At Lo Foods, Sudarshan Gangrade is encouraging his team to think like entrepreneurs, and the results are nothing short of transformative. In a recent planning meeting, the team decided to harness the natural entrepreneurial spirit within their ranks by giving each Functional Head a unique challenge: build a business plan around a product as if they had the funding to start their own company.
As Sudarshan shared in his post, “Each team member in a startup somewhere wants to open their own business eventually.” This understanding led to a powerful exercise aimed at sparking innovation and creating a deeper sense of ownership across the team. Each functional leader was given comprehensive market and internal data, including revenue, spending, competitor analysis, and product details. Armed with these insights, they were asked to build a business strategy, as if they were starting a new company around the product.
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The goal of this initiative was clear: “Consumer insights we had not thought of, product issues we did not notice, and adjacencies that we can quickly occupy.” By having the team dive into the data and come up with actionable plans, Lo Foods hoped to uncover valuable insights and new business opportunities. What they didn’t anticipate, however, was the unexpected outcome: “Cross-functional ownership and understanding of what it takes to build a company.”
Sudharshan noted that the process required significant prework, with the analytics and revenue teams putting in hours of effort to create detailed data packs. Yet, the payoff was impressive. “We got more details in one day than we would in probably the entire quarter.” This exercise not only provided valuable insights but also strengthened team collaboration and allowed everyone to better understand the various functions that drive business success.
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Through this initiative, Lo Foods has not only enhanced its strategy but also cultivated a stronger, more cohesive team ready to tackle future challenges with a founder’s mindset.
