EP207 - "Billion Dollar Brand Club" author Lawrence Ingrassia h Lawrence Ingrassia (ingrassia.larry@gmail.com) is the author of "Billion Dollar Brand Club: How Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, and Other Disruptors Are Remaking What We Buy". (Amazon Affiliate Link) In this interview with Larry, we discuss many of the brands covered in the book including Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, eSalon, Mohawk, Anker and Tuft & Needle, as well as many of the ecosystem companies that developed to enable the DTC movement including Facebook, Quiet Logistics and Locus Robotics. We discuss the trends of DTC companies turning to brick and mortar.  New ways to leverage data to identify product niche (what Larry called the "money-balling of DTC), and what the future may hold for DTC. We also cover events that happened after the book was published, including the FTC's blocking the Harry's acquisition, Caspers IPO, management challenges at Away. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 207 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Tuesday, February 11th, 2020. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Google Automated Transcription of the show Transcript Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 207 being recorded on Tuesday February 11th 20/20 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:40] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners Jason as you all know one of our favorite topics here on the show is the big move where brands are going direct to consumer and of course we spend a lot of time talking about digitally native vertical brands also known as DMV bees today on the show we are really excited to welcome Lawrence and Gracia. Larry has been a business journalist at top Publications including Wall Street Journal New York Times and LA Times Larry is the author of the book billion dollar brand Club how Dollar Shave Club Warby Parker and other disruptors are remaking what we buy the book was just published in January and we are really excited to have Larry on the show Welcome Larry. Larry: [1:20] Thank you guys. Jason: [1:22] Very we are excited to have you in the topic of your book is super relevant and pertinent to our audience so before we jump into it can you share with our audience a little bit about your background and how, you know you sort of came up to the point where you wanted to write a book. Larry: [1:41] Yeah you know I worked at newspapers for many years I was the senior editor really loved it retired a few years ago and when I retired and I wanted to delve deeply into something that I thought was interesting and I've been fascinated by the world of, entrepreneurs and startups and. I actually had a kernel of an idea when I retired so and it goes back to 2011 and that was before most people actually at even, I thought of the idea of direct to Consumer Brands and back then I heard about a company. Dollar Shave Club it was actually before it had the name Dollar Shave Club it was an idea of a friend of my daughters. Now I had been business journalists as as you guys noted for long time and eating had covered Gillette at one point. It is one of the most powerful Brands not just in the US but the world has great products as great advertising, and it's maintained a 70 percent market share for decades I think that's worth repeating because that's just unheard of in any consumer product 70%, market share in the US for decades and so I didn't tell Michael Dubin who was the founder of Dollar Shave Club but I thought to myself, this is the dumbest business idea I have ever heard. [3:03] You're going to compete with Gillette by selling razor