The CEO Quit With a Month of Cash Left & What If You Didn't Hire?
Jordan DeCicco took the CEO job back when Super Coffee was running out of money. This is what he did next.
THIS WEEK'S THROUGH-LINE
Stay in the game. There are always moves available.
Welcome Note
Jordan DeCicco started Super Coffee with a blender in his dorm room at Philadelphia University. He and his brothers Jim and Jake took it on Shark Tank and made Forbes 30 Under 30. By the end of 2020 it was the third most popular ready-to-drink coffee in America, behind only Starbucks and Dunkin'. In 2021 they raised $106 million at a valuation above $500 million, with Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez already on the cap table.
Thanks for reading the forty-second issue of The Advantage. This one is brought to you by Proppel. Details on Proppel and the discount for Advantage readers are at the end of the newsletter.
Then the market turned. This week Jordan told me what came after the big round, down to the Sunday his CEO quit. The Practical Edge is the question that keeps his team lean.
If you are a founder doing $1 million to $40 million in sales and thinking about raising, reach out to us at Cutting Horse. Whether you want an investor or just advice from people who have been in your seat, we are glad to talk.
Let's get into it.
WORTH WATCHING:
There Are Always Moves Available
The Advantage · Mike Wystrach × Jordan DeCicco · 54 min
Jordan DeCicco is the founder and CEO of Super Coffee. I first connected with his brother back in 2021, right before the big round. I wanted to hear what came after it.
The plan was to double the business again. Then interest rates shot back up and the investors wanted profitability, fast. "We just burned 30 million dollars last year. How do you want us to get to profitability immediately?" They brought in a professional manager, cut the team, cut marketing and raised prices. "Revenue just went the complete opposite way."
WHAT I LOVED ABOUT IT:
He told me about the darkest day. It was 2024. They had maybe a month of cash and were trying to close a $5 million convertible note. The board-appointed CEO set up a Sunday strategy call to get ready for the week. "Boys, this is the end of the line for me."
Jordan thought he was joking. He gave himself an hour of shock. Then he called him back, asked him to put money in alongside his own, and stepped in as CEO.
A month later his oldest brother Jimmy had him and Jake over for Sunday dinner. Same words. A few weeks after that, the CFO. Jordan saw it two ways. He was losing a key player. He also had to cut costs.
He went back to the core. Fifty products became about fifteen. The team went from 150 people to 25 in a year and a half, and he kept the best and most loyal. In 2024 they lost $9 million on about $35 million in sales. In 2025, he said, they did about $45 million with a million dollars of EBITDA. This year a manufacturer hit them with a six-month out-of-stock on their core products. They are still profitable.
THE LINE THAT STUCK
"There's always moves available. You can't get stuck. You can't dwell on it. Self pity is the worst possible thing."
Jordan DeCicco
I always tell people there are two types of people in the world. Those who think the world happens to them, and those who think they happen to the world. Jordan is the second kind.
MY 20-SECOND RECAP
if you do not have the full 54 minutes
→Give the shock an hour. "It was shock for an hour, and then it was problem-solving mode from there."
→Cut to what sells. "Be disciplined with products, but we have to launch better products faster and get back to growth."
→Keep your best people. Smaller teams always work better. "They just work better together and they get more done together too."
→Do not refill every seat. When his CFO left, Jordan became the de facto CFO himself.
→Just stay in the game. "If you don't die, you just keep going."
PRO MOVE
The next time something breaks, set a timer for one hour. When it goes off, write down your next three moves.
Before You Post the Job, Ask What If I Didn't Hire
WHY IT WORKS
Jordan does not have a CFO today. He builds the forecasts and models himself, with AI. "I'm not an Excel wizard by any stretch." Two years ago he could not have done it. His creative lead can look at 20 versions of packaging in an hour. That used to take months. Payroll has run about 6% to 7% of sales the past couple of years.
He put the shift better than I could. Before 2022, the vanity metrics were how much you could raise and how many employees you had. "Now it's the opposite. How little can you raise and how few employees can you have?"
THE DATA SUPPORTS IT
Erik Brynjolfsson, Danielle Li and Lindsey Raymond studied 5,172 customer support agents as a company rolled out an AI assistant. Published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2025, the study found agents with the tool resolved 15% more issues per hour on average.
The biggest gains went to the newest and least skilled agents. In the working paper version, they resolved 34% more issues per hour. Agents with two months on the job and the tool performed as well as agents with more than six months and no tool.
The hire you think you need may be the person you already have, with the right tool.
HOW I USE IT
I tell all my teams the same thing. You are not getting replaced by AI. You are getting replaced by someone who uses AI.
When a founder we work with wants to hire, I ask one question. What if you didn't hire? We have a brand doing $30 million in sales with four employees. The king is the one who raises the least and has the fewest employees.
THE CHALLENGE
Before your next job post, write down the three tasks that role would own. Spend one afternoon doing each one yourself with an AI tool. Post the job only for what is left.
Sometimes the answer to "what if I didn't hire?" is that you have to. Every business I have been part of came down to the people in it. Freshly, Petfolk, the ones that worked and the ones that did not. When you do hire, the real job is finding people who are better than you at the thing you hired them for.
I was a customer of Proppel before they were a sponsor. They specialize in marketing and operations, and they place talent from the US, LATAM, and beyond. Video editors, graphic designers, media buyers, and more out of LATAM. Managers, directors, heads of department, and VPs in the US.
It is all performance-based. A one-off fee once you actually hire, so no retainers and no ongoing costs. Every hire comes with a 3-month guarantee, and Advantage readers get 10% off their first hire. When the seat is worth filling, they are worth the call.
