I buy & operate DTC brands (@rayconglobal, @linjerco etc). I bootstrapped myself to 9 figures of revenue profitably.
Hong Kong
Joined July 2014
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We will buy close to $30,000,000 worth of goods from China this year with an average of 85 day payment terms blended.
These are 9 frequent mistakes I see founders make when sourcing from China 🧵
I consider running a subscription brand where unsubscribing is not possible unless you file a chargeback the same as theft.
Fascinating seeing a generation of young founders being fine with being thieves.
Q3 update for Linjer:
- Revenue flat YoY
- Profits up
- AOV up double digits
- Order volume down double digits
- Made To Order launched successfully and is close to 10% of sales now (higher during a sale). We want this to be 25% next year so that we can improve dividends / free cash flow ratios
Overall hard quarter as $4K+ per ounce has become the new normal for gold.
Acquisition engine for Meta is slowing down because entry price points for our silver collections are too high.
We probably need to go into stainless steel or other materials to make the brand more accessible and to just maintain the Meta engine
Paused opening a physical retail store as a result for now until we figure out lower end part of the assortment
Post mortem ±9 months later for @linjerco post gold price surge:
- Revenue is up ±20% YoY. Q1 was flat due to OOS.
- Q2 was up 40%
- Order volume is down 10%.
- All revenue growth is driven by price increases
- CR is down 25%
- EBIT % down ±20% but up in $ terms marginally
Mid-term:
- TAM is somewhat shrinking
- Post purchase survey shows that people are downgrading from luxury to our brand (instead of Cartier, Linjer)
Long-term:
- We will need to open new non competitive geos
- US is <40% of our sales now
- We’re debating stainless steel
- We will try to open a retail store, but might not do it next year after all just to stay focused on the above
Interesting times. Not as devastating as I thought it would be but still very bad.
I’ve always said that Meta can go after YouTube.
All the content exists on Meta for that to happen - it’s just not searchable and there’s no Home Screen for it as all content today is “push” vs “pull”
Instagram launches long-form video called "Features"
Creators can link up to 8 clips that show up in the feed and drive to the full video per @mosseri
Damn I recognise this kid Adam.
He came to my event.
Most humble and wholesome kid of them all.
He said he’s moving to HK. Please hold him accountable
This is Adam
He's 19 years old
Currently doing $90,000/day with his brand
And that's not even the crazy part...
He's been through more ups and downs as a teenager
Than most will go through in an entire lifetime.
From dropping out of high school at 17
Leaving his country at 18
To going -$100,000+ in debt the same year
and flying back home to live with his parents...
And despite going through all of that
He still had the balls to tell himself
"This ecom thing will work out"
And because he didn't quit
He now finds himself making more cash in a month
Than most brands will make the entire year.
All before the age of 20...
Myself & @shauneng had the opportunity to sit down with Adam to unpack his INSANE story at our Apex event in Saint Tropez
His story gives me goosebumps every time I hear it
If you want to hear the full story
And learn how he is running his entire brand
The full interview is linked below 👇
youtu.be/ozxS7bMRhjU?si=XD9E…
❤️
My conversation with @RomanEcom is live.
Negative 3 million at 32. Eight figures+ in distributions by 40.
A masterclass on D2C, supply chain (he'll save you money and fix your cash flow), and a genuinely unique take on micromanaging.
One of my favorite episodes to date!
Available on all audio platforms and YouTube.
Messenger > Message
If you struggle to convince someone you work with on a strategic shift / pivot:
Get an outsider to tell them the exact same thing as you.
In 9 out of 10 cases this helps me get my way.
The eCom industry has such an incredible pool of hardworking talent working on really small outcomes
It’s remarkable
Be like JayJay and Ole from Hike footwear:
• Go all in - in your early 20s (college school dropout)
• Iterate by never settling for small PMF (found $100K a month and $1M a month businesses and shut them down)
• Go all in on educational funnels and expand your TAM massively
• Scale Meta to $7M a month in adspend
• Have your default be "attack mode”
Episode will come out in the next weeks
Sign up in bio to be notified.
Roman Khan retweeted
We recently brought together 150 of the world’s biggest media spenders and leaders from every major ad platform, 100+ floors up at One World Observatory, for the first-ever Northbeam Conference.
And yes, @VancityReynolds really did have a few things to share.
1.5 days of honest conversations about where marketing is headed, what it takes to make decisions you actually trust, and how AI is changing all of it.
Plus a night at Manhatta with Danny Meyer, filled with unparalleled conversations.
Thank you to everyone who took the stage:
• @KatColeATL — @drink_AG1
• @dhmeyer — @USHGNYC
• @evanspiegel — @SnapForBusiness
• Adam Foroughi & Rafael Vivas — @AppLovin
• @MarkDouglas — @weareMNTN
• @VancityReynolds — Maximum Effort
• @Seanfrank — @ridgewallet
• @winer_danny — @hexclad
• @itshudsonblake — @comfrt
• Josh Friedman — @drsquatchsoapco
• Mohit Arora — @TikTokBusiness
• Damian Wandler & Piyush Bansal — @MetaforBusiness
• Yingying Kuang — @kitsch
• Keegan Tigges — @david_protein
• Tony Chopp — @CommnThreadCo
• Michael Ting — @Jaxxonjewelry
• @RomanEcom — @rayconglobal
• @MAustinHarrison & @mkobach — Northbeam
To everyone in the room: this only works because of you.
See you next year 💙💜💙
I had 102 eCom brands doing $6B+ in the room last week in Shenzhen.
I’ll be sharing my 10 lessons from the event on Friday 12 PM ET to my newsletter’s list.
Link in bio
Important read for anyone on AfterSell
I’ve received dozens of questions in DMs and in person about what’s going on with @aftersell. Here’s our full statement on what happened. Please give it a read.
TL;DR:
• There was no checkout hijacking
• We experienced a cybersecurity attack that was patched within two hours of detection
• No sensitive or PII data was exposed. The few affected merchants were contacted directly, and no one needs to take any action
Our entire engineering team is focused on security, and we’re working with Shopify on App Store relisting as soon as possible.
There are two ways to resign as an employee.
1. Gracefully
2. Ungracefully
The above is MECE. Its binary.
Under one, you put the employer first and, as a result, get maximum lifetime value of that relationship.
I've had three founders leave Peak21 to launch a $30 million company, a $50 million company, and a $100+ million company.
In all those instances, the employee, as they resigned, said they were grateful for the working relationship and said they would only leave once all transition-related matters were closed off, regardless of what their employment contract said. Basically not quit 30 days prior to BFCM then leave contractually 15 days prior.
Needless to say, very clear why they're hyper-successful. After leaving, it's not because of me, but it's because of their attitude towards work.
"What can I do for the company? Not what can the company do for me? " => Winner
An ungraceful way of quitting is the inverse.
I've stopped taking 2. personally a long time ago.
But its the type of people I don't help post leaving.
I withhold any helpful advice, feedback or grace.
I stop opening doors.
Generosity goes to zero, because all of the above are gifts reserved for 1.
The future is here.
Food and eCom deliveries by drone in Shenzhen.
Hanging out with @LostLeBlanc after the founders alpha summit last week
🙏🙏🙏
By far the best event I’ve ever visited.
Room full of killers in the Ecom space.
Thanks @RomanEcom and crew for bringing Ecom events to the next level.
#shenzhen #ecommerce
Just did a podcast recording for founders alpha with @MattOrlic
We just debriefed on my 4 day bi-annual event in Shenzhen (alternates with HK for the canton fair)
Many big takeaways but the biggest one is that non of our US friends know anything about black hat direct response advertising and the tactics that come with it.
We will be breaking it down in detail for anyone who could not attend the event
