Chris Vaughn’s Post

In 2015, one of the EU's largest retailers flew me to a private island off the coast of South Korea. They owned the island as an executive retreat. All of their CEOs from around the globe were in attendance. -United Kingdom -Poland -Ireland -Spain -Portugal -Japan -South Korea So why was I there? Answer: They had lost touch with their customers... A select group of entrepreneurs was flown in to help their CEOs learn how to get back to basics, think like founders, and connect with customers. Issue #1: They were trying to better understand their customers... from a private executive island. Issue #2: They had spent 9-figures trying to improve customer price perception. After a year, customers thought their prices went up, not down. Issues #3: The CEO's were all competing with each other, rather than working together. On the last day, I told them these three things: 1) You have to LISTEN to your customers. You have millions of customers... But each of you only spoke to 5-10 in the past three days. 2) You need to work together, not compete with each other. Posturing against your colleagues = selective hearing with your customers. You're only listening to customer feedback that makes you look good. 3) Iterate and fail till you win. You just spent $100M+ dollars trying to look more affordable, and everyone thought your pricing increased. Why? You tested whatever you wanted to, as opposed to gathering honest feedback. The trip was an incredible experience and a lesson in sticking to the basics. -Get honest feedback, and listen. -Run in the same direction, together. -Rapid iteration wins. Fun facts: -The trip was two days after my bachelor party in the Hamptons. -South Korea is a 16-hour time difference from L.A. -During the trip, I closed our Series Seed round, which meant I worked with CEOs all day, took a 30-minute nap, and then worked all night with our lawyers to close the round.

I keep thinking about this idea by Shaan Puri... The Five Levels of a Brand (everyone should read this): Shaan Puri shared this concept with Sam Parr on My First Million ep. 577 when discussing the wild outcome of UFC 300. It's a brilliant framing for thinking about the impact of a brand. Five Levels of Brand: 1) PRODUCT (This is 50% of companies) You can use our company/product/service for X. 2) SOLUTION (This is 45% of companies) You have a problem; we solve that problem. 3) LIFESTYLE The brand surrounds a lifestyle. This is Lululemon: - It's not: We sell yoga pants. - It is: You love yoga, we have the best gear for you. The more you love yoga, the more you'll want the highest quality gear/clothes for yoga. 4) FEELING Our brand makes you FEEL something. - UFC: "We sell holy shit moments." - Dana White - Nike: The feeling of greatness. (Not: We sell well-cushioned shoes for sports) - Louis Vuitton: The feeling of status. (Not: We offer high-quality leather goods) - Disney: Magical family memories (Not: Our theme parks have more rides that go fast) 5) IDENTITY (The Most Powerful Form of Brand) The brand gives you an identity and a purpose. Masters of this are: Political Parties, Religions, Cults. The brand embodies a purpose or a feeling of belonging. It is a cause you want to live for. ---- What are other great examples that fit into these five buckets?

My friend has raced in 20+ Ironmans. Here's his insane routine ↓↓↓ Note: - Ironman = 2.4 mile swim | 112 mile bike ride | 26.22 mile run - He isn't a small/skinny endurance athlete. - He's 6'4", 235 lbs. Strict daily routine: - 10 min cold plunge - 20 min sauna - 45 min stretching - Daily vitamin / protein shake - No alcohol - Eat four high-protein meals per day Sounds crazy, right? What's really crazy is that he doesn't do any of these things... Instead: - He eats whatever he wants. - Aside from a multivitamin, doesn't take any supplements. - Drinks alcohol - He'll even go out the night before races (mentally, this makes the race more challenging for him). Wild stories about my friend: - On his first Ironman, he went out the night before, showing up at the starting line in his clothes from the previous night. He changed into his gear on the beach, found some swimming earplugs in the sand, put them in, jumped in the race, and finished it. - Most years he competes in the Head of The Charles in Boston (a famous and brutal rowing event)... but before he flies to Boston, he goes to Las Vegas for two days. Shows up at the race, almost always places or wins, then heads home. + Many more great stores. How the hell does he do it? 1st: Mindset ⚡ - He has an inner fire that cannot be trained or taught. He can do all these things because he believes that he can. 2nd: Focused Training 🥇 - All his training centers around improving lung capacity to push through barriers without getting winded. Takeaway: If you can hone your mindset and put in the right focused work, you can do some pretty crazy shit. Photo: Just one of several Ironman medal racks in his garage 🤯

Last month, Uber shut down Drizly after acquiring it three years ago for $1.1B. Saucey and Drizly both started a decade ago to disrupt the $225B U.S. alcohol industry. Saucey began in Los Angeles, Drizly in Boston. Over the years, dozens of copycats would launch, and then shut down. I first met the Drizly founders in a liquor store in Santa Monica. I was with the owner signing his store to get started on Saucey. While signing, the Drizly founders walked in to pitch him Drizly. The store owner politely asked them to leave, and the rivalry began.   As we both learned in the years to come, "disrupting" anything is harder than improving something that already works. Before 2013, alcohol delivery didn't exist in most of the U.S. Compare this to food or grocery delivery, which has existed for 50+ years. Instacart built a better Webvan - by avoiding all their mistakes. Doordash built a better Grubhub - by offering more restaurants. Both converted an existing customer behavior, while Drizly and Saucey worked to build a new one. Saucey's strategy: - Build a logistics machine that could win on delivery speed, efficiency (drops per hour), and reliability for the customer. - Have the best customer experience backed by excellent customer support. - Create brand campaigns that strike an emotional connection with customers. Our motto is "Dope sells itself." Drizly's strategy: - Provide stores with software to handle their own delivery and support. - Go far and wide quickly. - Operate an open marketplace, letting customers price shop stores. - Be really bad at branding (kidding... sort of) In the same market, Saucey's model would win on customer experience. However, Drizly's model allowed them to expand cheaply and fast. Meaning they quickly owned markets where there was no competition. Drizly sold to Uber at the peak of COVID-19, when their revenue was spiking to the highest it would ever be. It closed its doors last month. I am incredibly proud of the Saucey team for persevering through so many challenges since our start in 2013. This includes:  - Many near-death experiences. - Pressure from giant marketplaces that have raised billions. - Navigating not just one but three heavily regulated industries.  - Fighting off predatory lawsuits (and winning). - Working with government agencies to help transform these legacy industries. In the past month, I've spoken to many former Drizly partners (small business owners who count on delivery revenue.) Most of them haven't heard a word from Uber, and simply had the Drizly platform turned off. Saucey works almost exclusively with independently owned retailers and has helped hundreds of partners grow their income dramatically online. I'm proud that we have created hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue for small businesses all over the U.S. and continue to do so today.

We're officially 25% through 2024... Building: • In Q1, Saucey launched a SaaS platform for retail partners and brands to power their e-commerce, delivery, and pickup operations. SauceyDirect.com • Weeks after announcing the platform to our network of retailers, we're already in ownership calls with 1,000+ new potential partners.  • In 3 weeks, we've signed ~70 new SaaS customers beyond our existing network. Personal: • Baby #4 arrives in 5-6 weeks. We're getting ready. My wife is the ultimate champion. She's a boss. 💯 • Set a goal to workout every day in Q1. Between launching the new business and preparing for baby #4, I missed 16 days. Going to fix this. • I started running, which I've always hated. Running is so boring compared to strength training, boxing etc. But something changed, and I'm liking it. How are you feeling 25% of the way into 2024?

95% of small businesses could increase their revenue overnight by doing three things: 1. A well-designed website. 2. Have scheduling or ordering on the site. 3. Call people back within 60 minutes of them reaching out. That's it. It takes less than one day to do. Revenue will grow. "Want to get rich? Find a business that's making good profits and still has a fax machine." - Nick Huber Two examples that recently drove me crazy: - Our dog groomer does a fantastic job. But he has no website, no way to book online, and every appointment requires us to text back and forth 5-7 times. - Window screen repair - Our local guy for fixing window screens does excellent work. But it takes me calling them 4-5 times to get a response. I can't view availability online, and it takes weeks to get an appointment. Both business owners provide excellent service. Neither of them makes it easy to book them. I finally told them to use these tools: - Website: Carrd (super easy), Squarespace (easy), or Webflow (advanced) - Booking/ordering: Carrd, Squarespace, and Webflow all have built-in tools for this. Or you can use Calendly. At Saucey we've helped hundreds of small business owners add an online channel. Guess what? Every single one of them grew their business.

One of the most important life lessons I learned was from a guest speaker in a high school elective class. On the surface, it was a WWII history class. But every week, our professor would invite a WWII veteran to tell their story. They would tell us about their experiences as young men, almost exactly our age, fighting in the war. Many of the stories they hadn't even told their families (despite being 60+ years later). It taught me the true importance and power of Perspective. It has shaped the way I think about life, work, and decision-making ever since. One veteran was the toughest person I've ever met. HIS STORY He grew up in the Bronx, NY. As a kid, he kept getting arrested. So, at 14 years old, he bought a fake birth certificate to enlist in WWII. His assignment… as a 14-year-old soldier, was to be a flamethrower in the Pacific Theater. He survived the war, earning 3 Purple Hearts: -Bazooka explosion near his head -Bayonetted in the stomach during an all-night battle that ended in hand-to-hand combat -Leg nearly torn off by a munitions depot explosion As he told us his story in the classroom, he paused to take a piece of shrapnel out of the back of his arm and tucked it into a ziplock bag he kept in his pocket. 60+ years later, he still had shrapnel coming out of his body from WWII. After the war, he moved back to the U.S., fell in love, married a girl, and laid bricks for 40 years. I talked with him for over an hour after class, and he invited me to his house the following weekend. That weekend, I sat in his living room, drinking lemonade with him and his wife (the girl he met after the war), listening to the wildest stories you could ever imagine a 14-18-year-old going through. He was humble and kind and gave me an ultimate lesson in Perspective. I will never forget that day. TAKEAWAYS: -Whatever you are going through has already been endured by millions of others.  -Perspective is the most powerful way to change how you look at things.  -If you handle challenges well, you can grow more than you imagine. --- Image by Roberto Ferraro

This quote from John D. Rockefeller changed my perspective on work forever. "He who works all day, has no time to make money." When I read that, my mind was f*cked up for a week. One of Rockefeller's most interesting characteristics was that he rarely worked late. He almost always found time to lie down in the middle of the day to think. Sometimes for hours. Rockefeller is arguably the most successful man in history. So how did he work less and conquer an entire industry? The answer: Discipline and focus. He knew when to say no to distractions and always took time to think through problems. He didn't attend many meetings. When he did, he mostly listened. While everyone else packed their days hustling around accomplishing tasks... He would methodically find the most significant opportunities and then focus on those alone. If you'd like to know more about his upbringing and life, check out the book "Titan" by Ron Chernow.

Years ago, I met an entrepreneur who began making millions in just 8 months. His secret? A customer acquisition arbitrage that no one was paying attention to. He started by purchasing $500 of sunglasses wholesale from an existing brand in the U.S. Then, created a Shopify store and ran Facebook ads. What happened? He found that acquiring customers in Europe and Spain cost 85% less than for that same customer in the U.S. Same product. Wildly different customer acquisition cost. So, he created his own brand and doubled down on testing ad creatives in the lower-cost markets. The result? His brand exploded across Spain and Europe. He became one of the largest advertisers on Facebook in less than two years. His business grew exponentially. It surpassed his U.S. counterparts, who had been around for years and struggled to scale. He sold the business for tens of millions of dollars in under 3 years... without ever raising capital. - Moral of the story: -Finding a unique distribution advantage can take you to a whole new level. -Sometimes, that means testing to find the right market. -Same product, sold into different markets, with two very different CACs. Photo source: Statista