Explorer Cold Brew Founder Cason Crane Explains Why Speed to Market Is Not About Moving Faster

Founders must stop confusing momentum with perfection.

BY ELIZABETH GORE, CO-FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT @ELIZABETHGOREUS

Cason Crane, founder of Explorer Cold Brew. Illustration: Inc.; Photos: Getty Images; courtesy company

Running a small business often means making decisions before you feel ready. This is especially true when timing can determine whether a product ever gets traction. Speed to market is frequently framed as a race, but in practice, it is more often about judgment.  

In the food and beverage industry, most new products fail to gain lasting traction. According to the Harvard Business Review, around 75 percent of product launches fail to reach $7.5 million in first-year revenue — a common benchmark for commercial viability. Speed to market is more attainable than people realize, but only if founders stop confusing momentum with perfection. 

On a recent episode of The Big Idea podcast from Yahoo Finance, I sat down with Cason Crane, founder of Explorer Cold Brew, to talk about how he built his company in six months and what actually made that pace possible. Explorer Cold Brew, a coffee company based in Brooklyn, lets customers choose their caffeine level deliberately. Options range from a 99.9 percent Swiss Water decaf to half-caf, classic, and extra-caffeine. This way, you are not guessing how wired you are about to feel.  

Crane is also the first openly LGBTQ person to summit Mount Everest, a milestone that underscores his willingness to take on unconventional challenges. In our conversation, he focused less on urgency and more on discipline and restraint when describing how he built Explorer Cold Brew. 

How Canva Became the Power Player in the AI Design Wars

Speed comes from removing distractions. 

Crane refers to Explorer Cold Brew as his “silver lining from Covid” and credits much of his early momentum to the unusual conditions of the pandemic. 

“Circumstantially, having Covid was actually beneficial, because it cut out a lot of the noise,” Crane reflected. “If I were to do it over again for the first time, it would be so easy to get sidetracked on things that weren’t mission-critical.” 

Crane recommended building an accountability system for yourself. For him, that meant weekly 30-minute check-ins with two former classmates. They were tech entrepreneurs who had no experience in food and beverage, a dynamic that kept conversations focused on progress rather than getting lost in operational details. 

© Inc.com