Slow
A couple weeks ago, Ridge CEO Sean Frank wrote a newsletter “Consumer is boring.”
It was reminiscent of Ana Andjelic’s classic newsletter “The Rise and Fall of GMO Brands*” in that it advocated for slower, more deliberate brand building to create durability.
From Frank: “It is honestly so slow and boring, the best analogy would be farming. Farming isnt explosive. There is no WINNING in farming. Crops take as long as they take to grow. And brands take as long as they take to build. Try to rush it, you lose the farm.”
From Andjelic in 2020: “Just as GMO food doesn’t do anything nutritionally for humans, GMO brands don’t do anything for culture, or for their company’s long-term business. Without a connection to culture, Coca Cola is just a carbonated water and syrup. Today’s VC time horizons do not allow for the next generation of Coke legends; instead, they churn Coke Lifes.”
(What is it with the food analogies?)
The theme is important to internalize, but also important to help frame from a perspective of brand potential and scale opportunities.
In the past, there have been discussions about whether building a $1B brand is possible now. One of the arguments for why it’s harder now is that mass culture has eroded, giving way to more niche cultures and interests.
Andjelic and Frank, respectively, have tackled this question—both in the aforementioned newsletters and other pieces. (Andjelic often calls these niches “taste communities.”)
One piece from Frank, who said earlier this year that he wants to sell Ridge for $1B in the next three ways, hints that DTC has a small market problem.
In an interview with Eric Bandholz on Practical Ecommerce, Bandholz asked Frank why Ridge couldn’t be a $100B brand.
From Frank: “The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is choosing the market to pursue. My advice is don’t sell wallets. Folks don’t care about wallets. We’re the biggest wallet company. It sucks. But we’re pivoting in the next couple of years. We launched rings, watches, and knives to be an accessory company. The wallet category as a potential addressable market is as big as we are now. You’re better off capturing 1% of a massive market than becoming market makers.”
This is, of course, a difficult problem to solve. Most businesses are started out of a passion, not a spreadsheet.
Smaller markets, of course, lead to smaller brands. But “smaller” is relative. A $1B wallet company is still possible. Frank is proving it.
To get there, though, requires a willingness to build for durability first (something that patience requires) and a willingness to be a little bit slower and boring.