Ever since uni, I wanted to build my own "thing", fortunately, I was given the best piece of advice I'd ever been given, period.

I'm always wary of advice given by others but this guy happened to be the CEO of America's 1st publicly traded furniture company so my ears pricked up.

He said, "Son, your missing 3 key components:

1. You've got no experience
2. You've got no money and
3.  You've got no business losses in the game"

I was DJ'ing at the timing working 12-hour weeks making $1,500, but honestly, he was right I had no clue what "work" was.

He said, "Go work for a start-up, where you control a large majority of the output. Make mistakes on their dime, get your reps. Once you've learned all that, then start your own journey."

And that's exactly what I did. For 2.5 years I worked for a clothing brand as the in-house marketing manager. In that time frame, I made countless mistakes, with countless all-nighters and stacked the chips in my favour. In the end, we took that brand from $503k to $10.8 million in 2.5 years.

From my experience working brand-side, we saw a complete breakdown of the advertising agencies. Their king of spin sales teams, promising the world and delivering sweet FA.

That left a sour taste in my mouth. With my love of brand, building solidified, I wanted the ability to partner with brand builders. People who defied conventionality and saw the "commercial agency" the same way I did broken and unable to provide the experience of a team tailored for their brand's growth.

That is the reason I co-founded thatsgood+ STUDIO and I now get to work with some of the most unique brands in Australia.

We ran all sides of paid marketing. We're a small team and always will be to keep impact high and 1-1 collaboration at the core of TGS.

These are just some of what brands have had to say so far:

“Working closely with the team at Thats Good Studio for over a 2 years has been a dream...Creating an omnichannel paid strategy, helping scale Merchants and implementing creative tech solutions. It’s a relationship that goes way beyond business; we’re glad they’re the team by our side.”

Merchants Of The Sun
★★★★★

"We've been able to grow from 6 figures to 8 figures, with Laura and Sabian's help and guidance far beyond driving and scaling our ads...”

Ringers Western
★★★★★

“We’ve worked with agencies in the past, they didn’t get our brand or the results we needed. TGS has decreased our CAC 5.8x from $162.28 to $27.98. Whilst showing us how to grow our brand for the long-term- guns.”

PlugHub
★★★★★

Like to get a free action plan? Link in bio.

SABIAN .

Cofounder of Chubbies + Loop Returns | Now, Marathon: A managed technology platform + bespoke services offering helping you exit the short-term direct-response hamster wheel to find your balance of Brand and performance

Chubbies and Loop Returns co founder. Now, applying those lessons and mistakes to help consumer brands transition to a balance of Brand and performance with software that measures the future rev impact of brand, incrementality studies to validate; and the media management and creative production to actually execute on the vision. MarathonDataCo.com

Classic AI software + services combo. 

This is all informed by our firsthand experience and a desire to help brands go through the transition that transformed our business and helped us get acquired for a massive number and continue to grow super profitably today...but without all the pain and heartache we had to go through...

You see, Chubbies almost went out of business because of the exact problem we're trying to solve at Marathon.

In the early days at Chubbies we built Brand because we had to. We had no money. We were scrappy, creative, dynamic. 

And we built an awesome Brand.

Then we monetized that Brand with performance DR. 

We convinced ourselves that that was the source of our growth. 

We almost went out of business.

We righted the ship and built, brick by brick, to a >$100m exit, culminating in a >$1B IPO, and now, doing well over $100M / year at nearly a 30% EBITDA margin, but to do that we had to overcome the overwhelming pressure to take a short–termist approach.

As we've seen this direct–to–consumer brand market evolve over the years, we've seen the same cycle happen to nearly every other business out there: Starting hot, pushing performance marketing, then stalling out and never getting to long-term sustainable growth.

This was the problem we felt absolutely compelled to solve because we felt for these brand builders and entrepreneurs. We were in their shoes. And but for a whole lotta luck and a gritty–a** team, it would have sunk us.

Then we looked around and realized there just isn't anything on the market that helps companies do this — this most important thing imaginable.

So that's what we're working towards, would love your feedback.

Preston 🩳 Rutherford

Founder: Wholesale is dumb. DTC scales forever.

CMO: Bestie, you just fell into the TAM trap.

Founder: We can reach anyone online.

CMO: Only 16% shop online. Big 10 own 60% of that.

Founder: That's impossible.

CMO: Do the math. We're fighting for 6% of commerce.

Founder: But everyone's moving online.

CMO: Another trap. Shopping habits are sticky.

Founder: What do you mean?

CMO: Brick and mortar shoppers stay brick and mortar.

Founder: That's not what the VCs said.

CMO: VCs also said Facebook ads would stay cheap forever.

Founder: Attack my soul why don't you.

CMO: Speaking of attacks - our CAC is up 40% year over year.

Founder: But revenue's growing.

CMO: Yeah, at 2x the cost with 3x the discounts.

Founder: I feel seen and I don't like it.

CMO: Want to know what stage we're in?

Founder: There are stages?

CMO: The DTC growth lifecycle. We're in stage 3.

Founder: What's stage 3?

CMO: Over-rotating to short term tactics. Thinking discounts will save us.

Founder: Okay fine. What's the escape plan?

CMO: First, build brand strength.

Founder: Before channels?

CMO: Brand strength determines channel success.

Founder: How?

CMO: Strong brands drive organic growth everywhere.

Founder: But won't wholesale kill DTC?

CMO: That's channel conflict fear talking.

Founder: But our margins...

CMO: Actually improve at scale through wholesale.

Founder: That makes no sense.

CMO: Neither does spending 40% more for 20% growth.

Founder: When do we know we're ready?

CMO: When organic traffic grows faster than paid.

Founder: And how long does this take?

CMO: Depends on brand strength investment.

Founder: So my "DTC Till I Die" tattoo was a mistake?

CMO: Face tattoos generally aren't a good idea.

Founder: meh. how do we escape?

CMO: *Ariana Grande voice* 
This is the part when I say I don't want ya 
I'm stronger than I've been before 
This is the part when I break freeeeeeeeee 
Cause I can't resist it no more

Cofounder @Chubbies ($100M+ brand). Now, MarathonDataCo.com: The Modern Brand’s Full Funnel GrowthOS™

VP Growth: more ad variants will fix our CAC problem.

CMO: bestie, that's the trap.

VP Growth: what trap?

CMO: CAC up 20% three years straight.

VP Growth: hence more variants.

CMO: our competitors tried that. know what happened?

VP Growth: enlighten me

CMO: everyone optimizing the same way. same audience. same tactics.

VP Growth: isn't that just marketing now?

CMO: branded search was 50% of revenue back then.

VP Growth: and now?

CMO: 20%. traded real fans for rented ones.

VP Growth: but revenue's up 20%

CMO: on 40% more spend.

VP Growth: still converting tho

CMO: at 20% contribution margin vs 50% from organic.

VP Growth: but brand doesn't show in attribution

CMO: neither does bankruptcy.

VP Growth: bruh

CMO: remember when we didn't need discounts to grow?

VP Growth: ancient history

CMO: our discount rate tripled in two years.

VP Growth: that's just market standard

CMO: everyone's in the same trap. mo' variants, mo' discounts, mo' CAC.

VP Growth: so what's the move?

CMO: 20% of budget to brand. content that makes people remember us.

VP Growth: like what?

CMO: stop looking like every other brand fighting for the same clicks.

VP Growth: CFO will delete me

CMO: you want quick clicks or a future?

VP Growth: but how do we know it works?

CMO: Warren Buffett knew

VP Growth: don't quote him...

CMO: "The single-most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power."

VP Growth: meaning?

CMO: we 3x'd our discount rate in 2 years. that's the opposite of pricing power.

VP Growth: ok that hit different. but how do we fix it?

CMO: stop trying to convert everyone today. win their hearts before they shop.

VP Growth: sounds expensive

CMO: more expensive than our current CAC death spiral?

VP Growth: but ROAS...

CMO: short term ROAS obsession is why we're here.

VP Growth: what's step 1?

CMO: make content that would work even without a "shop now" button.

VP Growth: that's terrifying

CMO: so is our contribution margin trending to zero.

VP Growth: when you put it that way...

CMO: congrats. you just escaped the variants trap.

VP Growth: why do i feel like i just took the red pill?

CMO: once you see it, you can't unsee it.

#brand #marketing #redpillmoment

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Preston 🩳 Rutherford

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The Battle

SABIAN .

Preston 🩳 Rutherford

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Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Preston 🩳 Rutherford's LinkedIn Performance

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