Comments by "TJ Marx" (@tjmarx) on "Modern MBA" channel.

  1. I strongly disagree. First and foremost DTC can be but is not always white labelled products. For many DTC businesses they have a manufacturer create their designs to their spec. Calling those companies middlemen is like calling Apple a middleman because Foxconn build the iPhone. It's disingenuous. Few businesses have the resources to build out their own in house manufacturing capacity, let alone maintain it long term, particularly with all the safety overhead whilst also running the consumer facing side of the company. That's why most well known brands outsource their manufacturing. Outsourcing allows new brands to scale. Those DTC brands who do white label often make slight variation in the product to distinguish it. Moreover to claim that these brands have no IP, or that IP is all that matters is, put kindly, naive. A brand is an IP, I can think of a certain ex yankville president whom made his money simply by selling the right to attach his last name to projects without him actually building or doing anything. And I can certainly think of quite a few "luxury" brands whom have existed since the 70s or 80s whom have always white labelled. Try buying a phone that doesn't have a sony camera in it and a screen made by sony, Samsung, LG or TCL. Are you going to claim a Pixel with a Sony camera, Motorola radios and Samsung screen isn't Google's IP? The IP is the precise way they put those things together, not the parts themselves. Ones brand is their biggest and most valuable IP. Patents are nice to have, but they expire. Manufacturing trade secrets are nice to have, but unless you're into food or drink, they won't stay trade secrets for long. Brand is what matters, brand is what inspires loyalty, brand is what creates perceived value, brand is what drives returns. Brand and executive stewardship is what make something worth investing in or not. What a kid trying a coke for the very first time, look at that momentary wince they make and tell me it isn't brand driving customer acquisition and repeat sales for coke. In blind taste tests customers continue to prefer Pepsi over coke, but continue to buy coke anyway even though coke is 40% more expensive. That's the power of brand and all DTC getting to the point of an IPO have brand. These businesses aren't trying to reinvent the wheel. They're selling existing products in well established market segments. The biggest problems these DTC companies have are three fold; 1. The silicon valley mantra "move fast and break things" aka "disrupt the market". I'm sorry but not all markets can nor should be disrupted, and those that can, are only able to be disrupted so many times before it stops being a market and starts becoming this unstable thing no one wants a part of. There are very good reasons some markets run the way they do. But more importantly taking an existing product and selling it online instead of through a brick and mortar store isn't disrupting anything. 2. California investors, particularly silicon valley investors. These people, their expectations and world view cause all manner of frankly idiotic business decisions and paralysis. To get somewhere you need capital, but to secure the capital you will often be asked to do unethical things. 3. The fickle, uninformed, narcissistic modern consumer who can't tell you what they had for breakfast let alone have any concept of actual reality. And their vapid desire to virtue signal, particularly with this pseudo-authencity thing they get a kick out of. Also, while I'm here one commenter said he made $60K in 3 months and then another commenter up on a bs high horse asked what "value that brought to the market" as if that was actually how markets worked. The commenter made $60K, good on them they're playing the game how it's supposed to be played. It's no ones job to put actual value into the market, what matters is perceived value from the consumer which you have if you're making sales.
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  2.  @mutedmutiny9542  So what you're saying is; (A) By allowing customers to trial a mattress at home for X number of days Casper and their copycats took a sizable market share from traditional vendors (ie. disrupted the market) AND; (B) Owing to that disruption of the market, caused traditional vendors to need to replicate thus creating a new standard for how customers trial the product Which in your view means; (C) There is no alternative. That my friend is called a non-sequitur. If they've created competition, they've created an alternative. That traditional vendors now include that alternative does no make it any less so an alternative. It merely means they successfully disrupted the market.
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  3.  @mutedmutiny9542  Perhaps you didn't realise it at the time, however albeit much less eloquent that's precisely what you said. No, your 'maybe' is the superlative form not operative. We know objectively Casper acquired a sizable share of the market, as did it's copycats and that the trial behaviour from brick and mortar retailers occurred afterwards. You even said so yourself. 🤣
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  4.  @ThatGuyEarny  Neither does OP, because most of it is wrong.
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  5.  @sprouting_lady  They do offer an alternative. They offer try in home with a 100 day no questions asked money back guarantee. It's heavily discussed in this video.
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  6.  @mutedmutiny9542  You're not even self aware enough to know what you actually said. SMH. You can't discredit yourself much more than you already have. Come back when you have a clue.
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