Breaking Bad scenes map onto startup problems: scaling production, managing investors, and choosing between quality and speed to market. Walter and Gus's partnership shows how a distributor can provide infrastructure and credibility that money alone can't buy.
Chapters
It is the purest, most chemically sound product on the market anywhere.
That is not the only factor.
This is such a common trope. We all know that the best product does not win. But it's so hard to admit it when you're the one building the product.
Today, I'm diving back into Breaking Bad. If you missed part one on Walt's early startup days, you can catch up with the link below. This time, though, we're tackling two big startup challenges. Scaling up and nailing distribution.
How much is this?
26 big ones.
Is that all? $26,000?
No, that's 2,600.
How much meth did you sell?
Nearly an ounce.
Last time I checked, there was 16 ounces to a pound. What'd you do with the rest? Smoke it?
Yo, I've been out there all night slinging crystal. You think it's cake moving a pound of meth oneteenth at a time?
So why are you selling it in such small quantities? Why don't you just sell the whole pound at once?
To who?
What do I look like, Scarface?
It's fantastic because this is basically engineering and sales and the complete situation you find yourself in if you're willing to have this discussion. Most of the time, people are not willing to have this discussion, so they hum along with mediocre sales. But this really proves a point that if you build a great product, you still need great distribution or you're not going to make enough money fast enough. What's funny about this is it almost implies a major pivot for them because today they're selling to essentially the equivalent of consumers. Walter is basically suggesting, possibly without knowing what he's about to get into. But we know what he's going to get into. If you watch the show that, hey, there's a B2B opportunity here, that's a real pivot, because they built a great product, they started selling it, and they realized that they can do a customer pivot and sell the same product to someone else and make more money. It's surprising how effective an outside perspective can be at solving a problem you have. Let's figure out who helped Jesse and Walter through a major problem.
You are in charge of distribution.
You should expand the territory.
That doesn't mean you become parents.
Guys, hey, who do I look like, Maury Povich? I'm not your marriage counselor. Your professionals act like it. Now, set. Back.
Go.
One of our dealers was murdered.
Some kind of turf dispute, and apparently we lost and everyone quit.
Why the long faces here? I mean, you're sitting on a gold mine.
A gold mine we can't sell. We need a proper infrastructure. We need foot soldiers and we need dealers on a street level that are rock solid. We need muscle and we need enforcers.
Payback.
That's what we need.
Who's the person that is willing to listen to your disagreements and tell you like it needs to be and also help you get motivated and become optimistic when you're dealing with a problem? It could be an investor, could be an advisor, could be a friend. It could even be someone on the team, frankly, that helps sort of navigate these things. You need to find someone like Saul that helps you solve problems as founders that is willing to hear your crap and then tell you the truth. The second thing I want to point out about this is the opposite. Do not have this kind of disagreement like this in front of people who should not see it. That could be your team, it could be investors, it could be anyone, because this is clearly their process of figuring it out. That's why Saul's like, hey, I'm not Maury Povich or anything. I'm not here to listen to this. I'm your lawyer. But the thing about Saul is he actually has a solution, which later on we find out more about.
Let's start with some tough love. All right, Ready for this? Here goes. You two suck at peddling meth, period. So give up on trying to do it all yourselves. Hell, I'm amazed you got this far.
The fact that Saul said, hey, you shouldn't be trying to do everything yourselves. And of course, that was very contextual, somewhat self serving, but there's a lot of truth in that, which is oftentimes as a startup, you could just be trying to do too much and there's some opportunity that you can have, whether it's through a partnership, more fundraising, opportunity to hire somebody, maybe even where you don't have to do everything. Your. So one of the classic undertones here is the fact that founders tend to be the type of people that want to do things themselves and they have a hard time letting go. So in this scene, we watch Walter talk to the equivalent of an investor. We get to really learn about a great investor and what they would say to someone like Walter, who's so obsessed with his amazing product.
You are not a cautious man at all. Your partner was late and he was high.
Yes.
You have poor judgment. I can't work with someone poor judgment.
Are you familiar with my product?
I've been told it's excellent.
It is impeccable. It is the purest, most chemically sound product on the market anywhere.
That is not the only factor.
You could charge twice the current rate for what I provide, and your customers would pay it.
This is such a common trope with founders. We all know that the best product does not win. But it's so hard to admit it when you're the one building the product and you truly believe it is the best product. And honestly, it is the best product. Because when you're in front of an investor, or in this case, someone who can help distribute your product, we'll just call him an investor. For this context, what they want to hear from you is how you're going to get that product to as many people as possible as fast as possible. And that's what we miss as founders oftentimes when we build a great product and we know it, once you have product market fit, your only job is to get that product to as many people as possible as fast as possible. The relationship between founders and an investor is very delicate. In particular, it's delicate when the investor has more to offer than just money. Let's see how Walter handles this.
Who's this?
Your new lab?
Look at the size of this reaction vessel. Oh, it's got to be 1200 L.
Where?
Where? How did you know how to put this all together?
I had excellent health, as were you.
I love this, especially seeing it right now with how many investors are dangling GPUs to founders that need GPUs. I don't know if there's anything more to say about this, except the investors have value beyond their money. Sometimes, in this case, it was equipment, a space, and things like that, that can be the case, but GPUs keeps coming to mind. For me, and this is a very common thing where whether it's an investor or a partnership or anything like that, there could be a string attached. When you're seeing these kind of gifts.
Quite a lot of planning went into this, and my employees, to be sure, are, well, tr. Trustworthy.
The filtration system is state of the art. It will vent nothing but clean, odorless steam, just as a laundry does, and through the very same stacks. I need £200 per week to make this economically viable.
So this string kind of reminds me of something that happens that a lot of founders don't quite realize when they raise money, which is the investors. And I say this, even if it's an angel investor, a seed round, they're looking for you to create wealth for them based on their investment, because that's what they're investing for. That's why they are investors in order to invest in a whole bunch of companies and hope that some number of them, usually a handful, work out, regardless of how many investments they make. So they're making bets, but you should know what they're betting on. They're betting on you having such an incredible outcome that the amount of money they put in is 100x1000x by the time you're done.
