The unique surf brand

Hey - It's Farzan & Guy,

I've been staring at this newsletter for the past 30 minutes because I know it can be better. I'll be honest - it's not where I want it to be. But that's exactly why I'm excited: over the coming months, I'm going to be making it slimmer, more focused, and easier to digest. Stay with us if you want to see where it goes. If not, no hard feelings - please unsubscribe. Let's get into it...

Estimated reading time: 7 mins

In the mail today. 2 stories, 2 truths, 1 bit of motivation

 Founder story 

The story of Ryan, the reluctant founder and his unique surf company, needessentials.

See how Ryan:

• Built a premium wetsuit brand with zero advertising or branding

• Created world-class wetsuits at half the price by cutting out middlemen

• Grew from personal need to a 16-person company serving dedicated surfers

Distribution tips from Ryan's no-frills playbook:

• Strip away all non-essentials - no branding, packaging, or marketing materials

• Focus solely on product quality - use the highest grade materials and workmanship

• Build authentic trust - let product quality and word-of-mouth drive growth

I love this story because Ryan's anti-marketing, product-first approach is so different from typical DTC brands. He proves you can build a successful business by focusing entirely on product quality and eliminating everything else.

Founder story

How Dimitro built a $12K/Month Micro SaaS.

Dimitro built Screenshot One, a service that automates screenshots, and now makes $12,000 monthly. He found success through unique marketing channels like Zapier, Make, and YouTube tutorials. He started by building a simple version in 5 months (though he says that was too long), validated it with 10 real customers, and now serves 280 clients with 40-60% profit margins.

 Founder motivation 

Goggins as always tells us how it is. This one is harsh but very true.

Founders are delinquents

Tim Parr (Caddis founder) has a list of lessons he learnt from Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard, Here’s a very unique one…

“If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, this sucks, I'm going to do my own thing.” Yvon would say this a lot, and I thought it lit him up the most.

I'm guessing he took pride in his juvenile delinquent behaviour as it possibly, for him, justified his corporate behaviour (which he struggled to rationalize).

‘No kid grows up dreaming of being a businessman or woman. We wanted to be astronauts, firefighters, or athletes. Not business people.’ Yvon would also say.

The two realizations dovetail with one another well.

As Entrepreneurs, our dreaming and malcontent with current conditions are what choose us. We start out wanting to be rock stars, doctors, sports heroes, or garbage collectors (me age 7…the permission to hang off the back of a moving truck could not be beat). Then we get pissed off at certain brands or experiences and decide we can do it better. We say this sucks.

Starting Caddis was a moment of pissed off and declaring this sucks. The reading glasses market was garbage, and brands didn’t recognise my culture over the age of 40.

Here’s to raising more juvenile delinquents dreaming of better things or ways that don’t suck. Here’s to staying a juvenile delinquent well into our fifties and beyond.”

 Founder truth

Alex Hormozi is everywhere these days. Like him or not this is gold.

I sold my businesses for $50M+
Did it all without:

+ Without reading a book a week.
+ Without making my bed.
+ Without journaling.
+ Without a 2-hour morning routine.
+ Without giving up alcohol.
+ Without giving up Netflix.
+ Without giving up working out.
+ Without waiting to marry.
+ Without leverage.
+ Without any connections.

The only thing you need to do is find stuff that people want. Sell it to them for more than it costs you. Do it many times.

That’s all for this week.

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See you next week.

Guy + Farzan
Founderoo