Sold 7 companies & pioneered the ecommerce aggregator model. Now building
@NaturalDogCo
to $100M. I tweet about scaling brands & co-host the
@acquanon
podcast.
The FAA requires that air traffic controllers retire at age 56, because there is so much riding on their mental acuity.
The average age in the US Senate is 64 years old.
I can’t believe nobody fixed robocalls, so literally everyone just stopped answering their phones.
Bless the gmail spam filtering team for saving email.
Mind-blowing stats:
There are more dogs in the United States (76M) than children under 18 (73M).
Over 38% of households have at least one dog. 30% of households have at least one child.
The “dogs” market is bigger than the “kids” market.
Mind-blowing stat:
There are more dogs in the United States (76M) than children under 18 (73M). 🐶
Over 38% of households have at least one dog. 30% of households have at least one child. 👼
The “dogs” market is bigger than the “kids” market.
Ok listen up for an iron law of economics.
When you subsidize the purchase of something, the market price of the thing goes UP by exactly the amount of the subsidy.
Everyone can now afford whatever they could afford before, plus the subsidy amount. The price gets bid up
My dad always used to say that the way you build wealth is by building equity in your home.
My housing plan would help Americans achieve homeownership by giving households $400 a month for two years when they buy their first home.
There are now more dogs in America (76M) than children under 18 (73M).
38% of households have a dog. Just 30% of households have a child.
Dogs are becoming the new kids.
Need new headshots, but on a budget?
Try one of the new AI portrait generators - the results will shock you.
Neither of these are real photos of me. Photographers are in trouble.
Guy I know cancels all his employee credit cards randomly, once a year.
Finds ~50% of expenses disappear. All kinds of stuff that was auto-renewing that folks don’t care enough about to re-sign up for.
Claims to save six figs/year each time he does it.
Not naming names, but many FBA aggregators are getting WRECKED by supply chain issues.
It's the combination of lots of debt, the challenges of running multiple brands at once, and a quirk of Amazon's FBA model.
Here's a behind the scenes thread of what's going down... 🧵👇
This is the story of how I paid for my wedding by building a micro-SaaS product.
I tested it on my own wedding guests, found several hundred brides as customers, then sold it on
@microacquire
.
Here's how it happened 🧵🔽
.
@wearfigs
just filed to go public, and it's probably my favorite DTC IPO of all time.
💸$263M revenue
😍 26% EBITDA margin (swoon)
🧑⚕️1.3M customers in 2020
📈138% YoY growth
Let's break down their biz in a thread 🧵👇
The FAA requires that air traffic controllers retire at age 56, because there is so much riding on their mental acuity.
The average age in the US Senate is 64 years old.
@GuyDealership
Doesn't this just show people aren't taking their cars to (often overpriced) dealer service departments and are instead opting for independent (certified or uncertified) repair shops to save $$$?
Cracks are showing in the real estate market.
I’ve been tracking vacation house prices in a few markets, and this is the story almost everywhere. Listed high, cut, cut, cut.
Every cycle it’s always the vacation homes that come down to earth first, then “normal” markets next.
Never try to get a mortgage as an entrepreneur.
The brain damage is incredible, and nobody in the entire value chain knows what the hell to make of you.
Feels like there is SO much opportunity for disruption here, especially as more and more people become self-employed 🤦
If you're under 45 years old, here is your optimal wealth management strategy*
1) Put a fixed amount every month into $VTI (a low cost, total stock market index fund)
2) Don't sell until retirement, even if you're scared or the market is down
Or, you could pay an advisor 1% of
1/ If your small business is in need of financing to make it through COVID-19, there are options out there. Here are the options I know of at this point.
THREAD:
The only tax reform we need:
Eliminate withholding, everyone takes home 100% of their paycheck.
Every American must then pay the IRS out of pocket each quarter for taxes due.
Give it one year and 🤯
End of an era - today we closed our 50,000 sqft fulfillment center after 9 years.
This is the conclusion of a two year project to outsource all our fulfillment and manufacturing, which will save us over $1M per year.
This facility was processing several thousand D2C orders per
Never try to get a mortgage as an entrepreneur.
The brain damage is incredible - nobody in the entire industry knows what the hell to make of you.
There is SO much opportunity for disruption here, especially as more and more people become self-employed🤦
I know a guy who cancels all his employee credit cards randomly, once a year.
He finds that ~50% of expenses disappear. All kinds of stuff was auto-renewing, but folks don’t care enough about to re-sign up for.
Claims to save six figs / year each time he does it.
A ball shaver company backed by Magic Mike is going public at a $1 BILLION dollar valuation, based on a multiple of fictional 2023 revenue.
I’m starting to think I’m the idiot here.
Entrepreneurs, this is an intervention.
🚫 STOP taking merchant cash advance loans from Wayflyer, 8fig, ClearCo, Shopify Capital, and more.
🏦 The entire business model of these lenders is exploiting the fact that you can't do interest rate math.
That ends today. Read on ⬇️
I know a guy who cancels all his employee credit cards randomly, once a year.
Finds that ~50% of expenses disappear. All kinds of stuff was auto-renewing but folks don’t care enough about to re-sign up for.
Claims to save six figs / year each time he does it.
I am begging you not to build custom software.
The
#1
pothole people don’t see coming is that software is never, ever finished.
Even if you don’t add features - bug fixes, API version changes, dependency upgrades, & security patches create significant ongoing maintenance.
It’s
Your service business doesn't need custom software.
In 2016 I spent $40K on a custom platform that was basically a crappy version of a CRM.
Even worse I wasted 6 months of my life arguing with a terrible developer who promised the world and delivered a glitchy and ugly
We just sold one of our big brands to an “Amazon aggregator”.
This is the story of 3 shady things they tried, how we countered, and how I still lost $500,000.
If you’re thinking of selling to an aggregator, read on to avoid getting screwed.
I do not understand the appeal of the Stanley tumblers.
Costs $45, carries more water than fits in your bladder.
Heavy enough to crack a skull open when full.
Why are folks carrying these around? Are you embarking on a Saharan expedition? Why do you need this much water?
I need an ethernet cable run from my living room to my upstairs home office.
I just called 5 local small businesses in a row - not one even answered their phone. Several "mailbox is full" messages.
The bar for small business success is so, so low.
Apple, Google, & Facebook are licenses to print money, at trillion-dollar scale, growing 40-80% YoY, and trading at value multiples. It’s bonkers.
Screaming buys in plain sight at these prices - just do it, then forget about em for 20 years.
$AAPL $GOOG $FB
Ecommerce founders - this is an intervention.
🛑 STOP taking "fixed fee" merchant cash advance loans from Wayflier, 8Fig, Shopify Capital, and more.
💰 The entire biz model of these lenders is exploiting the fact that you can't do interest rate math.
That ends now - read on...
@mikebeckhamsm
This is so absurd I am actively ignoring it because it's obviously a campaign move and/or preposterous straw man to anchor a future budget negotiation.
I hope.
Ecom folks - getting crushed by iOS 14.5? You need to do this TODAY.
Create dedicated landing pages for all your ads.
We are A/B testing landers vs. product pages and seeing up to 50% lower CPAs.
I’m gonna do a thread on LP best practices - reply w/ topics you want me to hit!
Stop using the term "boomer", especially derogatorily.
Willing to bet you want to raise money from, accept mentorship by, and build relationships with folks in that generation.
It's also literally ageism, opening you & your co up to legal claims.
It's not a good look.
BIG NEWS
After 12 years, we have exited our entire
@ElementsBrands
portfolio and are going “all-in” on just one brand -
@NaturalDogCo
.
I unpacked my reasoning and what’s next in the ecommerce world with
@fortworthchris
in the below episode!
I can’t believe nobody fixed robocalls so literally everyone just stopped answering their phones.
Bless the gmail spam filtering team for saving email.
This is why I never have and never will do 23andMe.
Once your genome is out there, you’re never getting it back.
All for a cute report of what country your ancestors are from?
within months you will be able to buy genomics data from 14 million americans for +/- $200m?
the inevitable fire sale of this mess to an overseas PE firm is going to be a national security matter on the scale of which we haven't seen in healthcare in years
Most people don’t use enough leverage.
Debt is a tool - avoiding it philosophically is like eating cold food because fire can burn your house down.
Learn the tool, use it responsibly, enjoy your hot steak dinner.
If you’re not using leverage as a tool, you’re underperforming.
My wife tricked me into exercising today even though I really was not in the mood.
I didn’t sleep well last night, and I’m feeling anxious about work. I wasn’t very present.
She said “how about you get on the bike and do a 5 minute cruise?”
How bad could that be? It’d be over
"Tesla's valuation is bonkers, I'd like to take some money off the table, and higher tax rates are coming in 2022. How do I sell without spooking the market and tanking the stock?"
Genius, troll-style answer as only
@elonmusk
can do:
I'm having my third child next week, and I had a realization:
Having kids is your own personal singularity.
As a pre-parent, it's almost impossible to empathize with parents until you have your own kids. Even if you understand intellectually what they're going through.
It's
This is the story of how I paid for my wedding by building a micro-SaaS product.
I tested it on my own wedding guests, found several hundred brides as customers, and then sold it on
@acquiredotcom
.
Here's the story ⏬
A week before our wedding, my wife asked me if there was a
Did you know Uline will give you better-than-public pricing? All you need to do is ask.
A thread on saving 10-20% on cardboard boxes and anything else you get at Uline.
Bonus tip at the end on getting max volume pricing on everything, even if you don't hit the tier qty.
🧵...
If you're buying a business and considering letting the founder stick around after closing, here's my advice to you.
Don't.
Post-exit entrepreneurs are the worst employees ever. They are checked out. They disagree with the changes you want to make. They are focused on their
Terrible ways to pay an agency:
Percent of revenue 😬
Percent of ad spend 😱
Both of these structures set up a fundamental misalignment because brands care about PROFIT.
I’ve seen too many agencies just hit the gas on ads with no regard for profit. And why not? That’s how
Zell was one of the most successful investors of all time, a fascinating person, and huge philanthropist.
But he bought a newspaper 15 years ago and laid some journalists off, so this is the obituary headline he gets.
@nytimes
this is vindictive and gross, do better.
What a misguided, asinine, and assholish way to summarize the amazing life and accomplishments of Sam Zell.
What do you want to bet that the millennial writer who penned the first draft of this probably had to Google Zell to know who he even was?
Amazon just closed one of our brands' selling accounts with zero warning and no explanation
Need to complete a video interview to be reinstated. First appt time? TWO WEEKS!
An unacceptable amount of time for our business to earn ZERO revenue. Help???
@dharmeshmehta
@davehclark
Day in the life of a startup CEO
7am - Coffee. We're going to the moon. LFG!
2pm - Lunch. We are so fucked. Six figure mistake. Does this business even work?
6pm - Happy hour. Biggest customer reordered. We are smashing.
11pm - Bed. Can't sleep, what if key employee leaves?
Mind-blowing stat:
There are more dogs in the United States (76M) than children under 18 (73M).
38% of households have at least one dog 🐶
30% of households have at least one child 👼
The “dogs” market is bigger than the “kids” market.
I don't even need some whiz bang tech-enabled lender.
All I need is a lender who is used to working with entrepreneurs and is not completely weirded out by a K1 instead of a W2.
The bar is so low.
Pfizer and Moderna should hold nationally televised, Apple-style keynote launches for the COVID vaccines.
Explain the ground breaking tech, bring scientists on stage, culminate with the CEOs receiving their vaccines live.
The most important product launch of our lifetimes.
🎈 Maybe this is the needle that pops the FBA aggregator bubble? Nothing will sober the market up quicker than a few roll ups going to zero.
Remember:
📈 Spreadsheets are easy. Operations is hard.
🚚 Supply chain is the oxygen of any business
💰 Debt is great - until it aint.
1/ I‘ve been called to the Sunday night soapbox, so here it is - a thread on how Kylie Jenner took Coty for $600M, why she’s likely NOT really a billionaire, and how the deal compares to other notables in the beauty space.
Iron law of Calendly links - if you are the one requesting the meeting, you may not send over your scheduling link.
Proper method:
"I'd love to meet and talk about X. If that's interesting, send over your scheduling link or some times that work for you."
Much higher close rate
Iron law of Calendly links - if you are the one requesting the meeting, you may not send your scheduling link.
Proper etiquette:
"I'd love to meet and talk about X. If that's interesting, send over your scheduling link or some times that work for you."
Much higher close rate!
Huge realization for me:
Once you know what you're good at, live only in your circle of competence.
Push hard and do not deviate. Let others to invest with you and come along for the ride.
My circle of competence is ecommerce, finance, and acquisitions. I'm really, really good
Holy smokes what a year.
It finished with a bang - today we closed an 8 figure investment in
@ElementsBrands
, giving us lots of dry powder to continue acquiring DTC CPG brands in 2021.
Brand owners - hit me with a DM if you want to know what it's like to join us here at EB.
The real key to success is utterly simple, yet insidiously difficult to actually execute:
1) Make a to-do list
2) Do the things on the to-do list
3) Do NOT do the things pinging your inbox or feed
4) Repeat daily
5) Profit
I need to tattoo this on my eyelids.
The Four Hour Workweek is the most pivotal book I've ever read.
@tferriss
's core tenet “reality is negotiable” changed my life.
But I've NEVER worked just 4 hours a week.
Most people think the book is about working as little as possible so you can sit on the beach.
But it's
We were outbid on a $15M deal we loved by a small public co.
Sellers went w/ pubco at our same price, but took stock based on clearly outlandish promises by pubco CEO.
Now 6 mo later, market cap of the entire pubco is $13M...oops.
Do I call and bid $15M for the whole thing? 😈
@moseskagan
I will be the opposite anecdote - I can trace a direct line from nearly all my success back to reading that book. It was an absolutely pivotal mindset shift, a “see the matrix” moment. It made entrepreneurship tangible.
Tim’s core tenant “reality is negotiable” changed my life.
@tobi
Unbelievable.
But actually, totally predictable.
I cannot believe Apple has gotten off with zero blowback on this entire privacy charade. So many small businesses as collateral damage and somehow it's Facebook's fault.
A wonderful new adventure begins - welcome to the world Joey!
Born 3/23 at a healthy 7 lbs 12oz, we are so excited to welcome this little man to our family 💙
Every DTC brand that complains about “the Amazon tax”
Do you have any idea what it actually costs you to…
Process payments, customer service, pick/pack, cardboard boxes, tape, storage, plus postage and returns?
15% + FBA fee is a screaming deal.
I just learned that "revenge bedtime procrastination" is a thing and I have never felt more seen in my entire life.
Revenge bedtime procrastination (n): staying up too late to capture a little “me time” and taking “revenge” on the day for stealing your time.
It should be illegal to make it harder to cancel a service than it is to sign up.
If I can sign up online in a few clicks, I should not have to "speak to a representative" to cancel my account.
Damn, good agencies are SO good.
Like hiring a great employee, finding the right agency can be the 🔑 to serious growth. It's awesome to watch someone cook who knows what they're doing.
And damn, bad agencies are SO bad. 95% of agencies are bad agencies.
Be careful out there!