Shaan Puri had a great piece on marketing halfway through this podcast (33 min mark) where he takes you through the levels of marketing. His question - what are you actually selling? 

Shaan sees it as five levels:

• Level 1 Sell a Product - Don’t do this

• Level 2 Sell a Solution - Head and Shoulders

• Level 3 Sell a Lifestyle - Lululemon, Slack, this is how you create a category

• Level 4 Sell a Feeling - “I sell holy shit moments” - Dana White UFC President,  Disney = magical family experience, Louis Vuitton = status, Nike = greatness

• Level 5 Sell an Identity - Religions, political parties, tribe, label, purpose, sense of belonging

It got me thinking…What’s an example of a small business that succeeded because they launched at level 5? 

Dad Gang!

They’re full on level 5 and this is the reason they’ve succeeded with a simple product line of hats. 

I covered them last April (here). But if you missed that because you’re not an OG (don’t worry we still love you… just a bit less), let’s catch you up!

Three gents (Bart, Ejay and Grant) started in May 2022 with $750. They made 100 hats, sold out in 36 hours. 

Then they made 300 hats, sold them in a week. Repeat!

By August 2023 they had sold $1.5 million hats with what looks to be a 5x MER (marketing efficiency ratio = total revenue/total marketing spend), that’s good.  

One of the co-founders Bart Szaniewski was on a podcast a few days back and mentioned they’ve sold 110,000 hats. So that means in the last nine months they’ve sold approximately $2.4 million in hats and $3.8 million so far. This is from a brand that’s just two years old. And how? 

A level 5 approach. Bart and his co-founders Ejay and Grant used to text each other about all the challenges and high moments of fatherhood, they’d end the texts with “Dad Gang.” But in the media all you see is reference to dad bods and dad jokes.

They sold an identity and created a tribe. Their private Facebook group doesn’t look like most brands that sell hats. It’s a place to share those proud and special moments of fatherhood.

It’s even entered major league sports with a wide variety of athletes sporting Dad Gang hats in interviews and off the field. 

So don’t try and sell a solution. Sell an identity. 

Another interesting example I ran into today was Malbon, which was mentioned on the Operators podcast. It’s a golf brand that’s for the streetwear crowd. It’s cool. It’s expensive. And it’s apparently a nine figure business. 

There’s money everywhere. 

Business Ideas of the Week

• Barstool Sports for business (even if you don’t like the idea, the premise that people want personalities is valid)

• Website that tests coffee makers for micro plastics, then other appliances, then makes their own out of other materials

• TerraCycle is making luxury watches out of waste they clean off of Mount Everest, sustainability + luxury = status

• Sell restaurant reservations (that’s ridiculous), a kid made $70k last year doing it and there’s a marketplace for it

Business Success Stories of the Week

• Fascinating story about an app that did $40k in week three (33:15 minute mark)

• AudioPen hits $73k in two months

• Kanpai Candy is on track to hit $10 million in sales in its first year of business