After 11 years of running marketing and design teams for ecommerce print-on-demand marketplaces and seeing lots of success, I took on a role as CEO of a fledgling competitor. I thought I knew everything about how to make this specific type of company grow. I had the playbook. I had the pedigree. I had the experience. I was confident that all I needed to do was replicate what worked for me in the past and I’d be able to save a sinking ship. I was wrong.