Paul Michaux is the co-founder & head of product at Prose, the DTC customized hair care brand. Michaux founded Prose in 2017 but he built up his expertise and knowledge of product, branding, & consumer goods working at P&G, Christian Dior, and L’Oréal. Prose has achieved immense success and is a leader in hyper-personalization consumer goods. They’re backed by the some of the biggest names in VC like Insight Partners, Forerunner Ventures, and Lerer Hippeau Ventures. The Unique Strategy That Fueled Prose’s Growth20:38And it was like “No, no, it’s actually great to create friction. And some friction is sometimes useful, this is how we make a sale. And this is how we think of the time to actually close on the sale. As opposed to just click here, you didn’t understand anything about the product, but hopefully you’re going to buy it. So we spend a lot of time creating this funnel and creating the tech stack to, to make it workThe 2 Things Every Entrepreneur Needs To Know22:48 - 23:16And if I have advice for any entrepreneur or anyone thinking about who their consumer is. Like my first is not to listen to advice. That’s my first advice to everyone. But the second one is thinking about the channels and how you want to use It. Like maybe you’re not a direct-to consumer brand. Maybe you’re just like a very cool CPG brand, but you’re not direct-to-consumer. And maybe that’s okay.How This Famous Brand Pulled off The IMPOSSIBLE26:45 - 27:03I think a lot of CPG brands actually outsource their uniqueness. And then it’s hard to experience what makes you unique it’s just like, we all use the same lab, creating more or less the same product, we change the fragrance and the packaging but no, It’s our own chemist, it’s our own lab, it’s all our own tech platform. Again, not because we want it to be that but because we had to come up with a tech platform to create these customized products. And then overall it’s our own platform, our own data too.The Trick To Building Businesses That Last38:35 - 39:01The importance of a direct to consumer brand is not to sell one product and run away, right? Like no one can create a sustainable direct consumer brand with just one sale. It’s the LTV. And if you’re serious about the LTV, of course, you have the retention team. And of course, it’s what we have. And we think about like lifecycle marketing and all these things. But also like just really using the feedback that you have from your customer into the product is so important. This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours. Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox?Check out our newsletter hereHave any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?Shoot us a DM; we'd love to hear from you.Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTok Paul Michaux - Co-Founder & Product ProseRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel