An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

A great team: As mentioned earlier, nobody can do this alone or build a great company by themselves. Earlier this year, I hired a VP of Finance & Operations as well as a VP of Marketing. I can say with all my heart that my life (both in business and personally) has drastically improved with those two hires. Not only are we running the business in a much better way, but I now have the time to truly think, strategize, analyze, and focus on where this company is going vs. being in the weeds every day. In order to build a truly spectacular business, having a great support team is essential to any leader looking to thrive.

Startups 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 Riley Stricklin.

Riley Stricklin is the Co-Founder and CEO at Lume Cube, the leading brand in Personal Lighting for Creators and Innovators. Since 2014, Riley has been leading the charge at Lume Cube and navigated the rocket ship growth they have experienced over the last 4 years. Riley and the company are based in sunny Southern California (San Diego) and continue to design innovative lighting tools for Creators and Innovators around the world.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Sure thing! I’m an East Coast guy born and raised (originally from Rhode Island) and as a kid, always had a ‘California Dream’ to live by the Pacific Ocean and surf every day, so after college at 22 I moved to San Diego and have been here ever since. I bounced around a few jobs in the Sales/Marketing world trying to find something I was passionate about, and realized I just loved the grit and grind of startup life (had worked for 2 startups) and the process of building something from scratch, so myself and 2 close friends decided to jump ship at the company we worked for and start our own thing. Among many ideas we tried, Lume Cube showed the most opportunity so we pivoted our resources to focus on this and as they say, the rest is history.

What was the “Aha Moment” that led to the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?

I’d say it was less of an “Aha” moment and more of an identification of a gap in the marketplace. Myself and the other Founders were working in the Photo/Video industry at the time, so were traveling to tradeshows and very well connected within the space. We saw all the BIG lighting companies selling products that were hundreds of dollars (if not thousands) to all the high end photo/video consumers who had these larger professional DSLR cameras. Lighting is a necessity in creating high quality content, so it made sense. At the same time (2014/2015), two major events were happening in the world of Content Creation. First, the iPhone 6 had launched with a revolutionary camera which was delivering the first 4K camera into everyone’s pocket (GAME CHANGING in the journey to making everyone with a smartphone a content creator). The second major event was GoPro was taking over the world in 2014, had just done an IPO, and was selling about 25M cameras a year becoming the largest camera company in the world (billions in annual revenue). We looked at the market opportunity and realized while we were playing in the world of high end photographers/videographers, MOST of the photos and videos that were being captured and posted to Instagram were being taken on these smaller devices (iPhones and GoPro’s). We were shocked that there wasn’t any lighting company delivering a small, portable light that was specifically designed to pair with those devices and get better photos and videos on your iPhone or GoPro. So, we decided to make a few prototypes and put a 4 minute video on Kickstarter for “a portable, powerful light designed for the iPhone & GoPro’’ to see if people resonated with the idea. What happened over the next 30 days blew our minds. We set a goal of $56,000 (which we hit within 72 hrs) and 30 days later had $230,000 in pre-orders of a $50 product. Put simply, the proof-of-concept was completed, the idea was validated, and off we went to build the company!

Was there somebody in your life who inspired or helped you to start your journey with your business? Can you share a story with us?

There have been many who have impacted my personal story along the way. In the beginning, we collectively idolized GoPro, so the inspiration behind Nick Woodman’s story of Grit & Tenacity to get GoPro off the ground was an inspiration for our entire team. I’d also like to acknowledge our original CEO and the one behind inventing the first actual Lume Cube, Mornee Sherry. He has a brilliantly innovative mind and really showed me that if you can dream it, you can build it. The tenacity he brought to the team around going after your dreams and not taking no for an answer still exists in me today. The two other callouts I’ll mention are my current partner who joined me as a partner, mentor, and friend in 2018, Mike Bieker. He is a seasoned businessman from Michigan who took me under his wing and taught me an incredible amount about operating a stable business, financial management, and leading a team. The last callout would be Michael Beal, a friend and mentor who helped me navigate tough times in the business through the partnership transition and was our secret sauce when it came to supply chain and inventory through our explosive growth during 2020 and 2021.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

Similar to the previous question, I’d say it’s our grit, tenacity, and ability to pivot quickly. Many entrepreneurs get stuck on a vision and refuse to change course (i.e. wanting to build company X which will then be acquired by company Y). We have a unique ability to not change the destination (build a great company and the leading brand in Personal Lighting), but the willingness to change course, pivot strategy, or adjust our offerings quickly when the market or demand changes. In the early days, we were a GoPro Accessory company as GoPro was all the rage. When Drones became a big hit, we innovated a line of Drone Products to enter that market. As GoPro and Drone sales declined in 2018, so did our sales of those accessories, so we tightened our belts, explored new markets, and in 2019 created a line of Video Call lights to snap onto your laptop for Zoom Calls to help balance out the declining Drone/GoPro accessory sales (as you might imagine, 2020 was quite the year for the Zoom Light product line). As TikTok/YouTube took off these last few years, we’ve stepped into creating lights for those customers (Ring Lights, Mobile Creator Kits for Smartphones, etc), and now have some even more innovative products in the roadmap for 2023. We’ve stayed true to our vision of building the leading brand for lighting, but didn’t get stuck on one single course (i.e. become a GoPro Accessory company or an Action Sports lighting company). Had we remained married to those strategies, we would be long out of business as those markets have fluctuated greatly. Even with the COVID Remote Working boom, which was great for us in 2020, in 2021 demand for those products dropped significantly. We planned for that, pivoted quickly and launched some new products to offset the changing demand in other categories.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I’ve identified 3 areas where we can deliver good to the world.

1. Our Product Line. We’re entering a world (2022 and beyond) where Content is everything, you can make a living creating content from your living room, and every major platform is incentivizing video creation. The future generation will be native content creators, and lighting is an essential need. We’ve set up a secondary warehouse where we exclusively send product out for free and donate 100% of all returned product (we sell no refurbished or returned product, it all gets donated). We’ve sent product to film schools, local high schools, and others to send free product to those who could benefit from it, yet may not be able to afford it.
2. Financial. When we’re able to, we donate a percentage of our profits to local organizations. When we grew exponentially in 2020, we donated $10,000 to the local San Diego Food Bank which provided thousands of Thanksgiving meals to local families who couldn’t access proper meals for the holidays. As the team has grown, we’ve continued these donations in either financial donations, or hosting fun competitive office competitions around the holidays such as Canned Food drives, clothing donations, etc.
3. Our Time: As the team grows (nearing 30 people now), we have more hands to offer time and energy to things we’re passionate about. We have a fun Beach Clean Up coming up soon, and have a few really exciting donations of time planned in the coming months (food banks, environmental clean ups, etc). As we succeed and are able to hire more people, the team that’s able to donate time gets larger, thus a larger social impact. These types of events are great bonding experiences for the team as well.

You are a successful business leader. Which three-character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

1. Grit: Without this, the world of entrepreneurship will grind you down. It’s such an uphill battle that this has to be one of the core traits in every entrepreneur. Days will come where it seems like the world is collapsing, and having the grit to endure and outlast the competition is required to be successful in this world. There’s been a few times over the course of the business where we’ve had a negative bank account, skipped payroll, and it seemed like our time to hang up the gloves had come. Grit allowed us to buckle down, find ways around what seemed like sky high obstacles, and keep going.
2. High Emotional Intelligence/People Skills: I don’t care if you have the next great invention, the next big billion-dollar idea for an app, and maybe even you’ve built/designed/launched the product or company. Nobody can build a great company by themselves, it is a team effort and required a lot of great people. One of my favorite quotes is “To build a world class company, you’ve got to have a world class team”, and to recruit/retain world class talent, you’ve got to have emotional intelligence and people skills. This means patience, empathy, the ability to communicate effectively, manage different personalities, etc. I’ve seen some GREAT products/companies that could have scaled to millions go bankrupt because the founder/CEO didn’t have the skills needed to manage and retain a great team.
3. Humility: As the classic Mike Tyson saying goes, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”. Building a business will mean a lot of gut punches, a lot of “being wrong”, and requires a lot of learning. For me, this is my first business, so I didn’t come in knowing much (and have made just about every mistake along the way I could have). I’ve had to put my Ego away many times, accept that I’ve been wrong many times, and understand that if something I try fails, it’s simply a lesson learned and I need to pick myself up, implement whatever I learned in the failed experiment, and keep going. Quick example: Just recently I gave some critical feedback to the creative team on a piece of content they were implementing into our Facebook Ads account. I didn’t like it, didn’t feel it was on brand, and forecasted that it wouldn’t work…turns out, I was dead wrong…and I mean DEAD wrong. They tested it against all other creative that month, and it ended up being the winner by a mile and leading to over $100,000 in new revenue that month. I was wrong, apologized to the team, reframed my thought-process around what “I thought was right and I personally liked”, and decided to further empower them to experiment and get creative. If my Ego led that situation, I wouldn’t have been able to accept that I was wrong, would have come up with some other excuse on why it worked, deflated the morale of the Creative team and left them feeling frustrated. Instead, we laughed about it. I shared with the whole company in our Monthly Meeting what a learning experience it was for me and how wrong I was, and acknowledged the Creative team for crushing it that month. The team became proud of their accomplishments and felt empowered to try more things knowing that I would support them regardless. We as leaders are going to be wrong, so if we can’t admit it and take ownership of our mistakes, it sets a terrible example for others and breeds an unhealthy culture. Stay humble is the best advice I can give.

Often leaders are asked to share the best advice they received. But let’s reverse the question. Can you share a story about advice you’ve received that you now wish you never followed?

Oh, how many of these I could share! I have countless. The one that we’ve fortunately fixed most recently has to do with our Website, so I’ll share that. When we exploded in 2020 and grew 500%, we were doing millions of dollars each month and had all these “experts” giving us advice. With the exploding sales happening online, we were advised that in order to truly become a premium e-commerce business and capitalize on the momentum, we had to build an entire new website from scratch, fully customized with all these crazy features so that we could “stand out from the crowd” and have this unique website experience. So, I made the decision to go forward and build the custom website… we invested well over 6-figures into the project & it lasted nearly a year. The project became a nightmare, any small change needed so much custom development (which was incredibly costly) and it ended up having the reverse effect and stunting our growth, eating up resources (internally and externally), and we ended up scrapping it entirely after 18-months. Looking back, my gut told me to do something simpler & more efficient (work off a Shopify Theme), yet I listened to the advice of others and it sent me down an expensive path full of headaches. But hey, was a valuable learning experience so took the lesson and kept on going!

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

We hit some hard times in 2017. Had some cash-flow issues internally, manufacturing issues, and a few more things that led to a “perfect storm” of things going downhill. If I’m being honest, we had a date circled on the calendar that was a “shut down operations” date if we didn’t figure a few things out. I had to do a mass layoff and let go of 70% of our company at the time, letting go of many people I considered friends and had developed relationships with. We had made some bad decisions and they didn’t work out. Those days are the hardest, when you must make decisions to keep the company alive, but it negatively impacts the team. There’s no training for days like that, and it never gets easier. This is a great example where the trait I mentioned earlier, GRIT, is so important. It would have been so easy to close shop, give up, and take a job that had more stability. Instead, we dug down, found a path forward, ended up finding a way to bridge our financial needs, being able to hire some of the staff back, and the following year grew the business over 100%.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard? What strategies or techniques did you use to help overcome those challenges?

It may have been to an almost unhealthy level at the time, but I had a true belief in the vision of the company and my ability to “figure it out”. I had put years of my life into the business by that point, and we had multiple friends/family invest in the idea, and I just couldn’t accept letting them down. That was a major driver for me, having friends invest in me early on. If I was the only one at risk, perhaps I would have given up, but I had a few hundred thousand dollars on the line of other people’s money, and losing their money was not an option for me. I had no idea what the path forward was, but knew I had to give it everything I had. While it worked and we figured everything out, I did learn later that in giving everything I had to the company, it took a toll on my health (both physical and mental), and it took much recovery, coaching, and deep work to rebuild. I unfortunately learned a bit too late the importance of balance and mental health, and would highly encourage any other leaders out there to prioritize personal health and wellness from day one. You’re a better leader when you’re operating from the best version of yourself.

The journey of an entrepreneur is never easy and is filled with challenges, failures, setbacks, as well as joys, thrills and celebrations. Can you share a few ideas or stories from your experience about how to successfully ride the emotional highs & lows of being a founder”?

In 2018, after a rollercoaster of a year in 2017 where we nearly folded, I found a peer group of other business leaders (EO, the Entrepreneurs Organization). It changed my life to find a tribe of other business leaders who were navigating the same issues I was. My main experience share here would be to find a support group or peer group of other entrepreneurs as soon as possible. It can be a lonely ride, so just having that support group, not to mention mentoring from other successful leaders, has changed my life in so many ways.

Let’s imagine that a young founder comes to you and asks for your advice about whether venture capital or bootstrapping is best for them? What would you advise them? Can you kindly share a few things a founder should look at to determine if fundraising or bootstrapping is the right choice?

Bootstrap, bootstrap, bootstrap (when young and starting your first business). It teaches you so many great habits around conserving cash, being overly careful about how you spend money, and you’ll become an expert at understanding your financial situation because bootstrapping just requires you to obsess over every dollar. Those I know who’ve gone the VC route too early in their career developed some bad habits of cash flow management. Money is always accessible so they don’t learn those valuable skills until it’s too late. Unfortunately we’re seeing this currently in a lot of the VC markets where companies are collapsing left and right as the economy tightens up. Once you’ve proven the concept for your business, know your numbers & have developed some strong financial management behaviors, then go find capital to help grow your business.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Many startups are not successful, and some are very successful. From your experience or perspective, what are the main factors that distinguish successful startups from unsuccessful ones? What are your “Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup”?

Sure thing. Note that I’m in the Direct-To-Consumer world & that’s where I’ve been my entire journey at Lume Cube, so some of these may be more directed towards DTC, but should be pretty generic!

1. Clearly defined vision/mission: What is it they say? “Vision without Action is a daydream, but Action without Vision is a nightmare”. As the team grows, the founder/CEO gets further removed from each employee, so you lose that ability to personally impact each person in the company. We had a bit of an alignment crisis last year where departments weren’t working together. By developing a clear vision of where we want to go, who we want to be, and what the end goal is, not only did we see retention increase and employee engagement skyrocket, but we saw performance improve as well. Think of the sport Crew (rowing). All members on the boat may be rowing, but when they start rowing in-sync, on the same rhythm, and with the same intensity, it drastically improves performance and the team that’s aligned towards the same vision will surely outlast the team that’s uncertain what the vision is. This has led to further employee engagement and retention as well, people feel they are part of a larger vision/mission vs. just coming to work for a paycheck.
2. Ability to sell: I don’t care if you’re a service business, SaaS company, product company, or just a freelance consultant. The ability to sell your vision, your product, your value propositions is the #1 skillset I could state for any leader hoping to be successful. Selling will come into play when recruiting key team members, potential investors, potential customers, potential partnerships, etc. I don’t care how good your product is, if you can’t sell the vision, the “why”, the dream, it’ll be challenging to assemble a great team, get the funds you need, or close the customers you want. Back in 2017 when we had a financial crisis in the business, nothing on paper looked like a good investment, but my ability to sell the vision, the potential, and what this company could be closed a 7-figure investment round as well as a number of high level employees over the following 2 years. Had that skill not been as sharp as it was, the situation would have turned out much differently.
3. Unit Economics that make sense: If I were to give my younger self one single piece of advice, it would be to have a better grip on my numbers. The product may be world-changing, the team may be fired up to sell it, but if unit economics don’t make sense, the company will fold (or burn cash, which is never sustainable). We’ve seen this happen in a big way over the last 18 months. As acquisition costs have increased post iOS14 (along with import duties/tariffs & freight costs), I’ve seen countless companies that had great product, great branding, and even great teams go bankrupt and fold. The core reason, the team didn’t know their numbers and the Unit Economics didn’t make sense anymore. If there isn’t some path towards profit or the ability to cover your expenses (people, marketing, operations, etc), the business will fold. Unfortunately the world of burning cash, growing at all costs and being funded by VC’s only applies to a very small set of businesses and much of that is behind us (the past 10 years were full of this). Moving forward, know your numbers, it’s all about unit economics and the ability to scale.
4. A great team: As mentioned earlier, nobody can do this alone or build a great company by themselves. Earlier this year, I hired a VP of Finance & Operations as well as a VP of Marketing. I can say with all my heart that my life (both in business and personally) has drastically improved with those two hires. Not only are we running the business in a much better way, but I now have the time to truly think, strategize, analyze, and focus on where this company is going vs. being in the weeds every day. In order to build a truly spectacular business, having a great support team is essential to any leader looking to thrive.
5. A great product/market fit: There’s a lot that comes into play here. Timing is a big factor as well. Think of companies like Uber or Lyft. Phenomenal concept, but if they tried to execute in the early 2000’s, it wouldn’t have been possible. Enter a world where everyone has a supercomputer in their pocket (smartphones), and suddenly the timing for an idea of that nature becomes possible. There’s countless stories of phenomenal ideas coming at the wrong time. Maybe the market/customer base just isn’t ready for it. Maybe the technology needed to offer the product at a reasonable price point isn’t quite there yet. Take Lume Cube for example, we launched our Video Conference light in January 2019…needless to say, it was a flop and not a successful offering. Enter 2020 and the market conditions, there was a need and we were able to fulfill it, and suddenly we were selling in 1 month the same volume we did the entire YEAR of 2019. Similarly for our Ring Light. A few years ago, content wasn’t as big of a topic and Ring Light sales were low. Fast forward a few years with YouTube, TikTok, and the “Creator Economy” booming, we’re selling millions of dollars worth of Ring Lights and one of the largest suppliers in the US for that product category. Timing & product/market fit is essential to building a great business. Now, the best leaders out there continually adjust their product offering to fit the market needs. Understand what the problem is your core customer is looking to solve, and build something that delivers them a solution at a price they are willing to pay. That’s what innovation is all about.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen CEOs & founders make when they start a business? What can be done to avoid those errors?

The primary one, and we’re guilty of it early on, is not knowing your numbers. No matter how good the idea is, if a business runs out of cash or doesn’t have unit economics that make sense, it’s game over. Invest in education, professional help, or whatever is needed to ensure you understand your numbers. Most CEO’s/Leaders are not accountants, but need to be dangerous enough in Excel or basic Financials to keep the business intact.

Startup founders often work extremely long hours and it’s easy to burn the candle at both ends. What would you recommend to founders about how to best take care of their physical and mental wellness when starting a company?

More hours does not mean more success. I learned this too late unfortunately. I’d rather work a healthy 40- 50 hr week, be recharged over the weekend and excited to come to work on Monday, than burn the candle through the weekend and come Monday, be tired, grumpy, burned out, etc. Especially if you have a team, the team needs a healthy leader, so balance, support, eating well, sleeping well, all are key to being a great leader. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve pulled countless 100+ hour weeks building this company, those are unavoidable in the process, BUT, don’t make a habit out of it. Develop some sort of routine where you are able to recharge, disconnect, and refill your cup. What I’ve found is actually some of my best ideas pop into my head when I’m recharging! Whether it’s going for a walk, or on a chairlift during a quick snowboard weekend getaway, sometimes my best ideas that have led to our success hit me when I’m “off the grid” because I’ve been able to clear out the noise and just connect with my own thoughts. If I was spending those days behind the computer cranking emails, I can guarantee many of those ideas would have never come to me.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start 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. 🙂

Be kind. It’s that simple. We live in a world today where it’s tough to get away from the news, where it’s impossible not to compare yourself with others, and anxiety/depression is at all-time highs. While there’s SO many great innovations we get to experience in 2022, many of them can lead people down some tough paths, and you never know the battle someone else is fighting. Whether it’s in the office, on the street, or at the grocery store, I wish I could start a movement to elevate kindness to strangers. Sometimes something as small as a smile, holding the door, a simple “hey how are you?” can change someone’s day for the better. Let’s be kind to each other, it can be rough out there, and kindness cures all.

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.

Big fan of what Roy and Ryan Seiders built at Yeti. They created a premium product (and brand) in a commodity category, as well as built a community unlike any other. Would be thrilled to sit with them over coffee to hear their view of how they built Yeti & why they believe the brand has become as massive as it has.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Check out our website (www.lumecube.com), or feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. That’s my platform of choice lately and I love connecting with like-minded individuals: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rileystricklin/

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!

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Riley Stricklin Of Lume Cube On Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.