Peer Effect

Scaling Smarter: How Founder Forums Propel Success, with Kevin Lavelle

• James Johnson • Season 3 • Episode 33

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What does it really take to scale beyond the early wins? 

For founders who’ve already seen a degree of success, reaching the next level means facing new challenges, and Keven Lavelle, founder of Harbor and Mizzen + Main knows all about it.

He’s taken both companies to impressive heights, from securing a spot on Time Magazine’s 2024 Best Inventions list to hitting hundreds of millions in revenue!

Together, we dive in:

  • How joining a founder forum can offer you unmatched support & accountability– and where to find them!
  • The differences between founding your first and second startup—and why experience doesn’t always mean an easier road ahead.
  • Lessons learned in building a peer network that challenges you to make better decisions, see blind spots, and avoid common scaling mistakes.

Stay updated on Kevin's journey of building Harbor by following him on LinkedIn.


More from James:

Connect with James on LinkedIn or at peer-effect.com


Speaker 1:

So my second startup, harbor. I officially started working about two and a half years ago and we are in month two of shipping product to customers. So post revenue which is a very nice shift spent about two years getting the product ready to launch Very, very complicated product to build A great co-founder. We started the two of us and we've built up the team. I mean it was almost two years of behind the scenes to get the product into customers' hands. Just yesterday we got awarded Times one of their 2024 Best Inventions Really exciting recognition. We got Wired and Forbes named us the best baby monitor. So really good. These are independent external tests. There's you know there's a lot of pay to play in the world of media today, but this is you send them the product and then they'll tell you, maybe when they've published their review and in many cases they don't like. We just are surprised to learn that it's up.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome.

Speaker 1:

Congratulations, thank you, thank you. And then the first startup, mizzen and Main. I started it a little over 12 years ago and at this point in time we've done hundreds of millions in revenue. We're carried in about 1,000 points of retail distribution across the country US almost exclusively and then we have 11 of our own stores.

Speaker 2:

So you're basically saying you're used to operating at scale?

Speaker 1:

Yes, I've got both sides. I incorrectly assumed that the second time would be a much smoother path. But importantly, I you know the first time around every single thing was brand new and I got punched in the face repeatedly. You know, the first time around every single thing was brand new and I got punched in the face repeatedly. You know from everything that can go wrong. It did, and so this time, as I get punched in the face, I'm still getting punched, but it's just much less surprising and I think I'm able to sort of like I'm able to see where we're going and know that I can get there, and so I guess in that case it's a little easier. You're're still getting punched, you're just used to it.

Speaker 2:

The second time around I mean just sort of go back to talking about pre-recording, kind of supposed to, kind of having your second child. It's kind of like you think you know what you're doing, you just get punched in whole different ways exactly exactly.

Speaker 1:

The second child is not easier, you're just more used to it. Um, and then when something totally new happens to you, that idea of something totally new and unexpected is less surprising right, it's not like. I must be doing something wrong, because it shouldn't be this hard I'm like actually, that's just kind of how it goes.

Speaker 2:

I think often as a founder, you get so few people actually telling you you're doing a good job. It is actually quite nice to have someone external go actually you're doing a good job. Quite nice to have someone external go actually you're doing a good job. Yeah, truly, truly. Um. So what? What is? What is the one thing that you would share with other founders? Having had so journey one and journey two, what is something that is really effective for you?

Speaker 1:

I think the most important thing is the people you surround yourselves with. Surround yourself with and I look at that as kind of threefold I'm trying not to cheat on the answer and have three answers it is the people you surround yourself with. When I started Mizzen and Main, it was just my wife and I. We actually I told her I was going to start Mizzen and Main on our honeymoon.

Speaker 1:

I had I had a good nine to five corporate job and then on my on our honeymoon, um, I had I had a good nine to five corporate job and then on my, on our honeymoon, I'm gonna go start this startup, um, but my wife and now our children. You know, when I started the first company I didn't have kids and I'm very grateful for that. Being a first-time founder with kids would have been, I think, much, much more difficult. Now I really do believe to my core that my kids and my wife it's the most important part of my life and so having that grounding makes the ups and the downs of the startup and professional experience just more manageable. It's also hard to strike that balance, but my wife and my kids that's kind of part one and two and then the third.

Speaker 1:

I've been a part of the forum for eight years now and there are lots of professional networking groups eo, ypo, hampton, in various you know construction but but the fundamental premise is six to twelve people that are on similar journeys to yourself.

Speaker 1:

And in YPO you have to be of a certain size but you don't have to be the founder. In EO you have to be the founder and ultimately, the group that we've been together for eight years. Each of us started our own business and some of us have started other businesses since then sold businesses. Some businesses have had to shut down marital separations, kids have been born, kids are going to college and that professional peer group in a structured capacity not friends and they've become my best friends but the structured peer group in a professional capacity has been the most impactful thing on my professional journey and so we can unpack it. But it's hard to find and there are lots of professional peer groups that are fine and I know friends who are in other forums like yeah, no, it's helpful and this is the group that's been the most important group of people in my life ever and so grateful that.

Speaker 1:

I've been able to find that group and then cultivate these relationships to be so mutually beneficial over the course of the last eight years.

Speaker 2:

Okay, let's dive into that. That sounds like you've commissioned it for eight years. Over that pace of time, you've grown a very set of business. You've also now launched a second one, which is clearly doing very well as well. What is it about this particular group that makes it so successful?

Speaker 1:

One of the guys in our group, kyle. I think, if I had to put it so succinctly, it's like there's very few people in my life that I would ever really listen to and be grateful that they told me I'm wrong or I need to be thinking differently. And it takes a long time to build up a level of trust to where you want to hear that from somebody genuinely and that you will. You know, it's nice to hear criticism that makes you stronger, but it's another that makes you rethink your motivations and why you're making decisions that you're making and the direction that you're going. And so, fundamentally, it's about a group that's not your family, not your child or college friends, not your colleagues, not your business partners or investors. It's something apart from all of that, and a great forum helps you see the things that you can't see in yourself. A great forum helps you see the things that you can't see in yourself. Um, and certainly we have a lot of fun together. Um, we, we've gone on trips and now our wives, like we've, we've done a trip together with all of our spouses. Um, our kids have gotten together for events. Um, and over an arc of a professional, you know life, and over a life, um, you get to see people mature and grow and go through wins.

Speaker 1:

We've had guys in the chapter in our forum sell their businesses, that we saw them in the earliest of days and in the hardest of moments.

Speaker 1:

Some of the folks they went through a process to sell their business and it didn't go through, and that is a devastating experience. And then, not all that long after, they sell in a better way than they had expected. Guys that are somewhat early retirement but decided ultimately they had reached the point in their business where they were ready to step aside and begin a new chapter in their professional career. But it's been 20 years building that business and so celebrating those wins, navigating losses, um, both personal and professional, um in building a sense of camaraderie where, like it's the first group of people you call when you get a win and the first group of people you call when you face a challenge. And they know you so well they can cut through a lot of the you know fluff and also get to the heart of some of the biggest decisions and then also help you navigate some of the things that you know, the little gnat in your ear that you can't seem to get rid of, and that is a really special bond.

Speaker 2:

Because I think, as a founder, you, no matter how much people might say, oh well, I've got an open door policy. My team can challenge me as much as they want, it's like they can't. If you employ someone, they cannot challenge you as much as they want. They might push you once, but if you push back, there's a limit to how far they'll go. Don't show a group of people who are peers, who care about you, who you can't fire. It's probably the truest. I care enough about you to truly give you that, that hard, hard love.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely and it's quite rare I think there's the idea of your employees or your business partners can never truly challenge you Like I think that depends on various people. I know lots of people who say I love to be challenged and they shut it down all the time. But there's the really hard decisions that in some cases it's not appropriate to discuss with certain members of your team. And then there's the hey, I'm really struggling with something, with my kid at home or my spouse, and I have, you know, really, really tough argument. You don't really want to talk to your business partner about that. In some cases that can. That can be the case with some business partners, but for plenty of people it's not.

Speaker 1:

But I think the other aspect of this is, you know, when you are a founder, I've worked with high powered CEOs that run businesses many times larger than anything that I've ever even sniffed and they're the CEO. They were installed by a private equity firm or they were hired by the company and if it fails, certainly there's a really big deal there. They could be fired, there could be professional consequences, but it's not the business that they started. Their identity is not necessarily for better or for worse. Intrinsically, it's not the business that they started.

Speaker 1:

Their identity is not necessarily, for better or for worse, intrinsically wrapped up in the business, and that is a an especially unique burden to carry every day. Uh, it's a very big deal to be the one that signs the paychecks and you're responsible for the payroll and people's benefits and people's families and investors dollars. All of that is really tough. But when it's the thing that you started, you brought all these people along on the journey your friends, your family, your colleagues. Everybody's been watching you on this journey. From a founder's perspective, it is uniquely lonely in that regard, and it's again you face a potential failure, you face a potential major setback. It's one thing to be the one that's carrying the burden, it's another when again it's yours. You are the one that started it. Whatever percentage of the company you own, that hangs on you in a particularly unique way, and I think some of that's difficult for non-founders to understand.

Speaker 2:

It feels like being a founder, like, oh, you're a founder, you've made it, particularly your business is doing subjectively or even objectively well. It's like, well, what, what, what, what have you got to complain about?

Speaker 1:

Like these are not real problems, which is it's not to say that founders are better or worse than others. It's just something that you cannot truly understand until you've experienced it.

Speaker 1:

And it's not a perfect analogy, but I would say it's similar to being a parent. Until you are a parent, you cannot understand what that is like to bring a child into the world, to watch your own child take their first steps. I've had nieces and nephews, I've had best friends with kids. It's wonderful, it's heartwarming, it's so great and it is nothing compared to seeing your own children go through that journey. And so, while not a perfect analogy, it's just one of those things that, until you experience it, it's just not something that you can truly internalize and comprehend. The highs or the lows, you know it's. It's hey, have a big win, that's great. But like if I've spent the last decade on this win and it's my company that I started, and again you get all these people that you've convinced to come along on the journey. They're believing in you personally along the way. It is, I think, the most extraordinary professional gift and the most extraordinary professional burden.

Speaker 2:

What would you suggest to people when, like as a first step, if they were looking for that type of groom, what would they do?

Speaker 1:

So the ones that I am aware of Hampton, sampar and is a kind of global, more global, more decentralized network, more virtual, although they are growing in person. Ypo has been around for a long time. Eo, vistage I would just Google those and learn a little bit about it and if none of those are the right fit, based on your age, stage, business etc. Or geography, just keep keep going down the google train. And lord knows, these days, with all the ai perplexity and chat gpt, go ask them for suggestions, tell them about your business and what you're looking for, and it will probably find a great suggestion for you. Um, but the the thing that is the next pivotal step is so you get into the chapter, you get into the organization, whatever that looks like. When you find that group that you are placed in six, eight, 10, 12 people you have to make sure that it's the right two way bond, and so in my experience, you interview groups to be a part of and the groups interview you and you shouldn't be offended if they don't want you in the group and they shouldn't be offended if you don't want to be in their group. It needs to be the right fit and then, once you cross that bridge. Make sure that you properly invest in the overall experience. It's one of those. You get what you give and I was briefly a part of a YPO forum Wonderful people.

Speaker 1:

I was very happy to have met them and shared some of our experiences.

Speaker 1:

I dropped out after about four months because I was moving out of town, but the part of the thing that I noticed was for the people that were in, that several of them weren't that interested in really committing to the experience and so, like my forum that I've been with for eight years, for a four hour window of time once a month, we block everything out, you turn your cell phones off, you tell your spouse where you're going to be and you know you check your phone once or twice, but otherwise you block out the outside world and you dedicate that time.

Speaker 1:

Then we go to dinner and, you know, grow the social experience on top of the professional sharing and we take it very seriously. And for several years we would fine each other for being late even by one minute and we would fine each other for missing meetings or dinners and it was really rigid and structured and it's not about the money of the fine, it's about saying I truly commit to this experience, because if even one or two people falter, in it it takes away the overall that exists.

Speaker 1:

And in the beginning you really have to force the structure Because it's like, oh well, you know there is some traffic, ok, we'll make sure that you leave, you know, 20 minutes early and if you get there early, that's great, no problem, you can sit and do some work, you can catch up with the rest of the group. We have relaxed those fines and penalties and sometimes we wonder if we should bring it back, because you know the the they in the world of forums. Forums, they talk about um forming, norming and storming, which is like in the beginning you form, then you create your norms and then storms are, things start to break and you kind of got to bring it back together again. But there are a lot of really great forum training resources available for free. A lot of the these organizations will put you through a forum training so you understand why things matter. And then the other kind of piece that I've learned through this is our forum has moved to. I genuinely believe we're, you know, one of the top 0.01% of forum bonds. You know in the world, in terms of our commitment, how long we've been together, how strong the bond is commitment, how long we've been together, how strong the bond is In the beginning.

Speaker 1:

They will tell you never tell someone what to do. And when someone says, well, you know, I'm really struggling, should I let this person go or should I enter this new market? And if you say, oh gosh, you got to fire him, you're making a huge mistake if you don't let them go right away. Whether you acknowledge it or not, there is a sense of judgment and expertise and I know better associated with that, even if, quite literally, you were in the exact same experience. You know exactly what they're going through and you are helping them to the best of your ability.

Speaker 1:

If you start telling them what to do, then there can be some fissures in those bonds that are starting to form. And so they tell you to use gestalt, language and experience, share so things like you know, when I went through a rough termination experience with a team member, you know these are the things that I was feeling and these are the things that I did. You're sharing from your experience. You're not saying, saying this is what I know that you should do after a couple years, if the forum is really strong, you end up moving to the point where you'll go come on, you know you got fire.

Speaker 1:

You know you know what you got to do. I know you, you know you, but it takes a long time to get there and you need to put in the ground work to be able to have that type of relationship. It's honestly not that dissimilar from like building a strong bond with a spouse you that you have to put in that groundwork over a very long period of time to have a strong foundation to be able to communicate more effectively and openly and short circuit a lot of the you know, delicate dance that happens in those early months of in years of getting to know each other delicate dance that happens in those early months of, in years of getting to know each other.

Speaker 2:

It's a really nice insight that, like how did I was actually like need to earn also the right to have that style of communication and that's what we kind of want to get to but you can't jump to it no, and mean.

Speaker 1:

The silliest example that I can think of as a comparison is last time I was at a cocktail party and some random person I never met they're asking me oh, what are you doing? And I tell them they're like oh, you should do this and why aren't you doing this? And they start telling me all this and be like thank you, so nice to meet you and I'm glad that you know everything that I should be doing. And in some cases people are genuine and they feel like they want to help and in others people just want to hear themselves talk and feel smart and valued. But if you think about it from a friendship perspective the best friendships you build a lot of work in to build that mutual trust and respect before you get to a point where you can short circuit the pleasantries and the level of niceties that come along with interpersonal communication.

Speaker 2:

So you found a network In the UK. You've got Helm as well, which is a very good sort of founder network and you've interviewed the people, you've understood that there's a match. You kind of go into it sort of softly and go okay, well, let's just, there's no judgment. I'm offering this stuff lightly. I'm not telling you what to do. What is the emirates like? If you look at your experience now so you've been this one for eight years how much of your success would you apportion?

Speaker 2:

to this group of all the things that you do oh, that's a great question.

Speaker 1:

I think they would say 110 percent of my success, um, but, like, certainly they have been vital to what I've learned, how I've thought about things like the underlying growth that I've had as a professional.

Speaker 1:

So much of that is attributed to the way that our group has grown and bonded, but it's not like I'm running every decision through them and there will be times where I won't talk to anybody directly for weeks at a time, and so it's just the nature of life, especially with young kids. I think the way that I would frame it, as we were a little bit talking about the Time Best Invention Award, it is one of those fundamental long-term drivers of success where that award and that recognition is not a viral pop and in doing so, it reduces the risk. I was just having a conversation with my co-founder about this today. It reduces the risk for other press outlets to write about us. It reduces the risk for influencers to work with us. It reduces the risk for a consumer to click buy. As you go through each of those things, no one award, no one press hit tends to ever be the viral driver of success, but it tends to matter a lot over the long term.

Speaker 2:

And it's more than just business success, as you said. It's like your success as a, your growth as a leader, your success as an individual, your development as a person, your enjoyment of the journey it's about. It's about so many more facets.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you know, I think also importantly, I would say the it's not just about the professional. Some of the things that we have talked about as a group and spent a lot of time on have reframed the way that I look at the world. I can't turn my camera here, but I have a giant poster to my right which is a life calendar. So a guy named Tim Erden, amazing writer and blogger his blog is Wait, but why? I may have seen the blog before, but one of the guys in our forum reads a lot of his stuff and Tim wrote this piece called the Tail End, which, if you haven't read it, it's one of the most impactful pieces of writing I've ever come across. And, in short, he frames up an appropriate kind of analysis of your life, which is, if you have 52 columns across and 90 rows down, that is your life in weeks. Every week that goes by. That's a checkbox and that's an interesting way to visualize your life in weeks. Every week that goes by, that's a checkbox and that's an interesting way to visualize your life. And at the end of the week, you know, did I use this checkbox well or not?

Speaker 1:

But the more impactful takeaway was he framed up that analysis or that kind of pictorial representation of your life and said things like his father and he, every year they'll go to one I think it was Red Sox game.

Speaker 1:

He's like my dad is in his. I think he said at the time, like late 60s, early 70s, we're probably going to miss one or two years because of weather or travel delays or something, and so like how many of those do I have left? And based on the number of days that exist in your life, if you're lucky, and your parents, if you don't live near your parents when you leave for college or university, you've spent something like 98% of the days that you will ever spend with your parents. You've spent that with them Because if you don't live near them, how many times a year you're going to see them, et cetera, et cetera. And so that representation it can be very macabre and it can be very sobering to see. There are silly things like if you read two or three books a year, which is a lot for most people, how many books will you read in the rest of your life and how many books have ever been written Like I?

Speaker 1:

had this amazing bookshelf behind me. I have not tackled probably half of what I want to up there, and so I looked at it as and we spent a lot of time talking about this as a forum and talk about it very deep more of a positive reframing. To say, when I'm with my parents, how do I make sure that I spend that time more positively? How do I reframe some of the conversations that I have with friends, family, with experiences, and, honestly, for me it's made life much richer and much sweeter.

Speaker 1:

I'm so fortunate to be able to take my kids to school a lot of mornings. We ride our bikes fortunate to be able to take my kids to school a lot of mornings and we ride our bikes. And riding my bike with my kids to school is this intensely beautiful thing on such a just basic level, like it's nothing magical as most people would frame it up, but for me it is, because I won't have that many. I have very few years left of it and you just you never know how many times you get to do that, and so it's been a very positive reframing, and all of that came from discussions with our forum, and Kyle loves reading this type of stuff and sharing it with other people. So fortunate that he was able to share that in the early days of my kids lives, because it helped to reframe, I think, the time that I've spent with them.

Speaker 2:

So I was actually part of a forum for six years and, yes, I think I'm with you in terms of like life changing, mutual bonds, true understanding of like having people that you actually hear, like you value their opinion, yes, and you want to hear it.

Speaker 2:

I think that's a rare gift, particularly got a large group of them, and also look forward to that challenge, that perspective, but I totally agree like it leads you to be to think about things differently and carries impact into the wildlife. Actually, we all met up and everyone's spouses were like do you ever feel like? Because so farley was the guy who was sort of chairing our group. I was like do you ever did? Does your partner ever come home? And you feel like you're being coached by farley via your partner.

Speaker 1:

Yes, it's kind of like yep, that is a feeling that is is uh experienced by spouses sometimes do you think there comes a point where you need to change your group?

Speaker 1:

I would say it depends on the experience that you have. I can't imagine, especially at this point in time, ever changing my group. I moved to DC for about 20 months from Dallas where I live and I remoted into our meetings from DC and I came back a few times surprising the group that I was coming was actually one of the one of the coolest experiences I had as a part of our forum, because no one knew that I was coming in, knew that I was coming in. If the group I think if the group stops being a positive contributor to your life in a meaningful way, then I think it probably would be time to move on and forums break up and people move on, and sometimes it could be, you know, one or two people move on and then the forum actually gets a lot stronger because those folks weren't necessarily all in or the way that they were starting to frame up their lives just wasn't in alignment with the group.

Speaker 1:

But I can't imagine moving on from my forum and the reality is there's no one in my forum that has built a business like I have and again, that's not better or worse. We just built different businesses and that's fine, because I'm not looking for my forum to tell me how I should scale my Facebook you know ad strategy over the course of the next 18 months. I can learn from how some of them have tackled similar challenges. There's another, there's one other direct to consumer business in my forum and we share experiences. But I can find other people who are experts at Facebook ad strategies. And the cool part about today's world, especially with social media, is I've met plenty of other awesome DTC founders that we share strategic thoughts.

Speaker 1:

But like I'm not calling them when my son wins his you know cross-country race and say, oh, this is so exciting because we don't have that relationship and that that's okay, um, but I would say if the forum, if whatever your group is, ends up not being a net positive, especially with the amount that you need to invest in a group like that to make it work, it'd probably be time to find another group.

Speaker 1:

That may be very hard to do and it's not to say you're like keeping track of debits and credits and the minute it switches negative you need to leave. But it's part of why I haven't joined another forum because, um and I've tried twice, very briefly, given the groups that I was privileged to be a part of. I can't dedicate that amount of time to another group and, um, I have to be very militant about the time that I have and I want to be respectful of the other groups that I'm in, because if I can't commit and contribute then I am taking from other people in a way that someone else should be in that spot for them.

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