Your Black Friday Sale Doesn’t Need to Last All November

And so Q4 Discounting makes sense. Everybody's looking for a discount. Most brands are looking for a discount. I'm not advocating that you don't discount. The question is how long?

Yeah, for how long? And then the rest of the year, are you pulling demand forward by discounting?

First is just playing in the big moments.

So kind of what we committed to in 26 was we're only going to discount a father's day and for holiday. I'm excited for this opportunity to connect and for you to share a little bit about what you guys

have going on with Alia. I have seen all over the place. How are you guys are transforming something that I think most people don't perceive there to be that large of a potential impact it?

So tell us a little bit about what that is and how you guys make it happen. I'm Sean, co-foundancy of Alia. What we do is super simple. We just do pop-ups.

Typically we see it's like, we'll see a two X operator. And then we'll see something like a 1.8 X increase and welcome, they'll rather than you. So then that's the key metric to track here. Of course, we want revenue to go up as a whole.

But there's only so much a pop-up can do.

“I think the best thing about us is that we offer”

30-day free trial. No strings attached, like you can cancel it. It's not worth any for you. During that free trial, we'll manage the pop-ups for you, we'll give you kind of the outcomes

that we promise we'll be able to go. So where do people go to side after try it? Yeah, so Alia. Pop-ups.com, A-L-I-A, Pop-ups.com. We're here with Lucas Pactor, the founder of CEO of Tribe.

So for those that don't know what is Tribe Tribe is like TikTok, shop, or direct to source sales. So TikTok shop was genius. It democratized content. They made it so any average person

with a TikTok shop account can sell a product. But it's only limited to e-com. And it's limited to people that have access to a TikTok shop account. Tribe is that.

But instead of posting the video on your page, you're just making the video, you're sending it to the brand. If they accept it, you get paid, or you get a percentage of whatever revenue generates. With Tribe, what we've been able to do

is go from 500 to 1,000 or 1,200 or 1,400 at a lower

total cost of production, the data is the most important part.

If you give your creators the ability to see what ads are working, and real time, they're going to go make the magic happen.

“So, dude, where could people let they want to check it out?”

Where do they go? It's just join Tribe.com. Check it out, join Tribe.com. Welcome to the e-commerce playbook podcast Live. Live, sort of, maybe not in your feed life.

But we're here live at Comers Roundtable event in San Diego. You can see the beautiful San Diego. That's not AI. Tell 'em real. That's real.

Signs real. It's all real. And he's real. Yes. This is an interesting character in my life.

Whether he knows it or not, we've been competitors in the arena together. We've been having drinks discussing the deepest portions of life together. And now here we are today on a podcast.

I'm joined by Kyle Yeoman. He is the president of Group Life. Kyle's a pleasure to help you, sir. Yeah, thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Yeah, so Group Life, tell us a little bit about what it is, and then I'll give some context to what we're going to talk about today. Yeah, so you mentioned competitors in the arena. Groove started out as a Silicon Ring company.

We started in 2016 by Peter Goodwin. He developed the ring and his garage in Alaska. That business boomed. And then in 2020, we introduced belts the same way. And we've really gone into men's premium accessories

from there. And so Silicon Rings is still a part of our business. But that was just our start. And so, yeah, that's what we do. So I say competitors in the arena,

because that back in those days, because you said you started in 2018 at like, in the end of 2018, so we were very much in the throws of running Kayla at the time. So another Silicon Ring ring.

And it was really us, too, that were the sort of the main leaders at the moment, maybe one other player in the space. But the Silicon Ring Wars of the early-- but the good thing that you guys did that we failed to do

was to find that second product cap.

So tell us a little bit about belts, and how you went from Rings to Belts, and what that's done for the brand. So this is a huge for the brand. I mean, that's been most of our growth since 2020.

Rings are a very stable category for us. It's not as sophisticated as you might think. So our founder is innovative, very innovative, and all of our products have patents, and go through a long timeline basically,

come up with a concept and bring it to market. And so there was really not a lot of correlation between our ring and Belbire, other than that we just made an awesome new product. Yeah, and it took off.

So I think actually it's a challenge is that there's not a lot of crossover.

“Yeah, well, I think that's an under-appreciated thing”

that people don't realize is they think a lot about product expansion is like, oh, it's going to increase my LTV, it actually rarely does. Like, category cross-cell and the e-commerce

happens way less than people realize, but it is mainly about unlocking that new customer acquisition. So you guys have done an awesome job of that and sustained it. And now you are back as the president. Yeah.

What is the president, too? A little bit of everything that really is right. Yeah. Now, so I came back in 2022 to see Emma. Okay.

And then, kind of, go, we're more and more responsibility and moved into the president for all about two years ago. It's still very much growth-focused, right? We're a marketing and sales organization. And at the heart of it.

So we kind of went through this process of saying, we're actually a product first company. I think that was a mistake. And so we pivoted back, being where sales marketing

How does that change, you guys, culturally? I think what is the distinction? Investment.

“Like, how much do you invest in R&D versus marketing, right?”

So one of the things we did early on is which are a reduced marketing spend, or invest in other categories, because our product is going to have to sell and sell. Yeah, that's not true.

Interesting. Even though we have great product, it's just not true. Right. So I think it's, yeah, mostly focus and investment. Interesting.

Yeah, that makes sense. So you're here. Yeah. Oh, this, on this series that we're doing, because you're speaking.

Yeah. Tomorrow? Tomorrow? Taking the main stage? Yeah.

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How discounting is not a growth strategy.

“So basically the pitch is that you should be focusing on quality of revenue,”

which we should define the definition. The defined quality revenue is top line. So don't waste top line. Just quality revenue. Okay, so that's a setup because we're here to talk mainly about Q4,

which is primarily an attempt to capture value through discount. Right. So help me square the circle here and figure out how do you then in group, how do you approach Q4 in a lot of it being discounting with doing that in a way that doesn't create the damage

you're concerned. So I think there's nuanced to every position. And so Q4 discounting makes sense. Everybody's looking for discount, most brands looking for discount. I'm not advocating that you don't discount.

The question is how deep? Yeah, but how long? And then the rest of the year are you pulling demand forward by discounting? Right.

First is just playing in the big moments.

So kind of what we committed to in 26 was we're only going to discount the project today and for holiday. The rest of the year is full price. And I doing that, right, you're bent up demand. And then you can avoid it the most of the season.

So that's really more of the positioning. That's great. So okay, so twice a year, that's it. That's it. And one of this year is so hard.

And you made it. I'm so excited for November. Now, so yeah, so you've got some sort of demand to get to ready to go.

“So do you think that part of your ability to do that?”

Because a lot of times discounting in my head is really about turning aged inventory back to cash when you've missed the market on product creation or inventory. So and you guys do better if I don't know about the, I can't speak to the belts as much, but on the rings, I'd really go across the goods.

Very little, very little inventory risk. So you don't carry a lot of like, oh, no, I have to liquidate this. There's large holding costs or I'm shocked. So how do you think about the relationship between the price at which you can sell the product, the price at which the market accepts the product?

Right. I think it's a really good question. And so to your point, even for belts, we do all of our own assembly and fulfillment in Tennessee. Yeah. And so we can suffer. We very, very, really have Jim and Tori.

I think it makes sense to discount and move aged inventory. What I have found though is that when it doesn't move at full price, it doesn't move very well. It doesn't even either. And so I think it's less that you shouldn't discount those on the short term. But the question is, if you're doing that every year.

Right. Like, picture forecast thing. Yeah, there's no iteration in this.

The problem is solved. Yeah. So that's like that's an outlet.

It goes to if necessary, not the strategy. Correct. Yeah. And I think the biggest thing I'm hitting on is your evergreen product. Yeah. Because it's like sales are solved this month.

And every market right now goes, well, you know, what do you think? So because, no, I think it's awful. Yeah. The question I have is in your organization.

And maybe this is you because you are a marketer by trade. But who gets to decide the price? Hmm, again, a super sophisticated process. We try to go just above competitors. Okay. So we really just benchmark it there and then cost up goods and he's different.

And is that you get to decide? Or like, are you a marketer? No. Okay. So that's me and our founder and our CFO.

This is down to say, this is what it wants me. And this is also, I've kind of waged an internet war against the head of growth title and in part because I think it's related to decisions like this. Where if you're going to be responsible for the outcome, the question is what's you have the authority over?

Hmm. Now, hopefully you guys are really good at naming the price. And but if I'm a CMO and you have control of the price and I don't, then I'm told, go sell it. And I think that there's some mismatch to the demand there.

There's a lot of trust that has to be built for sure. Between whose responsibility that ultimately that is in the process. And I think that's one of the things that when I think about a lot of times, what I see is that if an organization is product led like you described, then the ops team prices based on the gross margin desire that they have.

It's a little pricey for me to help.

Exactly. So we have regardless of what the market will accept. It's like we have a gross margin expectation. Here you go. There's the price versus if a market or sets it, it's the alternative.

Right. They're going to try and price it as low as they can because for them exactly. And so this is one of the things that I watched toggle between an organization of who's forward and led in it. So I think that having you in that seat actually probably is really helpful to think about that.

But how do you think about, because this is true in silicone rings. I know one of the things that I experienced was that the market expectation of the price changed over time. Right. In a way that was kind of outside of our control in the sense that,

because it's a high gross margin category, when we started day one, it was like you and us and nobody else on Amazon. You guys were first. And you go on there and now there's a thousand listings. Right.

“And I remember I think it was like right no rings was probably first.”

They were like five for five bucks cheap.

Right. And so all of a sudden, the consumer expectation of the price, because you have limited barrier to entry and I know that like there's these elements, where all of a sudden the market expectation of price changes. Right.

So how do you think about those effects in a market as it relates to discounting versus pricing over time? It's a good question. And I think it depends on your product, right. So if you are in a commodity, you sell air filters. Right.

And that by actually maintaining a higher price point, we've played a different space. Yeah. So we don't collect all the same volume, but we have much better margins.

Yep. Right. And we maintain our ring business is not strong. Right. It's been very, very steady.

Yep. And it because we maintain price. So we raise prices on rings. Our silicon ring is 55 dollars. My name is on.

Interesting.

“And so yeah, I think it's more about just like owning your place.”

And this goes back to the discounting. Everybody goes what we need to compete on price. And so we've just said, what if you remove that up? Yep. So in constraint.

Yeah. Well, I agree. I love that. I think one of the biggest things that organizations struggle with is that they'll, whatever they want to be, they'll, they'll

capitulate to the problem all the time versus when you draw those boundaries and clear constraints, it forces innovation in different ways. So I totally love that. I think that the IP thing isn't really interesting. Like I think that one of the things that you could probably plot

into some cool data visualization is the relationship between the barriers to entry and pricing power over time. Yep. And this is just general macroeconomics. But I think e-commerce suffers terribly from lack of barriers to entry.

That it forces people into these pricing battles because they have no product. It's very interesting. It truly is a commodity at the end of the day. Yep.

And in some ways, this is like a gripe I have with like the Shopify stuff that we're all just that the whole idea of like arming the rebels and lowering the barrier to entry to do everything isn't actually good for us. It doesn't actually serve you as a brand that everybody else can very easily replicate what you do.

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Knowing that you have all this built up to me, give me the month of November offer design. When are we live? How long are we running for? How does that show up for you guys this Q4? It's short.

We're not starting till the week of Black Friday. I love it. I love it. Kind of Wednesday before. Great.

I love it. We're going to run it for a week. I love it. Then we're done. I think this is the way.

I actually, do you actually, I thought you were going to say no.

“I think that there is this obsession with starting earlier that I don't believe does anything”

to drive incremental rapid. I don't think it does. It drives none. In fact, like your, the most efficient media dollar, like everyone gets obsessed with CPMs. But the idea is that it's all relative to the conversion rate that's available to you.

And so repeatedly, I see that the most efficient time period is when culture actually shops that like your sales starting earlier doesn't do anything to change your job. No. So you can start whenever the hell you want. Nobody cares.

Right. And the only people that do are the people that we're going to for sure by anyways. And you just get in the discount. That's right. You just gave up.

And so I think that I have actually been a proponent that I do. I think I still think Wednesday, people can go to Monday, but I think that the peak value creation period is when does they come on day if that, it's that window. We've always seen it. It's just like.

For some reason, we're traveling and then all of a sudden they're ready to stop. We're focusing more on working consistency of offer, but we're just changing messaging. So it just like Friday folks. I agree. And it, the labor, the amount of work, like there's so many things that actually form almost

And what I, what I prefer is, is there actually a, so for brands, first we get a November

as Veterans Day, is there actually something not Black Friday related, some way in which you can drive some incremental moment of value that is disassociated from now, and allow that to still be there, but don't drag it forward into the period, is there something else we can do or say?

“And I think a lot of ways, this is how Amazon ended up with what's there, what am I thinking?”

No, the what's their big sale, I'm trying to manipulate, but prime day, thank you, prime day in October, right, is because they recognize, oh, if I can drive this peak of demand ahead of very, already exists, then I can create incremental value that way. Yeah. Okay, so give me the example of the discounting thing that you think represents the most

damaging example that you say. I think brands starting Black Friday sales October 1, and running it through the end of the year. If you want, it's just a nightmare, because all you've done is you pulled forward all the people that we're going to buy later, yeah, and now you've reset their your, for

see price at your, right, because it's been that way for three months, I think that's the, there's so, so many brands, and like they're just, they've gotten themselves into a habit where the funnel that's working best on meta is a discount funnel, and so it's now become 30 to 50% of the spend, and you're stuck, there's no way out. You can't turn it off.

Yeah, the top line drop will be too impactful, and the ability to subsidize it quickly doesn't exist. Right. If you can think a long time to reconstruct that, and you are now in prison, you are in discount prison.

And then you die. Yes. And I see this on the media for, and then to the point that they end up in lawsuits over, right, this is not really your price, right?

This is never actually been off of discount for any period of time.

So what do I do? I'm stuck. I'm in a prison. This is exactly how I get out. Give us a teaser.

“That's what I'm planning, so you're seated, discount to drive top line growth that you”

think will increase fusion margin, and therefore profit, this was one profit. Yep. And what ends up happening is you now pop that over year. That's right. Because you've built up, rating expense, layer, that needs more top line.

But then you have to go deeper on your discount, you need to run it for longer. So now you have revenue climbing, gross margin, declining, and you have to contribute to margin of climbing and profit. Head off of scrolling. Head off of scrolling.

Yep. Then, you're not long enough, you mentioned that you just have to be like, "Yep. So now you're revenue dips, horses stalls, because even on that discount funnel is not working, keeps rising." Yep.

You have to go deeper or more offers. Yep. Right. And so now you get the compounding effect of all those other three-grants margin patterns.

That's right. That's right. So this is what we did in 2026 is where we reset, and it started by scoppx. That's exactly the same. That's right.

That's right. For the long haul. So this year's in pretty real. I like it. It has a growth margin.

It is the hardest thing to do, because the optics, it's easy to say. Optics, but generally represents pizza to people, software, and those are like the rest of us. Sometimes it's an office, another thing I see, where people have these things that they have identity connected to.

We have this one. We have this cool build, like whatever it is, and it's letting go of that is literally like it's a death that you're dying to become a new thing. Yeah. It is.

It really is.

“But the freedom that it creates to that actually go get healthy is it's the only way.”

So like, okay, so I'm going to see you're, you're standing in a half to fire everyone. I think they will do it. What do I have to do? Understand where you are first. And if there's actually opportunity.

So what we realize is that you were discounting a lot. And so we kind of slowly moved into 20% of our revenue coming through discounts, just to you can put your money. To 40. Yeah.

We are a promote tool business. Whether or not we want to hack like it, we are. And this is not good in well. So we could stay in business for a while because we have Amazon and retail and we're healthy. But in five to ten years, we're done, we don't business.

And so I think it's really important people understand where they're at before they make decisions. I wouldn't make big swings right before you four, play out the year like you planned, but be thinking next year, what does my business need to look like long term? How do you know, how did you know that there was profitable acquisition of LMC?

Because one of the things I see is that people will get the nerve to go, okay, I recognize

we're discount, but they've actually never had to go out in the choir customers at the

home price. And so the actual possibility of what what is out there that is viable is unknown. Right. And they go out and they find out that like no matter what we do, we can't get to a place where it works.

So like, how did you know that there was available to you profitable, new customer acquisition that wasn't on this. We didn't. I think it's like what you're going to die anyway, but this is going to die anyway. So you probably have a lot of options.

Yeah. So we didn't. I personally got a lot more involved in that problem. So what we used to do was we do design by committee. So it's like redo this page, but you have 10 hand in it, and this became a lot more

personal. Like, no, this is what needs to be there, and we just kind of went. When.

I think, for CEOs and leaders that aren't marketers, because they'll get prospects from their team, just saying like, this isn't possible, I can't, more efficiency isn't available. How did you know when you had made it to a place where like this level, is good enough or it's good?

I don't think there's, I'm taking the approach that it's never good enough, the reason

I know it's good this year is because probably it's triple. Yeah. I would say it's not good enough. So this is an iterative process.

“I think the thing that I'm going to be continually hitting on is that this doesn't”

stop. Yeah. But what we saw, I mean, the reason we got into this, the first place is that you saw conversion rates drop from your page channels, right? That was like the main issue, and that always happens over time, because it's going to

really revolve, it's going to be great. So you have to be iterating. I think that's the main core to go back to, don't pull points, because it gives you the artificial conversion rate, but I'll focus on the core, right, to convert more and so the biggest thing this year was we've got our BNCPA in half by doing that.

Really, seven day click, like, like, Apple's in. I have to show you that. Yeah. Kind of insane. That's really cool.

And so one was all site. So it was the site. Why do these site changes? Yeah. It wasn't ads.

They really say it's like the same, same album. It's also talking about the album. It's still. No. It's like that.

And what kind of things like personal specific landers, categories like this is another CRO changes one product page. So it took our highest volume page and just said, if I didn't work here, I didn't have any personal attachment to. Is this a good page?

Yeah. Answers know. Okay. And then we sat down and just rebuilt it from scratch, looked at other categories. So we didn't look at competitors.

We looked people were selling to the same customer, we felt we're doing a great job. It's very soft. It's like Rick, Ruben, what's this thing? Yeah. I guess we'll go buy it.

Yeah. But it really is that. This feels right. Yeah. And then we just did it and roll it.

Yeah. And it worked. So there's another thing like it.

So there's always this tension between breadth and depth as it relates to these

testing opportunities where the idea of your PDP, and I've even thought of it. Like people like your home page as the lander, whatever page the vast majority of your traffic goes to, you spend a lot of time trying to make that core thing better or do you launch a thousand pages.

“So a thousand page thing, I think it's intoxicating because people really love the idea”

of like, there's this very specific message for this person that we think we know who they are and so the problem is like when you develop that many iterations of a thing, it becomes really hard to understand the variable that's making a difference. It's like really challenging. So so right now you guys drop all your ad traffic to a PDP.

Mm-hmm. That's crazy. One. And that made the biggest thing. Wow.

So conversion rate is up 61% year over year, Apple Stapples. Crazy. On those pages. And what visually, if you were to hold them both side by side, what would I see as the biggest thing?

All right. I mean, we literally built it. I can show you a ton of photos, different product photos, different copy, different sections, different, right, which is basically what we're like. So one of the things too was every day I've heard his AB test, AB test and then nothing.

So our own PDP was just a photo, an overpriced, right, it's like why would I use my knowledge for this belt, it's belt, and so what we did is we just said, let's try to edge customer.

And so the pushback I've always gone is that only 25% of people go past the fold, so don't

worry about it. And we can't check the opposite, which is like, no, those are your highest intent, and so we built them very long. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, if you can improve that 25% of PDP, so that's 12 and up.

Don't increase your page. Yeah. Like there's real wins. And we rewrote the copy. Like humans rewrote it.

Yeah. Like is this compelling? And then AB tested the copy. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

We don't trust.

“We just go like, what we want to buy this.”

Yeah. So it's been interesting. Yeah. We'll see how key for us. I mean, it may, you know, I hope.

We'll see. How about this and then we're going to talk to someone asked everybody this. Yeah. Black Friday. Spend day on incremental.

Not incremental. Most spend at least spend on the day of meta. Not incremental. Not incremental. Not incremental.

So you spend less on Black Friday than you do on. No, we still spend more. I'm not convinced that's that increment. How do you define the amount to spend? It's, I mean, this is non-scientific.

Yeah. I'm going to show how little I know. It's based off traffic projections. Okay. And it's like basically what is my cost of traffic.

And my simple version right now be. Okay. But we found in years where we ran linear TV. That gave us way more live. Yeah.

Like some of those. So you run linear TV like the two weeks preceding it or the month. For the year preceding it, but then you ramp. Much is there. Oh, and she basically take all.

So you're saying day off spend on linear TV being more incremental. Okay. We can. Yeah. Because linear like.

Remnant. That's really efficient. Thank you. You can spend. Yeah.

So it's important you line up the week. Clearance. Right. Like a clear week. And that's like YouTube TV.

All those have been in my opinion more. So whatever number you write down, you have a revenue goal. You back out the coverage rate of the ticket.

How do you know if you don't.

If you were to write down 10% more money, it wouldn't be more looking. And you said that a different way. So let's just make up some made up numbers. Yeah. You do that for me.

They come out. You say our metasmen is a hundred thousand dollars today. But what if it was a hundred and ten. Then you might. Does that.

Because if it's a formula. Yeah. Then the CPC times it. The money just goes up. Yes.

That's what we're looking for. You have. It's. It is incremental, but it's not at the rate in which, right. So like if you run at 20% that's been the revenue.

Right. Even if that is incremental at a 1.5 or two. That's still 50%. Right. So you're you're inching up.

So that's usually our barrier is what is our. M.R. goal or whatever it is. So that's more the capital S. And drive more. And I think that goes back point.

Drive more revenue through discount. Yeah. Should. Yeah.

“I mean, again, obviously long tree going to grow up, but I think that's the question.”

Do you like sense?

Yeah. I mean, I think that the attention always and I think this is there's.

Just actually a thing I criticize for my organization. There's there's two ways to think about opportunities. There's to create a plan to create an outcome. And to decide that that outcome has been enough and we're going to produce that. And we're actually going to let go of the question of whether or not we maximize the opportunity.

That's actually my preferred method because. Which is your preferred to build a plan and execute the plan. We're not deviate from it, including leave upside on the table. Versus, I think our e-commerce is way more like. Scalent if it's working.

It creates all sorts of problems. But black Friday is one of those days where you it's almost impossible to leave without feeling that in one way or another. I overdid it or under did it sure all the time. And so I think that what you're describing sounds like you guys have developed a certain amount of discipline around like. So we don't actually wrestle with the question of whether or not we milk every dollar out of it as possible.

It's like we had a plan. Did we do the thing? That's good enough for us. Yeah. That's how I feel.

And I think your team is reflect you as a person. Right. You feel that way your team will start to reflect. Yeah.

You need to have to criticize you.

And yeah.

“So that's how I tend to be more disciplined in organizing.”

I would rad which would I rather leave feeling like. Didn't get as much as I could or our way. Yeah. Yeah. It's like much rather like less of the table than our overstretched.

So I think that the point you made earlier to the other trap is that like people substantially under estimate. The damage to the year over your comp and next year's opportunity when you torture. Like you've it's going to take you actually two years to recover from this problem. And it is such a long journey to get back to once you've. Face that top line at a level that's inefficient.

You're going to have to go so far backwards to go back forwards. Right. And it becomes really really hard to accept that. It's people just keep on the throttle. I think that's the biggest issue with our industry of knowledge is lack of patience.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the one that's going to be Andrew Ferris podcast. Yeah. I think I think the idea of I think people underestimate especially.

And this is a thing even for us learning as you go sell is that. If I'm going to pay you. A discount on future earnings, which is functionally what all. Sales are right. There's somebody bringing forward your future earnings and giving you.

I'm going to take a multiple arbitrage on that value at some rate of return for myself. The predictability of that future revenue. Is just a model extrapolation of how predictable your historical is. Right. So if you're 20% and 180% and then negative 7% and then 40, it's like how.

What future earning am I going to model off that versus if it's 30%. 30%. 30%. 30%. 30%.

30%. Thanks love that. They want to go right that against it. Somebody who's going to underwrite it and isn't sophisticated. It works in private equities.

It's going to love that. And so that ability to withstand the chasing. The 100% or the 50 50 50 50 or 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30.

“I think is a real value, especially if you're end ambition.”

Is to sell the business to somebody who's going to have to look out into the future and go. Am I going to make money on giving you a bunch of cash for this though? Right. So that's really iterated. We learn that it makes sense either way.

So if you do. Around way better like you said, they're fine. They're not markers. They don't really care about you. And then, but if you do keep it.

It kicks off way more cash if you're consistent. Well, so I think the counter. The question there is this more of the like getting while the getting is good. So like if I look, if I go back. Yeah, let's say it's 2018 again.

You and us are there. Did we understand or overspend? Underspend. Massive. Right.

Like we had no idea. Maybe. So that's a one set. Right. That's.

Well, I just think that the market got so competitive away so fast. Yeah. And like I also speak for myself because I don't know where you guys are. We should have been more aware of how limited the barrier to entry was and how there were going to be a thousand alternatives so far. But like I look back, you know, we could pull up the early meta accounts from that era and it was just printing.

What? Right. And we just didn't know any better. And the inventory risk was like zero. Sure.

So like there wasn't actually that much risk to spend that much money. There was so much gross margin.

Now, what would have been the end of all of those actions? Well, we would have had to come way down a bigger drop bigger drop. The question is, when we made more careful on the way, I don't know. But you know, like, and I think about that a lot that's like, you know, it's the old Malibu Beach property like wins the best time to buy and the old binge from property.

Well, it was yesterday and the second best time is right now.

Yeah. So what should you do in light of that?

“And I think that's the only tension that I feel with the like steps there step is that you have to be really confident that the market will yield that opportunity and possibility for you in the future.”

I think that's fair. I think my only like immediate response to that is that if you believe that the only time to get it now is now. Yeah. It almost kind of shows that you have a lot to believe in your business and future and maybe you're not. The other thing is like can you sustain it?

Totally. I think being able to sustain something is really important. Do you think so as you look at your business? Yeah. It's 2030.

Yep. What is the revenue mix between rings, belts, and unknown percentage? I think it's probably 20 rings, 30 belts. 50 unknown. Okay.

Because I think this is that you can't everything either grows or eyes. Yeah.

It doesn't have to grow at 200%.

Right. I'd be moving towards growth. So I think that's the I think I think that's where when I think about what brands are that. And I think I don't know if you saw Sean's tweet about this the other day. I don't know.

Just yesterday. How are you? Are you an alien from another planet? What does that mean? Um, no, the idea is just then like what is a brand?

If it's true that your future growth won't come from anything you curve. Yeah. Like what are you? Like and the idea you're really a platform for something to exist. But the problem with those products and what the hard thing about e-commerce,

like if those things don't come pound and have network effects such that they expand over time. Right. Then like your all of your future growth is like to be saw. Right.

“Like you have to you have to in your head come up with some new way,”

which 50% of your revenue is going to exist four years. Yeah. It's a big task. So I think that like that's the only tension between like. No, what happens is that I think you develop the confidence and the mechanism of what you can discover those things.

Sure. And so like you become more sure that you'll be able to solve the problem. Even those things are installed. Awesome. Well, what else?

Any other Q four tips so you're going to spend. You're going to keep the satellite. This is going to be you have all this pent up demand. You're going to not spend as much on that. You're going to pump other channel rem it TV and the other channels you like a lot.

Okay. Really long for. We've got all year really. Yeah. In terms of less responsive than matter.

Yeah. You're not going to ramp the same way as a percentage. But just in general, like that's what we're betting on. What are you using for measurement for YouTube? We don't use any measurement tools.

This guy's five sperm. Except everywhere for post-partial survey. Yeah.

“So the only thing you make all your media decisions on post-partial survey.”

Yeah. And what does your gut tell you? My gut tells me better attention is better than short-term attention. And you talked about this a little bit. The long-term halo effect we see from things like YouTube.

For sure. Are far and way better than for sure. What is like fundamentals? What if your gut's disagree? Like people internally who's got gets the win?

That was accountable for the outcome. Okay. Is that you? Yeah. At the end of the day.

So it's just your gut. What happens if you die? Well, then maybe we'll get a measurement. Yeah. I mean, I'm open to being wrong in these things.

I just think sometimes you like to overcomplicate. For sure. But she's like, if you have a budget and you're spending 100% on direct response. Is that better or worse long-term than taking 30%. And towards longer-term attention, brand recognition.

Yeah. I think what it's been. Is, and this is why bar free of it probably is an agency. Is that I think that there are Rick Rubens. And there are Kyle Yomens that actually been used in the same system.

Well, you brought it up earlier. So I think it's a fair example that like you're intuition based on your ability to synthesize information and your experience in the industry actually leads you to really good decision make. And you are gifted in that way. But what happens or what is very hard is for that to be replicable for anybody else. Yeah.

And the second that you the decision make or move to somebody with worse intuition.

Then the idea that we're going to use intuition becomes risk really bad. Yeah. I actually really agree. Yeah. Figure out how to solve it though.

No. I think you don't have to. That's the good thing is because you're a recruitment, right? So he doesn't need to go build a system for deciding what good music is because he can into it. And he has a long history of proving that that's true.

So your history is being built and you're doing it well. And so you get to use that. Is that a compromise? Like, do I feel like it's good enough side? Does that make sense?

Like, I'm open to being challenged on that on that. Well, I think good enough again is also up to you to decide what that means. That's true. And then how we're going to teeter into the philosophical here, which last time we were together we had some drinks and did that dinner.

Exactly. But really.

“And I think this is I think that most businesses live in the chaos and ambiguity of the owners desires.”

So the fact that you're satisfied actually can build an organization that it itself says.

And so the external opinion of whether that good or not doesn't matter, right? If you guys are. Yeah. If you're satisfied with the outcome and the system that you're getting, then the system is good. Because I'd like to say that your, your system is perfectly desired if they outcome it's getting.

And so if, if it's producing what you want, then I don't think there's any teachers just profit and the abilities tonight. That's right. That's true. It's been great. We'll want to grow faster as soon as those two things are true for a long period of time.

Yeah. But that's the tension that kind of lives in every founder business. I think that the only risk is if you are in a position enough to be committed long term because in the absence of the human. What happened in the absence of the Ruben? How does that system persist?

And I think that would be the only risk. But if you're well, what would you say to the answers? Well, for me, I like to think of the idea that the organization, all decision-making framework is devoid of the individual of any individual. But the individual is also meant to some externality that we're using to define it. Now, I say that as somebody who would love to just say, because I said something.

Yeah. It's way easier. It's way easier. But part of it is, I have actually become very acuity aware of how often I'm well. And I get a scary level.

I'm wrong all the time. Yeah. At times when I was really, really convinced that my gut was right.

“And so I think probably it's my own insecurity about that.”

That's developed over time to say, like, how do I, what is it like to build a gut check for myself? Because I'm actually interested in trying to move closer to reality as much as I can. And so what are the best ways to do that? At least here's a competitive edge in people then or no. I think it's really hard to know if you have it.

I think if it exists, it's like to prove that to yourself would be really hard. And I think that more and more I find that as organizations as people leave them. They just evolve in ways that can render them. It's a placeable very fast. Yeah.

And I think of super place. Yeah. Because you could replace a lot of, I mean, taking MMM or go to a management tool. You can do the same out. Yeah.

Right. I think the thing I've, I've wrestled with a lot though, actually. This is, it's, it's not cool. Yep. Is you have two brands that do the same thing.

Yeah. It's not the same product. It made a lot of the same actual internal decisions. Why does one succeed over time the other one doesn't? Well, I mean, I think there's lots of dimensions that could be the answer.

And I think like it theory, right? If you, I think the actual, that the execution is the underrated asset there. It's not that information.

“I think that most people could have information and not act on it at all.”

Like if you go, if I tell you this is running incrementality studies for us all the time, is that I could show you that your thing is bad and watch nothing over and over. That's very important. Yeah. So I think that what I find is that the best organizations, they have this deep

intimate connection between belief and behavior, such that as belief changes, their behavior does too. And the worst organizations, those things are disassociated. Where whatever they say they believe, they don't like it. So I have my, I think I would call it organizational integrity is that there's high alignment

between the things we say we believe in the things we do. Yep. And that the beliefs actually can become secondary to that being true. Because there is no, I'm not a big like big a capital T truth guy, where there's like a singular idea that could be right.

There's lots of ideas that are right. And it's more important. Can you actually move? Can connection? It's like alignment to those.

And so I think you sound like you also have that to with the things you. Where you don't sit around wondering all day if what we believe is true. We believe it. We do it.

I think that's really powerful.

That's an interesting take. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. Hmm. Well, there you go, guys.

Welcome to the e-commerce roundtable live. Come join us for, we'll get to have cocktail and who knows where we'll end up later. But if you're not on hacks, how do we follow you? How do we gain our wisdom from you? Can we can we can we?

Do you have a I don't think then? Okay. You're posting thoughts on there. I'm going to write an article a week. Okay.

So being in this year, I started writing. What? Okay. That's cool. Just what I'm saying.

You're going to sub-stacks on the West. Start on sub-stack. The main main on site. So we're going like 3,000 words. 30 words.

What are we doing? Just bands are like three at six minute reads. Okay.

They're basically a weekly pondering.

Sometimes it's what we're seeing in the business or the other times. It's just like, I wonder what the future of work will be. Oh, okay. I just take over. Great.

And that's on LinkedIn. Yeah. And then it's kind of your domain doc. I just made a site with a little opt-in for newsletter. There you go.

He said you couldn't follow him. But he's got the newsletter. Get there. Get engaged in his thoughts. Do really cool things.

It grew. Congrats, man. Congrats on enduring the market and crushing me and surviving as a competitor. And the seller brings to you at the time. And good luck tomorrow on your speech.

Thank you. And you guys are big. Thanks, dude. Wherever. We'll be, uh, you can hit the speech we'll be on YouTube.

All the commentary on table follow-up docs. Um, so make sure you check it out and go crush Q4. Thanks for coming.

Appreciate it.