ask yourself the following:

1. Will your product or service replace an existing product or way of doing things?
2. Will this product or service improve a user experience or benefit (financial or otherwise) by an order of magnitude?
3. Will the end user care enough about this benefit?
4. Can you (or your team) make or design a prototype on your own?
5. Do you have a clear pathway for getting this into a user’s hands?
6. Have you thought through capital requirements?
7. Do you have access to industry experts that can advise and/or help you with networking?
8. Is your idea something you want to pursue more than anything else in the world?
9. Are you prepared to work long hours and long days with little to no light at the end of the tunnel?
10. Are you prepared to risk everything and fail with nothing to show for the effort?

If you can answer yes to these questions and are ready to take the plunge, I would say go for it. Launching a company can be lonely and hard. But if things go well, the rewards are amazing and you can smile knowing you left things better than they were when you got to the starting line.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

Let me caveat my response here by acknowledging that this is not an area where I have much if any experience. I have had experiences where ideas, business models and marketing campaigns that I created and shared with people and organizations in the hopes of winning business were subsequently deployed by the very same organizations that said thanks but no thanks to me. Sadly, this happens even when NDAs are in place. With this said, I would always recommend trying to build as much internally as possible.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

This is a decision that is more often than not driven by necessity and availability. The decision will also be heavily influenced by the type of business one is trying to build. For many, especially those making their first foray into launching a business, access to an array of capital sources is something that might not be available. These entrepreneurs may have some friends and family that they can reach out to and see if they might be compelled to take a flyer on their initiative. But for most, bootstrapping is the only way forward until proof of concept is complete.

As a concept/start up begins to take shape and show signs of viability, it will become easier to share the story and pitch potential investors beyond friends and family. But capital raising that extends beyond those who are close to an entrepreneur(s) can still require an inside game. Lack of connections can make raising seed rounds very difficult, if not impossible.

All this said, if one finds oneself in a situation where there is an opportunity to go in one direction or the other, I would almost always advise that the decision be driven by consideration for scaling the business and accessing consumer markets. Again, I am assuming that a start-up, in this situation, could go in either direction. And if this is the case, then I would almost always want to bring aboard an investment/VC partner that could, in turn, bring capital, industry insight and connections to the table. This would allow me to more effectively scale my business and capture market share, whether it be a B2B or B2C marketplace.

It’s important to note that most founders are not going to be fully aware of all the drivers that may influence an ecosystem. Every industry has its own unique matrix of resources and distribution that can be controlled by various levels of personnel at differing organizations, all of whom have their own goals and purpose within the said ecosystem. VCs can be very helpful in connecting the dots in ecosystems where they have experience and relationships. This, of course, would come at a cost. But, that cost just might be worth it.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

This is a very pertinent question given the complicated times in which we live. I’ll avoid the rabbit hole of detailing all the various challenges we face, but suffice it to say I don’t really contemplate making the world a better place via success but rather I think how important it is to stoke change and improve things locally, from the ground up; first at home and then beyond that, extending into communities, centers of education and the like. Our abilities to communicate and share information have grown exponentially in the digital age and yet on another level it seems like open and honest information sharing has actually decreased as people seek comfort within their own tribes and information echo chambers.

For me, family is the ultimate legacy and starting a pathway for influencing the next generation. If you can impart upon your children the benefits and value of hard work, commitment to cause, curiosity, and empathy, then you are already playing a role in making the world a better place. After that, I look to neighborhoods and communities. Can those values become rooted within the communities where we reside? Are there better ways to share and communicate them inside schools and on the playing fields? Are people able to communicate freely and openly about what concerns them or moves them or are they afraid of being shut down? Perhaps it is too much of a pipe dream given where we are but ultimately, I would love to see a recalibration of how we as a nation think about these things and how we deal with each other. We can’t ask the world to follow us when we can’t figure out what we’re doing in our own backyard. And I guess if having some level of success allows me access to speaking to a broader audience about our need to recalibrate, then that’s fantastic too.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

There are so many things I would love to see a movement around. I would love to see people move away from social media as their main source of news and entertainment. I would love to see kids worry less about being TikTok famous. I would love to see adults take greater accountability for their views and actions. I would also love to see a movement that would bring James Bond back to life and turn anchovy pizza into a thing that everyone says yes too. But, assuming those are too much to hope for, I think it would be really cool if I could convince people to pick up a second language if they only spoke one. I am a little of the mindset that if everyone had a deeper connection to the world at large, we might all be a little more welcoming and understanding of things. And from a trickle up basis, this could be a great thing for everyone.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest 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.

I would be amped to have breakfast or lunch with Tim Ferriss. Why? Well first off, I am a fan and regular listener of his podcast. I have actually read Tools of Titans cover to cover. And I can’t think of a better source for tales and anecdotes pertaining to some of the smartest people in the world. He has also built and sold a nutritional supplements business and has advised and invested in numerous successful startups. Who knows, maybe he would want to take a ride on the Remedy+ train!

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Making Something From Nothing: Tom Kurz Of Remedy Products On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.