Application — Growth
Founded in 1972 and built around the dress shirt. The home description gives that one line; the $175.00 shirt deserves its own story.
Who I am
- Former COO of Tabs. Built its creator program to 100M monthly social impressions, and the paid ad engine alongside it.
- Founded Mainstreet, a consumer home-services platform: a team of 70, $25M raised (Greylock, Khosla, YC, Tim Ferriss). It failed.
- Before that: Quintessential Ventures, an early seat at a high-growth startup, and entrepreneur-in-residence at Prehype.
- I'm moving into growth specifically. The creative and top-of-funnel work is what I want to be doing every day.
What I noticed
- The "TBSP13805457 | Blue & Merlot Multi Check Dress Shirt" costs $175.00 in 23 variants. Many shirts share that price, so names and fabric must carry the choice.
- The site sets the free-shipping line at $200 ("You are $200 away from free shipping"), and a $175.00 shirt alone falls under it. A $135.00 tie clears it.
- The Moore Overshirt ($295.00) and The Skipper Quarter Zip ($275.00) have names a creator can say aloud. Shirts at $175.00 mostly carry style codes and fabric strings.
What I built
What I'd do here
- My KPI: scale ad spend, hold target CAC. Everything else follows from that, from the $175.00 shirt to the $495.00 Jackson Soft Coat.
- Week to week: launching a bunch of different experiments, losers killed early. One variable per test: a shirt hook never competes with a tie.
- Creators: office dressers who wear a dress shirt all week, plus men who build outfits around a quarter zip or silk tie.
- Reporting so you never have to ask. Daily CAC. Weekly what we learned. Monthly cohort payback. Each report names the shirt tested.
- Event tracking I'd spec and work through with your team. That part isn't me. The 15% signup coupon needs clean attribution first.
Month one
| Metric | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creators live | 0 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 |
| Creator videos / week | 0 | 14 | 28 | 42 | 56 | 70 |
| Landing pages live | 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| New ads / week | 12 | 12 | 12–20 | 12–20 | 20 | 20 |
| Unique experiments | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 6 |
Creators come on two a week, each posting the same number of videos a week. New ads and landing pages follow: by week six, 10 creators, 70 videos a week, 20 new ads, 9 landing pages. Proposed.
Creator videos a week = creators live × videos per creator. Week 1: 0 × 7 = 0; Week 2: 2 × 7 = 14; Week 3: 4 × 7 = 28; Week 4: 6 × 7 = 42; Week 5: 8 × 7 = 56; Week 6: 10 × 7 = 70.
How I'd start
- Pull every shirt, tie and quarter zip into a claims sheet: Pima cotton, stretch blend, return window, shipping, each line copied from your pages.
- Brief the first two creators on one shirt each, with the first-order signup coupon as the only offer, so the first week's results read cleanly.
I'd love to chat if this makes sense. Grab a time here.
Danilo