Firehose #173: 🥛 Wild Oats. 🥛

Highly venture-backed DTCs largely have two pathways to longevity and success. They can sell to an incumbent, much in the same way that Bonobos and Jet.com have sold to Walmart, or they can try their luck and go public. The incumbents are willing to overlook the less than ideal DTC economics because what they’re buying isn’t a business model, it’s ... See more

Companies with poor unit economics found themselves propelled by aggressive venture dollars (which themselves were propelled by a low-interest-rate environment). Those companies then turned those dollars into aggressive customer acquisition. Until recently, the market rewarded growth at all costs.

When Marc Lore started Jet.com, it was with the audacious goal to destroy Amazon. To generate his initial buzz, he came up with a novel promotional idea: give away part of the company. He promised that whoever could get the most people to sign up for the waitlist would receive 100K shares in Jet. The competition was a wild success with over 250K pe... See more