Thread by @shalabhdotgupta

Starting a #DTC ecommerce brand in 2021? Here’s how I would think - 🧵 (1/n)

Plan to be 100% online for the next 5 years. Retail deserves its own thread (hint: 😨), but TLDR: online is easier, leaner, faster, and you don't need to "collect". (2/n)

Choose your space well. Your company's destiny is at least 50% dependent on broader consumer trends. Solve for high margins and size of market. Rough rule of thumb: Food < Supplements < Apparel < Home & Kitchen < Personal Care < Beauty < Personal Electronics. (3/n)

Get the brand name right. The name itself doesn’t matter (hello, "Superdry"), but it should be unencumbered. For India, go to bit.ly/3z0Z0Rn, identify relevant classes and search for your brand name under the “Contains” option. (4/n)

Getting this wrong means a mid-way name change (KIVA to AKIVA, Foodiebay to Zomato, And Nothing Else to The Whole Truth and more). Supremely avoidable. Ideal is a 100% original, made-up word. Read this: bit.ly/3DbdfG7 (5/n)

Unless you sell cars, sell only on Amazon. Marketplaces have customers with purchase intent and DIY ad tools. Your website needs costly FB ads to drive traffic. Do you buy jeans from Levi.com and soap from pg.com? Neither does your customer. (6/n)

If you *must* have a website, @Shopify has won. Don’t waste time evaluating others. (7/n)

Ignore social media and PR - these are time and money sinks with no clear correlation to sales. Plus you can get caught up in follower-measuring contests. Not participating is the winning move here. (8/n)

If you *must* do social media, have fun and do it yourself (i.e. for free). Don't expect it to lead to sales. Post whatever and whenever you can. In an over-groomed world, authenticity is the biggest clutter-breaker. Do not hire a full time person for social media. (9/n)

Influencers work once there is traction, which happens after product-market fit (PMF). Ignore at the start. (10/n)

Packaging design is important, but not that important. Plus it evolves. The best designs communicate directly and simply. Use plain words to spell out your USP. For the rest, find a friend who knows Photoshop, use sans-serif fonts and you're done. Do not hire a designer. (11/n)

Communication is critical, but once again, keep it simple. You don't need to dazzle the customer, you just need to give her the main reason(s) your product belongs in her home. Repeat your message till you're sick of it. The customer isn't. Write your own copy. (12/n)

Outsource operations - sourcing, packaging, warehousing, logistics. Make all costs variable. If you are starting with more than one person to manage all of Operations, your supply chain is too complex. (13/n)

It is not natural or obvious that you have to lose money in this business. Get unit economics right from the start. Repeats will happen when they happen. Don't make an Excel sheet to convince yourself you're making money. Make money off the first purchase. (14/n)

Ideally, bootstrap. Most sensible products have a market, but it's hard to know beforehand which ones have large markets. Being hard up forces you to solve for the business. Raising capital before PMF forces you to solve for the story. (15/n)

If you *must* raise, remember that chemistry is more important than math. Trust your gut about the people you're raising from. And get a good lawyer. (16/n)