#273 - Bill D'Alessandro - CEO of Natural Dog Company - The Great Pivot!
The Fort
How to Make a Pivotal Decision in Your Business
The company is selling seven brands keep one and go all in. "That takes a lot of wisdom," says CEO, who bought natural dog at the end of 2018. 'It's easier to kick the can down the road and not do it,' he adds.
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Bill D’Alessandro is the Founder and CEO of Elements Brands, one of the original holding companies for direct-to-consumer brands. He has acquired or founded more than a dozen businesses with over $100M of revenue and has realized seven exits in both DTC and SaaS. Bill is also the co-host of the Acquisitions Anonymous podcast.
On this episode Chris & Bill discuss:
➡️ Lessons learned from Element Brands and owning 6 businesses
➡️ His pivot to owning Natural Dog Company and why focus is powerful
➡️ How to decide between marketing & product innovation
➡️ Insights on the pet industry and why it's huge
Key Takeaways:
(3:13) - What was your strategy in 2016 and why have you totally flipped on it in 2023?
(4:57) - DTC is not a business model
(6:14) - Prioritizing marketing over product innovation
(10:36) - Was there ever a time when you thought this massive ad spend was unsustainable?
(12:23) - What’s happened in the past 18 months since Apple changed its advertising privacy model?
(14:33) - Putting brands on autopilot
(16:22) - When did you start to realize only one of your eight brands was worth working on?
(19:53) - How has your life changed after consolidating your focus?
(22:14) - Is there a way to make the Aggregator model work?
(25:46) - How big is the pet industry and where is its potential?
(26:59) - What are you going to do with this business now that you’re solely focused on the one instead of 8?
(30:14) - Why have you chosen to go into retail?
(33:18) - How do you get your product into 4-5k stores?
(35:55) - Is there any brand with leverage over Walmart?
(36:54) - What could make this move into retail go wrong?
(39:35) - What’s your approach to product packaging and design?
(42:45) - How did you arrive at the decision to launch 12-16 new products this year and how do you decide what they’ll be?
(46:32) - What needs to happen in order to get into Walmart and Target?
(48:59) - Would you get a higher valuation on your company if you’re in Walmart/Target and successful there?
(49:46) - What has podcasting done for you?
Additional Resources
👉 Bill on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillDA
👉 Natural Dog Company: https://naturaldog.com/
👉 Acquisitions Anonymous Podcast: https://www.acquanon.com/
👉 BillDA.com: https://billda.com/
👉 PickFU.com: https://www.pickfu.com/
➡️ Learn more about Xeal: https://xealenergy.com/
➡️ Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com
➡️ Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/
➡️ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/FortWorthChris
➡️ Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/
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