Summary

Junkmail was a subscription men's underwear business aimed at the man who wore undies with holes in them frequently.

I ideated and implemented every facet of the business from supplier negotiations in China to packaging and logistics to marketing creation and implementation. I used a handful of sub-contractors as specialists in areas like design, photography and videography.

I raised two rounds of funding from outside angel investors and grew it to thousands of subscribers across multiple countries. The vision was to become the subscription home for all men's basics. Ultimately, there was nice linear growth but the CACs were too high to sustain the ongoing costs of upfront purchases of the underwear. It was closed down in 2020.

What went well

I was able to negotiate strong deals in a new culture where I didn’t have any backing of a brand.
Two successful albeit small fundraising rounds.
Combined social good delivering undies to homeless men with the product to enhance the brand.

What went wrong

“If you say 3 things, you say nothing at all.” Reflecting on the marketing over the course of a few years, there were so many selling points I was trying to get across. I should’ve picked one and hammered it home for a year or longer.
- This is for the content and the placement.
- In the future, study all your competitors 50+ and see where and how they advertise. There will be enough clues in there to start you off.
I didn’t value the service enough and initially priced the product too low. The gross margin of a package was exciting 150% but in total dollar terms, it was small $16.
- The tendency is for customers to cancel subscriptions around 12 to 18 months and this is hard to fight against. With quarterly subscriptions, this meant the LTV would be around $70-$100.
- Typically, you’d want a LTV:CAC ratio of 3:1 or more. While a $35 CAC on Facebook in those days was nearly achievable, it quickly got flooded out and made the economics of the business untenable.
- In the future, study the economics of the product a lot more closely, shoot for LTV:CAC 3:1 or much greater, study industry standards by looking at 50+ companies.
Although I owned all parts of the business, I still think there was room for more ownership.
- I outsourced various marketing initiatives to ad agencies and I don’t think that was the right call. Because I had spread myself too thin with multiple value props and logistics, in the middle of fundraising, I was run ragged and outsourced some campaigns. In hindsight, this was not the part of the business I should’ve outsourced totally. A sub-contractor working with me in this case would’ve been a much better option.
- In the future, do less but do it 100%. For example, rather than trying to do a post on Instagram and TikTok and leaving comments on Pinterest and Quora, choose the lane and spend all the time on that until you can convincingly say it works / it doesn’t work.