Why Your Brands Needs to Build Out Loud with Jake Karls

Jake Karls, Co-Founder & Rainmaker at Mid-Day Squares, joins Jeff Abracen for a fast, fun, and deep conversation on building brands by building out loud. Jake breaks down the origin story behind Mid-Day Squares' “act like a boy band” strategy, why story > features, and how humanization is an unfair advantage in a world obsessed with scale.

They also unpack the behind-the-scenes reality of growth: therapy as a non-negotiable founder practice, the emotional swing from “nothing to lose” to “everything to lose,” and how a cocoa price crisis pushed MDS to innovate into a new category with their No Bread PB&J - complete with character-driven storytelling (hello, Trudy & Chip).

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why “building out loud” expands your luck + opportunity surface area
• How Mid-Day Squares modeled their brand like the Backstreet Boys / Spice Girls
• Why the best brands sell feelings, not features
• The real role of attention: getting trial in a 30-40k item grocery store
• How “serendipity” becomes a growth strategy (show up and good things happen)
• Therapy as a business system for alignment, trust, and conflict prevention
• The cocoa crisis, the margins reality, and the innovation leap to No Bread PB&J
• Creating characters to scale storytelling beyond founders
• Jake on fear, pressure, loneliness, and shifting back to “play to win”
• Plus, a live taste test!

00:00 The boy band brand model
 00:24 Intro
 00:41 Montreal energy and Jake’s travel rhythm
 02:37 First advice to founders build out loud
 04:13 Showing up and serendipity
 06:07 Finding Mid-Day Squares DNA and the deal that changed everything
 09:27 Story over product features
 11:45 Cocoa crisis and category expansion
 13:05 Humanization is the advantage
 14:25 Innovation as the escape hatch
 15:25 The No Bread PBJ origin
 18:09 Packaging storytelling and characters
 22:11 Product must hit and story gets trial
 25:10 Founder lanes and trust
 28:37 Therapy communication and avoiding founder conflict
 30:04 Fear pressure and playing not to lose
 33:06 Stage mode elevated Jake
 34:28 The down days and recovery
 37:52 What would make younger Jake proud
 39:10 Life after Midday inspiring entrepreneurship
 42:13 Serendipity story fraternity to investor
 43:35 Live taste test outro

Connect with Jeff Abracen on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffabracen/]

If you are or know a disruptive influencer who would make a great guest, we'd love to hear from you. 

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Cover art by Daniel Devoy
Music by Stephen Voyce

©2024 The Disruptive Influence Podcast - Jeff Abracen