Black Friday Review, Private Equity Meetings & 2023 Plans - Documenting the journey - Episode 26

Yo, what's going on? Episode 26 I believe of Document the Journey. Always say this every time. I'm gonna try and keep it fairly brief because it's fucking late and I'm tired and I wanted to record this because over a week since the last one trying to get into back. You can tell I'm tired. Trying to get back into the swing of things with well this on a more regular schedule which I have been doing. But also the main pod which I know I've mentioned a few times. We have recorded a few episodes, tried a few different locations which I'm now thinking is just over complicated things because doing it in my flat with the pink lights, wine, that was the thing and maybe just trying to change the thing makes the thing less good. So yeah, probably just gonna stick with what I know on that respect and just make it more consistent, you guess like new format got recognized like twice in the past week from the pod. Just being out watching that England games and shit. Which is very odd given I've only got like six and a half, not even six and a half K subs. But it feels like a very deep, borderline cultish audience and very London based. So probably statistically not, not that unusual in terms of this episode. What on I guess Black Friday was yesterday and the weekend is going on now. Summary for me on that was basically haven't had enough stock this month. I think we could honestly have done definitely double if not triple the revenue we're going to do this month if we had more stock or unlimited stock, but certainly more stock because we would have spent more, spend way more, acquired more customers. But honestly like my tactic had to be we can't sell out, we have a big restock coming out three weeks provided there's no further delays. So the best thing to do is just not overspend. Focus on subscribers, focus on profit, which is what we have done. And it's funny because the past three Black Fridays I did much bigger numbers but like different situations, different brands, not subscriber revenue, much higher ad spend in the past. So it's just interesting because on like Twitter you see everyone shares their massive million pound days or multi six figure days and that's fine and that's sick. And they probably are very credible numbers because they're like older brands or whatever. But I guess it's not all about the revenue. It's more for me it's like I'm comparing it to older numbers I've done and they're much smaller. But the context is very different one sku, you know, subscription haven't had stock, barely spent anything on ads. Like we literally spent less than two grand on Black Friday on ads. That's how limited on stock I am compared to where I'd like to be. Like if we spend 20 grand we probably wouldn't. I mean we did five figures in revenue but probably would have done 5x that in terms of the number we did and you know, potentially even six figures in revenue if I had like way more stock. Because I think we were getting to that level of momentum in terms of where we could have gone with scale past few months. But obviously coulda, woulda, shoulda, doesn't really matter because stock is a bottleneck and it's something I need to fix. Should be less of an issue going into 2023 but still it's fucking hard. So yeah, that's kind of been the Black Friday tactic. November still sort of good chunk up on October in terms of growth and not all the key metrics I'm looking at like obviously revenue, subscribers, roas, profit levels, etc, etc all moving the right way. AAV as well. And then December expecting to do even more again because big restock primarily then January. I'm planning on launching dream dust on the 1st of January was going to be mid December, but we'd be rushing it stock and content wise I think it makes sense to time it have like newness on the 1st of January. So I think January could be an even bigger month in December obviously running seven months in at this point. So every month should be bigger than the last. But I think having November, December, January all up on each other should be good. And then after January I think will be more challenging and potentially more telling of like the actual market if we can continue growing into like February, March, April, May on every month which I think is doable but I haven't done it yet obviously then you know doing that into Q1 and early Q2 with a new brand in what is meant to be a pretty shit market will be great. And we'll also see like fucking voice is going also see like subscriber retention keeping churn low and again that'll be more telling at the start of next year. So fucking hell, I'm dying. Also side note, I don't know if you can notice on my eye if I look this way you'll probably see it. I got something in my eye and had a really bad injury like four days ago and I've had to go to the optometrist or the optician Originally I think they're like the same thing. Then I was in hospital today for like three hours getting my eye looked at and then basically I'm like on like super strong antibiotic eye drops because I basically, long story short, managed to get a deep cut in my eye from some grit that went in while I was cycling. I think I've never been in so much pain in my eye in my life. And if you're watching this, if I look that way, you can kind of see it on the inside of my left eye. I don't know if you can see it. Ah, fuck. That actually really hurts. I shouldn't have done that. So, yeah, kind of scary because I honestly thought I was going to go blind for like two days and then apparently that's not the case. But I'm still not the woods yet seems to be getting worse but I'm on antibiotics so we're getting it fixed. Where was I? Stock. Yeah, Black Friday. That's the story with scale and that's the plan. The other big thing that I've been obviously putting out online and discussing and mentioning is the fundraising plans. Plan to raise like a million pound plus and I've just had a shitload of calls and I found that, long story short, fundraising feels like a full time job in itself, which kind of puts me off doing it this soon. But it also fits the plan and the model to go super big in 2023 and in itself is a massive learning curve. You know, speaking to angel investors, speaking to PVC funds. I don't actually know the difference in a P and a VC fund to be honest, but funds in general and just hearing what they have to say, obviously like speaking about the business. I think it makes my understanding of the business better when I'm getting probed with an array of different questions. And I think that's important skill set to have anyways to be able to answer, you know, rough intrusive questions and questions about parts of the business or ways of looking at the business that I may not have considered something that's useful skill set to have anyway. And yeah, I've had probably 20 plus calls in the past week or two specific to that. And yeah, it's going pretty well. I think there's a lot of momentum, a lot of options and I'm in no panic or rush to close the round. I'm really just in the minute reviewing options because there have been more options than I thought would be the case. Obviously like conversations and verbal commitments are different than cash in bank investments. And I'm very aware of that. But yeah, it's looking good. So I'll keep you updated on that and when that closes, but if you are interested again, just drop me an email or something and I'll send you the deck. If you're seriously interested. Probably minimum ticket 10k. But I mean the reality is it'd probably be a mix of funds, existing angels and then a few bigger ticket angels is probably what it's going to look like. But I'm always interested to speak to people that potentially want to invest as well. So if you are that person, then reach out to me. If I haven't come back to you or something, just email me again because my inbox has been a bit fucking crazy. So yeah, that's kind of what's going on at the minute. It's that weird time of year where for econ founders and anyone in Ecom, it's like super, super fucking busy. Obviously it's like Christmas time coming up to that. I kind of like this time of year. Kind of don't. I'm definitely more of a summer person, like tan outside Marbella, European islands, Bali, that sort of shit. Don't really fall into like loving Christmas category, but it's a good vibe, I suppose. Definitely good for econ and yeah, excited to launch Dream Dust. My hair is going blonde in a week and I'm actually gonna feature in the Dream Dust movie which is gonna be absolute chaos. Again, just very much indulging my desire to make movies, but I also think it just makes the brand stand out. And yeah, we've got a fucking crooked storyline and a plan for this one which is gonna make the first movie look like a GCSE project in comparison. I do hope so. Filming that in like 10 days time. That'll come out the start of January along with the product. And yeah, super excited to essentially double the range of what the business is offering. And I think with those two SKUs, again, like I've said on Twitter, I really think that'll be the focus of 2023 and I'll probably speak about more specific 2023 goals in like another. Another specific episode maybe at the end of the year, like a year in review or something. And yeah, I guess that's about it for this episode podcast. Podcast wise. Filmed a few last week, filming a few next week. We're getting back into it. I'm still figuring out. It's weird when you don't do something for like a few months. I mean, it's kind of obvious, but I Definitely know it's like I lost touch with it and being a host and like, I guess I wouldn't call myself an interviewer because it always felt more like a chat. But not doing it for a few months, you definitely lose that edge. So maybe the first few episodes can look real rough. But yeah, I'm getting back into it anyway because I think it's something I enjoy. I've missed doing it. I think I just felt ultimately quite lazy not doing it and yeah, excited to get back into that. So 2023 pod fitness brand. Going to Bali at the end of December for like a month. That'd be fucking sick. Probably do a few episodes out there mixing it up because yeah, I guess I've been pretty much in the trenches for the past four months and I know a lot of people say whatever, like you're really not in the trenches, you live in a lovely central London flat and all this and that is true. But yeah, September, October, November, December obviously. December coming up. I've been pretty head down really. Life's been fairly simple. So I think a trip to Bali and a few sends are definitely in order after Q4, especially once I get this raise finish as well, which should be done largely by then. So that's the plan. As always, appreciate you watching. I'm amazed anyone does. In 10 years time this will hopefully be legendary to look back on. And yeah, I'm. This is a late record in this one. I'm super tired, probably out of it. My eyes not helping me. But cheers for watching Space Goes to the Moon. Catch you in the next episode. Peace.