Bill D'Alessandro Profile Banner
Bill D'Alessandro Profile
Bill D'Alessandro

@BillDA

25,497
Followers
1,159
Following
1,031
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15,517
Statuses

Sold 7 companies & pioneered the ecommerce aggregator model. Now building @NaturalDogCo to $100M. I tweet about scaling brands & co-host the @acquanon podcast.

Charlotte, NC
Joined July 2007
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
14 days
The FAA requires that air traffic controllers retire at age 56, because there is so much riding on their mental acuity. The average age in the US Senate is 64 years old.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
14 days
I can’t believe nobody fixed robocalls, so literally everyone just stopped answering their phones. Bless the gmail spam filtering team for saving email.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 years
Mind-blowing stats: There are more dogs in the United States (76M) than children under 18 (73M). Over 38% of households have at least one dog. 30% of households have at least one child. The “dogs” market is bigger than the “kids” market.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
8 months
Me trying to find out how much the "Enterprise" plan costs
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
8 months
Mind-blowing stat: There are more dogs in the United States (76M) than children under 18 (73M). 🐶 Over 38% of households have at least one dog. 30% of households have at least one child. 👼 The “dogs” market is bigger than the “kids” market.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
Clubhouse is great because I don’t have enough conference calls during work hours, so now I can be on conference calls in my free time.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
1 year
There are now more dogs in America (76M) than children under 18 (73M). 38% of households have a dog. Just 30% of households have a child. Dogs are becoming the new kids.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
1 year
Need new headshots, but on a budget? Try one of the new AI portrait generators - the results will shock you. Neither of these are real photos of me. Photographers are in trouble.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
I have never in my life wanted to open a CSV in Numbers.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 years
Guy I know cancels all his employee credit cards randomly, once a year. Finds ~50% of expenses disappear. All kinds of stuff that was auto-renewing that folks don’t care enough about to re-sign up for. Claims to save six figs/year each time he does it.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
Not naming names, but many FBA aggregators are getting WRECKED by supply chain issues. It's the combination of lots of debt, the challenges of running multiple brands at once, and a quirk of Amazon's FBA model. Here's a behind the scenes thread of what's going down... 🧵👇
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 years
This is the story of how I paid for my wedding by building a micro-SaaS product. I tested it on my own wedding guests, found several hundred brides as customers, then sold it on @microacquire . Here's how it happened 🧵🔽
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
8 months
@Elmono404 So the rep wants to waste my time, to ensure I don't waste his time? No thanks, pass.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
4 years
Trying to get pricing for the "Enterprise" plan
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
. @wearfigs just filed to go public, and it's probably my favorite DTC IPO of all time. 💸$263M revenue 😍 26% EBITDA margin (swoon) 🧑‍⚕️1.3M customers in 2020 📈138% YoY growth Let's break down their biz in a thread 🧵👇
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
6 months
OK which one of you is this?
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
7 months
The FAA requires that air traffic controllers retire at age 56, because there is so much riding on their mental acuity. The average age in the US Senate is 64 years old.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
9 months
@GuyDealership Doesn't this just show people aren't taking their cars to (often overpriced) dealer service departments and are instead opting for independent (certified or uncertified) repair shops to save $$$?
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
8 months
Cracks are showing in the real estate market. I’ve been tracking vacation house prices in a few markets, and this is the story almost everywhere. Listed high, cut, cut, cut. Every cycle it’s always the vacation homes that come down to earth first, then “normal” markets next.…
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 years
Never try to get a mortgage as an entrepreneur. The brain damage is incredible, and nobody in the entire value chain knows what the hell to make of you. Feels like there is SO much opportunity for disruption here, especially as more and more people become self-employed 🤦
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
Surely there must be some middle ground between straws that last for 2 minutes and straws that last for 10,000 years.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
1 year
@zachware @delk I know why they did it, but it's very un-Amazon. Objectively a far worse consumer experience.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
4 months
If you're under 45 years old, here is your optimal wealth management strategy* 1) Put a fixed amount every month into $VTI (a low cost, total stock market index fund) 2) Don't sell until retirement, even if you're scared or the market is down Or, you could pay an advisor 1% of…
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
Incredible stat - Amazon now employs almost 1 million people in the US. That's 1 out of every 169 workers.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
9 months
Start an ecommerce business they said
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
4 years
1/ If your small business is in need of financing to make it through COVID-19, there are options out there. Here are the options I know of at this point. THREAD:
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 years
The only tax reform we need: Eliminate withholding, everyone takes home 100% of their paycheck. Every American must then pay the IRS out of pocket each quarter for taxes due. Give it one year and 🤯
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 months
End of an era - today we closed our 50,000 sqft fulfillment center after 9 years. This is the conclusion of a two year project to outsource all our fulfillment and manufacturing, which will save us over $1M per year. This facility was processing several thousand D2C orders per…
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
15 days
Never try to get a mortgage as an entrepreneur. The brain damage is incredible - nobody in the entire industry knows what the hell to make of you. There is SO much opportunity for disruption here, especially as more and more people become self-employed🤦
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 years
There comes a point where you don’t need any more advice, you just need to go out and get it done.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
8 months
I know a guy who cancels all his employee credit cards randomly, once a year. He finds that ~50% of expenses disappear. All kinds of stuff was auto-renewing, but folks don’t care enough about to re-sign up for. Claims to save six figs / year each time he does it.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
. @coinbase is celebrating their IPO with a huge sale - all crypto is 20% off!
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
8 months
@jowyang The risk of me walking away is 100% as soon as you require a phone call to get pricing
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 years
A ball shaver company backed by Magic Mike is going public at a $1 BILLION dollar valuation, based on a multiple of fictional 2023 revenue. I’m starting to think I’m the idiot here.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
26 days
How does @Sonos make such great speakers but such a terrible app? Smh
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
1 year
Entrepreneurs, this is an intervention. 🚫 STOP taking merchant cash advance loans from Wayflyer, 8fig, ClearCo, Shopify Capital, and more. 🏦 The entire business model of these lenders is exploiting the fact that you can't do interest rate math. That ends today. Read on ⬇️
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
1 year
I know a guy who cancels all his employee credit cards randomly, once a year. Finds that ~50% of expenses disappear. All kinds of stuff was auto-renewing but folks don’t care enough about to re-sign up for. Claims to save six figs / year each time he does it.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 months
I am begging you not to build custom software. The #1 pothole people don’t see coming is that software is never, ever finished. Even if you don’t add features - bug fixes, API version changes, dependency upgrades, & security patches create significant ongoing maintenance. It’s…
@barrettjoneill
Barrett O'Neill
3 months
Your service business doesn't need custom software. In 2016 I spent $40K on a custom platform that was basically a crappy version of a CRM. Even worse I wasted 6 months of my life arguing with a terrible developer who promised the world and delivered a glitchy and ugly…
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
1 year
We just sold one of our big brands to an “Amazon aggregator”. This is the story of 3 shady things they tried, how we countered, and how I still lost $500,000. If you’re thinking of selling to an aggregator, read on to avoid getting screwed.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
4 months
I do not understand the appeal of the Stanley tumblers. Costs $45, carries more water than fits in your bladder. Heavy enough to crack a skull open when full. Why are folks carrying these around? Are you embarking on a Saharan expedition? Why do you need this much water?
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
8 months
I would pay several hundred bucks for an in-home device that consumes and mulches un-broken-down cardboard boxes. This is my garage right now:
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
8 months
I need an ethernet cable run from my living room to my upstairs home office. I just called 5 local small businesses in a row - not one even answered their phone. Several "mailbox is full" messages. The bar for small business success is so, so low.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
Apple, Google, & Facebook are licenses to print money, at trillion-dollar scale, growing 40-80% YoY, and trading at value multiples. It’s bonkers. Screaming buys in plain sight at these prices - just do it, then forget about em for 20 years. $AAPL $GOOG $FB
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
9 months
Ecommerce founders - this is an intervention. 🛑 STOP taking "fixed fee" merchant cash advance loans from Wayflier, 8Fig, Shopify Capital, and more. 💰 The entire biz model of these lenders is exploiting the fact that you can't do interest rate math. That ends now - read on...…
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
20 days
@mikebeckhamsm This is so absurd I am actively ignoring it because it's obviously a campaign move and/or preposterous straw man to anchor a future budget negotiation. I hope.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
Ecom folks - getting crushed by iOS 14.5? You need to do this TODAY. Create dedicated landing pages for all your ads. We are A/B testing landers vs. product pages and seeing up to 50% lower CPAs. I’m gonna do a thread on LP best practices - reply w/ topics you want me to hit!
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 years
Stop using the term "boomer", especially derogatorily. Willing to bet you want to raise money from, accept mentorship by, and build relationships with folks in that generation. It's also literally ageism, opening you & your co up to legal claims. It's not a good look.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
1 year
BIG NEWS After 12 years, we have exited our entire @ElementsBrands portfolio and are going “all-in” on just one brand - @NaturalDogCo . I unpacked my reasoning and what’s next in the ecommerce world with @fortworthchris in the below episode!
@fortworthchris
Chris Powers
1 year
🚨New Episode: @BillDA - CEO of Natural Dog Co. - lessons learned from owning and operating 6 businesses - why he decided to go all in on 1 business and sell the rest - why hyper-focusing is powerful - how to decide between marketing & product innovation - insights on the…
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
I can’t believe nobody fixed robocalls so literally everyone just stopped answering their phones. Bless the gmail spam filtering team for saving email.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 years
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 months
This is why I never have and never will do 23andMe. Once your genome is out there, you’re never getting it back. All for a cute report of what country your ancestors are from?
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
Most people don’t use enough leverage. Debt is a tool - avoiding it philosophically is like eating cold food because fire can burn your house down. Learn the tool, use it responsibly, enjoy your hot steak dinner. If you’re not using leverage as a tool, you’re underperforming.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 months
My wife tricked me into exercising today even though I really was not in the mood. I didn’t sleep well last night, and I’m feeling anxious about work. I wasn’t very present. She said “how about you get on the bike and do a 5 minute cruise?” How bad could that be? It’d be over…
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
"Tesla's valuation is bonkers, I'd like to take some money off the table, and higher tax rates are coming in 2022. How do I sell without spooking the market and tanking the stock?" Genius, troll-style answer as only @elonmusk can do:
@elonmusk
Elon Musk
3 years
Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this?
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
4 months
I say a normal goodnight to my 4 year old. He looks me dead in the eyes and goes: “I will see you at dawn.” ☠️
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
4 months
I'm having my third child next week, and I had a realization: Having kids is your own personal singularity. As a pre-parent, it's almost impossible to empathize with parents until you have your own kids. Even if you understand intellectually what they're going through. It's…
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
4 months
This is the story of how I paid for my wedding by building a micro-SaaS product. I tested it on my own wedding guests, found several hundred brides as customers, and then sold it on @acquiredotcom . Here's the story ⏬ A week before our wedding, my wife asked me if there was a…
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 years
Did you know Uline will give you better-than-public pricing? All you need to do is ask. A thread on saving 10-20% on cardboard boxes and anything else you get at Uline. Bonus tip at the end on getting max volume pricing on everything, even if you don't hit the tier qty. 🧵...
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
1 year
A lot of HBS grads who bought HVAC companies over the past two years are figuring out what it's really like owning a small business.
@girdley
Michael Girdley
1 year
"My controller showed up drunk today and took a bunch of pills" isn't a class taught at Harvard Business School.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
9 months
If you're buying a business and considering letting the founder stick around after closing, here's my advice to you. Don't. Post-exit entrepreneurs are the worst employees ever. They are checked out. They disagree with the changes you want to make. They are focused on their…
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 months
Start a business they said
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 years
@tobi Not to mention the UI dark patterns. Look at the "yes track me" button on the Apple prompt, vs. the UI for the 3rd party app prompt
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
7 months
Terrible ways to pay an agency: Percent of revenue 😬 Percent of ad spend 😱 Both of these structures set up a fundamental misalignment because brands care about PROFIT. I’ve seen too many agencies just hit the gas on ads with no regard for profit. And why not? That’s how…
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
1 year
Zell was one of the most successful investors of all time, a fascinating person, and huge philanthropist. But he bought a newspaper 15 years ago and laid some journalists off, so this is the obituary headline he gets. @nytimes this is vindictive and gross, do better.
@RobertMSterling
Robert Sterling
1 year
What a misguided, asinine, and assholish way to summarize the amazing life and accomplishments of Sam Zell. What do you want to bet that the millennial writer who penned the first draft of this probably had to Google Zell to know who he even was?
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 years
Amazon just closed one of our brands' selling accounts with zero warning and no explanation Need to complete a video interview to be reinstated. First appt time? TWO WEEKS! An unacceptable amount of time for our business to earn ZERO revenue. Help??? @dharmeshmehta @davehclark
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
I would pay several hundred bucks for an in-home device that consumes and mulches un-broken-down cardboard boxes.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
8 months
There comes a point where you don’t need any more advice, you just need to go out and get it done.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
Once I learned about the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect, I see it EVERYWHERE.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 months
Day in the life of a startup CEO 7am - Coffee. We're going to the moon. LFG! 2pm - Lunch. We are so fucked. Six figure mistake. Does this business even work? 6pm - Happy hour. Biggest customer reordered. We are smashing. 11pm - Bed. Can't sleep, what if key employee leaves?…
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
8 months
@FatDag "on the first CALL" 🤦
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 months
Mind-blowing stat: There are more dogs in the United States (76M) than children under 18 (73M). 38% of households have at least one dog 🐶 30% of households have at least one child 👼 The “dogs” market is bigger than the “kids” market.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 years
I don't even need some whiz bang tech-enabled lender. All I need is a lender who is used to working with entrepreneurs and is not completely weirded out by a K1 instead of a W2. The bar is so low.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
Pfizer and Moderna should hold nationally televised, Apple-style keynote launches for the COVID vaccines. Explain the ground breaking tech, bring scientists on stage, culminate with the CEOs receiving their vaccines live. The most important product launch of our lifetimes.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
A great thing happened this week - the D’Alessandros are now a family of four 💕
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
8 months
@ramit If true, Dave should start a hedge fund and be much richer than he already is
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
@Molson_Hart …full time nanny is $200k/yr? Good lord move out of New York
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
4 years
1/ I‘ve been called to the Sunday night soapbox, so here it is - a thread on how Kylie Jenner took Coty for $600M, why she’s likely NOT really a billionaire, and how the deal compares to other notables in the beauty space.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
🎈 Maybe this is the needle that pops the FBA aggregator bubble? Nothing will sober the market up quicker than a few roll ups going to zero. Remember: 📈 Spreadsheets are easy. Operations is hard. 🚚 Supply chain is the oxygen of any business 💰 Debt is great - until it aint.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
1 year
Iron law of Calendly links - if you are the one requesting the meeting, you may not send over your scheduling link. Proper method: "I'd love to meet and talk about X. If that's interesting, send over your scheduling link or some times that work for you." Much higher close rate
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 months
Iron law of Calendly links - if you are the one requesting the meeting, you may not send your scheduling link. Proper etiquette: "I'd love to meet and talk about X. If that's interesting, send over your scheduling link or some times that work for you." Much higher close rate!
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
Why do people write "views are my own" in their bio? Who else's views would they be? You literally typed them into the little box and hit "tweet".
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
1 year
Who's coming with me to @Outback ???
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 months
Huge realization for me: Once you know what you're good at, live only in your circle of competence. Push hard and do not deviate. Let others to invest with you and come along for the ride. My circle of competence is ecommerce, finance, and acquisitions. I'm really, really good…
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
Holy smokes what a year. It finished with a bang - today we closed an 8 figure investment in @ElementsBrands , giving us lots of dry powder to continue acquiring DTC CPG brands in 2021. Brand owners - hit me with a DM if you want to know what it's like to join us here at EB.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
6 years
@tomgara Important to note - this is likely because of unions and threat of strikes compounded over decades
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
10 months
The Four Hour Workweek is the most pivotal book I've ever read. @tferriss 's core tenet “reality is negotiable” changed my life. But I've NEVER worked just 4 hours a week. Most people think the book is about working as little as possible so you can sit on the beach. But it's…
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
1 year
The real key to success is utterly simple, yet insidiously difficult to actually execute: 1) Make a to-do list 2) Do the things on the to-do list 3) Do NOT do the things pinging your inbox or feed 4) Repeat daily 5) Profit I need to tattoo this on my eyelids.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 years
We were outbid on a $15M deal we loved by a small public co. Sellers went w/ pubco at our same price, but took stock based on clearly outlandish promises by pubco CEO. Now 6 mo later, market cap of the entire pubco is $13M...oops. Do I call and bid $15M for the whole thing? 😈
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 years
@moseskagan I will be the opposite anecdote - I can trace a direct line from nearly all my success back to reading that book. It was an absolutely pivotal mindset shift, a “see the matrix” moment. It made entrepreneurship tangible. Tim’s core tenant “reality is negotiable” changed my life.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
2 years
@tobi Unbelievable. But actually, totally predictable. I cannot believe Apple has gotten off with zero blowback on this entire privacy charade. So many small businesses as collateral damage and somehow it's Facebook's fault.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
4 years
A wonderful new adventure begins - welcome to the world Joey! Born 3/23 at a healthy 7 lbs 12oz, we are so excited to welcome this little man to our family 💙
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
4 months
Every DTC brand that complains about “the Amazon tax” Do you have any idea what it actually costs you to… Process payments, customer service, pick/pack, cardboard boxes, tape, storage, plus postage and returns? 15% + FBA fee is a screaming deal.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
Wanna change the world? Have kids. Raise em right. It’s ultimately the longest lever any of us has to impact the future.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
1 year
It should be illegal to make it harder to cancel a service than it is to sign up. If I can sign up online in a few clicks, I should not have to "speak to a representative" to cancel my account.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 years
@web The only people who would think this makes any sense are people who have never invested in anything, even an index fund
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
3 months
I just learned that "revenge bedtime procrastination" is a thing and I have never felt more seen in my entire life. Revenge bedtime procrastination (n): staying up too late to capture a little “me time” and taking “revenge” on the day for stealing your time.
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
9 months
Damn, good agencies are SO good. Like hiring a great employee, finding the right agency can be the 🔑 to serious growth. It's awesome to watch someone cook who knows what they're doing. And damn, bad agencies are SO bad. 95% of agencies are bad agencies. Be careful out there!
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@BillDA
Bill D'Alessandro
12 days
Last year we sold one of our big brands to an “Amazon aggregator”. This is the story of 3 shady things they tried, how we countered, and how I still lost $500,000. If you’re thinking of selling to an aggregator, read on to learn how to avoid getting screwed.
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