Dylan Kim

I've worked with 100+ DTC brands since starting Refunnel. There's one truth I've come to believe when it comes to creative strategy in 2024:  Authenticity matters more than perfection. Full stop. A few years ago perfectly polished content was the focus. Brands expected creators to create TV-style ads. The problem with this approach? The power of content creators and UGC lies in its authenticity. People follow micro-influencers because they trust them and they relate to the genuine content that they're putting out. As a brand, your goal is to leverage the loyalty and trust of those creators' audiences. Here's how: Don't be overly prescriptive in your briefs. Of course, some guidance is essential but you want to ensure creators have enough freedom to create content that they know will resonate with their audience. And I promise, it will do better that way.

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Calling all #Founders: Venture Capital Association of Alberta (VCAA)’s Deal Flow Calls represent a great opportunity for #PreSeed to #SeriesA companies to gain exposure to some of the countries most active Venture Capital #investors. If your company is raising equity capital, I strongly encourage you to check out the link below!

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This is huge. Meta just announced they're pivoting their policy model towards what X does, more open and less policy-driven: #meta #x

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Thanks Chinenye. I couldn't agree with you more. However while we work on this, we also have to be mindful of the fact that bias isn't just the problem in this data rather a combination of poor economy and bias. Of all these regions mentioned, Africa is the least performing market. therefore Davidson, naturally you would expect investors to do less there. They are not charity organisations but a venture set up for outsized returns.Therefore the major issue we should be discussing is, which sectors are receiving this funding in Africa? Are the investments coming to sectors that will lift the other sectors up fundamentally or to sectors that will window dress the issues? or Worst still the ones that will reap-off on the people and distort rather than disrupt the system. (eg Nigeria POS fintech and the real banking system. a discussion for another day). Until strong investments are made in the technology sectors powering manufacturing strong job growth in Africa be it REAL B2B eCommerce not repeating what is already being done, or B2C eCommerce that is truly efficient and cost effective. Equally important is the improvement in the purchasing power of the consumers via credit card system. in as much as Sub-Sahara Africa lacks good credit system that captures the average citizens and residents, B2C will continue to struggle. in as much as our logistics investments are predominantly in the last mile delivery rather than efficient crosborder logistics, both B2B abd B2C eCommerce will struggle to scale efficiently and profitability. So, it's time for the investors to do away with the low hanging fruits and start tackling the real issues that will empower and propel Africa economies. That's where the main bias lies.

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What I've seen over the years is, early stage companies rarely grow beyond their founders’ capabilities; or at least, companies model after their founders really closely. If the founder is unfocused, chances are the whole company is unfocused. If the founder is incapable of making decisions, the company is likely to have meetings after meetings without clear conclusions. If the founder doesn’t put in 110% of herself in the company, it’s hard to expect anyone else at the company would. 1/ Having cofounders is advantageous in this regard, because no one is perfect and different cofounders can bring different skill sets and strengths 2/ Founders need to have good mentors 3/ Founders must set aside some time to constantly upgrade themselves and “sharpen the tooth”. 

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I'm a big fan of Nick Moran! Kudos to him for building such a wonderful podcast series, The Full Ratchet, from which investors and founders can learn a ton. It was an honor and lots of fun to be on Nick's show. At iFly.vc, we're excited about supporting tech-savvy founders to transform the trillion-dollar American consumer experience. In this episode, he and I talked about a few VC investment topics. 💡 Hyper-concentration in VC portfolio construction 🚀 Double down on future unicorns when others walk away 🕵️ Invest in deals with no direct competition 📈 Spotting consumer trends before they’re obvious Here's the link: https://lnkd.in/gDD-_pqN . When you can listen to this episode, I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback. #VC #startupinvesting #startup

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The future of #commerce is already here! #socialcommerce and #C2M are the ways that younger generation prefer to shop! Super insightful breakdown below👇🏼

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BFCM preparation has already started for 80% of brands. Most brands have their discounting "strategy" laid out, but haven't thought about how they can condition their customers away from discounted offers. If I'm running a $10M+ eCommerce brand going into BFCM with an average discount over 20% here's what I'm doing. Launching multiple giveaways... Gas Monkey Garage, LLC has skyrocketed their revenue with NO discounting... EVER! Instead, they use giveaways to excite their customers. Instead of 10-20-30% discounts, they provide 2-3-4x entries for dollars spent on Gas Monkey products. Adding multiples for entries has the same impact to a giveaway conditioned audience that discounts do for a normal audience. FYI - You can find the % of customers in your brand that love giveaways and MILK 🥛 revenue out of them. Send a post purchase survey asking if a giveaway offer would entice them to purchase again. Five months later you now have an audience of customers that respond to giveaways instead of discounting. This is one of many solutions to avoiding high CAC and low LTV from the BFCM cohort.

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In the past several months, I have been to more events than I can keep track of, but the Seed Stage Summit last Friday truly stands out. 🎯 Huge thanks to Andrew Yeung and Justin Wolz + Drew Parten for hosting such an incredible gathering of 200+ founders and investors from across the globe. 🌍 The highlight for me was listening to Alexa von Tobel from Inspired Capital. ⭐️ No pun intended, but listening to her share her experience about building a company and her insights around founders - the grit and commitment necessary to find success and live a life without regret - was truly inspiring. 🚀 My takeaways: When you're finally in the lane where you're doing what you're supposed to do, you come alive. I worked every minute, I slept thinking about it - and I was incredibly happy because I felt self-actualized. ✨ Find your true north: The hardest thing founders do is sign up for something that's not their life's work. She never considered quitting because she was solving a problem she deeply cared about. 🧭 Follow the data, but trust your vision: The best businesses are testing machines. Yet she also emphasized the importance of having conviction about how the world will unfold and building for that future. 📈 The regret machine is expensive: People always regret the things they don't do, not what they tried and failed at. 💭 It was incredible meeting so many founders building amazing things - this NYC startup community is truly special. 🗽✨ Tommy McNulty Brent Greenberg Surge Aravindan Rho Courtney Cardin Ruth Kresha Camilo Tobacia Ishita Jindal Korina Edwards Dima Syrotkin 🇺🇦 David Alson Colby Cox Ihar Mahaniok Anaid Chacón Rachel ten Brink Max Kolysh Aakash Shah Eve Halimi #startups #entrepreneurship #venturecapital #leadership #nyctech #inspiration 🚀

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Han Shen is not your average VC. As the founding partner of iFly.vc, Han is on a mission to invest in gritty entrepreneurs transforming traditional industries across commerce and beyond. In this week’s episode, Han joins me to discuss his contrarian approach to investing, the importance of founder-market fit, and how his immigrant background shapes his unique perspective. We also dive deep into why iFly VC takes a highly concentrated portfolio approach, how Han spots opportunities others overlook, and his incredible journey partnering with companies like Weee! and Ume Tea to create billion-dollar outcomes. Han’s insights on conviction-driven investing, growth mindsets, and navigating underserved markets are lessons every founder and investor should hear. The link to Episode 464 is in the comment section below.

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One of the best pieces of advice to founders as they’re about to pitch VCs “Be dumber” 1. Much more common to lose people or open up a random can of worms than to wow someone with some overly complex point 2. Simplifying something into plain English is a form of mastery

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Manière De Voir De Voir is an 8 figure apparel brand with public financials I've analyzed lots of DTC businesses, but this one is a MASTERCLASS in cash flow. Lets break it down👇 Manière De Voir (MDV) is a UK based fashion brand founded by Reece Wabara - a former professional soccer player turned businessman. In many ways, Manière De Voir - not Gymshark - is what 99% of DTC brands should aspire to be. Since 2020, the brand has grown revenue 40% to about 35mm in top line, while taking operating cash flow yield from -2% to positive double digits in 2022. How many brands do you know that have done that since 2020? How did they do it? 1) Revenue MDV pursued profitable and sustainable growth; by pushing into other markets, not by forcing ad spend. The company grew its 'Rest of world' revenue segment - outside the core UK & Europe - from 39% of total revenue to 46% of total revenue during this time. 2) Cost of Goods Sold This is the real money maker. MDV's gross margin trend is a familiar looking chart, with a dip in 2021 and a rebound in '22. The difference is that in '22, that rebound was MASSIVE. With 9 full points of gross margin expansion YoY, MDV was poised to have a massive 2022, if they could adapt fast enough on the marketing side.. 3) Marketing - this is the important part Watching MDV adjust its CAC with relation to its gross margin deserves a chef's kiss🤌🤌 With +9 points of gross margin YoY in '22 - MDV ramped spend +28% YoY vs +11% YoY in 2021. Scaling ad spend with a newly found gross margin, MER actually decreased YoY 2021: 2.51 2022: 2.24 But, Contribution Margin DOLLARS grew 50% 2021: 6.6m 2022: 9.2m Which is what caused operating cash flow to double from 2.4m to 4.9m. his makes Manière De Voir the most profitable brand on a % cash flow yield that I've ever analyzed, and should be a lesson for all operators that the goal should be to always engineer for cash flow But - the company could be BETTER. Their working capital actually isn't fantastic. The cash conversion cycle has some seriously low hanging fruit. It's basically triple both Huel and Gymshark. Cash Conversion Cycles: MDV: 219 Huel: 64 Gymshark: 68 BUT - you'll have to check out my newsletter to get into the weeds 😄 . I'll be sending the full 10 page deep dive into the cash conversion cycle and the rest of the financials of MDV my newsletter this Friday - Making Cents of DTC (linked in the comments). Every Friday I send out a new institutional grade research piece on a consumer brand so If you want to sharpen your DTC finance mind, make sure you subscribe to the link below for the full deep dive that will be sent out on Friday.

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In 5 years, all of the smartest founders will be building their own in-house influencers. Here's what I mean (and how you can get ahead): The current model includes paying creators/influencers for individual posts, referrals, or longer contracts that pay for set amount of promo over a set duration of time. I love what Ridge did with MKBHD. They brought him on as "Chief Creative Partner". Acknowledging that he has massive distribution, product expertise, and can bring a ton of great ideas to the company. I'm assuming he got a mix of cash/salary + equity in the company. This model makes a ton of sense. Both parties are incentivized in the long run (vs short term bursts of promo for cash). I believe we will see a lot more of this in the future, PLUS, more founders trying to build up their own influencers in-house. The smartest ones will realize that building their personal socials, while encouraging their employees to do the same is the way to go. It’s already happening now. But I'm seeing very few companies do it well. TLDR: Empower your employees to build their social presence. Tap into those audiences for key company announcements. Build a culture around this so that net new employees can replenish the distribution when people inevitably leave. Don't be upset when employees leave. On top of this, you should be focusing heavily on building your founder account. Ask yourself... Will having 50,000-100,000 engaged followers (within your niche) help drive long-term success for your company? Odds are, yes. So then go and build your audience. "First time founders focus on product, second time founders focus on distribution." - Justin Khan

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Modern Retail wrote a great post about fatigue around celebrity-founded brands setting in. As an investor in celebrity-founded brands, I get pitched by celebrities launching new companies all the time. I developed a framework to assess those pitches, which is quite in line with the comments made in the article. The article talks about things such as: Celebrity-founded brands need to have a lot more than the celebrity to become a legacy brand. The brand needs full-time, experienced people to operate the brand. Incubated celebrity-founded brands and the cons of it. Most celebrity-founded brands not solving a real problem (which Jordan Wolfe and I talked about in our latest newsletter). Celebrities having skin in the game. And more. I can highly recommend everyone in the space to read through it. https://lnkd.in/eT_7V3y8

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Beware❗ — do NOT make this all too common goal-setting mistake... Brand founders of scaling DTC brands often feel tempted to pivot their goals when they don't seem to be working out. But here's the kicker: they're going about it all wrong. Let me clarify: well-crafted, clearly defined goals are sacred and should not be changed frequently. But do you know what SHOULD be changed frequently? The strategies you implement to achieve those goals! If you find yourself struggling to gain traction on some of your growing brand's goals, don't make any changes to them right away... Instead, get your team together for a brainstorming session on new and creative strategies you can implement to move your goals closer to the finish line. -- Did you find this post helpful? If so, consider resharing it and giving me Jon Blair a follow. #dtcbrands #scaleyourbusiness #founders

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Everybody needs a place to put their love. - Karina Dresses tagline, circa 2012 In 2012 I made my first investment in a #femalefounder who also happened to be 50+. At the time I had no idea how unusual these founder traits were. I just knew the founder was passionate, authentic, experienced, perfectly aligned with both the product and the market. Most importantly there was a strong emotional bond between the product and the customers who bought it. 🤷🏾‍♂️- it just seemed like the smart thing to do. Not a lot of my investor buddies agreed at the time- probably not so surprising. Fast forward 10+ years and the value of my investment is ~20x & the amount of free cash flow distributed to equity holders is substantial & still increasing YOY. My takeaways: ✅Invest in authenticity, passion and intimacy (customer)- no matter what the founder profile looks like relative to others. ✅Follow your gut. ✅Not every deal is venture scale worthy. But there’s a potential investor for every deal. ✅Be the best version of you, not a lame version of someone else. Works for both investors & founders. :) Congratulations to Karina and the team at Karina Dresses! Proud as punch to be on this journey with you all🚀

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How Etsy built a global marketplace one craft fair at a time... Rob Kalin is a maker of things. Bed frames, chairs, cobb ovens for bread—even his own underwear. After graduating college in 2004, he fell in love with carpentry, offering his amateur skills to friends around Brooklyn. In 2005, Kalin crossed paths with Jean Railla—founder of Get Crafty, an arts and crafts forum. Railla needed a new website and asked him to build it. Kalin said yes. During the build, a question loomed large: Where do artists sell their creations? Kalin pitched his idea for an arts and crafts marketplace to Railla, who resonated with the vision but wanted to keep her site focused on community discussion. Armed with the idea, Kalin and his artist friends decided to create their own marketplace for makers and craftsmen. He called it Etsy. On June 18th, 2005, Etsy greeted the internet. The first product? A flamingo print zip pouch for $8. But Kalin and his team didn’t stop with the flamingo. They attended every arts and crafts fair, flea market and vintage sale across the U.S. and Canada. They bought artists lunch, handed out “craft show kits,” and shared handmade Etsy promos. “These were artists and crafters influential in the handmade world,” Kalin said. “We knew if they set up shop on Etsy, and were successful, others would follow.” And follow they did. In year one, Etsy had 9k sellers, 22k buyers, and over $1 million in revenue. Two years later: 450k sellers, $26 million in annual sales, and $3 million in VC funding. Today, Etsy is the powerhouse niche marketplace with 96 million buyers, 8.6 million sellers and over $2 billion in annual revenue. None of that would’ve happened if they hadn’t stepped away from the screens and into the real world. The lesson? Success isn’t built from behind a desk. Show up, connect and the rest will follow.

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A few insights into the startup fundraising process from last week's talk with Chelsea Zhang (Equal Ventures) and Michelle Liao (DayZero) When you’re starting to fundraise Assign one founder to lead the process - Designating one founder to spearhead the process not only ensures a cohesive narrative and pitch but also effectively divides the demanding tasks of running the company and securing funds. Do your research - Tap into your network to glean insights from those who have raised money before. You can learn a lot from their experience. Thoroughly research potential VC funds to pitch, find the ones that are aligned with the vision and stage of your company. Don’t waste your time reaching out to investors that invest outside of your scope. Gaining momentum VCs move fast - VCs often operate with a clear investment thesis, having extensively researched the sectors they specialize in. As a result, they have a precise idea of what they're seeking and can swiftly recognize it. For example, before Chelsea came across DayZero - she had already seen 40+ variations of the same model. When VCs identify an opportunity that aligns with their criteria, they move fast. The investment process between Equal Ventures and DayZero took ~2 weeks. Gaining momentum during the process is important - Its important to end your VC conversations around the same time so you can round up all interested investors. Generating momentum involves prompting VCs to take action, which might entail instilling a sense of urgency or fostering a bit of FOMO to encourage swift decision-making. Closing the deal Be ready to negotiate quickly - Understanding which deal terms are important to you you as a Founder is crucial to research in advance. The process can unfold rapidly, making it overwhelming to decipher your priorities afterward. Dealing with rejection - Receiving a "no" from an investor doesn't invalidate your startup. Investors operate based on specific investment criteria, so it's important not to take rejection personally. There’s an investor out there that is probably a better fit; the key is to keep searching until you find them.

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At Forum we look at thousands of deals each year across our Accelerator and Pre-Seed funds but only end up investing in a little over 1% of those startups.  As an early stage VC, I am in the business of saying no to nearly every startup I meet, and while there is nuanced rationale for many of the startups I pass on, a vast majority of businesses that don’t meet the qualification to get funded typically fall into one of two buckets. ▪ First time founders have a tendency to go out to market too early to raise pre-seed capital ▪   I’m sure most founders have heard some iteration of this from VCs that ultimately pass on their business.  In some cases it's a blanket excuse covering up for other pass reasons- perhaps a VC doesn’t believe in a team or isn’t bullish on the market opportunity - but in many cases founders simply haven't proven enough to the market to warrant an investment. I meet many teams with an articulate vision for the product that they want to build, but they either haven't performed enough customer discovery to prove demand for their initial wedge product, or need to raise pre-seed capital to build out an MVP.  In those cases, pre-seed investors are unwilling to underwrite those risks.  To be default fundable, teams need to be able to keep costs low, perform extensive customer discovery, and ship some version of an early product - pilots and early paid customers are key. A huge piece of this is having founding engineering talent on the team. ▪Not every startup is a venture opportunity ▪ By definition, a venture backed business is solving a problem within a market opportunity so massive and so desperately needed, that its growth rate is off the charts.   It spreads like a weed, absorbing almost unlimited amounts of capital to fulfill demand within its customer base.   Each year there are maybe 20 companies launched that ultimately have venture scale outcomes. The bar to reach this rarified air is unfathomably high and the reality is the vast majority of founders simply aren’t building for opportunities that have the potential to be one of these generational companies. Many startup founders view VC as the only viable option for capitalizing their business, but not every great business is a venture business, and most successful founders never take VC dollars.  In order to reach an IPO/acquisition large enough to generate venture returns, a startup needs a credible path to $100s of millions in revenue. This is the standard by which early stage opportunities are evaluated. The flip side to this, and I share this feedback often with founders I meet that are building interesting business in non venture markets, if you are able to scale to $10- $20M in revenue that can be a massively successful outcome for a founder.  There are investors who focus on these type outcomes, namely lower middle market PE shops, and the typical path to those deals is a bootstrapped business or a friends/family capital raise.

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