Chris Elsheikhi

When you're scaling a DTC brand from $5m to $30m, don't try to optimize for lowest cost of capital when you raise debt financing... The lenders out there who can offer the lowest cost of capital usually can't offer the capital flexibility and deal terms that you need as you scale. Low cost of capital lenders don't love DTC. It scares them because there is little to no A/R and inventory is a riskier collateral base. As such, they'll either offer you way too little capital availability or their offer will come with hefty protective provisions that feel punitive. Non-bank lenders tend to be the best fit for a DTC-heavy brand that is scaling profitability beyond $5m in annual sales. Traditional bank lenders, which offer lower cost of capital, tend to become a better option after you hit $30m+ in annual sales. Obviously, there are always exceptions to this rule, but the advice I'm offering here turns out to be true most of the time in my experience. __ Want more tips like this? Consider reposting or giving me Jon Blair a follow.

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When you're scaling a DTC brand from $5m to $30m, don't try to optimize for lowest cost of capital when you raise debt financing... The lenders out there who can offer the lowest cost of capital usually can't offer the capital flexibility and deal terms that you need as you scale. Low cost of capital lenders don't love DTC. It scares them because there is little to no A/R and inventory is a riskier collateral base. As such, they'll either offer you way too little capital availability or their offer will come with hefty protective provisions that feel punitive. Non-bank lenders tend to be the best fit for a DTC-heavy brand that is scaling profitability beyond $5m in annual sales. Traditional bank lenders, which offer lower cost of capital, tend to become a better option after you hit $30m+ in annual sales. Obviously, there are always exceptions to this rule, but the advice I'm offering here turns out to be true most of the time in my experience. __ Want more tips like this? Consider reposting or giving me Jon Blair a follow.

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LinkedIn is amazing for finding product/business updates, tips, tricks, hacks, prospecting, you know.. company stuff. But this platform is more powerful than that. Building trust is everything. The only way to build trust is by BEING YOURSELF. This post is inspired by Augusto Ferreira and a few others in my LinkedIn fam. Us this tag #1stake and tell us something about yourself. No fancy equipment Just yourself and a leap 👉 Tag 3 of your closest work buddies to challenge them.

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“If people don’t use metrics, and you can’t clearly see the impact of someone. Vanity metrics. A Marketing Manager might say ‘I managed $30M budget’. Maybe you generated $1 revenue, maybe $100M.” @ 🔻 red flag. Val Scholz is the former Head of Growth Revolut, where 𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 10𝐌 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐬. Post #Revolut, Val played a crucial role in scaling 📈 several high-growth companies including VEED.IO, Simple & Busuu (exited for $400M). Today, Val is the Head of Growth at Kittl, an intuitive design platform empowering graphic designers. 📢 It is strongly recommended to listen to this 20VC Podcast episode 🎙 hosted by Harry Stebbings. Topics such as: 📌 Lessons from Scaling Revolut to 10M Users 📌 Behind Revolut’s Growth Playbook 📌 Product Marketing 101 📌 Growth Hires: Who, What, When & How Are tackled. #marketing #metrics #ARR #Growth #scaling

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Apple has made it clear that personalizing the first user experience in an app is crucial 👈 A few years ago, Apple finally introduced custom pages for the App Store. This allowed separate App Store pages for ad campaigns and Apple Search Ads (ASA). 💡This innovation increased conversion rates for app downloads. In ads, you promise users “A," and if they click through to the App Store, you reiterate and reinforce the same message "A" (since that's what attracted them). This increases the likelihood of app downloads. 😎 At WWDC2024, Apple took the next step by allowing custom pages to add deep links to customize the in-app experience! Now, within the app, we can understand what was promised in the ad and the App Store page and personalize the in-app experience accordingly: ✅ Customize onboarding (A-ha moment) ✅  Personalize offers on the paywall (sales offer) ✅ Tailor the app's UX to the user's needs (reduce cognitive load and time to value) 💡This approach can enhance the entire aARRR funnel, thereby increasing LTV. 🤩🤩🤩 Our service, https://onboarding.online, allows you to experiment with onboarding and paywalls without involving developers or releasing updates in the App Store! P.S. You can redirect the freed-up development resources to create additional user value while we take care of your onboarding and paywalls! P.S. WWDC2024 timeline 11:52 https://lnkd.in/drT5_jG4

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Imagine getting paid in full & being budget-friendly for new clients 👀 Leveraging Klarna in Stripe will help you to achieve this. How does it work? Find it in your Settings under Payment Methods below the "Buy Now, Pay Later" section and turn Klarna ON. Then you create a payment link for the total amount of your high-ticket service or program, send it to the new client, have them select their option between 6-24 months, and complete the process. This does a soft credit pull and requires a debit card in order for the payment plan to go through, but LOOK... If they want it bad enough, it's going to be an easy YES 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 I'm curious to know what you guys think of this!? Is anyone feeling more excited for their next sales call? #highticketsales #paidinfull #salescoaching #revenuegoals #businesscoaching #linkedincoaching #personalbranding

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💣💥 Meta CPMs are exploding. We know who to blame. But what to do? Temu is shaking up the market with thousands of ads created daily: https://lnkd.in/dF55Hk7f Goldman Sachs analysts estimate Temu spent about $1.2 billion on Meta in 2023 (Investors .com - see comments) 76% of their overall ad spend from Jan - Nov '23 went to social media (Modernretail .com - see comments) While everyone is struggling when market conditions change drastically, you still need a plan. What I'd look into: 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗺𝗶𝘅 For the accounts I have visibility on: 🟡 Feed CPMs are up badly 🔴 Reels CPMs look a lot worse 🔴 Stories CPMs are up like crazy Adjust your creative strategy and look into secondary placements. Are there any placements you have traction on which are still affordable? Find the ads driving this and produce more of them. 𝗔𝗴𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝘅 I'm assuming Temu skews heavily towards younger user. Appfigures estimates 18-24 to be their largest users segment. Same as for placements: check your trends on age group level and focus on older segments if there's opportunity. Don't forget: older users still use Facebook. 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗶𝘅 Females are targeted 30x more heavily than males by Temu. (Thanks for the info Sven) If you're app isn't tied to one gender, now is the time to look into males. ➡️ use male creators in your ads ➡️ tailor messaging to their main pain points ➡️ streamline your flow on web2app or using CPPs Understand these macro-trends and shift strategy accordingly. This is most likely going to push a lot of advertisers out of the market. Once they relax spending there could be a window of opportunity. --- 👋 Hi, I'm Marcus 🔔 Follow me for daily 2min growth tactics. ♻️ 𝗥𝗘𝗣𝗢𝗦𝗧 & let's decode growth for everyone.

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Here are 25 early-stage sales learnings we’ve collected at JJELLYFISH ... 1. 0-1 sales talent does not exist. Founders, this is you. 2. Product/market fit is (almost) always found in adjacent markets. Don’t handcuff yourself to Day 1 market vision. 3. The demo should never be focused on the product. 4. You need to understand their buying process before you build/define your GTM. 5. Unlocking product/market fit is a process of elimination (like science), NOT a hedge. 6. If the problem is not currently being measured or managed, it’s likely not a priority for the prospect. 7. Specificity is fastest way to build market trust — “Wow, I feel like you understand this better than I do.” 8. The quality of your questions is critical for discovery; the quality of their questions is critical for intent. 9. Your niche is not a random starting point. It’s a GTM strategy to prove the experiment with Act 1. 10. Building a working GTM will take longer than building a working product. 11. Give yourself 18-24 months in the market to be invalidated, rejected, and redirected. Founders will also be "Head of Sales" for this period. 12. Consistency is the only way to unlock repeatable themes. Controlled conversations (i.e., experiments) are critical. 13. 80% of early sales is getting them excited by YOU, the Founder — how you see the world (vision) and how you uniquely solve their specific problem today. Hint: the founder is the 'product.' 14. A seed-stage startup should never have a VP of Sales. 15. Channel partnerships are a colossal waste of time. If you haven’t sorted it by going direct, don’t expect another party to. 16. Traction/success abroad seldom puts you further ahead in the U.S.; in fact, it often requires unwinding. 17. If the primary need is being over-served, focus on the secondary need. This is for ‘red ocean’ markets. 18. Someone asking for more features is (almost) never an early adopter. Easy and lightweight is how to test unproven partners ;) 19. Sales team should never lead the product roadmap. 20. SMB is not easier than enterprise. And, there is no such thing as mid-market; it's 'upper-end small business' or 'lower-end enterprise'. 21. Never expect the user to sell to the buyer on your behalf — go direct to the buyer -- in many cases, users can be a blocker. 22. If you did not co-write the RFP, you are likely just a checkbox in their buying process. 23. Enterprise deals are all about expansion opportunity -- if you’re not expanding by a multiple YoY, someone is not doing their job 24. In the enterprise, sales get 'closed' via text 25. A startup should never wait on the product to go to market

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There is no one size fits all approach to onboarding. Check out Markus Rentsch expert tips on how to step up your onboarding game. As Markus said "Put in the time and effort that customer onboarding deserves. You can’t afford to deliver anything less than an A++."

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We’re just putting the final polish on one of the biggest SparkLayer B2B updates so far this year… B2B-specific stock locations 📦 🌎 It sounds very niche but it’s a biggie. In fact, one of the top 5 all-time requests from our customers using Shopify and SparkLayer. The premise sounds quite simple but hugely complex under the hood (as is normally the case with B2B!) Have you ever tried to set up a store for B2B and got stuck trying to split out how you manage stock for your B2B customers? With SparkLayer, you can now use different stock locations based on who the B2B customer is. ➡️ Perhaps your brand has four regional locations in total and you only want to make inventory available from one of them.  ➡️ Perhaps your brand has an international setup and they only want to set country-specific inventory rules for their B2B customers. The use-cases can be really powerful - and we know first-hand that this has been a limiting factor in many brands going “all in” on B2B, especially those wanting to use a hybrid DTC/B2B setup. This - and some other big crowd pleasers - coming very soon from SparkLayer!

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Klaviyo x Shogun = a dynamic combo 🤝 We are so impressed with what the Nextbase team achieved with Klaviyo CDP and Shogun's Personalized Experiences - ultimately increasing conversions by 122%! 📈 Nextbase achieved this by improving their shopper experience; creating an audience specific collection page for recent purchasers of their Dash Cam product. It's a smoother experience for shoppers and those bottom line results are proving the power of personalization. 👏 https://lnkd.in/gAFQaWar

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Trust and transparency is key to business growth and one must play by the book always 👍

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#SparkToro released an interesting study. Essentially, 60% of all searches end in a zero-click. Which we've always said is not relevant to businesses (for the majority) because searches similar to "how many ounces in a cup" shouldn't require search results. Take away the 60% zero-click searches for relevancy; organic search still captures 70% of the clicks, while 1% trends towards the ads, and the other 30% goes to Google Map Pack (ultimately, and in most cases). SEO has never been more important.

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Speed is important. Optimizing for Bots and Crawler budgets is important. Nostra AI is amazing. Headless, without the headache. Zero blocking time static optimization for the bots.

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If I was going to drive velocity at Target… …here’s how I would do it. Up front: Retail media supplements your demos and in-store promotions and other velocity tools. IMO, budget should be shared between them. The right mix usually depends on product type. But from a Retail Media perspective, here is how you do it: 1. Instacart Sponsored Product. -> Target-unique SKU’s allow us to focus on Target directly. 2. Instacart Display. -> Behavioral targeting, such as lapsed customer. 3. Criteo. -> Same as Instacart, but for Target.com customers. 4. DoorDash. -> Same as Instacart, but for DoorDash customers. (DoorDash is very hard to get into. Depending on total door count, we may be able to help.) What ROI are you going to get? It depends on a few factors: 1. Door count matters. ⬆️ doors, ⬆️ ROI. 2. Product type can influence ROI heavily. 3. Manual bidding, ⬆️ ROI. Auto bidding, ⬇️ 4. The longer you’ve been in-store, the ⬆️ your ROI. Oh, and great news for Frozen, refrigerated, dairy, produce, etc. You’re going to play this game on easy mode. Need help? Shoot me a DM. :) ——— 🔹 We grow brands on Amazon. 🔹 We increase velocity in Whole Foods, Walmart, Target, Walgreens, CVS, Kroger, Sam's, COSTCO, and lots of other cool retailers. #cpg #cpggrowth #retailgrowth #retailvelocity #omnichannel #retail #amazonagency #retailmedia #shoppermarketing #instacart #royalfarms

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Hey Alessandro Desantis I can add some color having experienced this on both sides, both at Shopify and on the enterprise agency side. There are a few areas where we see agencies running into trouble: 1. Change management - the brand and agency know where they want to go (replatform to Shopify) but don't know how to effectively address all the internal changes needed to make that happen. The path between A to B is rarely a straight or simple one. 2. Having really good, experienced, product and delivery teams. 3. Migration to headless - should not be approached lightly. 4. Many Shopify agencies started on and have grown up with Shopify. As Shopify now works with larger brands, so do they. They lack the understanding of having worked with large enterprise brands before and the complexities involved. See Point 1. 5. Knowledge of other platforms, particularly Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This has been the enterprise standard for so many years. 6. Addressing growth post-launch. Beyond performance marketing. Having Retention Marketing, CRO and Merchandising capabilities are crucial here. 7. Knowledge of how sophisticated experiences are created and managed.

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Proper pricing is literally the difference between being profitable and not. Can you guess a risky but very client-friendly pricing strategy that helped my SaaS startup get 37% higher conversions? We won over massive competitors when pitching and held the contracts for 7 years.

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