Why brands should lean into moments of industry chaos

As a startup founder, I understand the impulse to reduce risk wherever possible. After all, you’ve already embarked on an uncertain journey by building a brand from the ground up. Why add further precarity to the equation? Don’t you want to get some sleep at night? It’s easy to see why many companies are wary of entering product categories that are experiencing major instability, whether because of regulatory pressure or consumer distrust. Faced with this kind of chaos, founders have a choice: They can either wait for the category to calm down, or they can work to rebuild trust in real time. In my experience, “safe timing” is overrated. Companies that embrace difficulty—rather than steering away from it—are much more likely to become enduring industry leaders. In fact, I’ve found that it’s precisely when consumer skepticism is high, regulators are watching, and trust in the incumbents is eroding that courageous brands have the opportunity to create better standards for the entire category. I saw this play out firsthand at Little Spoon, the baby and kids food company that I cofounded in 2017. When we launched infant formula earlier this year, the category was under extraordinary scrutiny, and rightfully so: There had been contamination concerns and recalls across the industry, putting parents in the stressful position of wondering whether they would be able to feed their baby safely. Given this context, it would have been far easier for us to avoid formula entirely, or at least wait until pressure on the category had eased. Instead, we decided to keep our eye on our mission of making parents’ lives easier and kids healthier. We asked ourselves: What would it look like to create infant formula that actually exceeds the current testing and transparency standards? Then we set out to build a new paradigm. DON’T JUST REFRAME THE NARRATIVE The truth is that not every company entering a troubled category is trying to do right by consumers. While instability opens up opportu