Nick Saltarelli (Nick Salto)
Co-Founder, Mid-Day Squares · 1 appearance on the record.
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founderexecutiveoperator@nickywonka ↗LinkedIn ↗middaysquares.com ↗
Alongside Lezlie Karls and Jake Karls, Nick Saltarelli co-founded the Montreal-based functional chocolate brand Mid-Day Squares in 2018. He scaled the business using in-house manufacturing and radical social media transparency.
27statements → 8claims → 5claims resolved → 40%fully supported → 4.04/5average certainty → 2.15/5average debate potential →
2 supported 1 partly supported 2 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 8 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
8 assertions · 1 opinion · 12 insights · 5 disclosures · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 8 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 5 are resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Nick argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Their most notable supported claim
Their most notable contradicted claim
How they sound: not measured why? →
We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Nick Saltarelli (Nick Salto) on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.
Everything Nick Saltarelli (Nick Salto) said on the Startup Ideas Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Saltarelli: A Founder Cannot Build the Next Nike Using Contract Manufacturers
“You might be able to build a company in five years and flip it to Kellogg's or you know, Nestle, but you ain't building the next Nike with Comends.”
Saltarelli: Retail wholesale revenue is as reliable as software recurring revenue
“Retail wholesale revenue is as good as software. It is like clockwork every 20 days. If you have a product that repurchases, meaning that that's the good sign, right? If people are coming back into their grocery habits or any of those, like it's like clockwork…”
Saltarelli: Big CPG won't reproduce manufacturing lines under $300M revenue
“They won't even look at reproducing a manufacturing line internally unless they have proof points of three hundred million dollars a year of revenue.”
Saltarelli: Founders are the scarce asset, not capital or board members
“Founders need to start taking back not control, but conviction that we are the people that are on the front lines doing the stuff. We are the scarce ones. Money's of abundance. Investors are of abundance. Boards are of abundance.”
Nick Saltarelli: Midday Squares accepts $50M valuation cuts for absolute board control
“We fundraise at lower valuations every single round to control the board and have a complete voting control. So we've taken 10, fifty million dollar cuts from the valuation in order to have those provisions in the term sheets.”
Nick Saltarelli: Whether to fundraise is simple—raise if you lack capital, otherwise don't
“I think people overanalyze a lot of things like all the way down to should you fundraise? Should you not fundraise? It just doesn't fucking matter. All that matters is that you have a goal in mind and you have to get there and to get there is going to have, yo…”
Saltarelli: Pure DTC costs more to scale than traditional retail distribution
“What I think people forgot was how trained humans are in that buying cycle and how much more money it actually costed to scale than to actually just play within the distribution channels that exist.”
Saltarelli: Great products can celebritize founders instead of relying on celebrities
“You can actually use the product if great to celebritize yourself and then bring out an audience that's really committed to seeing your growth.”
Saltarelli: Saturated Markets Require In-House Production for Real Innovation
“The problem with saturation is that by definition, saturation is an uninnovated market. And to bring true innovation to market, you almost are never going to be able to show up to a co manufacturer and have that happen regardless of what you're building.”
Saltarelli: Tackling hard problems makes fundraising and recruiting easier
“It's attracting talents easier when you're going after really hard things. Raising money is easier when you're going after really hard things. It just makes everything so much easier.”
Saltarelli: Building a brand is the least probabilistic path to wealth
“If you're trying to become a millionaire, building a brand is not the fastest way to do it. If anything, it's actually the least probabilistic way to do it.”
Saltarelli: Experienced veterans often do more damage than good to founders
“Like when it comes to experienced people, they actually do more damage in their square-ness. Even like myself, I will be that person when I'm 70, going back to a 20 year old, I will be more destructive than I am positive to that person because I will have crea…”
Saltarelli: Midday Squares is a manufacturing business, not DTC
“DTC is just a component of what we are, but we are absolutely not a DTC business. So we are manufacturing business that, that runs a brand.”
Saltarelli: Midday Squares is a media company funded by chocolate
“Yes, we're a manufacturer yes, we're a CPG product, but to really understand what we're doing from a marketing perspective is we're a media company and our Patreon is our chocolate.”
Saltarelli: SKIMS rivaled Spanx rapidly because storytelling drives consumer purchasing
“SKIMS was able to come and really come after Sarah Blakely's Spanx in a very, very fast period of time. And I think that's really because it's driven from a narrative. People like to buy into stories and then the stories lead to the product.”
Saltarelli: Mid-Day Squares operates on a 25-to-35-year time horizon
“We're doing this for 2535 years. Again, everybody I meet is trying to build businesses for five years and flipping it.”
Saltarelli: Manufacturing plant returns fail under a five-year horizon
“Do you think that we would have ever built a manufacturing plant if we had a five-year business plan? Absolutely not. You could not make the returns work.”
Saltarelli: Serving as someone's right hand is the best career launchpad
“And go become the right hand person to the right person, because that is a launch pad that, like, I mean, putting yourself secondary to someone is always the best way.”
Nick Saltarelli: Mentor Rory Olson achieved over three nine-figure business exits
“Rory's just a really predominant entrepreneur out of Montreal. Has done Over three, nine figure exits over three took a cut and was the founder of Paysafe, which I think is today still the largest, third largest e-wallet in the world, if I'm not mistaken.”
Nick Saltarelli: Mid-Day Squares chose Montreal to bring Nike-like energy to the city
“One of the main reasons why we chose to build midday squares here, we were looking at Toronto and LA is just, I always, I have this, you know, vision of bringing the energy that Nike brought to Oregon to Montreal.”
Nick Saltarelli: Montreal's Desmarais family owns one-third of Adidas
“The Demare family, which is from Montreal owns one third of Adidas, right? That means they own one third of the easiest deal. They own, you know, they own some serious stuff and that's a Montreal family.”
Saltarelli: Midday Squares Met With 26 Co-Manufacturers Before In-House Pivot
“So for us, we went to go see 26 different co manufacturers.”
Saltarelli: Mid-Day Squares switched from two squares to one at $2.49
“We were going through, we just transitioned the whole business from a two square business to a one square business. We needed to make these decision quicks. Costs were rising. We wanted to do a price increase. We had data from the customer that they wanted to …”
Appearances (1)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| How to Build a Brand of the Future | Jun 23, 2022 | 35m |