The end of Brandless

My thoughts on @brandless. A thread: Putting the biz model aside, which was flawed (high CAC, low margin, low AOV), the problem, ironically, wasn’t lack of brand. Brand was clear – sleek, health-conscious, value, convenience. The bigger issue was lack of a clear identity 1/7

The direct-to-consumer wave began in the twenty-tens as a new generation of startups promising to “disrupt” traditional industries for consumer goods. Instead of leaving the market to century-old stalwarts like Gillette, for example, a company like Dollar Shave Club, founded in 2011, would set up its own supply chains to manufacture razors; add cle... See more

We explore some inconvenient questions. Retail as a Service is great for brands to test ideas. But are they going to make venture-scale money? Most of these companies run on VC dollars.

“The era of the billion-dollar brand is over; there’s going to be lots and lots of brands that have much more specific focuses,” Davis summarized when we spoke last month.