“It just isn’t working.”

Over the past several months, I’ve written ten letters to the next generation of founders in Ohio — letters about the mindset, courage, and conviction it takes to build from zero.

But from the start, the vision for Ohio’s Got Founders was never about my voice alone. It was about our collective story, the lived experiences, hard-won lessons, and raw truths of founders across Ohio who are in the arena right now, building the future of this state.

Starting today, we’re expanding this publication to include occasional Guest Letters — personal reflections and insights from builders, dreamers, and doers shaping the Startup State in real time.

These letters will come from every corner of Ohio — from founders on campus to those running scale-ups, from first-time entrepreneurs to seasoned operators — all sharing what they’ve learned, what they’ve lost, and what keeps them building.

We believe that the best way to inspire the next generation is through the stories of those already doing the work.

This is our first guest letter — written by Jadon Wyant, a Mansfield native, Case Western Reserve University graduate, and Co-founder and CEO of Sorcea. His story is a raw and honest look at what happens when persistence becomes stubbornness, and how community can turn mistakes into movement.

We came to build,
Yon

by Jadon Wyant, Co-founder & CEO of Sorcea

I sat in the passenger seat of Dale’s navy blue Honda, FaceTiming our third co-founder, Priya. We were driving east on I-80 to his parents’ home north of Philly, planning to take the train into New York City the next day for an event. A mentor had invited us to a beauty technology conference, and now, 24 hours before, we were considering a pivot.

Our startup, Sorcea, allows shoppers to check whether products have worked with people with the same preferences and needs. We stay ad-free by helping companies monitor their customers’ preferences. Six months prior, we’d been driving the opposite direction, stopping in Cleveland before a flight to Vegas, when I’d pitched my team the strategy we were now reconsidering.

Seeing the lack of granularity in most market research reports and the hourly rate of professionals, we’d assumed that we could go to market with the third-party data that informed our algorithms. Then, we could use the resources to scale our platform and build an enduring competitive advantage through first-party consumer sentiment data.

As it turned out, market research is heavily trust-based (because it’s often used to justify decisions internally). So, while our third-party data was better, it wasn’t 10 times better than what the established players offered. I had multiple brands meeting with me regularly, but when I pitched the third-party data, they didn’t move. They were scheduling meetings because they saw the value of the consumer platform, but my team wasn’t aligned on prioritizing that path, so we made no progress.

Resentment was building. My team wondered how I could possibly take so many ‘sales calls’ without a corresponding pickup in revenue, and I wondered why we weren’t making progress towards the first-party data I was promising brands. Driving through rural Pennsylvania as the leaves changed colors, we realized we weren’t on the same page.

We ultimately recognized, throughout the course of the 6-hour drive, that our misalignment came down to three mistakes.

When we first started our company, we were considering launching a search engine, but a venture capitalist told us that to win in the search engine game, we either needed an established partner to leverage for distribution, or a product that was 10 times better. As it turns out, this lesson applies to many more industries than just search.

In making our first error, we glossed over the fact that our brand and the relationships we needed to nurture were more important than the objective quality of our product. Our market intelligence offering was a fraction of the price and more granular than our competitors, but it wouldn’t get us anywhere without a brand reputation that large companies could trust to inform their decisions.

Instead of investing in our brand and going all-in on the first-party data that would be 10 times better, we decided to move down-market, targeting smaller CPG brands that wanted a strategic advantage and might be willing to take a chance on a startup.

We started with two free pilots, helping a wellness brand in Cleveland prepare for a contract manufacturer change, and a beauty brand in Los Angeles adjust their positioning. When we went back to both founders and asked whether they’d pay for more research, we got two no’s. They saw the value, but didn’t have the budget, so we moved on, targeting other CPG brands. Looking back, their unwillingness to invest in another engagement should have been a red flag.

Our second error was confusing value creation with value capture. With two successful (unpaid) pilots to point to, we were convinced that we could help small CPG brands compete with the L’Oréals and the Unilevers of the world. When brands said no, I assumed I just needed more leads. I spent months cold emailing and calling brands, looking to sell subscriptions to our data. When they didn’t convert, I read about how to improve my salesmanship instead of questioning our product.

In hindsight, while small brands could have benefited from our intelligence, we were naive to assume they’d pay for it. For a small CPG brand, every marketing dollar must tie to conversion. They rarely invest in brand awareness campaigns, let alone strategic market intelligence. Because we’d seen how much our data could help brands, we were blind to the reality of the situation: The problem wasn’t my ability to sell, it was our positioning.

Realizing that small CPG brands weren’t the fit for our third-party data either, I scrambled. I’d promised the team I’d bring in revenue without further investment in our product. Instead of stepping back to ask what was working, I went searching for anyone who might buy.

I flew to New York and slept on a friend’s air mattress to pitch chemical companies and packagers. I learned, after 7 meetings with a distributor, that market intelligence isn’t a priority because they’re too far up the value chain. I spoke with consumer private equity firms about due diligence and market researchers about whitelabeling. The feedback from both was strong, but, like CPG conglomerates, they wanted the first-party platform data.

I scheduled multiple meetings a day. The same stubbornness that has helped me find success in the past kept me running into the same wall. Persistence became a liability because I couldn’t separate a failure in approach from a failure in execution. In the absence of communication, my team wondered how I could possibly convert so few of my sales meetings, and I hesitated to shift priorities because I felt like I had failed.

The breakthrough had come a few days before our car ride when I met with two Ohio founders. Both advised me to stop being stubborn. I could stick with the strategy that wasn’t working until we ran out of money, or change strategies, communicating what I’d learned and serving the needs that had been articulated to me.

I’ve met with dozens of Midwest founders since. In a good community, someone’s already made your mistake and can call it out before you burn more time or more cash. Because of the advice from those two founders, I was able to pivot confidently, rebuild alignment with my team, and avoid months of wasted effort. Although my resilience (stubbornness) is unlikely to go away, I now have founders surrounding me, ready to share perspective when I’m too close to my own story.

We came to build,
Jadon Wyant

➡️ Join the Ohio’s Got Founders community here.

(Missed the previous letters? Read them here.)

Jadon is a Mansfield, Ohio native, a Case Western Reserve University graduate, and the Co-founder and CEO of Sorcea. Sorcea helps shoppers check whether beauty and personal care products work for people just like them. The company gives brands a real-time pulse on how different segments view their products, all while protecting their users’ personal information and offering an ad-free shopping experience.

jadon.wyant@sorcea.com
linkedin.com/in/jadonwyant