Do one payment to people who are on NIA radar and 1 to some Pak/Afg . 😹😹 Enjoy with popcorn

Software Developer

I reported that shit as a scam to X. You have to be a different level of stupid to share card details online, and even more stupid to purchase something with card details found online

Software Engineer

Sextember? You can only order Sex products or what? 
 What about catering to virgins like me?

Business Analyst

Damn, if I'd have seen it yesterday, I would've ordered a few lipsticks 😂😂

Lawyer

Waah, selling free money to get followers

Corporate Strategist

Business Development Manager

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

Man these D2C founders are crazy - things they do for "personal brand" 💸💸💸

Investor

Man these D2C founders are crazy - things they do for "personal brand" 💸💸💸- Grapevine

I am Thankful to the funding winter it has revealed true colors of so called Founders, who would not stop talking about culture, Growth,  scale etc on Twitter and LinkedIn

Take Byjus, for instance, they claim to be revolutionizing education, it's all a facade! All they care about is squeezing every penny out of parents' pockets. Putting large amount of people in debts they didn’t even signup for. 

And let's talk about Dukaan, shall we? The absolute 🤡 of a founder with zero empathy( 90% staff laidoff and the guts to project it as some AI ML innovation)


These startup founders have lost touch with reality. They've become obsessed with valuation and funding rounds, completely forgetting the essence of why they started in the first place. It's all about becoming the next "unicorn" and impressing investors, while the customers and sellers are left in the dust.

Gone are the days of genuine innovation and passion for solving real-world problems. It's all about the money now, and they don't care who gets hurt along the way. The startup ecosystem has become a rat race, with everyone trying to outdo each other and sacrificing ethics and integrity in the process.

It's sad to see the true colors of these startup founders shining through, and it's high time we demand more transparency, accountability, and genuine value from these so-called "disruptors." Enough with the facade,

At the end all these founders will get an exit with generational wealth, the employee and people who have built it will be left in Dust. 

My laanat to all such founders and company. May the boat sink and hopefully someday we have accountability in place for these people.

Rant on Indian Startup

For A new D2C brand to begin today and grow, is it possible to grow organically without any marketing budgets. If so, how??

Founder

Welcome to News Discussion's Private Community

- Nearly 150-200 direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands have entered offline retail channels and quick-commerce platforms over the past 2 years.
- Since 2016, over 600 D2C brands have launched, receiving more than US$ 4 billion in investment over the past 3 years, despite recent funding challenges.
- The India D2C market, valued at US$ 16.9 billion in FY23, is projected to grow at a CAGR of 38%, reaching US$ 61.3 billion by FY27.
- Brands like Beyoung and Pee Safe are aggressively expanding their physical retail presence, with Beyoung planning 100 new stores by March next year and Pee Safe already in 25,000 retail outlets across 100 cities. 

 Source: [IBEF](https://www.ibef.org/news/nearly-150-200-direct-to-consumer-brands-entered-offline-retail-channels-over-the-past-2-years)

D2C Brands Expand Offline Amid Funding Challenges

Journalist

Today’s startups are using the interns/employees to the point of exhaustion(taking work of 12-14 hours) but returning in penny without any job security, you just do a small mistake(actually which may not be called a mistake also) and to fulfil their ego the management will kick you out anytime. It’s we, the employees, who are helping organisations show upper trend so that they can bag Series A, B etc. Whereas the co-founders and higher hierarchy members are enjoying limitless wealth in form of salary and also going every then and now on holiday trips.

Today’s co-founders are not leaving any stone unturned in reaching a new low.

Co-founders reaching new low for personal Wealth Creations

Operation Manager

Recommend startups in D2C that are doing well..and have a decent culture

Good D2C brands

Growth Manager

I have doing a lot research on these D2C brands , these brands are burning VC cash in ads and influncer marketing. 

And what just for topline !!

When will the focus or plan to focus on bottomline !!


Are these guys playing for valuation game or they really want to build profitable business out of it ??

Please correct me if i m wrong , also paying influncers butt load money wothout knowing the ROI , i think influncer marketing is a bubble which is yet to burst and the next phase is influencer led sales !!!

Why brands spend too much on topline ?

Program Manager

I get that they are grabbing some eyeballs with their marketing but that should only count for so much?

https://bit.ly/3sUmVUu

$700M for a water brand?? Crazy startup valuations making a comeback?

Growth And Strategy

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/mensa-brands-fires-200-employees-as-business-shows-signs-of-slowdown-10699211.html

Mensa brands fires 200 employees

This influencer with a massive following on YouTube laid me & my team off within a week of hiring since apparently they have deferred their Series A. Bro, why didn't you figure it out before I joined. They bumped off Sourcing, D2C sales head, Finance, Offline Sales head, etc as well. Apparently - they still have the HR head drawing the salary of probably more than 50L pa since they need to build 'culture' for a team size of less than 25 ppl now.

Business model: D2C business launching products in partnership with Influencer to leverage their following

Founders couldn't Figure Out fund raise

Bro there's Sham in the name.  What else did you expect.

Sales Manager

Consultant

Amazon's own business lines and new policy changes coupled with the recession's impact on consumer spending finished Thrasio. They were primarily dependent on Amazon for identifying good D2C businesses, acquiring them and turning them into profit-making machines.

What's next for Indian D2C aggregators like Mensa?

Another platform-dependent startup bites the dust

willl try my best to be honest, ask me anything

AMA - I work at a VC fund

Analyst

Welcome to Personal Finance's Private Community

I and my 3 mates, are looking to build a side hustle in Dropshipping with the help of a successful mentor (@desirichkid on Instagram, if you've heard of him)

He boasts of a lavish lifestyle online and tbh, the guy does seem very genuine. Regularly showcases his 1:1 mentorship client results, but rarely posts any info about them, as to not expose his winning strategies.

6000 euros is his fees for a 6 month mentorship programme, which involves a 1:1 session every week, in which he aims to help us build towards a 6 figure sales mark.

~ Roughly 5.8 lakhs

A little background, my CTC is 12lpa.
And as 4 partners, I'd be pitching in 1.5-2 lakhs, over a course of 3 installments, month over month.

Am I making the right decision? Shall I trust the guy?

Thinking of paying 5.7 lakhs to a mentor for helping me build a killer side hustle - Dropshipping

Product Manager

Welcome to Retail Therapy's Private Community

How do you find new D2C brands to try? There’s so many of them, and new ones added daily.

D2C brand shopping

Hi all, I’m a D2C brand founder alongside working at Infosys. Yes, I’m moonlighting. I need help in cracking performance marketing. Any tips, any courses i can do? I’m stuck at low sales right now and need to scale my tshirt ecomm business.

Hi viners, i am the founder of a D2C startup and trying to figure out performance marketing and scaling my ecomm

The company had more than 6 layoffs in the past  10 months. Right from office boys to the company COO was affected by the layoff. The recent layoff happened 10 days back, where the company didn't pay their employees a single dime and instead gave them their value less esops to keep their mouth shut. The company is being run by 2 arrogant adamant co-founders along with their 10 other close ally so called the CORE team. The employees were on 30% salary cut since 10 months in the name of deffered and were promised that everyone would get it back with 8% interest on the cut. In every layoff employees were asked to leave within a day or two without even paying them for their notice period. Nobody was vocal about it as the founders had threatened some ex employees that they would make their life miserable and they will find it difficult to get jobs anywhere in future.

The dirty game of Dukaan's layoffs

If we actually think about it, this is even worse than Byju’s. No severance, long-standing pay cuts, and direct/indirect threats.  
 Dukaan deserves to die.

Operations Manager

Welcome to Business Roles's Private Community

Biz dev role, full time engagement, equity. DTC exposure is must. 

Right now we are in product development & testing early pmf phase. 

Matching salary.

Product - A SAAS solution for non tech savvy DTC brands to reduce their ad spend upto 40% through influencer led sales. 

Problem - Indian D2C brands spend $7b every year on ad spend only to achieve < 2% retention and <2 ROAS. This is because there is no other way other than ad spend to acq. customers. 

Core team in place - 2 engineers, 1 COO, 1 CTO & 1 PM. Enough cash to survive till pre-seed and get to early pmf.

Raising pre-seed now to onboard 100 DTC brands. 

Founders: ex-Microsoft, Pixis, Swiggy, Zomato, Udaan, Rapido

Equity you get will yield following -

At the end of yr. 5:
Best case exit for you: ~7-9cr.
Avg case: 3-5cr.
Worst case: 60L-1cr. 

Along with equity from starting day. You will keep on getting more and more ESOP rewards linked to value creation (revenue, growth, unlocking  partnerships) or annual cash bonus (% of the value added).

Looking for a biz dev co-founder with DTC exposure

Any new age consumer / D2C brands that you are fond of? Looking for inspiration on how to build a brand

Help a new founder

Their VC funding is drying up, and finding investors for next rounds is proving difficult because of the macroeconomic conditions (apart from glaringly obvious reasons like their hype has died down since it's not 2020 anymore).

Twitter has launched Ads Revenue Sharing where users with enough engagement get paid by Twitter. This is Dukaan leadership's last resort to sort of "bootstrap" themselves.

The income from Twitter is probably what helped Dukaan become profitable a few days ago.

What do you folks think?

Why Dukaan founders engage in Twitter fights

Asking this on behalf of many founders like myself, wanted to collate across multiple inputs: what is it that VCs really want to hear/see from a startup? 

Would love to get inputs from VCs and other founders alike - basis your experience on what has worked what hasn't worked.

The usual suspects: obviously the founder credentials, TAM, insights, metrics. But, what else? 
Look forward to informed answers.

Man these D2C founders are crazy - things they do for "personal brand" 💸💸💸

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