Happy Thursday!

Danny Winer bootstrapped HexClad, sourced the product himself, and built it into a billion-dollar brand with Gordon Ramsay as a co-founder. Go to a Yankees game, a Costco roadshow, or a Michelin-starred kitchen and you'll spot the hexagons.

I sat down with Danny on the Q4 Summit stage, and every answer he gave about Q4 started months before Q4.

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Badass Cookware, Built Over Twelve Months

Before HexClad, Danny launched a cold-press juicer and was out of that business in about 15 hours. He'd tried to impose his will on the customer. With HexClad he listened instead, and when investors told him cookware was too competitive and nobody would buy it online, he built the first DTC cookware brand anyway.

Listen here: YouTube | Spotify | Apple

What I pulled from this one:

1. Reinvent it or make it gorgeous. A new HexClad product either reinvents the category, like the pepper mill Danny calls a weapon, or looks so good you want it out on the counter, like the knives. Anything that does neither stays in the drawing room.

2. Treat a follow like a lead. Gordon Ramsay followed HexClad on Instagram, the team messaged back, and less than a week later Danny was on the phone with Gordon's business manager. Gordon sent over a video before the deal was even signed, and he still calls Danny to ask how Prime Day is going.

3. Run promotions, skip the discounts. Danny saves offers for a few moments a year and makes them compelling enough to bring new customers into the fold. With LTV close to double AOV and a lifetime guarantee on every product, the first pan starts the relationship, and the next sale is knives or a cutting board.

4. Plant in March, harvest in Q4. If you do 30 to 60% of your revenue in Q4, the work from January through July decides it. During the season, HexClad pushes spend to hexclad. com, where it owns the customer relationship, and pulls back on Amazon.

That's all for today

Danny seeds product to ten-year-old creators and runs challenges on MasterChef Junior, because someone turns 35 every day and he wants them to already know which pan to buy. Figure out who your customer will be in five years, and start talking to them now.

It's Thursday, and it's all downhill from here. Cook yourself something good this weekend, and I'll see you Sunday.

Nik