Ryan Rouse @rsrouse Twitter profile

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Ryan Rouse

2 years

The company I co-founded got acquired for $277 million on 12/31/20. And I didn’t get $1. Not that day. Here's my story 👇

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

A billionaire once told me his secret to exponential growth in his professional and personal life. It was a simple set of 7 self-reflection questions he regularly asked himself. Here they are:

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

7 months

@DenconMedia Comments are fantastic. And you clearly don’t have a son. You will call him bud alllllll the time.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

4 months

MALK Organics is now Sprouts #1 plant based milk. We’ll go from $247k in 2022 to $9.9M in 2024. An incredible growth story that shows the power of Product, Price, Postioning and Placement. As well as the 5th “P” that isn’t talked about nearly enough: Partnership

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

2 - I’m more dangerous inside any business today than I ever was before. 3 - I’m a better man because I went through it. 4 - The knowledge and experience I gained is worth its weight in gold. 5 - I am exactly where I’m supposed to be in life. Onward and upward.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

After scaling multiple DTC businesses to $50mm+, I've found that there's one metric that tells the naked truth of how profitable your advertising efforts are: Contribution Margin Here's what I mean:

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

@sweatystartup The probability of success with an existing, service based business is so much higher than building the next Meta. It's laughable.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

4 months

Just call me the Malk Man now. Jazzed to announce that I've taken the role of President at MALK Organics. I wasn’t looking for a new role, was actually planning on launching by own business later this year. But sometimes the universe speaks and your only job is to listen.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

1 year

Your first job when launching a business isn't brand. It's demand Brand is important. But too many founders come out of the gates looking to “build a brand.” Instead of nailing the product. Then getting people to buy it. Because brand considerations go out the window

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

I just turned 44 and can't help but think back to how "old" I thought 44 was when I was 24. Now I know better. Over the years... • I’ve been through mental lows I never imagined were possible.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

1 year

Don't redesign your website, do the homepage. Don't revamp your emails, fix the welcome series. Don't revive the blog, publish one article. Small steps, prioritized and executed, become huge strides.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

8 months

After two separate stints at Highkey, one as CMO and then as CEO, the brand is moving on. It was a hell of a ride and I’ll take a lot away from the experience. Namely, the people, which is always my #1 takeaway. What’s next for me? I’m having a bunch of great conversations

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

I chose not to take a salary. I chose to put myself in a horrible financial situation in my late 30’s with a new family to take care of. I chose to let my mental health deteriorate to dangerous levels. And I chose to sell my equity.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

The 5-minute phone call is a lost art. If you need something quick, we don’t need to waste time with a 15-min Slack/text convo. And we certainly don’t NEED to jump on a “quick zoom”. Just holler at me. Using your phone. It's faster and leaves less room for interpretation.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

The next big thing in marketing is: The old shit. Email, copy, pursuasion, storytelling, creative, social proof, content, word of mouth, conversion rate. None of this stuff went away. It’s just that cheap ad costs allowed brands do them poorly for 8 years (ish).

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

If you have a friend who started a business and haven’t heard from them in a while, give them a call. There’s a good chance they could use a friend.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

1. The Great Question: What is the one big thing that, if accomplished, would have the most significant impact on my business?

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

But I know better than to require external validation to dictate my perspective. The only person we need to prove anything to is ourselves. So here’s what I know: 1 - That amazing outcome doesn’t happen without my contribution.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

When that didn’t happen, did I hope some of those people would at least shoot me a text or give me a call? Maybe throw me some love in one of the post sale write ups, podcast mentions, and social shout outs? Yes. I felt like I had earned that. And it hurt when no one did.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

4 months

Get good enough to recognize what bad looks like. This advice has guided me since I heard it. As you progress through your career, it’s inevitable you’ll have to manage things you know very little to nothing about. Could be financial statements like a balance sheet or a

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

Planning is crucial. But the most important part of any plan is to plan on the plan not going according to plan.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

9 months

I choked down our $4k SEO retainer every month. It was far and away my least favorite “expense” in the early years at Factor. Why? 1. I was brand new to running a business so the “long game” argument was lost on me. The thought of any channel being a major contributor

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

Channel level P&Ls are a must have, but don't let them blind you. As a consumer brand, the goal is to eventually have distribution across DTC, Amazon (+ other marketplaces) and Retail. Once you have more than one distribution channel, it's important to have a separate P&L for

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

But I know that kind of thinking will only leave me bitter and unhappy. The facts of the matter are that I chose to leave a job and an industry that would have left me financially set for life. I chose to put way too much of my own money into the business.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

No one made me do any of that. Now, did I foolishly hope someone at the table would bring up the fact that I wasn’t going to get anything from the sale and do something about it? Yes. But I wasn’t owed that.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

I've seen under the hood of a lot of brands ranging from $0-100mm in revenue. The thing they all have in common: Chaos They're all messy. They all have their own dumpster fires on the daily. They all think their competitors are more buttoned up than they are. But they aren't.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

If you’re easily offended, you’re easily manipulated. Being offended is a choice. Be very deliberate about when you make that choice.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

LTV:CAC is an important metric to determine how scalable your eCommerce business model is. But most businesses aren't using it correctly. Here are 4 big mistakes to avoid:

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

8 months

I turn 45 today. Kinda crazy that I’m 5 years away from 50. But I have no negative feelings about the number. I’m in the best shape of my life physically, mentally and emotionally. I have a beautiful wife who (still) loves me. I have 3 wonderful children who challenge me

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

More CEOs will come through the CMO seat than ever in the next 20 years. If they have a deep understanding of digital. Because it gives them a closer tie to revenue, which is the one thing that has held CMOs back historically.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

If it's important to you that your job description match your day-to-day responsibilities.. Don't join an early stage startup. There too many random things that need to get done and not enough people to do them. So you'll inevitably be pulled into a lot of things outside of

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

For my 20’a and most of my 30’s, I was in a big hurry to be successful. I felt like I had to make it happen right away, so I was always pressing. But over the years, I noticed the most successful people I’ve been around all seemed to expect things to work out.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

The next big thing in marketing is... The old shit. Email, copy, persuasion, creative, storytelling, social proof, content, word of mouth, surveys, phone calls. None of this stuff went away, it’s just that cheap ad costs allowed brands to be lazy and not do them or do them

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

The greatest force multiplier of all in business: Give a shit. I mean REALLY give a shit. About your customers, colleagues, team members, suppliers, partners, co-mans, agencies, contractors, consultants, etc. Caring deeply about the people you serve and who serve you has a

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

My wife didn’t like 90% of the meals we made at Factor. (Factor is a ready-to-eat meal delivery company.) I was a co-founder and we had mortgaged our entire future on the success of that business. Those are some pretty powerful reasons for her to like the meals. But she

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

Long term, sustainable growth comes from retail for consumer brands. I love DTC and eCommerce as a whole, and it has its place. A place that brings its own unique value to a brand. But long term, retail is the channel that drives scale.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

I’ve never had a situation where my instinct was that a team member wasn’t the right fit - for the role or the team - and turn out to be wrong. If your gut is telling you something, listen.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

For some context, we struggled bad in the early years. Under-funded and under-experienced. The true founder and I both put multiple six-figures of our own money into the business to keep it going. Neither of us took a salary for 3 years. 401k emptied. $300k in personal debt.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

4. The Procrastination Question: What are 3 things I haven’t started because I’m pursuing perfection? What is a small step I can take today? 5. The Enemy Question: If I was competing against myself, what chinks in the armor would I exploit?

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

You’ll have a hard time getting a CMO role without a strong understanding of digital. Starting now. As evidence of this shift, Unilever no longer has a CMO. They have a Chief Marketing and Digital Officer (CMDO). That happened in 2019. They were ahead of the curve, but

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

2. The Gut-Punch Question: Why are our ideal prospects NOT buying from us? 3. The Intensity Question: In what areas of my life can I double my intensity?

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

Just-in-Time learning is the way. Adding new skills is an obsession of mine and has served me well. But one thing I realized many years ago was there is little benefit to learning a skill that you can't put into practice immediately. Because if you aren't DOING it, you'll

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

When hiring for startups, too many founders overlook a key factor: Experience in the trenches. A Harvard MBA or a stint at Google might look great, but they don’t mean someone knows how to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. The experience of dealing with

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

10 months

The “DTC graveyard” wasn’t caused by the DTC channel. It was caused by a lack of business fundamentals. You can't pay more to acquire a customer then they are worth to your company after stripping out the cost of delivery and cost of acquisition. Period. And in consumer, its

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

I had gone from making over $500k/year in corporate - with no kids - to dead broke with 2 kids. Depressed, exhausted, and leveraged to the max, I moved on from the day to day. I owned 17% of the business, so my plan was to sell some and hold onto the rest for the upside.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

It’s hard to get a healthy food/beverage product to a price point the mass consumer will pay for. Because while most people say they want to eat healthier. When push comes to shove aren’t willing to a pay a big premium for it. Therefore, most healthy food/beverage brands

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

7. The Zero-Base Question: Knowing what I know now if I could start all over again, what changes would I make to my business model? What is preventing me from making those changes? That's it. Some real thinkers on the professional side. Will share the personal ones soon.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

Stuck in a labyrinth of overthinking? You're not alone. Every entrepreneur wrestles with imaginary monsters, envisioning worst-case scenarios before they play out. When you're caught in that circular loop... Stop. Refocus. And answer one simple question: "What's the next

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

There is no such thing as a comfort zone in entrepreneurship. The concept of a comfort zone implies that there's a certain state of existence where things just go smoothly. Without any challenges or roadblocks. But when you're building a business, things are always changing.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

Thankfully Sam has people like Hunter to lean on during this time.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

6 months

A lot of founders are sensitive to marketing “too much”. Specifically when it comes to email and SMS. They think “I hate when brands email me too much.” so they error on the side of conservative. But the reality is most brands have a long way to go before they enter the

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

8 months

If all you did was scroll DTC Twitter, you would think that FB ads are 80% of what’s needed to run an ecommerce brand. We need more non-FB ads related content.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

To describe all the feelings I’ve gone through at varying times throughout the process would take a novel. So for today, I’ll leave it at this... Did I feel like I was owed more than that? Of course I did. At first. I still feel that way some days if I'm being honest.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

I worked at the poster child of the financial crises of 2008 during the financial crises of 2008. In 2006 I got the opportunity I had been waiting for - the chance to work for Merrill Lynch in Manhattan. And for 24 months, it was everything I thought it was going to be.. Then,

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

Society pushes onto us this idea that startup success looks like young, Silicon Valley tech geniuses. But in reality, most of the best entrepreneurs around are running businesses you've never heard of in niches that are never talked about living in places you've never been to.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

6 months

Anyone looking for a strong Director of Growth? I know someone who’s looking, Very strong when it comes to all things acquisition for DTC including the ability to run Meta ads.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

7 months

The path of business success is a parallel path to personal growth. Your business will never outgrow who you are. You cannot escape your character.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

8 months

If you’re a CPG brand who wants to scale to $100mm+, you need to be competitively priced. Because true scale for CPG comes from retail. Conventional and mass retail in particular. The Targets, Walmarts and Costcos. The thing all of their customers have in common?

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

4 months

It’s a sign. That you should head to your nearest Sprouts Farmers Market and try out our new creamers. Organic, delicious and without any gums, oils, or fillers. Just the ingredients you love (and can pronounce). Let’s goooo

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

1 year

Complexity is earned. Too often we want to move onto more advanced tactics when we haven’t proven we can do the simple stuff, on repeat, over time. If you can’t execute against simple, consistently, don’t move on until you can.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

Advertising for your DTC channel helps drive sales on other channels. Here’s how to think about taking that halo effect into consideration when viewing your performance marketing KPIs as an omni-channel brand 👇 First, some context. Paid search and social ads create brand

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

6. The Pragmatic Question: Is our strategy not working because the strategy is bad, or because we can’t execute the strategy due to constraints we cannot resolve at this time? What are those unresolvable constraints?

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

7 months

If the last month isn’t a clear sign that early stage consumer brands are overly reliant on paid media, and specifically Facebook, not sure what it’s gonna take.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

8 months

90 days ago I had 1,000 followers. Today I hit 1,420 followers. Course is in development. Gonna cost a shitload.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

Stuck in the knowledge abyss? There's a leap you need to take... To doing shit. Learning only gets you so far. Until you take the information and put it into practice on a real thing, you’ll never really “get it”. Taking it one step further, until you apply it to a real thing

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

Emotions are inevitable in the game of business. But you can’t get too emotionally attached to things or you lose your objectivity. I see it all the time, and experienced it myself. You get too emotionally vested into a product, a sales channel, a project, a person. You

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

4 months

I dream of a place where CPMs aren’t so volatile..

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

The founder’s story can be powerful in your marketing if you recognize one thing: You – the founder – are not the most important character. Your founder's story is actually about THEM, your customers. Here's the magic: When customers visualize themselves in your founder's

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

One of the most valuable skills you can bring to an early stage organization: Get good at getting shit done. Best way to get good at getting shit done? Become a pro at looking stuff up online.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

DTC isn’t dead. It’s still a new channel has has experienced some crazy extremes. First, paid social was brand new. Which made it incredibly cheap and effective for brands. When that started to normalize, the pandemic bump. A 10 year increase in eCommerce sales within

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

Return on digital advertising dollars is too heavily scrutinized. Particularly for companies who sell online and offline. It’s probably because advertising dollars couldn’t be scrutinized very much at all before digital was a thing. So once a form of advertising came out that

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

11 Things I've Learned in 44 Years On This Planet Today is my birthday so I compiled a list of some of the most important lessons I've learned in my short 44 years among the living. Let's dig in 🧵

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

1 year

Traveling with young kids is a trip. Not a vacation. Don’t get it twisted.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of strength. It takes courage to admit you don’t have all the answers. But it’s necessary if you want to grow and succeed. So don’t be afraid to ask for help. You’ll be surprised how willing people are to lend a hand.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

I've spoken to 100+ consumer brand founders in the last 6 months about how to scale their DTC channel. My advice breaks down into 3 main buckets:

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

7 months

The future of digital marketing: Email

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

If you ever meet someone who calls Gatorade flavors the name of the flavor instead of just the color… …they are 100% a cop.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

1 year

Think your DTC's short payback period is the ultimate win? Guess again. It's what comes after that determines your scalability: Contribution margin per customer AFTER the payback period. Having a short payback period is a great first step. But if each customer, on average,

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

There are marketers in CPG who know DTC. There are marketers in CPG who know Amazon. There are marketers in CPG who know DTC and Amazon. And there are marketers in CPG who know DTC, Amazon and Retail. As an operator of a CPG brand, you want the last one as your head of

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

8 months

The crazy part of it all is if you applied a fraction of the tactics that work on DTC to a service based business, it would be a windfall of PROFIT. It takes a special kind of sicko to know that and stay in DTC. And I'm here for all of it.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

The skills required to run eCommerce and marketing are not the same. Is there overlap? For sure. But just because someone can run marketing doesn’t mean they can effectively run eCommerce. The reverse is true as well, but you rarely see eCommerce leaders who've never run

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

8 months

I spoke to an entrepreneur last week that I’ve "known of" for years but had never actually met. We were in the Chicago startup scene together back in 2013/2014. Both companies have since been acquired. We connected on so many levels, shared so many similar experiences. One

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

You can come up with tons of ideas and opportunities to grow your business but unless you know how to EXECUTE, you're dead in the water. So let's talk about how to get started. How to teach yourself how to execute. Here we go...

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

But after only being able to round up 25% of what I was hoping for, I got an all or nothing offer for the rest of my equity. I felt like I owed it to my family to take it, so I did. And made out with the cash I had put into the business. So had no shares when the big day came.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

3 years

Launching new products online has huge advantages. Even if you have retail distribution. You go to market on your timeline and get feedback from real customers. Then, either bring the sales data and social proof to your buyer or rework the product based on feedback.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

Founders need to be big picture optimists, but detail pessimists. Meaning, when you plan a project or set a goal, you gotta be optimistic about getting there. But you also gotta be detail pessimistic about all the things that can (and likely) will go wrong in the process.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

6 months

Marketers who owned a P&L felt more confident in their role. That’s THE big takeaway from a Next Generation CMO Academy I attended put on by Deloitte. This makes sense on a number of levels. 1. A lot more interaction with other members of the leadership team. One of the

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

1 year

If you’re in the early years of building a business, lessons from billionaires aren’t helpful. Because those particular lessons aren’t relevant to your current situation. What’s most helpful are lessons from a startup founder who is a few steps ahead of you. Because those are

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

When emotions run high, intellect runs low. Sometimes the best thing to do is to say nothing. Take a few deep breaths, stand up, and walk away. And don’t make any decisions until you are no longer emotionally charged.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

Entrepreneurs’ minds run at a rapid pace. The variety and pace are something we feed off of. Lots of thoughts, ideas and plans. We want to do everything and we want to do it now. But if we aren't careful..

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

11 months

Getting acquired in 5 years is the exception, not the rule. Getting a multiple off revenue is the exception, not the rule. The last decade has put this idea in consumer brands heads that both are common place. Which causes them to have severely unrealistic expectations, run

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

8 months

My 9-year old is OCD about getting to practice early. Texting me from her watch while walking down our street to see if I’m close. “U know that from experience”?!?!? 🤣🤣

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

8 months

Being an operator can help you be a better investor. Being an investor doesn’t help you be a better operator.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

To level set, what is Contribution Margin (CM)? CM = Net Revenue minus all the variable costs in a business. Net Revenue - COGS - Shipping - Fulfillment - Payment Processing Fees - Advertising Spend = Contribution Margin

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

Playing devil’s advocate 100% of the time isn’t a good strategy. Because if you’re being contrarion for the sake of being contrarion… It becomes predictable. And your ideas get dismissed quickly. Even the great ones.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

Going away with babies is not a vacation. It’s an away game. Going away with kids is not a vacation. It’s a trip. Going away with teenagers is… Don’t know, not there yet. Going away with adults is a vacation.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

7 months

Good growth marketers are hard to find. Growth marketers as defined by people who use data to understand and optimize user acquisition and retention. They’re hard to find because there’s not a lot of good ones out there. Not enough good ones relative to the demand for good

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

I’m constantly impressed at how effortlessly some people can turn any conversation into a completely one-sided and close-minded “discussion” about politics.

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Ryan Rouse

@rsrouse

2 years

Lessons need to experienced before they can be understood. Studying or hearing about something enough makes you feel like you understand it. But until you’ve lived through it, and personally felt its consequences… You don’t understand it enough to change your behavior.

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