“5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became CEO of Spindrift Beverage Co.” With Bill Creelman

Simplify to Amplify: As a first time CEO I felt that more meant better — more programs, more product extensions, more activity. I learned in time that a critical part of leading an organization is to purposefully manage fewer things better. This means having the discipline to retire parts of the business that are not working — or even partially working — in order to clear bandwidth for the big priorities. It can be painful in the short term, in our case we retired a whole product line that contributed valuable revenue, but it made us smarter, faster and ultimately more successful.

I had the pleasure to interview Bill Creelman. Bill is the Founder of Spindrift Beverage Co., Inc. and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Prior to Spindrift, Bill co-founded Stirrings which sold to Diageo in 2009. Bill grew up on a farm in Western Massachusetts where all the food was unprocessed, seasonal, and…