Find Solutions that Live Beyond You

Health and wellness is a fiercely competitive yet booming industry. Dan Gluck and Anthony Katz have both built brands and businesses in this space and shared their guidance for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists at our At the Helm event. Dan looks to invest in companies unique in the marketplace that solve problems with efficacious solutions, i.e., products and services. 

“Very few companies win by relying on brand power alone,” he pointed out. “Solve a problem, and build a powerful brand, and that will increase your probability of success ten-fold.”

An ideal solution is one that lives beyond you, meaning it has staying power. Anthony explained he didn’t build a business just to build a business and make a living; he saw his life’s work as making a lasting change and impact in an area he was passionate about. This philosophy of purpose drove his entrepreneurial goals and it’s something every future founder can harness once they have identified what drives them and is most important to them.

However, do not follow your passion so much that you neglect thorough due diligence, Dan noted, and this particularly applies to start-up investors and VCs.

“Don’t rely solely on your personal experience with a product or service,” he said. “Seek quantitative feedback from customers and ensure there is a current product-market fit and a large enough total addressable market for future product-market fit.”

Don’t invest in an idea only — margins matter

Dan had one final word of caution, which is that early-stage investors often focus more on the secular theme and underplay the importance of future steady-state margins of the business. Without an attractive margin profile, you are simply investing in an idea, not a business. Make sure you are investing in a company with sustainable economics that can eventually sustain itself with free cash flow.