Walking down your grocery aisle or doing a quick scroll on Instagram, it’s clear there’s no shortage of new products and brands vying for your attention. Even in my small corner grocer, the sparkling water wall is full of new options (and — both hilarious and to my point — did you see that Spindrift’s TikTok audience got the brand to bring back Blackberry?) The clothing companies all touting sustainability and craftsmanship all start to blend together; I’ve lost track of the healthy, keto, paleo, gluten-free, dairy-free snacks coming my way.
So if you’re an early-stage Ecomm or D2C founder (or frankly a B2B SaaS leader, too), how do you stand out? That’s what I attempted to get to the bottom of with Jamie Lee, a 14-year veteran in the field. She’s helped giants like Samsung, Walmart, and Nike figure this out, and also shepherded up-and-comers like Everlane and Vital Proteins. Today, she work as a Fractional E-comm Leader with startups, as an instructor on Maven, a contributor to Reforge, and as an Advisor.
We spent the majority of our conversation in the nitty gritty tactical of what early stage ecomm founders should be focusing on to create profitable, sustainable growth, but there are clear lessons for any founder thinking about how to stand out.
On a personal note, Jamie’s mix of work — her portfolio career — is deeply inspiring to me. Jamie gets to not only do meaningful work for early-stage brands, but she gets to coach and mentor new leaders, teach courses to the masses, and give the community freebies through her Reforge artifacts. Maybe most inspiring to me, as a first time mom to a new baby, she’s found a way to go deeper in her career amid the personal change. Just so cool.
We’ve got some real wisdom nuggets today — enjoy!
Drop 1. Profitable growth vs revenue growth
When evaluating profitable growth for a company, there’s 5 different touch points that I look at.
- Customer: Who is your most valuable customer and laser focusing there.
- End-to-end marketing mix: Specifically focus on what’s working, what’s not, and over-indexing on potentially the retention piece and your owned marketing channels to drive growth
- Product portfolio: What products are really driving the most growth and what are the laggers that you can liquidate or exit if needed.
- Channel and marketplace: Are there various channels that might be bringing in your consumer and it has to be part of the mix? Where might you be able to over index on those that are bringing more profitable growth for you?
- Operating Expenses: Are there places where you can drive more efficiency? Are there agencies you can work with and create a more pay-to-play versus having a flat fee?*
Take it back to your team:
- As budgets and funding become more tight, Jamie reminds us to go back to the data. One of her recommendations was to drive growth in the unsexy places. Maybe you want new customers, but are you squeezing all the value out of your existing ones?
- Don’t be afraid to quit and pivot. If a product isn’t performing well, see where you can recoup your costs and shift to the winners.
- Negotiating is your friend. Jamie suggests working with outside agencies and creating more of a win-win pay structure.
Drop 2. Focus on the RIGHT customers
Focus on who’s delivering the highest growth in a profitable way, and trimming the fat of who are the customers that are no longer serving us or who are really offer happy. So they come in during a sale, but they tend to turn at a higher rate. So be laser-focused on who that most profitable customer is for us and looking at LTV.
Take it back to your team:
- Not all customers are created equally. When looking at your customer data, be wary of customers who have huge spikes around sale events like Black Friday, and focus on retaining ones who buy no matter the season
- How can you keep creating more pathways for your best customers? Use retention marketing tools like email and SMS to keep them coming back.
- Can you create special offers and highlight your best customers? Consider giving them early or special access to products
Drop 3. Launching a new product? Take a test and learn approach
Having a phased approach perspective is knowing things like, what are our consumers looking for? Where do we have a right to win? Understanding our supply chain. And giving yourself very distinct milestones to determine the success of a product. With new innovations, it takes a while to assess what contributed to success. Sometimes it can be marketplace factors. It could be marketing. It could be inventory. It could be channel or marketplace. So really knowing these four facets is important in assessing the success of a new product.
Take it back to your team:
- Your main product is a hit with the market and you’re ready to expand. See what is a natural next evolution of your product that you know your customers would buy. When Jamie was at Vital Proteins, their next product was a lemon-flavored collagen.
- Not sure where to start? Survey your existing customers at post-purchase. A simple survey does the trick.
- Give yourself time after a launch to assess its success. There’s many factors at play and sometimes it’s the right product, wrong channel. Make adjustments as you get the data.
Drop 4. 3 areas of focus for early-stage companies looking to grow
One of the ways to set me up for success is clearly communicate that this change is happening, a fractional CRO is coming in, and here’s what I’m looking for her to help us do. The phrase, “What’s gotten us here is not going to get us there. And one of the ways we’re going to get there is that I’m bringing on Karen to help us with Z, Y, Z,” clearly sets expectations. It also gives folks permission to raise concerns, think about how a resource like me might be able to help them, anticipate change and embrace it.
Take it back to your team:
- When thinking about growth, look at all the facts. Jamie recommends looking at your product mix and seeing where you can expand so you’re not overly reliant on one product. What are ways to de-risk your expansion?
- Marketing goes beyond just digital ads. Don’t forget to look at retention marketing, SEO, your organic channels. Where can you get creative with brand and micro-influencers?
- When was the last time you gave your website a refresh? Conversion rate optimization is another quick win that’ll drive massive growth for the bottom line.