Three founders on what they wish they had known before shipping their first pallet.
Founders write "three things I wish I knew" essays because there is always something. The best versions are specific — one operator, one moment, one lesson, real numbers. Here are three from the modern D2C canon: Mike Cessario at Liquid Death, Laura Modi at Bobbie, and Jing Gao at Fly By Jing.
Mike Cessario, Liquid Death: Distribution beats brand
Cessario is a former Netflix creative director. He launched Liquid Death in 2019 with a punk-brand thesis: canned mountain water positioned like beer. The brand was viral from day one. The distribution was not.
Cessario has said publicly that his biggest early miss was underestimating the retail chess required to get on a Whole Foods shelf, then a 7-Eleven cooler, then a Walmart end cap. Every category has gatekeepers. The brand can pull. Distribution ships product.
Liquid Death is now in tens of thousands of retail doors and was valued at $1.4 billion in 2024. The lesson: the brand gets the meeting. The distribution wins the shelf.
Laura Modi, Bobbie: Regulatory is the product
Modi launched Bobbie in 2021 as the first modern D2C infant formula. Founders in consumer categories usually treat regulatory as a compliance line item. In infant formula it is the product.
Modi's early mistake, in her own words: expecting the FDA approval process to move on a startup timeline. It does not. Bobbie's launch cadence had to bend around FDA cycles that predated the internet. When the 2022 Similac recall hit, Bobbie was one of the few brands positioned to add supply — because Modi had already spent the years the regulatory process required.
The lesson: in a regulated category, the process IS the product. Build the timeline around it, not the other way around.
Jing Gao, Fly By Jing: Keep the founder voice
Gao is the founder of Fly By Jing, the Sichuan chili crisp brand that turned a specific regional Chinese pantry item into a mainstream U.S. condiment. She has spoken about the pressure early on to soften the branding — smaller Chinese characters, more Anglicized packaging, less Jing.
She kept the founder voice. Her name in the brand. Her face on the packaging. Her essays about Chengdu cooking in the newsletter. The result is one of the most durable independent food brands to come out of the 2020s.
The lesson: the founder voice is the moat. Sanding it off for scale usually erases the reason customers cared.
The pattern
Cessario learned distribution. Modi learned regulatory. Gao learned when not to compromise. The three lessons don't rhyme. But every founder who ships hits at least one of these walls — usually all three — and the timing of the recognition is what separates a company that reaches a Series B from one that doesn't.
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
