Our 2023 Recap report is unlike anything you've ever seen.
And don't take it from us...
@alexsien
, CMO of Spiraledge, called it "the most insightful report I have seen in history".
Here's what's included:
🤯 44,000,000 responses to 5 questions.
🗣️ Analysis of word of mouth
On Wednesday I lost my little brother.
Before he died he left me these seemingly insignificant objects, but they each have a story that perfectly embodies who he was.
I don’t typically get super personal here, but he’d love this. This is for us both. ♥️
At 20, I thought I'd be a millionaire by 25, and a billionaire by 30.
At 27, all I cared about was paying off the debt of my failed startup.
At 32, I'm just thankful for where I am.
Today I turn 32.
31 was the hardest, and the best, year of my life.
🙂Led a 7 figure exit
☹️Struggled to manage demands of work + fam
🙂Had a new baby
☹️Lost my brother
But that's how life works. It's simultaneously beautiful and heartbreaking.
Embracing that more this year.
My wife and I welcomed our second daughter very early this morning.
Literally looks like a twin of her big sis, just born 2 years apart. 🥰
She asked me to take a couple weeks off to get to know her so if you have
@KnoCommerce
related needs hit up the team account. TY. ♥️
Parents... how do you get rest?
Feels like I've had 3 days "off" in 2.5 years, and that's because we took an anniversary trip and grandma babysat.
If I'm not working it's 12+ hrs/day of children which isn't exactly restful haha.
Any parents have good tips?
Today we announce our formal partnership with
@tiktok_us
.
I’ll be honest, when TikTok reached out 8 months ago I was skeptical…
But over the last 8 months I’ve become a huge fan and am so excited for this partnership at
@KnoCommerce
.
Here’s why:
Since my brother died last fall I've been thinking a lot more about family legacy.
One piece of legacy I've specifically ignored is the family business my parents started when I was 6.
It's a "little" health food store in my home town of Sandpoint, ID called Winter Ridge.
To all the DTC operators out there struggling I just want to say I see you.
This is a pic from my craigslist ad 4 years ago.
My DTC brand was finished and I was dumpster diving to help make ends meet.
I'm not joking.
This video of my deceased brother (among others) was my birthday gift from God.
While prepping for my birthday/superbowl party, I found his phone tucked away in my desk.
When he died in 2022 I tried multiple times to get into his phone, and I couldn't.
But yesterday, I tried
We stained my daughter’s play structure together.
He got to meet my baby girl. We talked about the future.
I can’t tell you how thankful I am that at the end we weren't just brothers - we were friends. ❤️
On September 8th we announced the new
@knocommerce
.
Today we announce our signed agreement to become part of the
@WeCommerce_co
family of technology brands.
Here’s what that means for our customers and the broader ecosystem. 👇
Today is our 10th wedding anniversary.
We took vows for better or for worse.
Buried my brother Monday. Spent this morning in the ER with our newborn (she's okay but has RSV).
Especially thankful this day for my amazing wife.🙏
Couldn't do this without her. ❤️
Last time I saw this kid alive was a year ago, yesterday.
He gave us all hugs, said "Love you guys. See you in two weeks!", and walked out the door.
10 days later he was gone.
Life goes fast. We're here one minute, gone the next.
RIP little bro. Love you and miss you.❤️
In March 2022 we sold KNO to $TINY, and 2 months ago my "earnout" period officially ended.
So what's next?
I'm going to keep building. 📈
3 years ago I set out to build the first customer insight platform for digitally native brands.
Not orders, not revenue, but customers...
This is my beautiful wife.
We're celebrating our 10th anniversary in a couple of weeks.
And it's only possible because of Juneteenth (plus a hell of a lot more struggle since).
If you're a US company please treat the 20th like a holiday. Because (federally) it now is! 🙂
Startup + parenting feels impossible sometimes.
Our 4 month old is too sick for daycare, so no work for me tomorrow am.
But in a startup the work doesn't stop if you stop...
Between caring for a sick baby, and getting the mininum done, I'll be lucky to sleep an hour tonight.
Why is SaaS so expensive?!
❌No product cost
❌No shipping
❌No warehouses
It seems like SaaS should be cheap. But it's not...
I'm very sensitive to how we price, so thought it might be helpful to share some thoughts on the challenges that drive pricing at
@KnoCommerce
.
This startup thing isn't easy.
On a personal level the last 9 months have been hard.
I came into Q4 exhausted from pushing to get to PMF for 2 years.
Then I had a baby. 2 weeks later my brother died. And about the time I really got back to work, we started growing like mad...
Two days ago I lost my cousin. The last time I saw him was 8 months ago at my brother's funeral.
Both my brother and cousin struggled with mental health and substance abuse. Both knew how to get help, and refused.
My first reaction was to question if there's something I should
When I was 6 my dad quit his propane delivery job.
My parents took the equity out of their home to open a health food store for $25k.
Today it's a mainstay of my hometown and employs more than 50 people.
Took me way too long to respect what they built as much as I should.
I'm going to start dropping incredible (annonymous) insights in this thread.
Q4 is almost here and people are leaving way too much on the table by not asking questions and analyzing the data.
Here's hoping these inspire you. ✨
My 42hr Shoptalk experience. 👇
- Flew a Boeing 737 Max8 to Vegas (love a little adventure)
- Booked a $34/night hotel (hard to pass up that kind of deal)
- Hung with some of my favorite people both new and old
- Sent my wife & friends this photo to prove I'm cool
- Ate some
Most underrated form of travel?
Booking a private trip on
@SouthwestAir
.
✅️ 129ft plane
✅️ 6 crew
✅️ Unlimited snacks and beverages
All for just $202.97 🤯
We made it! Shout out to
@stevennnbell
for coming all the way to Denver to see the
@nuggets
clinch their first title.
And yes that's my beautiful wife too.
My brother should have turned 29 next Tuesday.
This is his first birthday since he died, and I miss him a ton.
There's still so many little things I haven't touched in the last year because they remind me of him.
The spray bottle he left hanging in the wrong place when he
How do people raise kids and do everything else?
I've been at this for 18 months and feel like I still haven't figured anything out.
Keeping up with cooking, cleaning, home projects, community, friendships, work, etc. and parenting feels impossible. And I only have one. 😂
Thinking I should just quit my startup to join the over-employed life.
Got friends out here working 2+ tech jobs making way more than me, with way less time and stress. 😅
14 months ago we officially launched
@KnoCommerce
.
This BFCM we showed surveys on $99,378,090 in revenue and helped merchants collect 1.3m question responses. 📈
It could have been 3x that except for our advanced survey targeting options. 💪
Give us another 12 months. 👀
The last time I'll ever see my brother was exactly 3 months ago.
Before he died I didn't think of him daily. I didn't miss him often.
Since he died I've missed him every single day, and think of him constantly.
The finality of death really hits hard.
Miss you little bro. ❤️
There is no true freedom in the USA without Juneteenth.
I can't say it means as much for my family as it does for millions of others, but my family would not exist without this day in history.
Glad it's finally a Federal holiday.
Happy Juneteenth! 🎉
Looks like we’re showing a survey on about 6% of all Shopify orders today. 🤯
And that's with a bunch of our customers only surveying specific segments...
Absolutely wild. I appreciate every one of you who's rocking with us for this BFCM. 🙏
You've heard "how did you hear about us?" is a bad question.
It's true.
I'm breaking down WHY that's not the best question, and how to do it better.
Will post content here as I build it out, and ultimately drop this into a nice digestible format. 👇
Last year we grew
@KnoCommerce
on Shopify by 470%.
If you're not using Kno, 2023 is your year to come get better insight. 🎉
Join brands like Pura Vida, Hexclad, Jones Road, Better Body Co, LolaVie, Kizik, 4Ocean, Obvi, Nomad, and 1,500+ more I can't fit in this tweet...
My wife opens a package from Amazon...
Me: "Oh hey, I know the founder! We chat on Twitter."
Her: "Okay cool."
Me: "You're really not impressed by that anymore, are you?"
Her: "I'll be impressed when you tell me you know Beyonce and Jay-Z."
She's setting the bar high. 🤣
Every time I start feeling too important I remind myself that the 27 year old Starbucks store manager down the street manages more employees, a bigger budget, and more revenue than me.
Easy to forget we operate in a very small space of most people's lives...
Lost my brand in 2017 under the same circumstances.
Learned a valuable lesson but never recovered.
Let's help David out.
Check out
@MtRainierWatch
, post your favorite product and why.
I'll give $50 gift card to his store for 5 people who do that and tag me so I know.
Real talk about ecommerce. This is freaking hard. My business is up 422% YTD and yet I've been in the fight of my life to save it for months. I overbought inventory and didn't forecast cash flow well (like a rookie) for Q4 and have been digging out of a bad debt hole for months.
In Q4 2022, we tracked over 1,000,000 responses to the question "how long did you know about us before placing your first purchase?"
Here's two trends we saw last year that I'd expect to play out this year. 👇
1. BFCM shoppers are 11% more likely to have known a brand for 1+
We've smashed every Q4 metric at
@KnoCommerce
and we've still got 2+ weeks left in the quarter.
I'm talking revenue, customer growth, questions answered, etc.
Struggling to keep up with everything, but it's also super fun. 🚀
I love our team, and love what we're building. ♥️
KnoCommerce is *likely* my last tech co.
I've been building SaaS for almost 15 years, and I want to build non-software businesses before I retire.
If this is my last chance, I'm taking full advantage of the opportunity.
I plan on building THE defining business of our category
5 years ago checks were bouncing, rent was late, and bank fees hit daily. I was taking Kabbage loans to cover loan payments on my failed brand.
Then in Jan 2018
@piersonkrass
brought me into his new agency to do web dev work.
A lot has changed - I appreciate Pierson a ton. 🙏❤️
It was so awesome getting to finally meet so many people in person at the
@Sendlane
event!
To the Sendlane team - you crushed it. Thanks for putting this on.
To all my friends in DTC - I'm so glad we got to hang for 2 days. You all are the best.
To the
@KnoCommerce
team that
If someone sees your ad and buys in < 7 days it's because they were already primed to buy your product.
Doesn't matter what your targeting is, that's BoF, demand capture behavior.
Maybe they were shopping other brands.
Maybe your messaging just resonated in solving a problem
Fun fact: 18 months ago
@piersonkrass
and I floated a pre-seed deck for
@KnoCommerce
to gauge VC interest.
Response was meh... so we sold to WeCommerce because they fully got our vision.
Since then revenue up 11x, usage up 18x, and neither are slowing down soon. 🚀
25 takes about life that I really believe.
Because some day this ecommerce thing is gonna end for us all anyway...
1. It is better to be kind than right.
2. Giving is better than receiving.
3. If someone offers to give to you, don't deny them the gift of giving.
4.
Here's my overly simplistic explanation of SaaS pricing...
One of the big issues with ecom SaaS pricing is that TAMs aren't as big as you'd think.
And there's essentially a rev floor every SaaS needs to hit to be long term viable.
If VC backed, that's usually $10s of millions
My goal was 1,000,000 questions answered on Black Friday.
Looks like we've made it with room to spare.
Huge shout out to the 3,000 brands and 1m+ people who bought from those brands today. Incredible. 🎉
Before Sendlane, YotPo, Postcript, or even Klaviyo, an SMS marketing platform was born - ViaTxt.
This was my first startup with
@ThePrimeagen
and
@Sunrostern
.
We launched in 2011. It was an absolute flop.
Our only customers were politicians.
Just 👀 at my marketing copy. 😂
The scale of the brands joining
@KnoCommerce
right now is 🤯.
Especially since opening up to non-Shopify stores. A LOT of the big stores still aren't on Shopify.
A brand recently signed up for
@KnoCommerce
that averages 284,113 orders per month.
No sales process. Still haven't talked to them. Never heard of them before this...
Crazy these brands exist, and that we've reached a point where we get to work with them.
Anyone got a Twitter list of best agency owner/operator follows in DTC?
Someone was asking me for my recs but I don't really have time to create my own list...
We're flipping the DTC dinner script and hosting a dinner for SaaS founders!
Yeah, you read that right.
It's in collaboration with WeCommerce/Tiny at ShopTalk.
If you're a DTC SaaS founder at ShopTalk, DM me.
Space is limited but would love to try to hang. 🙂
Today marks 1 year since
@KnoCommerce
officially joined
@WeCommerce_co
!
Since then we've:
- Added 1,200+ merchants
- Increased daily responses by 4.7x
- Increased team size by 4x
- Launched new plans & integrations
- Partnered with TikTok
Let's see what the next year brings 👀
Shocked and honored that
@KnoCommerce
is the 4th most mentioned tech stack tool behind only
@klaviyo
,
@triplewhale
and
@Shopify
.
We seriously don't deserve all the love you all show us. Thank you. 🙏
And huge thanks to
@_socialsnowball
(great partner) for putting this together.
I don't tweet much personal stuff, but wanted to give a shout-out to my beautiful wife and valentine of more than a decade!
Also we don't normally dress like this but this was the last event we did pre-covid & baby...
If you haven't noticed we quietly launched a newsletter this month called "In the Kno".
It's legit a unique perspective on DTC customer insights. I've never seen anything like it.
And it's led by
@SarahLevinger
so you know it's good.
Get in the Kno:
I really didn't want to go the "Enterprise" route with
@KnoCommerce
, but we've kind of been forced to.
At first when bigger companies started asking for contracts, MSAs, SOWs, etc. my answer was just "we don't do that."
And we didn't for good reason - it doesn't make sense for
This is my garage almost 6 years ago, full of insulation I pulled from a Home Depot dumpster to sell on Craigslist.
In the most recent 9 Operators podcast,
@mikebeckhamsm
&
@mbertulli
talked about returns being destroyed.
Those destroyed returns helped house my family in
Gifting season starts now.
In Q4 last year we tracked 488,854 responses to our "who is this purchase for?" question.
Here's what that data tells us. 👇
🎁 Gifting started to climb around Nov 5th.
🫂 At that point only 40% of purchases were "gifts".
🦃 By mid November, gift
Just want to give a little shout out to
@rabahrahil
.
He treats everyone with respect and helps make the world a little better with each personal interaction. Appreciate you dude. 🙏
Today I helped 3 super small brands extract as much value as possible from our free version at
@KnoCommerce
.
I've been the DTC founder with no cash. It was hard.
Every brand needs insight, even if the budget isn't there. And when they're ready to scale, we'll be there to help.
The real reason I walked to a coffee shop this morning is because I know what's waiting when I get home.
My 18 month old will run up to me, place her hands on my face, and shout "cold! cold!".
She does it every. single. time. Some day it will end so I'm taking all I can get. 😭
All of this is just my way of saying...
I know the pain.
I hear your struggles.
I'm rooting for your success.
And God forbid it all falls apart... It won't make you any less worthy of being respected and loved.
And it probably won't be the last business you start. ♥️
I'm so, so thankful for the whole
@KnoCommerce
team.
I've been out most of the last month due to life events and we've still grown 12%. 📈
If you've worked with any of our KnoCommerce team you know how special they really are. ♥️
Seriously can't do it without each one of them.
Between having another child and inflation, my family's budget has been absolutely destroyed in the last year.
Take home pay is the same, but fixed expenses are 30% higher.
Everyone else feeling this too?
Yesterday an 11 figure brand scheduled a demo with our team.
11 figures like $99,999,999,999.
That kind of 11.
In all honesty we're still a long way from doing something truly special IMO...
But it's starting to feel like we're capable of special.
Okay gonna keep this brief because I'm on vacation with the family.
We launched the DTC Index with 3 other great companies and I'm really excited about it.
But, I've heard some people are upset that Kno is involved.
So I want to clarify a few things.
1. Kno is sharing 2
Would you appreciate a response to an email like this, or would you say it differently?
I've started replying to a lot of inbound sales emails that aren't just a "no" from my end like this (this is after I already asked for a check-back in a few months and they pushed for now).
The wealthiest people I know never had a big payday.
They just showed up, worked hard every day, and were careful with their money.
For decades...
Been trying to embrace this mindset more the last few years.
‼️ I'm launching a side project inside of
@KnoCommerce
. 🎉
It's a survey designed to help you understand how your customers spend 💰 on gifts...
and how that compares to the rest of DTC.
I would love for you to join.
DM or comment if you want in.
Follow my updates here. 👇
Want to know what's destroying society?
It's the idea that you only have to treat someone well if they first treat you well.
We've replaced the golden rule with "do right by me then I'll do right by you."
Want to see a better world in your lifetime?
Start by treating people
Well folks, it's official.
One of my favorite things about
@WeCommerce_co
is that they're a public company that thinks more like a startup. It took a week to get this done.
The real work starts Monday. Can't wait.
Some day I'm going to host a big event in Denver so I can hang out with you all and still be home when my kids wake up in the morning...
I love traveling for work, but it's so hard to leave them right now. 😭
Just talked to another very large Shopify merchant.
Them: "What, what was that price again?"
Me: "$99/month"
Them: "You mean like nine-nine point zero zero? That's it?"
Love this stuff.
@KnoCommerce
- coming soon to every site you shop.
There are thousands of years of complex history around Israel & Palestine.
And literally NOTHING in that history justifies raping, torturing, and murdering innocent people.
And nothing ever could...
It's just pure evil.
Our almost 3 year old had to get stitches today. Fell on a crowded tram in France and busted open her chin. 😥
Those moments as a parent are terrifying, and I know there will be plenty more. Just thanking God for health as long as we all have it. It's not guaranteed.