I hate Amazon

Mindset: The best marketing doesn't feel like marketing. It feels like help.

Mark's Money Move: Create your category

For many ecommerce founders - Amazon is the north star. It makes sense. The company is probably the GOAT of online retail:

• Largest ecommerce platform in the world

• Most famous "everything store"

• Badass - they're unafraid, disrupting every industry they touch

It's incredible...but I'd never want to be them. The competition is cutthroat, you're constantly battling fake reviews, & you live a high-stress life of algorithm changes and fulfillment nightmares.

"One seller's Best Seller is another seller's 'Currently unavailable.'" - some wise FBA guru, probably.

So it begs the question - who do I actually admire? What ecommerce brand do I look at and say - 'gimme one of those'?

It's never an exact copy you want, but a useful guide. For me - I admire quirky D2C brands. For example, Dollar Shave Club:

• As a disruptor, they took on the razor oligopoly and won

• In marketing, they created viral videos that actually drove sales

• In product, they expanded beyond razors into a full men's grooming line

• In community, they built a loyal following of dudes who hate overpriced razors

• In exit strategy, they sold to Unilever for $1 billion (cha-ching!)

Disruption, Marketing, Product, Community, Exit... what a legend. Warby Parker is another example:

• Started as the "We'll send you 5 pairs to try on at home" guys

• Revolutionized the eyewear industry with their vertically integrated model

• Entrepreneur-friendly (they donate a pair for every pair sold)

• Prolific innovators (virtual try-on, eye exam app)

• Lived on the edge with their showroom model, had Neil Blumenthal's jawline as a secret weapon

• Wrote a couple great IPO documents

• Married to social impact, 10M+ pairs donated, seems like a good corporate citizen

Why do I love these brands so much? I think it's because a part of me feels like ecommerce moves fast - that the next Shopify update will drop soon and I wanna try all the business models before we get another supply chain crisis.

Andy Dunn (Bonobos founder) once said: "The best brands are built at the intersection of a founder's autobiographical story and a larger cultural shift."

Looking at my examples, here's what I wrote down for the "price I need to pay" to create a killer ecommerce brand: I need to...

• reinvent a product category and not be afraid to start from scratch (beginner's mind)

• become a very quick learner of TikTok trends and Gen Z shopping habits

• be unafraid to sell things that I'm clueless about (NFT sneakers, anyone?)

• be willing to change my marketing strategy, supply chain, and homepage every few weeks

These all sound... expensive. It sounds like me, or at least, what I want to be like when I grow up (and finally learn how to not blow my entire budget on Instagram ads).

So, who's your Amazon?

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