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🎧 This episode of the DTC pod was straight money-talk with Sean Frank, the “Einstein of eComm” and CEO of Ridge Wallet.
Ridge helps its customers carry less and live more with minimalist wallets and other everyday essentials. Two Kickstarters, nine years, and over two million wallets later, Ridge surpassed the $50M mark in 2020 and shows no signs of slowing down.
If you’re fascinated by financials, this is an episode you don’t want to miss…
Get Sean’s scalding-hot takes on the current recession, his advice for brands and agencies to survive the eCom crash, why SPACs are scams, and much more.
The Takeaways 👇
📉 How to weather the eCom crash:
You heard it here first: eCom is officially in a decline.
For the last 20 years, eCommerce has grown at least 1% YOY (during Covid, the industry experienced unprecedented 30% growth). But not this year…
This is probably no surprise to you if you’ve been following the markets, or even watched your own Q1 numbers roll in with disappointment. 😟
So what can brands and eCom services do to weather the storm? A few tips from Sean:
- Be maniacal about protecting your bottom line. Do what you can to cut costs now before you’re forced into it.
- Trim the fat where you can. Renegotiate SaaS contracts, call your credit card companies to lower fees, and ask providers for better deals. Every penny adds up.
- Agencies: get incredibly good, incredibly fast. Align yourselves with the most premium brands possible, because as investor money dries up, only the best will survive.
✍️ The most undervalued skill for CEOs:
“No one tells you this at CEO school or whatever… but 90% of your job is just going to be writing s#*! down.”
Sean is a firm believer that CEOs (especially at remote companies) need to cultivate the skill of written communication.
“Being able to quickly and concisely get your point across in a way that everyone buys into is 100% a superpower — especially as the world gets more and more digital.”
And he walks the talk! Just check out Sean’s Twitter for some solid word-spo.
💰 What Sean would do with an extra $100K:
A very large influencer deal.
“These deals are very risky from a cash-flow perspective — it’s really hard to get a direct ROI on them..so if I had “free money” that’s what I would do, I’d be sponsoring very large influencers on a one-off basis.”
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