Many food & bev brands are growing inefficiently.

Either they stay online only too long, or start retail first.

Here's the new strategy we used over the past 4 years at Kettle & Fire, one of the fastest growing CPG brands. 1/ First, note that >90% of food sales still happen in grocery stores. Yet incumbents still own most of the shelf space.

Prior to eCom, new brands had to start in farmers markets & specialty stores. Now, online-first brands can get into nationwide grocery distribution quicker.

What does building a 4-hr work week actually look like?

For me, I worked weekends to grow getARPU.com. Started as a side project, but now it’s an asset that generates 6-figures in passive dividends.

Here's how I did it as a non-technical founder, while working FT. STEP 1: Identifying the category.

“Build a business that gives you more free time as you grow” - @david_perell

I would only qualify ideas w/ organic acquisition, high margin, low starting costs.

For me, this meant niche SaaS and I'd avoid services or physical products.

1/ Here’s a Retail 101 for all the online growth/performance marketers. In some ways, retail trade spend is similar to influencer paid sponsorships. Retail trade spend is comprised of these main levers: 2a/ Slotting Fees OR Free Fills. These are upfront one-time fees you have to pay per SKU to get on the shelf. Your product or brand is unknown to the retailer, so they’re passing over the “opportunity risk” to the brand through slotting fees ($ fee) or free fills (free product).

One of the most important metrics in 2019 for DNVBs will be increasing LTV/CAC. Brands able to achieve this will outbid competitors, and continue to scale despite rising ad-costs

- If you prefer blog form + more detail blog.rechargepayments.com/current-trends…

- If you prefer a summary, read 👇 1.0 - Lower CACs by building your own inventory instead of bidding on it. "In the future – brands will begin, not by immediately selling products but by curating an audience first." - @web.

Be careful of the paid marketing addiction andrewchen.co/paid-marketing…

1/ Oftentimes, the highest impact levers to improve retention require technical dev work. Yet many DNVBs don’t have “product management” skills to leverage dev & UI/UX resources effectively. In this thread, I’ll go over one simple example of a dev project... The Customer Portal 2/ First, you need to understand if there is an opportunity to improve your customer portal. Do this by analyzing your exit survey results.

You’re looking to see how reasons related to “too much volume”, “modifying order, and “going on vacation”.

1/ Someone please do this idea (I have no time). Ideally new-grad or anyone looking to have an A+ project in their portfolio. High viral potential.

Basically a website that provides instant loans for federal employees impacted by the shutdown at ZERO interest. Here's how... 2/ Every year, there's at least one government shutdown and many of the employees impacted are unfortunately working "pay cheque to pay cheque".

It makes no sense for these people to be penalized and having to take a loan + pay interest. The solution?

1/ Let’s get into more detail on Trend #1 from the first thread

https://twitter.com/WilsonGHung/status/1080236415219322880

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The best brands will increase LTV:CAC by bringing core-competencies in-house from agencies. Here’s why 👇 2A/ Reason ONE: FB+Google have become so advanced that it has reduced the skill & tech barriers. Agencies w/ “in-house technologies” no longer have tech arbitrage advantages (bidding & analytical capabilities). Brands can “just let FB’s algo do it’s thing”.

1/ The golden era of DNVB is over. The times of inefficient growth enabled by first movers advantage & low ad-costs are over. Rising ad-costs will require brands to focus on operational excellence to maintain strong LTV:CAC ratios to sustain growth. 2/ First, why are ad costs rising? First reason is the entry of the incumbent and giant CPG brands. Huge amounts of capital are entering the DNVB space as covered by @mrsharma in perell.com/blog/customer-…

1/ There’s a lot the food-CPG industry can learn from how @moizali grew @native_cos. The deodorant space was dominated by huge incumbents with large advertising budgets & cutthroat pricing.

After ~3 years, their branded search term grew and was acquired for “only” $100M by P&G 2/ With a super team consisting of P&G’s logistical & manufacturing expertise, and Native’s premium brand, Native is now the #1 selling deodorant in Target AND at a premium price point.

Let that sink in… 2x the price point AND with highest sales velocity.