marco marandiz
@marcomarandiz
Followers
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Following
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Media
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Statuses
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🍯 COO @ https://t.co/rew41ngw6V 💧🔥 founder @ drop party (acq)
Austin, TX
Joined March 2009
It blows my mind that founders of brands that do $50-100mm in sales and are clearly the brightest business minds and the kindest people have 300 followers on Twitter. Twitter is a game that has very little bearing on reality.
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I’ve been struggling with my confidence outwardly/publicly since the end of the last startup I was at. Carrying around the anger is only hurting me and damaging my potential because of the latent fear of being in the public eye. So today I’m letting that all go. I’m back.
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Moving to Austin won’t make you happy. Moving to Miami won’t make you happy. Moving to back to NY won’t make you happy. Changing location to start the ladder climbing and status seeking all over again isn’t the answer.
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When white people are starting businesses, it's called cannabis. When black people get caught up, it's called marijuana.
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Away is owning the door-to-door travel experience, not the destination. 👩✈️At this time, make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position as we prepare for takeoff. We’ll be flying through @Away’s content, product, messaging, and brand positioning 🧳🛫
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Don’t fuck with the money, fam. Just don’t do it. When people do work for you, pay them what they’re owed. It’s not only ethical, it builds your reputation as a good collaborator.
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If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm no longer at Elliot. A lot has happened in the last two weeks. I'm disappointed and sad and embarrassed after tying my personal brand and reputation to Elliot. I also feel deeply for our customers, the team, and our investors.
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In April I had about 600 followers - now I’m up to 4800 👀🚀. Y’all really showed that there’s room for discussion and growth in DTC digital brand experience. I really appreciate all of you. Below is a recap thread of my favorite threads that you showed love on! 👇🏾.
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.@droppartyyy is joining @FlexaHQ and I’ll be coming on as CMO. What a wild two years! I’m super excited to work closely with @trspalding and @trev. None of this would have been possible without my team and especially not @shayanhashimoto so TGOD4U 🙏🏾.
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What makes a signature eCom experience for a brand? The details. Look what @Glossier does. On the homepage *alone*, the attention to detail says so much about the high standards of quality for the product and customer experience. It starts with a short "unboxing" in the hero.
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I look at a bunch of DTC brands everyday, and I’m starting to realize that:. 1/ The best categories are flexible.2/ The best founders are solution agnostic.3/ The best companies are ambitious beyond their vertical. A thread….
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Being vocal about oppression and change, and having your follower count drop is a GOOD FUCKING THING.
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Aime Leon Dore is a brand that uses only 3 channels to build its significant cultural relevance:. 1⃣Instagram.2⃣Influencer.3⃣IRL. Omnichannel is out. High leverage channels are the future. thread 👇
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1700 orders in 48 hours!! 😯. My wife made a TikTok video for her at-home sustainable and biodegradable sugar wax product the other night and got 1700 orders. The TikTok effect is real.
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I was digging into a couple DTC toilet paper brands, but honestly the market view and positions in the space got me hype. So here are my thoughts on:.💰 the $31B US toilet paper industry.📨 a few DTC brands.🌲 sustainability as a brand identity.🏪 a couple retail incumbents.
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If you've felt that you wish I would stop tweeting about black lives mattering and want me to go back to exclusively writing DTC twitter threads, here's what you can do. 1⃣ Go to my profile.2⃣ Unfollow me.
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In high school, you couldn’t pay me to go to bed before 11. Now I’m 30 and taking melatonin at 930. Life comes at you fast.
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Don't underestimate the impact that pricing details have on your brand and positioning. $49.99 vs $50 - affordable vs simple.$50 vs $125 - commodity vs premium.20% off vs never discounted - overpriced vs honest. You got others?.
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Being a decent person - one that is truly kind and enjoyable to work with - is pretty much 75% of what it takes to be lucky and find opportunities. Bad people, who I’ve worked for before, will always lose in the long run, both personally and professionally.
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over the last 6 mos, i've become highly suspicious of the business advice on twitter from people who have never had to meaningfully. - sell their service/product.- delegate.- manage company finances. your twitter bios say more about you than your tweets.
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Stop scrolling your green thumbs to read about Rooted, a DTC plant company that I'm excited about. A few topics:.✨Brand: simple & direct language, no frills UX and quality content.👨💼Marketplace dynamics and operational ingenuity.🤨Weird stuff going on in plant DTC. @rootednyc
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Dear white allies:. Your tweets are nice 🙏🏾 but stop calling your black friends to make sure we know what “side” you’re on - we side with justice and are already doing emotionally labor. You need to call your white friends. You need to call your white parents. You need to vote.
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On December 2nd, my son was born. Being a dad is such an expansive and profound experience. An paradigm shift that immediately expanded my capacity for love, responsibility, and energy.
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I'll keep this next part simple. If you think I can help with your work or there's an opportunity I'd be a good fit for, DM me or email marco@marandiz.co.
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The Fresh Prince Store is live for its 30th anniversary of the premiere 💥. I've been working on this with my friends @studiofreight and @basementdot for the last couple months, and it's great to see it live!. and randomly today is my 30th birthday!.
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Hey DTC founders - Start building organic audiences *now*. Paid can't be your predominant channel. Even though it was the past, organic audience development is the future.
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I’m pleased to announce that we’ve closed a $25m round at $400m val for Wordle. We’re on a mission to change the world, one letter at a time.
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I don’t use Twitter for personal stuff often, but damn my wife is a beacon of joy.
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repeat after me:. i value my time. my time is not your time. i do not owe you my time. i'm not responsible for you being upset about me not wanting to give you my time. i value my time.
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You don't owe anyone a response on twitter. Remember that when someone is trying to pick a fight.
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I used to be a product manager at a tech company. My equity was marginal and arguably meaningless. Now I work for myself. It’s clear that I’m a pretty bad employee. If I don’t have a significant stake in the outcome it’s hard for me to give it my all.
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Communication is hard, no matter how aligned you are with your team, your spouse, or your child. Text-based comms (slack, iMessage) are fast and efficient but flattens a multi-dimensional human interaction into a single layer. Phone calls are still better for nuance.
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I’m considering documenting what I’m working on pretty transparently: business opportunities, processes I’m building and progress towards my goals. Would you be interested in this? What aspects specifically?.
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You always hear that fundraising is hearing 100 nos for a few yeses. but being in the position myself is a lot more tiring than I expected.
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A year ago today I gave notice at my job to start a short term contract role with no security. If I can go from nothing to pretty freakin' comfortable in 12 months, so can you.
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Twitter has become much more of a status game than ever before. Watching people maneuver for clout is tiring and played. Just do what makes you happy. Not what makes you known.
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Drop Party: a better way for top creators to sell merch.
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I just published “I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary”
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Free information: PandaDoc is 10x better than DocuSign. And it's free to use with unlimited documents - only pay for automating document generation.
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🚨 🚨Elliot eCom Contest🚨🚨. The @hello_iamelliot store that generates the most sales between Monday and January 1st, 2020 wins:. 🎉🥳 An all expenses paid trip to Marrakech, Morocco from January 5-7 to workshop your DTC brand with Team Elliot.
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Crypto has a marketing problem. Mass adoption won’t happen until it solves a real problem for the rest of the world.
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Ahhh, the Gin Lane / Pattern Brands team came up with a great name for a brand focused on finding some balance in our modern lives: Equal Parts. Thread 1/x
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Purchasing decisions are increasingly moving towards what is traditionally seen as top of funnel media. Video Content, Ads, Blog Posts, Podcasts. This is where the intention to buy is being developed. Unless you have technical reqs, you're probably over-investing in your site.
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As @vanschneider and I were working on the Mars drop, I sent him this picture of my hand on sample for scale. He said I should be a hand model lol. Although funny, not the first time I’ve heard that. Where are the gigs at?!
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As far as my professional and social circles intersect, I love being out of the loop. Being in the loop has never helped me. Drama and “narratives” are distracting. Focusing on my work way more rewarding.
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Tip for DTC Brands: Find agencies that you want to be longterm *partners* with. The amount of investment on both sides makes short engagements more costly than they're worth - not necessarily financially but from a mental bandwidth and attention perspective.
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My last decade:.‘10 Released some albums.‘12 Lost my dad to cancer.‘14 CS degree in 2.5 yrs.‘15 Discovered Prod Mgmt in a design org.‘16 Married a gift 💝.‘17 Moved to Austin.‘18 Quit that job / started DTC stuff.‘19 Joined Elliot. and ended the year on a beach in Tulum 🏝.
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I just saw a company completely rip off our brand video. damn. Imitation is flattery - but also get your own swagger please.
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Regarding the Shop app:. What makes the “foundation for a shopify marketplace” notion fall flat on its face is the utter lack of product thinking around discovery. *This* page is it. Hopefully you recognize one of those 25 brands 🤷♂️
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six years with this amazing woman. got to spend our anniversary in paris this time.
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To whoever needs to hear this:. It's okay to not be spicy about everything on twitter. Sometimes people are just trying to have a conversation and you don't need to raise your voice and spice level to protect your ego.
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early days can be really hard as a founder when people continually tell you what you’re doing won’t work…. and then you do something that makes it so obvious that it *will* work, and you couldn’t care less about the doubters. love where we’re at. love where we’re going.
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On my 30th birthday, I’m realizing how many people I have in my life that I’m grateful for. Even if I haven’t said it explicitly, I admire them so much. Please reach out if we’ve connected before and had a moment. I love feeling the love.
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If you're building social commerce right now, remember that the barrier to entry needs to be extremely low. We're in the 'on-demand' paradigm. Downloading an app -> needing to sign up -> scheduled events etc are high barriers. atm practical social commerce > experiential SC.
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Work a lot or don’t. It’s up to you. But the truth is that your inputs have outputs. Work as much as it takes you to build the life you want.
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My team at Elliot (brand & marketing) has been working on a brand refresh for a while. We were originally slated to go live March 1. I pushed it back. Doing something well takes time to bake. Give your team the time to do it right. Don't marry yourself to uninformed timelines.
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I remember when "How I Built This" profiled iconic businesses with decades of history and massive undeniable social influence. Now it's any startup willing to pay for press to gain leverage in a bridge round.
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my cofounder and my wife are listening to my rap songs from 2005. i hate them.
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The saddest part about adulthood is watching your friends stop working on projects that make them full of life. to take jobs they don’t want so they can pay bills that come with “growing up”.
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Prepping your marketing materials or launch day campaigns can feel like everything rides on that one day's success. It doesn't. That's just another day. and you have to continue showing up every day after that.
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⚠️ Heads up: Most of our meetings will be documented going forward. I want to tell the story of what we're doing. Get your smiles ready.
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Yesterday someone asked me "Do I know what you're company is? I don't think I've seen it on twitter". Nope. Publicly telling the world isn't always helpful to your progress.
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50 most promising huh? 🧐.
The commerce startups on this list are fully riding the online shopping trend, including @mikmaktv, @chordcommerce, @theyes, @tryzapp, @droppartyyy and @taxdoo🛒 #ti50.
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To set the record straight for anyone who's confused: I have never spent 800k on marketing. ever.
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At Elliot, we're building in public. We are unapologetically transparent and try to show every side of who we are. That's why we just brought on @dylanboychuk to document the next couple months of the @hello_iamelliot journey. Welcome to the team!
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Most of the advice asked for by founders I meet are about DTC strategies, specifically relating to brand, but that’s rarely the limiting factor for growth. There’s a big difference between building brand and running the business. h/t @TaylorHoliday for inspiring this thread.
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I used some tool to unfollow a bunch of accounts on twitter, and - OH MY LAWD - twitter is so much better today. ☑️ Everything I read is interesting or engaging.☑️ I'm not fatigued by intrusive unwanted thoughts.☑️ Fewer twitter opens due to better content ratio.
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Never underestimate the power of a thoughtfully *crafted* unboxing experience. @journbeauty packaging is blowing my mind 🤯 There’s a literal bed of flowers in the box - the ones used in the skincare product.
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Remember: engagement is the metric you want to watch. Follower count doesn’t mean much if you end up just building an audience of lurkers. Community > Audience.
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So proud of the work our team has done over the last few months 😍. Elliot is coming to a computer near you!.
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“eCommerce” is aesthetic af. “e-commerce” is for accountants.
I don't know who needs to hear this but it's e-commerce not eCommerce or anything else .
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Small DTC can often scale earlier than they believe. A good media buyer can scale a brands to $1m AS LONG AS the brand has:.- a clear customer.- relevant messaging.- quality creative/photography.- competence in scaling production. Focus here first. Find the agency later.
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investor: @droppartyyy updates are way more fun than my other investments because they’re so visually captivating. instead of looking at screenshots of SaaS platform features. me:
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Y'all interested in this?.
Request for Podcast: @web & @allthingsmarco . Brand breakdowns/discussions, DTC news, further discussion on Member Reports, etc. I'd pay extra annually for this to be exclusive to EMs.
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I've been doing a lot of watching on here lately. There's too much agreement imo. Extraordinary result come from a unique, and often divergent, perspectives on what the future looks like.
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To everyone wondering if they can "make it", the truth is that there are only a few people really making shit happen. Create your own vision. Trust your own voice. Be a leader.
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Sooooo just launched Grateful I get to work with such iconic brands. s/o to Westbrook, @studiofreight and @basementdot.
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I predict that more DTC brands that are valued $250M+ will go public this year to dump bad unit economics on unsavvy investors in the public market. So many DTC founders in my circle are avoiding the next raise and driving towards profitability.
@allthingsmarco I think you’re spot on here. It feels like the prevailing “growth over everything” mindset bubble has burst. With a lot of VC unicorns looking for an exit, it could get messy over the next few years.
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When you have unique insights and perspectives on an industry, being loud about them may earn you a following. but going heads down allows you to embed yourself in revenue generating activities. Doing the work is always better.
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Every product idea seems viable before you've given it to a customer. Don't waste your own time ideating. Try to "sell" it as soon as possible. Your 4 month of collaboration won't matter if nobody wants it.
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Last week I said building community through content is important. The response: ". that's hard - how do you hire for that?". Learning from your customers about how to connect with them CANNOT be outsourced. Yes. It's hard. And that's the job of a founder. Do the hard stuff.
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anybody who follows through on their own idea for over a year deserves your respect. not quitting is legit a triumph.
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Prepping for my first web3 project. Keep an eye out for some news on Friday 👀.
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Obligatory Valentine’s photo. I tried to put on a model face. She didn’t have to try.
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Well this was a great way to spend my afternoon. Can’t say enough about these two. @jaimeschmidt @chriscantino
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Hit me with your favorite female founder DTC brands! I want them all! . 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾.
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I am so excited about what we’re doing at Drop Party. I have to do a better job of communicating it to y’all. Gonna start writing my plans more publicly.
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oh yeah - forgot to add that I don't wake up dead inside anymore either!.
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We're fast approaching the point where entrepreneurs will engage with eCommerce platforms as fluidly as they do video games or Instagram. You’ll be able to launch products globally as easily as you sell to your neighbor. It's happening right now with Elliot. @hello_iamelliot
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Sometimes you gotta burn some shit down to build some shit up.
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