This week we’ve got a guest who approaches brand building unlike anyone we’ve talked to yet.

In fact, he’s less of a brand builder and more of a portfolio builder.

Our featured guest is Harrison Fugman, the CEO & co-founder of The Naked Market.

Our first question for Harrison was probably one you’re asking now: what exactly is The Naked Market?

According to their site it’s “an omni-channel food and beverage platform,” but I’d argue that the portfolio analogy is the easiest way to understand what Harrison and the team are doing.

Rather than focus on one brand, they launch multiple brands with the goal of creating market leaders in a capital efficient manner.

As you’ll hear, the approach borrows a bit from the worlds of tech and finance. Data is definitely king, and “fail-fast” is a foundational concept. Considering Harrison’s seven years with Credit Suisse, it all makes sense.

At the risk of oversimplifying, The Naked Market approaches brand building like this:

Step 1: Identify a category that’s ripe for disruption
Step 2: Create products to attack that category
Step 3: Monitor the data to see if the brand is tracking the way it needs to
- If yes, scale it
- If no, shut it down

Harrison walks us through what that looks like in practice with TNM’s three flagship brands - Flock chicken chips, Avo Crazy, and Beach House bowls.

Harrison talks about the role of trends in this process (and the difference between true trends and fads), the potential downsides of this model and how they work to avoid them, and why the pandemic is the perfect time to double down on their strategy.

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