Dana Hork

If you're a DTC brand founder relying on Shopify or Triple Whale's numbers to make decisions—heads up! 👀 Most founders assume they’re seeing accurate sales numbers. But Shopify and Triple Whale sales numbers are often inflated due to sales tax, which impacts your ROAS and MER calculations in a big way. Here's why: ⚠️ Sales Tax Isn't Revenue: Shopify lumps in sales tax with sales totals. But, tax isn’t cash in your pocket—it's liability. When you remove tax, you get a real picture of net sales. ⚠️ ROAS is Overstated: Out-of-the-box ROAS calculations can give a false sense of success. A 3.46 ROAS might look like you’re crushing it, but after adjusting for true net sales and ad spend, it could actually be closer to 3.16. That’s a big difference! So what's the solution? Custom metrics are essential! At Free to Grow CFO, we build specific metrics for our clients to exclude sales tax and highlight the numbers that actually matter for growth. Don’t let inflated metrics cloud your judgment. Data that looks good isn’t the same as data that’s accurate—and the difference can make or break your growth. -- Hi, I'm Jon Blair founder of the DTC Finance and Accounting firm Free to Grow CFO. Want more tips on growing a profit-focused DTC brand? Give me a follow. Want to learn more about how Free to Grow's Accountants and CFO's can help you increase profit and cash flow as you scale? Shoot me a DM. Until next time, scale on!

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Here are 3 two BIGGEST traits we look for in a team member when hiring for Chewonthis DTC and GaaS For SaaS And why you should be looking for the same.

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As a D2C founder for over 7 years, I've realized performance marketing is a double-edged sword. Still, many brands see it as the only way to grow. (but at Amrutam we don’t) The good parts are clear. You can easily track clicks, sales, and the ROI on your ad spent. But there is another side to these metrics that most brands ignore: - Running ads requires up to 50% of your revenue (though not in every case). - You rely on algorithms for your sales, and that makes your brand vulnerable. - Over-reliance on performance marketing can shadow authentic brand storytelling. -The cost of acquiring new customers through performance marketing can outweigh lifetime customer value. With years of experience building Amrutam and experimenting with almost every strategy, I've learned that brand trust is the biggest force behind growth. And you can't build trust just through ads. Yes, we use performance marketing too, but here's how we do it differently: We make sure our: - Ingredients and products are top quality. - Processes are transparent from start to finish. (which we openly share on our Instagram feed) - Customers receive the value they have trusted and paid us for. When you focus on providing value and understanding your customers, when you build an open relationship and have honest communication - your sales skyrocket, even without running expensive ads. If you ask my take on performance marketing, I'll make one thing clear: don't just chase vanity metrics. Make sure you're building a brand that really matters to people. Look at the Engagement and Content Quality on Facebook Business Manager dashboard too! Your ad campaign might look successful initially, but without trust and quality products, it won't yield lasting results. Use performance marketing, but don't let it be your only strategy. Your long-term success depends on building trust and customer loyalty. PS: We didn’t spend anything on marketing for six months (Sept 22 to Feb 23), yet we saw good revenue. We had repeat customers because people related to our brand and found the solutions they needed. Most importantly, the products work for them!

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After 5 years of experience and generating millions of dollars online for 6 to 8-figure DTC brands, I’ve put together "The Ultimate Guide to Segmentation Strategies in Klaviyo" Why is segmentation key? It’s the foundation for personalized emails that engage customers and drive serious revenue. If you're not segmenting, you're leaving money on the table. Especially with Q4 around the corner! Comment ‘Segment’ or ‘Q4’ and I’ll send the guide straight to you. Let’s make some bags this Q4 together! (Must be connected)

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Do you own a B2B consulting firm? Here's what you need for your business: - Clear & concise website - Messaging that speaks to pain points - Technically sound SEO for website - Clear value prop Check out some of our most recent work where we helped a Charlotte based Fractional CTO firm revamp their site & messaging & dial in their technical SEO. Hit us up if you're curious about elevating your digital footprint!

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There are certain agencies I consistently hear terrible things about. There are certain agencies I consistently help brands move away from. Still -- I don't think those agencies are 'bad' agencies. They are bad for those clients though. Better for others, presumably. And, even "the best agency in the world" to some of their clients, too. I don't want to work with them. And I wouldn't recommend them. But, the point is this. Finding an agency is easy. Finding the right agency is hard. Agencies should be more selective in who they take on. Agencies should be more graceful when they lose clients. Agencies should stay in their proverbial lane. Brands should communicate their needs better. Brands should be more transparent with their agencies. Brands should invest more into their agencies. *not necessarily $$. Good agencies exist. Bad agencies exist. Great agencies exist. Good to you, may be bad to another. Great is the goal. Ya just gotta find them. ..ya may have to kiss a few frogs first, too.

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Are you a DTC brand founder who's wondered how a Fractional CFO can help you make better decisions? Oftentimes brand founders think a CFO can help them make decisions because we can model them in our projections and our budgets and it's going to give us the perfect answer. The reality is forecasts and projections are tools that are imperfect. Not only that... They're always wrong. They don't exist to give us the perfect yes or no answer. They exist to help us assess upside risk and downside risk. A CFO can access these risks and help you place what I call a risk-adjusted bet. And when you're scaling a business, every decision you make is really just a risk-adjusted bet. Whether it is - -Deciding to scale ad spend -Placing a PO for more inventory -Or hiring for that new position on your org chart Every decision you make is essentially a risk-adjusted bet that the allocated investment of capital is going to help you scale more profitably. So at the end of the day, remember you're never going to have the perfect answer, even with a CFO. But a fractional CFO can help you as the brand founder understand upside and downside risks allowing you to place risk-adjusted bets as you scale with confidence. -- Hi, I'm Jon Blair founder of the DTC Finance and Accounting firm Free to Grow CFO. Want more tips on growing a profit-focused DTC brand? Give me a follow. Want to learn more about how Free to Grow's Accountants and CFO's can help you increase profit and cash flow as you scale? Shoot me a DM. Until next time, scale on!

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Yesterday PitchBook dropped some new data showing Q2 activity up, and Modern Retail and Anna Hensel published a great article on Zombie brands. Sean Frank summarized it well. So what is the actual state of affairs? Do things suck? Or do things not suck? My take: We live in too much of a black and white world. Nuance and grey area are important. Take the Non-Alcoholic category for example. Twitter takes are hot that either Alcohol is DEAD, or Non-alcoholic is FOR SURE a fad. For me, the answer is in between. I don't need NA to take over the whole store, or even half the store. I need it to grow its shelf space from 1 to 1.5, or 2. Incremental changes, across a wide number of stores. That grows the market. It's not all or nothing. The current investment cycle is messy. There are large amounts of zombies. There are also large amounts of good companies successfully raising capital, quickly, that may trade at revenue multiples in the future. Both can be true, at the same time. Discerning investors and operators will continue to focus on fundamentals.

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I’m always listening to DTC founders' interviews to know their current struggles. Recently, I was listening to a McKenzie Bauer interview from Thread Wallets. I bought my first minimalist wallet from them in 2019 for $6.57, with just $3.59 for shipping. Totally different times just five years ago. 😓 Anyway, when it came time to talk about Pinterest, a common thing was mentioned. “It hasn’t performed well historically for us.” 🤔 Thread Wallets is doing an amazing job organically on Pinterest. Their account has the lifestyle pictures that Pinterest loves. I love their wallets, and I’m going back to minimalism to avoid carrying around a big, bulky wallet. It breaks the aesthetic of the pants. 😑 Now, coming back to Pinterest and paid ads. With some recent developments around making Pinterest more DR and their products being below $50, I think it’s a good platform to at least test, and that could potentially move the needle. So, I decided to take two of my best-performing formats and make two ads. The second one is in the first comment. If you decide to test them, please let me know if they worked or not.

What's the biggest threat to your DTC business today? Running out of cash! Here's the lowdown: - Consumer Demand: It's shrinking. - Economy: It's weird and unpredictable. - VCs: They're hesitant to invest in consumer goods. - High Interest Rates: They're not in your favor. - Inflation: It's eating into your margins. The solution? Keep a daily P&L (Profit & Loss statement). Here's how: - Net Revenue: Revenue minus discounts, refunds, and transaction fees. - Variable costs: Subtract COGS (Cost of Goods Sold), shipping, and ad spend (by channel). - Fixed Costs: subtract overhead (payroll, office, contractors, others and divide by 30 for daily) This will help you track profitability daily, but most importantly, it'll let you feel the pulse of your business.

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CMO by the slice. You’re the CEO of an established manufacturing company, and Oliver, your CMO, in a full mid-life crisis, got himself a Harley and moved to Oregon to make his craft beer hobby his full-time job. Or maybe you’re a technical co-founder of an AI startup in Silicon Valley. You’re in “founder mode,” and your product evolves quickly, but you need to lay the foundation for your company’s growth. Two very different scenarios, but let’s consider all the options you have to turn things around: ➡️ Hire a full-time, experienced CMO ➡️ Hire a marketing agency ➡️ Hire a junior marketer ➡️ Hire a fractional CMO ➡️ Procrastinate You don’t have the luxury of procrastinating since you have an established marketing team that needs guidance right this minute. You have had a CMO before, have the budget to hire an experienced professional, and know the kind of person who may be a good fit for you. Go ahead and hire a full-time CMO. But if you’re setting up the marketing function for the first time, have had a CMO-shaped hole in your org chart for far too long, or don’t have the budget to afford an FTE, you should consider hiring a fractional CMO. Fractional executives give you the possibility of hiring an experienced professional without long-term commitments. It’s a flexible model that has been successfully applied to the CFO, CTO, CPO, and, obviously, CMO roles. A potential alternative would be to hire a full-time junior marketer. The notable difference is that this person may not have the strategic depth you need and will depend almost entirely on your input for direction. It’s okay if you just want them to execute tasks. Fractional CMOs, on the other hand, will help you hire, train, and manage your team, set up marketing processes and initiatives, and create or refactor your business’s marketing strategy. Depending on the engagement they might work up to a couple of days per week, or part-time, until the agreed upon objectives are reached. Consultant execs are different from fractionals because they typically don’t help with the execution side of things. I mentioned marketing agencies as one of the options. They get a bad rap but they are actually great at hiding the complexity of some project’s execution and extending your team with a scalable pool of resources. With few exceptions, they are more tactical than strategic. What’s your experience with fractionals, consultants, agencies, or empowering junior team members? Would you consider hiring a fractional for your business?

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How to increase a DTC brand's bottom-line profit with a lower MER (All savvy DTC brand founders and marketers understand this, but most don't)... Absolute contribution margin dollars are far more important to profitability than MER. MER is merely a relationship between revenue and ad spend, whereas absolute contribution margin is the actual dollars that contribute to and increase bottom line profitability. Many brand founders find this counter-intuitive, but the reality is that if taking a lower MER allows you to scale ad spend and top line revenue enough to offset the margin decrease caused by the lower MER, the result can actually be an increase in absolute contribution margin dollars and thus an increase in bottom line profitability. Check out the example below. If the ad buyer for this brand feels confident they can spend more than $380,292 at a 2.5 MER, then dropping MER from 2.75 to 2.5 actually drives more contribution margin dollars and more bottom line profit. Find this confusing? It's okay - you're not alone. Consider sending me a DM to learn how my team of DTC-focused Fractional CFO's at Free to Grow CFO can help.

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We've helped ecom brands generate 14.02x ROAS because of this one thing: ✨ Effective Storyboarding ✨ Brands may have the perfect faces of their brand but the real question is... Can they create the best ads for your campaigns? Often, the skill of great storyboarding is what's missing. At Gumamela Studios, we specialize in Creative Strategy services to take your e-commerce campaigns to the next level through effective storyboarding. We'll dive deep into: 🌺 Brand research → to deeply understand your brand's essence 🌺 Competitor analysis → To identify unique positioning. 🌺 Market research → To grasp audience personas and preferences. All these equip your creators with briefs that pack a punch. Remember, great ads start with great storyboarding. PS. Whether you need a brand refresh or an entirely new creative direction, our team will set your e-commerce brand up for sustainable success. Message me "Storyboarding" ---- I’m Marie, the ambitious island voyager. Follow me Marie Tuason 🌺and ring that bell 🔔 for more Social Strategy, Wellness and Digital Nomad tips 🌱

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Is optimizing to increase AOV even worth it for DTC brands? How high should it rank in the priority order of a never ending task list that brand operators tend to have? This graphic puts it into perspective: On the face of it a 10% increase in AOV doesn't seem like much, so it went from $100 to $110, what's the big deal in that? What impact will it have on a DTC biz doing >$1M/year? But if you analyze it one layer deeper, you'll notice that the additional cost you paid for this $10 increase is only COGS. No additional $$ were invested in marketing + fixed costs (team etc) to drive this. This is higher quality revenue at a much better margin profile and every incremental dollar here subsequently has a higher impact on overall profit margins Depending upon your cost structures, a 10% bump in AOV can result in anywhere from 15-35% increase in final profit margins. Credits to Harry Molyneux and DTC Pages for the graphic and giving me consent to use it.

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Beware❗ — do NOT make this all too common goal-setting mistake... Brand founders of scaling DTC brands often feel tempted to pivot their goals when they don't seem to be working out. But here's the kicker: they're going about it all wrong. Let me clarify: well-crafted, clearly defined goals are sacred and should not be changed frequently. But do you know what SHOULD be changed frequently? The strategies you implement to achieve those goals! If you find yourself struggling to gain traction on some of your growing brand's goals, don't make any changes to them right away... Instead, get your team together for a brainstorming session on new and creative strategies you can implement to move your goals closer to the finish line. -- Did you find this post helpful? If so, consider resharing it and giving me Jon Blair a follow. #dtcbrands #scaleyourbusiness #founders

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"What’s our maximum downside?" As a fractional CFO for DTC brands, this is the question I ask brand founders all the time. Because, at the end of the day, managing risk comes down to controlling our maximum downside. How do you determine your maximum downside? Here’s a practical way to look at it: Imagine you’re considering hiring a marketing person at $8K/month. You’re not certain they’ll be the right fit, but you’re willing to give it a shot. So, you set performance metrics for them to hit within 60 days. If they don’t meet these metrics, you let them go. In this case, your maximum downside is $16K—two months’ salary. That’s it. Oftentimes to calculate the max downside, people will take the $8K monthly salary and multiply it by 12 (months), giving them $96K of annual salary. But that's not the case IF you set guardrails and expectations for how you want that position to move the needle in your business. If that position does not meet expectations within the timeframe that you set for them, you cut them loose and your max downside was only a couple of months' worth of salary. -- Hi, I'm Jon Blair founder of the DTC Finance and Accounting firm Free to Grow CFO. Want more tips on growing a profit-focused DTC brand? Give me a follow. Want to learn more about how Free to Grow's Accountants and CFO's can help you increase profit and cash flow as you scale? Shoot me a DM. Until next time, scale on! 

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Talked with two CMOs today doing $10m and $100m+ in revenue at their companies. Here's their hot takes: 1) The CMO role is back. Years of a focus of growth marketing has left a lot of companies endlessly hunting the next optimization but not building a sustainable, compounding marketing mix. CMOs who can guide a product and brand from first principles are being added. 2) Data-driven is a false god. Most analytics is tablestakes and the advanced stuff is too messy to rely on. Good strategy and creative is always reliable. 3) Many companies they see struggle with marketing have either far too simple or far too complicated marketing tech stacks for their stage. Underrated area of friction holding them back from speed of iteration and quality execution. Team>Martech fit is a thing. 🤔

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I got asked on the Ecom North finance panel yesterday: "What advice would you have for someone starting a DTC business today?" 2 major things: 1. Margins - I would not launch a DTC business today unless I had at least 70% margins Acquisition costs are way too high these days to make DTC work if you were starting from scratch. Lower margins will lead to longer payback periods and stretching payback periods from day 1 is not a good sign for longevity. 2. Cash Conversion Cycle - How quickly can you turn your cash out into cash in the bank? If you're paying for inventory before your items ship or even worse months before, you are running into a cash flow straining situation. The longer your cash is tied up the less you can invest it in other parts of your business. Obviously, there's a lot more to this, but cash flow management is a major consideration when starting out.

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