5 Cases of Innovative Marketing for Consumer Start-Ups
Shared Journey with iFly.vc
Five Cases of Innovative Marketing for Consumer Start-ups
As an investor, I have witnessed many founders in the consumer space who worked hard to develop products or services but were not thoughtful enough about marketing. Many tried Facebook or Google ads with mixed (often disappointing) results. Some jumped too soon into applying growth-stage metrics like LTV/CAC ratios to very early-stage start-ups or over-engineering A/B tests when the data set is still small, causing them to miss the forest for the trees.
Marketing for consumer startups goes far beyond Google or Facebook ads. Today, we want to share five inspiring stories of authentic, innovative, and highly cost-effective approaches to marketing consumer products and services. These tales showcase outside-the-box thinking that stands out in a crowded market and delivers impressive results without breaking the bank.
TL;DR
Consumer start-up marketing has lots of room for creativity. Be authentic and innovative.
Dollar Shaving Club’s viral video on YouTube led to the company’s breakout in the D2C space.
Liquid Death did not produce a can of water until various ads were tested successfully, with distributor purchase orders.
Weee!’s highly efficient marketing via social chat groups has made CAC much less than other well-funded competitors.
Wyze’s counterintuitively directed all its internet traffic to Amazon, becoming a category leader.
Ume Tea has built a powerful flywheel of online/offline user experience, achieving over 100x of ROI on marketing expenses.
Each start-up has its unique path to success. None of the five cases is meant to hint at a shortcut.
Dollar Shave Club’s YouTube video went viral
Launched in 2011, Dollar Shave Club (DSC) is a Southern California-based company that delivers razors and other personal grooming products by mail. Founder and CEO Michael Dubin believed in the power of video to tell their brand story. With his experience in writing, filming, and launching videos, Dubin crafted the ad himself and enlisted a friend to direct it. On March 6, 2012, DSC published the video on YouTube, which garnered 4.75 million views in the first three months.
The days following the video's viral success were chaotic: the site crashed, a backup was created, inventory sold out, and Dubin, the sole full-time employee at the time, had to quickly hire interns along with a Head of Operations, Head of Finance, and Head of Fulfillment to manage tens of thousands of orders.
The original video, titled "Our Blades Are F***ing Great," can still be viewed on YouTube
In 2016, Unilever acquired Dollar Shave Club for $1 billion in cash. As of this month, the video has accumulated 12 million views.
For more insights, check out the CNBC story on DSC and the “How I Built This” podcast episode featuring Michael Dubin.
Related Links
Liquid Death started selling before producing the first can of water
Supplying Demand, Inc., doing business as Liquid Death (LD), is a canned water company founded by Mike Cessario. Cessario, the founder and CEO, has a unique vision for the brand. He believes that "LD is not tying their brand to a specific niche like action sports or better taste. They are creating an emotional connection to a brand that drives consumers."
Cessario recognized that entering the already overcrowded water market required an unconventional approach. He knew he would not have the funds to market his brand traditionally. Instead, he believed the product had to be so captivating and intriguing that consumers would want to share it on their social media channels for free.
Cessario produced a commercial for Liquid Death to test his idea before any cans were even in production. Using a 3D rendering of his can design, he created a Facebook page in 2018 to give LD a legitimate presence. He spent $1,500 to create a two-minute commercial starring a friend of his wife and a few thousand dollars on paid media to promote it. Within four months, the video had garnered 3 million views, and the page had almost 80,000 followers—more than Aquafina on Facebook. The response was overwhelming, with people asking, "This is the greatest thing ever. Where do I get this? Is this real?" Even a 7-Eleven franchise in Michigan inquired about stocking the product.
Leveraging this social traction, Cessario secured venture capital investment in 2019. After finding a water supplier in Austria, Liquid Death sold its first can online.
In its first month, Liquid Death achieved $100,000 in sales with just $2,000 spent on marketing. By 2020, the brand expanded into Whole Foods stores, reaching approximately $10 million in sales for the year. By 2024, Liquid Death was valued at $1.4 billion in its most recent financing round.
Related links
Weee!’s member-managed community reduces CAC by 90% compared to competitors
Weee! has become the largest online Asian grocery in North America, winning customers with its broad selection, high quality, competitive pricing, and free delivery on orders exceeding a minimum value as low as $35. The company’s vertical integration allows it to manage in-house merchandising, fulfillment, and delivery, ensuring high efficiency and healthy margins. With over 100,000 SKUs, Weee! has shipped over 30 million orders since its inception.
In its early years, Weee! discovered a powerful marketing and sales approach by leveraging social chat groups, starting with WeChat, a popular app among Chinese immigrants. This strategy later expanded to other social platforms like Facebook. Customers can receive discounts by sharing their order lists with social chat groups. If another user purchases the same item(s) from the shared list, both users benefit from a discount. Each chat group is essentially self-managed by members. Fueled by enthusiasm for Weee!’s product offerings, this system creates active order sharing and following daily among friends and strangers alike.
Weee!’s unique community-driven marketing methodology has been more effective than other performance marketing channels as it has scaled across the US. The company was valued at $4.1 billion in its most recent financing round. (For disclosure, iFly.vc is a proud investor in Weee!)
To learn more about Weee!’s story directly from its founder and CEO, Larry Liu, please check out his recent “How I Built This” Podcast interview by Guy Raz.
To give Weee! a try for $20 off 2 orders, please visit HERE!
Wyze directed all the Internet traffic to Amazon rather than its own e-commerce website
Wyze is a Seattle-based startup specializing in smart home devices. As of 2023, the company has shipped over 20 million devices across the US, including security cameras, smart plugs, home monitoring systems, smart locks, lighting systems, and much more. When I spoke with people at Google Home, they mentioned that Wyze was closely tracked as a serious competitor.
In 2018, I met with Yun Zhang, the Founder and CEO of Wyze, and was impressed by how their camera became the category leader on Amazon. Yun shared their unconventional marketing approach: while most companies directed internet traffic to their websites, Wyze directed all traffic to Amazon. Thanks to a solid product-market fit, their conversion on Amazon was highly effective. As Amazon’s data engine detected this strong momentum, it continued to rank Wyze’s products higher. Soon, Wyze became the category leader, further widening the gap ahead of competitors.
Ume Tea’s O2O flywheel boosts marketing ROI to over 100x
Ume Tea is a popular bubble tea chain that originated in the San Francisco Bay area. As of June 2024, the number of stores has reached 16 and continues to grow. In 2023, iFly.vc became its first and only investor, helping the team scale the business.
The in-store experience starts with delicious bubble tea. The visual ambiance and background music are meticulously designed to target Gen Z customers, creating an Instagrammable environment that encourages customers to share their experiences on Instagram and TikTok. Most of these social posts are unpaid but have generated tremendous buzz. Some TikTok videos have earned half a million likes each. This viral social media effect subsequently brings more customers to Ume Tea stores, initiating an offline-to-online-to-offline (O2O) user journey. The marketing spend has achieved an ROI of over 100 times.
Final Thoughts
Successful founders of consumer-serving start-ups are not only skilled at building incredible products but also at connecting with their customers. (Think Steve Jobs!) The founders did not follow the traditional marketing path in the above five cases. Instead, based on a deep understanding of customers (either from prior experiences or through fast learning by doing), they have all developed authentic and innovative ways to reach out to their target customers and leverage social platforms to amplify their voices.
If you are a founder of consumer-serving start-ups, don’t be slack about your marketing. If you raised a few million dollars from VCs and spent a significant chunk of the money on Facebook, Instagram, or Google, some of my VC friends said frankly that they would rather have bought stocks of Meta or Google.
Along the journey of building an early-stage start-up, there is no shortcut to finding your own unique way of marketing. At iFly.vc, we are always happy to hear your story and exchange thoughts. And, of course, if you want to share another inspiring story of a start-up’s marketing case, please let us know. We will compile and share them with our readers.
Warmest regards,
Han