Kristian Them acknowledges that not everything has gone as planned, but he doesn’t label it as mistakes.
“I only believe in mistakes if you don’t do anything about them. I take all mistakes as learning opportunities. I’ve never made a mistake I’ve regretted, or one that I thought was the worst thing I could have done,” says the gummy enthusiast and continues:
“Some things have gone well, and some things have gone poorly. So it’s been a bumpy ride. For example, we hired a German who was supposed to start at the beginning of the year and drive around selling our product. But Germany is completely shut down, so he can’t go anywhere,” explains Kristian Them.
Many people outside the company believe that Wally and Whiz has scaled quickly. But in the owner’s view, the company is still waiting for the steep growth he expects to come this year and next.
Like with the salesperson in Germany, there have been past decisions within the company where the outcome wasn’t as the owner had hoped. Many ideas were tested, and a lot of it never came to fruition, while some almost cost the company everything because they were either too expensive or poorly executed.
“But we’ve always been good at stopping it immediately and moving on. So it hasn’t been mistakes, but learning,” states Kristian Them.
Wally and Whiz has a plan that 90% of their revenue will come from abroad within the next three years.
Currently, 90% of their revenue comes from Denmark, so this is a major shift. But if revenue doesn’t increase as hoped, the company will try a different strategy.
“Then we’ll have to look at things and try to do something. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll try something else. You should never be satisfied with a decision that feels right. You should ask yourself: Could we have pushed a little harder on the accelerator? It might have been a success, but is the full potential being utilized?” advises Kristian Them.
