A Fifth Grader's Letter Made Double Good Walk Away From Costco with Tim Heitmann, Founder & CEO of Double Good

Tim Heitmann started Double Good as a 500-square-foot popcorn shop on Navy Pier in 1998 and grew it into a wholesale business that sold to Costco, QVC, and FTD. Then a handwritten letter from a fifth grader who had raised $300 for his band trip made Tim question everything. He walked away from wholesale and poured the company into a fundraising side business that was barely 5% of revenue.In this episode of Predicting The Turn, Tim shares the full arc: how he spent five years quietly building a fundraising tech platform with just three people in a WeWork office, why he focused obsessively on competitive cheerleading as his beachhead market, and how COVID did not create the pivot but revealed a platform that had been five years in the making. When growth exploded in 2021 (400% in Q1 alone), Tim explains the brutal reality of scaling manufacturing, watching SLAs blow from 10 to 47 days, and building a blackout feature to throttle demand before it killed the brand.Tim also explains why Double Good has never taken outside investment, why he thinks in decades instead of quarters, and how he is building an executive team and governance structure so the company can outlast him. If you care about purpose-driven brands, patient entrepreneurship, and what it really takes to disrupt a 100-year-old industry with technology, this one delivers.- From a Navy Pier popcorn shop to a fundraising tech platform- The kid's letter that redirected the entire company- Building the tech platform with 3 people in a WeWork over 5 years- Why competitive cheerleading was the perfect beachhead market- The 4-day fundraiser model vs. the industry standard of 30 days- COVID as accelerant: 400% Q1 growth in 2021- Scaling crisis: SLAs from 10 to 47 days, 3,300 open tickets- Why Double Good has never taken outside investment- Building an evergreen company that thinks in decades