Bryan Mahoney

Chubbies was acquired for 9 figures and went through a 10 figure IPO. Upon reflection, the least acknowledged benefit that came out of our journey to effective brand building was *reduced price elasticity* This supported our ability to introduce new products at higher and higher price points, without negatively impacting volumes, which greatly contributed to our ability to generate profits **Important note: Product builds the brand as much, or more, than anything marketing does. The whole company builds the brand** But if you're a marketer looking for ways to support amazing product, here are the 3 things (and a case study at the end) you can implement today to effectively use brand building to decrease price elasticity, as told by the GOAT of brand-building effectiveness, Les Binet 1) Reach. Binet said more than 2,000 case studies have failed to identify companies that have strengthened their pricing power by targeting existing customers “CRM, all that stuff, is absolutely useless when it comes to trying to firm up your pricing,” he said. “It’s more about acquisition, and more importantly reach.” Campaigns that reach wide audiences are more beneficial than tightly targeted messages when tackling this challenge, Binet insisted 2) Emotion. “It’s not about telling people things,” Binet said, asserting that it is not possible to convince customers to pay more for a product by rational argument “Getting people to pay more for the same old shit is not a rational thing. It’s emotional. The key to pricing power is to get people to feel strongly about your brand, to disengage the rational and make people want the thing at any price,” he said 3) Fame. “Campaigns that consciously aim to make the brand and its marketing famous are much, much better at reducing price sensitivity and supporting premium prices than any other kind of marketing” The easiest way to fame is creativity “Highly creative advertising is much better at getting an emotional response and is much more likely to generate fame,” said Binet The “kind of ads that win at Cannes” are more likely to get fame than a more rational, measured approach, he added Case Study: Binet demonstrated his theory with a case study of cat food brand Felix, which in 1989 was on the verge of being delisted from a number of supermarkets. “It hadn’t been advertised for decades, it was dying,” said Binet A campaign that repackaged the product and introduced a cute cat brand mascot – but which featured virtually no product information – ensued. “All we said was ‘Cats like Felix like Felix,” recalled Binet Over several years the brand went from a market share of 5% to leading the category, based on the famous antics of a cartoon cat Alongside the increase in sales volumes, Felix managed to decrease its price elasticity measure, allowing it to increase its prices “Not only were they quintupling the volume, but they went from being one of the cheapest brands to being one of the most expensive” 🤯

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Just shipped this week's Diaspora.nz podcast with Paul Copplestone, founder & CEO at Supabase. We talk about: ⚡️why open source is an unfair advantage — as a product development strategy, supercharging recruiting, and helping build customer community. ⚡️how they are building the end-to-end tech stack for AI startups — seeing many customers grow into the millions of users in just weeks, growing to be one of the most tagged products by makers on Product Hunt + most redeemed Y Combinator “perks.” ⚡️raising $116M, and scaling to ~80 people in 30+ countries over the past 4.5 years, operating as a distributed + asynchronous team. ⚡️building three startups over nearly a decade living in South East Asia. Subscribe + listen links in comments below👇 Subscribe at diaspora.nz for weekly episodes 🎧👈

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This is a must listen to for anyone B2B founder. How to figure out Product Market Fit. One of best frameworks I've seen in a while. https://lnkd.in/ghSmhVNB

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Insightful look into bioplatform strategy, and what it takes to raise a Series A from my partner, Omri Amirav-Drory: https://lnkd.in/dFv7GbF6

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Have you ever looked for theory that can answer - how to approach investors - what kind of product to build first - how you’ll defend the company against competitors This new article from CDA partner, Kevin Maney extends Steven Johnson's writing from the book Emergence to #CategoryDesign. All #Startups and #VentureCapital teams should dig in. (link to article in comments)

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Here’s another fantastic project built with Smart Layer, Farcaster Flow https://lnkd.in/g59-ZFwe #Web3 #SmartLayer #Blockchain

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Blind optimism vs. pragmatism, the psychological patterns that lead to failure, the future of "moats" in the age of AI, and images of me apparently staring wistfully into space.... Thanks Brian Ondrako for a great podcast!

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Why founders believe they have an 82% chance of success when the reality is closer to 10%. And why being in that 10% means resisting the standard playbooks. That and more in my conversation with Brian Ondrako of the Just Get Started podcast. Check it out and ping me with questions or ideas! 

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Movac KiwiNet Deep Tech is difficult because you do not comprehend 95% of the universe using the Standard Model of Particle physics. Either learn that measurement is flawed due to human bias or experience and unbiased state through transcendence experiences corresponding to Christ consciousness. The physics of life is based on LENR and not the Standard Model of Particle physics. Unfortunately, scientific research has been captured by the materialism perspective. This is mutually exclusive to the light observed in consciousness. Physics of life. Deep Tech https://lnkd.in/gKqC3PAR Gateway into the aromatic ring Faraday cage system. Time to see the light 😁.

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3 years of pricing lessons at Equals condensed into one blog post. Since starting the company, we've tinkered a lot with pricing and packaging. It's one of the single most impactful levers early stage companies can pull. I think folks *don't* experiment with pricing enough, or take big enough bets when they do. We've tried free. We've tried completely sales led. We've tried not listing pricing on the site. Matt Hodges details all the plans we've had, why, and what we've learned in our latest installment on Wrap Text. https://lnkd.in/ecckEDba

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Today the book, Software as a Science launches. 🚀 📕 Written by Matt Verlaque Marcel Petitpas Johnny Page and Dan Martell it tells stories from dozens of SaaS founders like me who went through their program. I’m excited to speak at the event tomorrow. If you’re a SaaS founder - or interested in launching a SaaS product and knowing how to scale it, by the book here: softwarebook.com

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AI Integration vs. Standalone Products | Product vs. Feature As a CTO, I'm constantly evaluating emerging technologies for client projects. The recent hype around dedicated AI hardware has me intrigued, but Marques Brownlee's video on "AI the Product vs AI the Feature" raises a compelling point. Video Link: https://lnkd.in/gbJw5UQN Is AI destined to be the "Clubhouse" of tech – a flash in the pan overshadowed by established players integrating similar features? Here's why I believe Brownlee might be right: • Frictionless User Experience: Consumers have a limited amount of mental space for new devices. Integrating AI into existing products they already use creates a seamless experience. • Power of the Platform: Established platforms have vast user bases and data – fertile ground for training powerful AI models. Dedicated hardware struggles to compete. We're already seeing this with Apple's WWDC announcements. Enhanced Siri, on-device image generation – these are powerful AI features woven into the fabric of the iOS experience. Of course, there will always be exceptions. But for most businesses, focusing on integrating AI to enhance existing products is likely the smarter move. What are your thoughts? Is dedicated AI hardware a fad, or is there room for it in the future? #AI #Technology #DigitalTransformation #ArtificialIntelligence #Apple #ClubHouse #MKBHD

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How do we design funding mechanisms that are regenerative and built to last? In the latest Rehash episode, Sophia Dew from Celo Foundation joins me to talk about what blockchain enables for public goods funding, frameworks for designing regenerative onchain funding apps, and what it takes to build and maintain a layer 2 blockchain. Tune into our full conversation at the links below:

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We've posted the role for the Product Lead at Zeitcore. Come help us build an entirely new kind of data platform that is purpose-built for enterprise Shopify customers. Why? Consider all of the integrated systems in use at medium-large Shopify Plus project. Consider all of the technical complexity to become a data-driven marketing organization. Data warehouses, composable CDPs, APIs and the people to integrate & run it all. We want to make it easy and simple and the way to do that is to focus. Our unforgiving focus on Shopify is our recipe so that customers get "CDP value" immediately out of the box. https://lnkd.in/gWyTAMCf

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We have a pretty insane development pipeline for the next few months. I really want to talk about everything but my product team will kill me Here are a few updates I’m going to share anyway: → Enhanced coupon visibility: More convenient insights on coupon usage, plus the ability to see which coupons were assigned per recipient + whether they redeemed them. Bonus: You can also now update the names of uploaded coupons. →  MailMatchTM (V2): Now, when you send a MailMatch campaign, you'll see the match rate before you send the campaign. If you're interested in learning more about these updates talk to your AM or DM me. Stay tuned.

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something different on World of DaaS pod with Sam Parr : we dive into the realities of raising kids after a big exit. Sam's super candid about wealth, parenting, and why most VCs mess up community businesses. Lots of insights for founders here:  https://lnkd.in/e8THCQ2V

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Navidium Returns & Exchanges is off to the races! Merchants are quickly falling in love with the ease of use and the ability to really push forward an industry that has been so incredibly overpriced for so long. I’ve been super vocal about the insurance app space for years now, and this new trend that has begun for returns is no different. Everyone from Redo, Loop, Corso, and so many others have taken the model of piggybacking off merchants. This is not unlike the insurance apps who for years have done this, until Navidium began putting all that back into the hands of merchants. As they say, “the math ain’t math’in”, and it makes no sense to me. The obvious proof that this model is flawed is that investors are willing to pump money into these new startups. Companies like Re:Do raising millions is proof that the business model of collecting the fees from customers for return labels = big money. Our new Returns & Exchanges platform puts this model on notice. Not only do you get a massive set of features, but you get it for a small and fair monthly set fee, and you can collect all those fees yourself. Why pay Loop or ReDo when you can put it all in your pocket. They aren’t non profits, they know they will collect way more than they actually have to pay out in return labels. Out of the box you get: > automated flow based engine > customizable customer portal for self service > package tracking and customizable page > fraud notifications and abuse prevention > upsells, store credit, returnless refunds, > incentivzed exchanges with instant shop built in > powerful & industry leading analytics > integrations with Gorgias , ShipStation, Stripe , Authorize.net, Shopify, and so many other key apps you already use and love. We aren’t here to reinvent the wheel, but instead we are here to give the market place the option it deserves and should have had all along! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 We are now beta testing other key features like: > order editing > reverse logistics - send returns back to our warehouse and have it reviewed > some secret new industry features that will be announced in the coming weeks 🤫 If you are on #shopify or #shopifyplus now is the time. Get in and say no to contracts, rev share, and ridiculous pricing models. Turn your returns and exchanges into a hassle free experience where you can make money and offset the cost yourself with out making other companies rich on your hard work! For limited time, we will help fully migrate you over including setting everything up, and take it for a spin. https://lnkd.in/gmpeC_9k

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Last week we hit an exciting milestone of more than 200 brands live using Raleon. 🎉 Being transparent - there's at least one thing I'd do differently. We waited too long to charge for the self-serve part of our product. Why? We wanted more product feedback faster. We wanted more data for our AI. Makes sense in theory. But here's the reality - it made it more difficult to analyze and tune our "growth engine". It also made it more difficult to really measure the value signals. Don't get me wrong - we'll always have a free plan. Supporting early-stage brands is part of our DNA. So how are we applying this lesson? Rather simply. When a new capability we roll out makes sense to charge additional for, we do it at the outset. Gift with purchase being a great example. It's a much better test of interest and value.

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If you like making more money DTC- this post is for you: This one simple tool is going to save Toto tens of thousands (if not more!!) money as we continue to grow and scale DTC, and it feels unfair to gatekeep. Here’s how: First - some context; Affiliate marketing fraud is… expensive. Like, over $1.4 billion annually kind of expensive. And if you have any sizable biz online, chances are you’re probably affected too. You know those coupon sites like Honey? Those are enemy #1- and that's where your affiliate codes are getting leaked. These leaks used to cost me thousands in overpaid commission and discounts before I even notice a leak occurred. To prevent this and make sure we’re saving every dollar we can, we started replacing our influencer’s static coupon codes with Safelinks from Social Snowball ☃️. This allows affiliates to share a discount to their audience WITHOUT the risk of a code leaking to a coupon site. Here’s the gist: 1. Affiliates share a link to their audience instead of a static code 2. Every shopper who clicks on the link has a unique single use code generated for them instantly to use while they're shopping. 3. If any of the codes leak to a coupon site, they won’t work because they’re all single use. :) If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard of this before, yeah- that’s exactly what I was thinking too when I discovered this. All I have to say is two words— Life hack. If you want an intro to their team- they’re absolutely amazing, and I think this has the potential to bring so much value to you too. Brick by brick! #entrepreneurship #leadership #dtc

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