The Shopify Growth Show Why I'm Investing $25,000 in this Startup (#7)
Apr 29, 2021
18:07
After working with startups for 10 years, I’m getting into the check writing game. Here is why I'm doing angel investing:
- What is Angel investing?
- My investment advantage: Not the market, not real estate, startups?
- Why I like Bala Nursing Shoes:
- Riches in Niches
- Product is a Painkiller (and not a vitamin)
- Not marketing to everyone (Know their persona)
- Proactive buyer (not passive)
- Community with high referral potential
- High AOV
- High Repeat purchase (surprisingly, this one is better than I thought)
- Validated a Product
- Growth w/ no Ads
- A+ team
- My Concerns:
- Product Quality: The first 10,000 pairs of shoes arrive from China during a pandemic. They have been unable to have their own people on the ground to inspect the shoes.
- New Brand: Bala is doing everything for the first time and they have no trust from customers. Plus, they’re going head to head against big brands with big budgets.
- P&L Concerns: On average, the shoe industry has a high return rate of 20%. How will these guys fair? This business is very heavy on working capital and mismanagement of cash flows can kill growth and a business.
- Consumer Growth: Can they diversify their audience from the NurseLifeRN partnership and find scalable channels that are ROI positive? Repeatable and scalable growth only gets more and more expensive as companies get bigger.
- Team: This team has no startup experience. Can they handle “the unknown unknowns” while working in a remote world? We shall see.
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