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When Running a Company in Crisis Mode Becomes Your Competitive Advantage

Most founders try to avoid crisis. David Campbell of Tropic embraces it. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Campbell shared how operating in “wartime” mode has become a strategic advantage in building his unified spend management platform.

“I’m generally uncomfortable if everything is going okay,” David admits. “Like, if there’s a reason that it’s okay to sign off at p.m., I feel like surely something is wrong. I actually feel very engaged and checked in when there are big, heavy problems to solve.”

This mindset proved invaluable when Campbell’s market suddenly became crowded with competitors. “We had one competitor we’ve linked. We have like 30 now,” he explains. Rather than viewing this as a threat, Campbell saw opportunity: “There’s actually an upside to having a crowded market and an upside to having lots and lots of competitors if you’re the one that is willing to lean in extremely aggressively and kind of address that challenge head on.”

The Genesis of Wartime Leadership

Campbell’s journey to embracing crisis began at Microsoft, where he witnessed a pivotal moment that would later inspire Tropic’s creation. A global insurance company, facing significant internal turmoil including CEO turnover and layoffs, struggled with a $100 million Microsoft renewal. The procurement team was overwhelmed: new leadership, reduced headcount, and hundreds of SKUs they couldn’t track.

When Microsoft refused to help right-size the contract, Campbell saw how broken the system was. “The company got locked into a contract for software that they could not afford, no budget, didn’t even need plenty of tools that had no value to them as a business for seats that they certainly didn’t have because they laid people off,” he recalls. “To pay for it they had to lay more people off.”

Building in Crisis Mode

For Campbell, wartime leadership isn’t about aggression – it’s about decisive action in uncertainty. “Wartime for me is not about violence or anger. It’s about really fast paced decision making in the absence of data and with lots and lots of ambiguity and with an eye towards meeting the challenge head on.”

This philosophy has shaped every aspect of Tropic’s growth, from product development to marketing strategy. Take their approach to marketplace revenue – while competitors chase quick wins through referral fees, Campbell made the controversial decision to create a zero-commission marketplace. “The only reason it was easy for us is because we got crystal clear on our vision at the beginning of launching Tropic,” he explains. “Our vision is purchasing paradise… and that means that we’re 100% aligned to one side of the equation. We’re 100% aligned to empowering the buyer.”

Even their branding challenges enterprise software conventions. “I didn’t want a company that ends in Ly or ify,” Campbell shares. “I didn’t want a brand that sounds enterprise… Every CFO literally 100% of the CFOs that I’ve sold to at Tropic are millennials… And this generation, millennials in particular, like me, like these CFOs that I work with, are extremely skeptical of what came before.”

The Human Side of Crisis

Campbell is refreshingly honest about the emotional toll of building in constant crisis mode. “With regards to competitors, with regards to terminations of executives, whatever it is you have to go through, it hurts tremendously, I think, to be a Founder,” he admits. His solution? “What’s really important is that you feel those feelings and move through them. And that’s the key, because moving through those feelings puts you in a position of inspiration.”

This balanced approach to crisis – embracing it while acknowledging its challenges – has helped shape Tropic’s culture. “If there’s one thing that we’ve done right at Tropic, I do think it’s the culture,” David reflects. “The culture that we have is one that I think is really rallied around the vision and really excited to go to war, in a manner of speaking. And if you don’t have that wartime backdrop, you don’t have that galvanization.”

For founders building in today’s challenging market, Campbell’s experience offers a compelling alternative to the standard playbook. Rather than trying to avoid crisis, perhaps the better strategy is to embrace it, use it as fuel for decisive action, and build a culture that thrives in challenging conditions. After all, as Campbell demonstrates, sometimes your greatest competitive advantage is your willingness to run toward the fire while others run away.