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Are you willing to live in China for 6 years without returning to see your family, sleep on a factory floor, and live on a budget of $1/day to make your dream a reality?
Most entrepreneurs (myself included) would have drawn the line at ONE of those insane realities, yet Nick Mowbray did all 3.
He went to China with no money, no plan, and no language skills. He slept in a bush outside the airport to save money. He and his brother built their own factory instead of finding a manufacturer. When lawsuits hit or purchase orders died, he was relentless in finding new work. Actually, let's not sugarcoat it—he was borderline psychopathic in his pursuit of success.
Two takeaways from Nick's story:
Success is a bad teacher. Assume your winning playbook will expire. Always keep testing.Nick didn't rely on one strategy. When his first toy designs failed to get traction, he pivoted. When manufacturers wouldn't work with him, he built his own factory. When competitors sued or buyers backed out, he found new products and new markets. He constantly tested small ideas (bullets) and only scaled the ones that worked (cannonballs).
Fire bullets before cannonballs. Start tiny. When it hits, double down.This concept comes from Jim Collins' book Great by Choice. A bullet is a low-cost, low-risk test. A cannonball is a big bet. Nick would create small batches of new toys, test them at trade shows, and watch customer reactions. If a toy flopped, he moved on quickly. If it sold out, he'd pour resources into manufacturing thousands of units. This disciplined experimentation let him win without betting the company on any single product.
For Nick, achieving his ideal end state was worth all the sacrifice. As the alternative (failure) was a worse life to live.
Now, the message here isn’t to abandon your family and move to China. It’s to highlight that you should not fear failure. Rather, you must fear not pursuing your life’s conquest with your greatest effort (wellness, family, life’s work). As a failure to try is a failure to act - the only thing we control in life.
Want to hear more stories like this? Get one each morning this week with my free 7-day founder fitness challenge HERE
Find your customers on Roku this Black Friday
As with any digital ad campaign, the important thing is to reach streaming audiences who will convert. To that end, Roku’s self-service Ads Manager stands ready with powerful segmentation and targeting options. After all, you know your customers, and we know our streaming audience.
Worried it’s too late to spin up new Black Friday creative? With Roku Ads Manager, you can easily import and augment existing creative assets from your social channels. We also have AI-assisted upscaling, so every ad is primed for CTV.
Once you’ve done this, then you can easily set up A/B tests to flight different creative variants and Black Friday offers. If you’re a Shopify brand, you can even run shoppable ads directly on-screen so viewers can purchase with just a click of their Roku remote.
Bonus: we’re gifting you $5K in ad credits when you spend your first $5K on Roku Ads Manager. Just sign up and use code GET5K. Terms apply.
idea of the week 💡
Credit: ideabrowser.com
Problem: Freelance podcasters waste hours each session wrangling cables, levels, and layout. Mobile creators need fast, reliable setups anywhere.
Idea: PodSetup is a mobile app that auto‑detects your mics, mixers, and interfaces, then guides cable routing, mic placement, gain staging, acoustics, and lighting to turn any space into a pro studio in under 60 seconds.
How it makes money: $19/month core app. $29/month premium with equipment recommendations and brand partnerships. Initial GTM: the 167k creators in r/podcasting, then YouTube tutorials and equipment‑brand partnerships.
Why it might fail: Habit and tool switching friction. Win by nailing reliability on device detection and a dead‑simple first‑run. Back‑of‑napkin: $25 ARPU × 20k actives ≈ $5M ARR.
friday fitness
at‑home
10‑minute density blocks x 2 rounds. Score = total reps.
10 push‑ups
15 air squats
10 sit‑ups
10 alternating reverse lunges per side
Rest 2 minutes between blocks. Try to beat round 1’s rep count in round 2.
gym
5 rounds for quality, not speed:
8 barbell front squats
10 pull‑ups or banded pulls
12 kettlebell swings
Rest 90 seconds between rounds.
outdoors
20‑minute hill session:
Run hard up a hill for 45 seconds
Walk back down easy
Repeat for 20 minutes. Finish with 5 minutes easy jog.
tweet of the week
Take it from someone who doesn’t give AF about what people think: cringe-maxing will change your life.
join the 7-day founder fitness challenge [free]
Want to develop lasting, healthy habits? Join the 7‑day founder fitness challenge HERE
Here’s the deal:
For the next 7 days you’ll get a daily email with a fitness and founder challenge plus a short founder story.
You’ll get an invite to my WhatsApp group for resources and anonymous Q&A.
All 100% free. Don’t wait —> start day 1 here
video of the week
Excited to welcome Rob O’Brien as a new Deal Partner with Breakwater M&A, representing sellers on the beautiful East Coast of Canada. Check out my interview with Rob below:
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