Catch Your Big Break! How Startups Can Position Themselves To Win Big

Sometimes it might feel like you just go through the motions, day after day, week after week, or even year after year. Waiting for that time in the unknown future when you finally catch the big break.

Running a startup can be a long haul. You may have heard the expression “my startup was an overnight success, but it just took ten years to get there.” The early years can be slow and tedious, something most entrepreneurs are not comfortable with. We like the excitement of the new venture…but that quickly fades as the hard day-to-day work comes in place.

One such entrepreneur, Joe Foster, spent two decades before hitting it big. He and his brother Jeff founded Reebokᵀᴹ a multibillion-dollar brand acquired by Adidas for 3.8 billion dollars.

Over the last couple of years, I have had the opportunity to interview Joe Foster several times and learn the full story behind Reebokᵀᴹ. In fact, I also feature his story in the upcoming book Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat. His story is one of tenacity, perseverance, trial and error, and constant innovation. His recent book Shoemaker reads like a Hollywood script as he and his brother start with absolutely nothing but a few good ideas and hard work. They launch their startup, survive the roller coaster, and then scale to industry dominance.

Established in 1958, it took until 1979 for Joe to secure a distributor for Reebokᵀᴹ in the lucrative US market. This breakthrough followed their shoes receiving a coveted 5-star rating in Runner’s World magazine.

Then Reebokᵀᴹ decided to enter the market of aerobic shoes for ladies, and then an unforeseen and remarkable event unfolded. In an episode of Serial Entrepreneur: Secrets Revealed, hosted on Clubhouse, Joe described it like this: “And then Jane Fonda bought a pair of Reeboks and started to use them in her videos. And that was it. All of a sudden it took off. From a 9-million-dollar company, we went to a 900-million dollar company in four and a half years.” When I asked him if he had paid Jane Fonda as part of a sponsorship deal, he answered, “No, she had to buy them.”

Let’s dig a little deeper to understand what happened here. First, Reebokᵀᴹ made the decision to “Look for the space where they are not,” referring to Nike, Adidas, and other big players in the sports shoe sector. “The biggest whitespace was aerobics,” he said.

We find this time and time again in our ecommerce companies operating out of our incubator. When we try to copy someone else’s success, we don’t seem to make much headway. But if we head into the uncharted “Whitespace” (as Joe calls it), we can win over new markets.

Being different was the first key for Joe. Second, meeting up with Paul Fireman at a conference and setting up the US distribution deal was critical. Designing three 5-star shoes and having them featured in the leading trade journal of the time was critical to building brand confidence and convincing the distributor to move forward. Making the decision to target a market where none of his competitors had ventured into was a huge differentiator. And, lastly, having an influencer wear his shoes was the final “big break.”

In other words, sometimes there is an element of luck to your big break. Joe didn’t know Jane Fonda would buy his shoes. But to be clear, she never would have worn his shoes if Joe and his partner Paul hadn’t already positioned themselves with all the other moves first. By doing so, they reaped the rewards of “luck” when it showed up.

Joe needed reviews. How important are reviews for your business today? What are you doing to get them?

Joe needed distribution. How important are distributors to your business today?

Reebokᵀᴹ into the “whitespace” by creating a product different from the competitors for a particular market segment. How important is innovation in your business and understanding underserved market segments?

You can’t control when luck shows up. But you can put yourself in position to benefit when it does. Overnight success doesn’t happen overnight.