Trevor George

Just saved a DTC apparel brand in LA’s Garment District, from the Klaviyo/Gmail/abysss. If your email **deliverability** is broken, your flows don’t matter. A few big takeaways from the project: 1. Reputation before “better emails” Everyone wants higher-converting flows, but their domain reputation is quietly tanking in the background. Until you’re monitoring with tools like **Google Postmaster**, you’re basically flying blind. - Set up Postmaster - Verify your sending domain via DNS - Watch your **domain reputation**, spam complaints, and authentication over at least 60–90 days Only then can you really judge whether your flows and campaigns are “underperforming” or just not getting to the inbox. 2. $100K abandoned cart ≠ healthy automation This brand had about **$100K in abandoned carts** and only **$2–3K** converting from their flow. Completely typical pattern: - 2-3 abandoned cart emails - Discount in email 2 or 3 - Customer behavior gets trained: *“I’ll just wait for the coupon.”* Instead, split abandoned cart into: - New customers: education, trust, sizing, returns, quality. Less about discount, more about risk reduction. - Returning customers: these already trust you. Here, incentives + smart messaging can drive a fast, high-AOV conversion. 3. Scarcity beats lazy discounting This brand runs small cuts in specific sizes and colors-real scarcity. Use it. - “Your size is running low” - “Only a few units left in this color” Customers believe this far more than “Here’s another 10% off.” 4. Dynamic free shipping is a quiet conversion machine Static banners like “Free shipping over $199” are okay. But **dynamic messaging** wins: - “Your cart qualifies for free shipping” - “You’re $18 away from free shipping” Even more powerful: selectively **“upgrade”** customers in a tight band (e.g., $180–$199) to free shipping and frame it as an unlock/upgrade. 5. Onsite experiences can kill momentum They had 11 different popups running through a legacy tool. Some had big traffic and 0% conversion. Too many offers and overlays don’t just look messy— they teach customers to sit and wait for a better deal. If you’re a DTC brand wondering why your flows “don’t work,” it’s often not the copy or design. It’s: - Damaged sender reputation - Misaligned incentives in abandoned cart - Over-reliance on discounts - Messy onsite experience You fix those, and suddenly the exact same list and traffic start performing very differently. If you want a sanity check on: - Your domain reputation - Your abandoned cart flow structure - Or whether your popups are doing more harm than good send me a DM and I’ll point you to the highest-leverage fixes first.

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One trend I see coming up in the DTC space, especially with apparel brands, is Strategic Partnerships.... but let me explain why: 1. Acquisition costs are rising with no signs of slowing down. CAC's and CPM's keep moving up and first time profitability is pretty much non-existent 2. Lists & Existing Customers (Think Email/SMS) will become that much more important to rely on over the next few months. You've already paid to acquire these people, brands will need to utilize them more. So, what does this mean for standalone brands?? It means new customers will be harder to come by and ultimately revenue will fall. And this brings me to the point of Strategic Partnerships! Let's say Brand A is in the outdoor apparel space, decent list size of 300,000 existing customers. However, ads have dropped, new customers are down, and they are struggling. In comes Brand B... also in the outdoor apparel space, and a list size of 150,000. Their ads are also not working very well but existing customers keep asking for "New Products" from this brand I think it makes perfect sense for these brands to join forces and combine their existing customers together. It let's Brand A gain new customers from Brand B's list, and vice versa. Plus, customer acquisition costs would be much smaller doing it this way. And they're both in the same niche.... Not sure how the exact structure would look like, but I think it's going to be something you see more often than not in the coming months/years What do you think about this set-up? Let me know ⬇️

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Excellent point, Anthony. In my 28+ years in global apparel sourcing and merchandising, I’ve seen many brands invest heavily in demand creation but unintentionally ignore demand fulfillment discipline. The real competitive advantage today isn’t only creating demand — it’s ensuring the right product is available at the right moment with the right supply chain agility. That’s where strategic partnerships between brands and experienced manufacturing sources become critical. From the sourcing side in Bangladesh, when brands align early on core program planning, MOQ strategy, flexible capacity, and lead-time engineering, the so-called “availability gap” can turn into a margin and growth accelerator. Supply chain is no longer a backend function — it’s a revenue engine. Happy to exchange insights with founders and operators who believe availability is the new conversion rate. 🤝

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The most rewarding work we do as founders isn’t raising capital or signing clients. It’s helping kids in Detroit discover technology The next generation wants heroes 🦸🏾‍♂️ that look like, grew up like and think like them. As parents, we often complain that kids want to be YouTubers or TikTokers instead of NASA Scientists, Doctors etc. We complain that they stare at their phones instead of looking at or listening to us. But too often, we ask kids to dream big without showing up to support them. A student recently asked me: “What are professionals like you doing to make education in Detroit better for students like me?” I told them: “I help get Detroit high school robotics teams sponsored.” Michigan has over 600 FIRST Robotics teams, more than any other state. In Detroit, the Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation hosts 10 high school teams through the Robotics Engineering Center of Detroit, funded by The Ideal Group, Inc. This year, Team 4680, the Aztech Eagles from Cesar Chavez Academy High School, won at Wayne State University and qualified for the FIRST Robotics World Championships in Houston. They couldn’t afford to fly, so they took a bus. But they made it and had the time of their lives, thanks to support from local businesses. That’s why Eric C. from Detroit Manufacturing Systems (DMS), Alexander Montesinos and I spend our time outside of work supporting STEM students in Southwest Detroit, connecting them to the resources they need to compete with peers in better-funded districts. Their success is our success. We are building bridges between Detroit’s young inventors and local startups at Newlab like wheel.me and Penny Pickup at Kinetyc like LIVAQ, connecting students with internships where they can thrive. Kids who learn here, feel supported here, will want to work here. We are creating pathways for students to explore STEM, compete nationally, and see that careers in tech and manufacturing are not just possible, but are here right now. If you are interested in this initiative please reach out to me, Eric C. from Detroit Manufacturing Systems (DMS) or Alexander Montesinos Teams need build space and corporate sponsors. If you want to learn more about STEM opportunities in Metro Detroit, take a look at CODE313, Google Code Next Motor City Alliance Michigan Engineering Zone Black Tech Saturdays Michigan Economic Development Corporation The Michigan Office of Defense and Aerospace Innovation SHPE Detroit Professional National Society of Black Engineers Women In Defense.

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🚀 ID Ventures 📍 Offices: Detroit (United States) 📈 Investment Stages: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A 🧠 Focus: Software-B2B, Life Science, Advanced Materials and Manufacturing, Consumer Products, Business Services, Fintech/Insurance, Healthcare IT, Mobility, Adtech, Marketing 📖 ID Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in promising Michigan-based, high-tech startups. They provide capital and work with ecosystem partners to support companies in scaling their teams and securing follow-on funding. Their focus is on supporting Michigan's startup community and bolstering the state's economy. 🗓️ Founded: 2009 💼 Portfolio: Airspace Link, Functional Fluidics, Celsee, Inc., Covaron, Dynamo Metrics 🌐 Website: https://idventures.com 🔎 More at projectstartups.com #venturecapital #SoftwareB2B #Life #vcfunding #startup #vc

A lot of DTC brands regularly ignore multimillion dollar signals in their ad accounts. Here’s a scenario I’ve seen hundreds of times. You launch a new creative: - A few early purchases. - CPA looks amazing. - Below target. You think, “Finally. This is the one.” So you move it into your winning campaign and increase the budget. … aaaaaand it falls off a cliff. Or the opposite happens. An ad is burning $500–$700 at terrible ROAS but Meta keeps spending on it. Meanwhile, that winner from before is getting $5k per day. This feels broken. It’s not. Here’s what’s actually happening. When you see: - $100 spend - 8 purchases - $50 AOV You’re looking at a 4:1 ROAS and getting excited. But those 8 purchases tell you almost nothing about whether this ad will work at scale. Meta is not optimizing on your visible metrics. It’s optimizing on thousands of micro-signals you’ll never see. Things like: • Hook rate • Stop rate • Scroll-back behavior • Engagement velocity • Time-of-day response • Audience expansion potential That “bad” ad at 1.5x ROAS might be reaching higher-LTV buyers. Or a much larger audience pool. Or people who convert later through another channel. And that creative that only got $5 of spend? Meta likely saw early signals that said: this dies at scale. Meta is doing probabilistic forecasting. Here’s an example. If a video has a 40% hook rate, that means 40% of viewers watched at least 3 seconds. At a $10 CPM: 1,000 impressions = $10 That’s 400 three-second views. That’s 400 data points before you even get a click or see a purchase. And that’s just one signal that Meta is tracking. So what should you do differently? Stop running “testing” campaigns. Launch everything with: • Manual bids • Cost controls at your target CPA If Meta spends → that’s the success signal. If it doesn’t → your creative needs work. Let the algorithm be the test. This feels unintuitive, because advertisers have spent years learning to over-engineer the ad account. Simply loading up hundreds of ads and letting Meta cook feels risky. But it’s exactly how we scaled Purdy & Figg from $500k to $50M in just three years. It’s how we 10x’d Wildbird’s creative while maintaining a 17.5% net profit. And it’s how we’ve become specialists in helping DTC brands between $2M to $50M break through plateaus and scale rapidly AND efficiently. If your ad engineering is working for you, amazing, do your thing. If you came away from 2025 disappointed, our clients didn’t, and now would be a great time to chat with us about doing things differently in 2026.

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“If you’re not building for LTV, you’re building on a trapdoor.” Here’s the math DTC brands forget: CAC is only getting more expensive. Margins are only getting thinner. If your LTV:CAC ratio isn’t healthy, you’re not scaling—you’re bleeding. Because in DTC, profit doesn’t live on the first order. It lives in: 🔁 Retention. 🛒 Repeat purchases. ❤️ Brand loyalty. That’s why brands who obsess over retention strategies— email flows, loyalty programs, post-purchase experience— outlast the ones who only chase new customer traffic. Traffic is a sugar high. LTV is the business model.

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