You’ve probably heard of my friend Ryan Babenzien, co-founder of Jolie Skin. Ryan’s been very public about the brand's numbers & has attracted a lot of attention.

We were catching up the other day, and agreed I should do THE FIRST EVER PRIVATE US COMPANY breakdown

Breaking down Jolie Skin Co👇👇 Ryan & his co founder Arjun bootstrapped & started this beauty brand in 2022 starting with Shower heads + Filters aimed at improving skin & hair health.

They've have rapidly scaled into mid 8 figures of revenue + profit with ONE product. How?

retention

Gymshark has just released its 2024 financial results. Despite being a private company, the UK requires that they disclose ALL finances

I did the heavy lifting and read through all 77 pages so you don’t have to

Let’s break it down👇 Gymshark's 2024 results can be summarized as follows:

Improving unit economics overshadowed by slowing revenue growth and muted net profits

Gymshark's performance is improving, but you need to dive deep to unpack it.

Coty is a Beauty conglomerate in the midst of its glow up

From bloated portfolio to streamlined prestige play, Coty is deep into its turnaround. All beauty operators should take note on how to leverage the financial strengths of the business model

Let’s break it down👇 1/ Founding & Early Growth

Coty has been around since 1904 when it was founded by Francais Coty

In 1992, Coty went on an acquisition spree; buying up fragrance brand licenses like Adidas (who wears adidas fragrance…?), Calvin Klein, and more. Then, the company IPOed in 2013

LTV:CAC has become a somewhat controversial metric in DTC. Commonly used in SaaS, LTV:CAC in consumer brands is hotly debated as to whether or not this SHOULD apply

So here's a dedicated thread DEBUNKING THE MYTHS and explaining EVERYTHING you need to know about LTV:CAC 👇👇 1/ Definition

Ok, the definition is the root of all problems. Often, people look at LTV as the lifetime REVENUE per customer

That's fine, its a worthwhile thing to track

BUT; LTV in the context of LTV:CAC is the LIFETIME CONTRIBUTION per customer, not revenue

This is the INSANE story of Lush Cosmetics🍿

COVID subsidies, Ransomware, insider trading, Rocky Financials, SPACs, and of course - Crypto.

Breaking down why Lush is the next big Private Equity deal in consumer👇👇 1/ First a brief history on Lush

Lush Cosmetics, founded in 1995 by Mark Constantine & Liz Weir, is a british cosmetics retailer that sells hundreds of millions of dollars worth of beauty products like bath bombs, soaps, and skincare

Allbirds stock trades below $1 per share, or ~$100m market cap

Most people just say 'DTC is hard' when telling the story of allbirds - but there's a deeper lesson in this story, and one that I think every DTC operator should hear

let's break down where Allbirds went wrong 👇👇 1/ A brief history of allbirds

Founded in 2015 by Tim Brown and Joey Zwillinger, Allbirds saw massive adoption quickly

2015 - Lerer Hippeau Seed Round
2016 - $1.1m Sales / $7.5M Maveron Series A
2017 - $27m sales / $17.5M Tiger Series B
2018 - Unicorn status

Yesterday, Omsom - an Asian Food brand - was acquired in an asset sale by DayDayCook, a company with a market cap today of $20m, for $11.7m in total potential consideration

This deal structure was interesting and is beneficial for CPG founders to understand👇👇 First, I have seen some diagnoses of this acquisition as ‘Omsom sold for 3x sales’ - I find that misleading at best and dangerous at worst

Founder delirium around exit opportunities is a real problem. in general - subscale brands have not exited for a ‘revenue multiple.’

$HIMS stock is popping 10%+ after hours after the company announced it is increasing its revenue and profit expectations for the year.

let's break down the report👇👇 First, some juicy KPIs for the DTC nerds:

- MER: 2.13
- AOV: $109 (up from $90 a year ago, reflecting increased units per transaction (UPT))
- CAC*: $607
- Retention (2 years+): 85%
- CAC Payback Period: >1 year (*10 months)
- SG&A as a % of revenue: 21%

Gymshark just released its 2023 financials

Despite being a private company, the UK requires the release of financials, which gives me a lot to do 🙂

I’ve been covering gymshark for a while now following each annual release, and so it’s time to dive into their 2023 report👇👇 NOTE: This analysis is abbreviated on Gymshark Group LTD as recognized by companies use. Read my full report here:

medium.com/@drew_91682/gy…

I wrote an article called 'Financing your business with debt: things to consider' for @triplewhale

I go through the pros & cons of:
- Asset backed loans
- Venture Debt
- SBA Loans
- Merchant Cash advances

Listing the pros and cons quickly here: Asset Backed Loans

Pros:
- cheaper
- stable/reliable
- non dilutive

Cons:
- vague definitions of eligible assets
- hidden fees
- the chicken and egg problem
- inventory turnover
- secured

This is going to be a spicy take but....

facebook ads can help build a brand!! more fb ads =

more customers + good product = more ambassadors

more reviews, amazon and owned (important)

more organic followers attracted

more brand awareness

better google rankings/seo

what else?

If you meet a venture fund, I think its important to establish as early as possible whether or not your company would be a mechanical fit in their model before spending much time doing diligence

3 easy questions you can ask to make sure it makes sense: 1/

Whats your check size?
Do you have target ownership percentage?
What multiple on invested capital (MOIC) do you underwrite investments to?

There are so many different credit card providers out there now.

I think it truly ~depends~ on the needs of your business to decide which is the best but here's a quick breakdown of each provider so you can evaluate and decide what may be best for your business: First, some things they all have in common:

- Limits. Card limits are commoditized in this war right now. They will all match offers if they have to
- QBO Integration
- Unlimited virtual cards
- Employee expense management
- mobile apps (except rho)
- All free