Sofía Belenguer

So few DTC brands know how to grow rapidly while ALSO staying profitable. That’s why I love talking about WildBird. 10x revenue in two years with 17.5% profitablity. First, quick context on the brand: WildBird had been a prominent player for over a decade in the baby products space. Their early growth was driven by influencers and Instagram. So they didn’t have to spend on ads for their first 4 years. Their original product was a hit amongst moms, but they realized that alone wasn’t enough to sustain their growth. They needed to expand their product line and add more SKUs. With that expansion came a major challenge: how to scale ad spend while maintaining profitability. Here’s what we did: 1/ Built financial forecast With 2 years of data on revenue and costs, we created a 12-month forecast to hit 17.5% profitability every month. WildBird’s team took a top-down approach: - Assessed manufacturing capabilities (Can they produce enough?) - Defined profit goals (How much do they need to make?) - Mapped out unit economics (What are the costs?) We worked bottom-up: - Analyzed historical data (What’s been working?) - Evaluated unit economics per product (Which SKUs are most profitable?) - Identified the contribution margin needed to hit their targets 2/ Set cost-controlled campaigns We shifted their campaigns from Highest Volume to Cost Caps. This forced Meta to find profitable conversions, only spending when it could hit target CPA. We realized that one particular product, the Aerial Carrier, was the most profitable, even though it was much more expensive than the others. So, we focused ad spend on that and other high-performing SKUs and cut back on less profitable ones. 3/ Created a content flywheel WildBird’s founder, Nate Gunn, was hesitant to move beyond branded creatives. But we insisted and it paid off! We aimed for a balanced mix of: - 50% influencer-seeded content - 30% branded content - 10% user-generated content As a result, the brand hit 8 figures. We scaled their ad spend by 92.47% YoY while increasing new customer revenue by 115% and aMER by over 11%. We loved working with the brand – but the best part was that our financial forecasting process caught the eye of GW Partners, a strategic consulting firm independently engaged by WildBird. And here’s what the founding partner, Jason Somerville said: “Kynship has proven that it can operate with a high level of autonomy while adhering strictly to the targets that have been set. This is a huge benefit to WildBird because they can focus on managing the other aspects of the business without having to worry that the agency that is running their Meta strategy is going to go off script or underperform.” If you're a DTC brand spending over $20K monthly and want to scale without killing your margins, book a call with us. We'll show you exactly how to grow top-line revenue while hitting your bottom-line targets.

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Most Shopify store owners are missing out on potential sales without realizing it. Here's why: When returning visitors or referrals land on your homepage, they need to immediately see your active promotion. If they miss it — they won't take advantage of it, and your conversion rate quietly drops. The solution is simple: a bold, eye-catching banner that makes your offer impossible to overlook the moment someone arrives on your site. Don't make visitors search for your deals—put them front and center. What does your homepage communicate in the first 3 seconds?

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What do Tesla, The Coca-Cola Company & Nestlé know that most eCommerce founders don’t? They all use Shopify, because it’s not “𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗿.” It’s a growth engine built for scale. Yet most store owners still: ❌ Overcomplicate tech stacks ❌ Ignore conversion-focused design ❌ Use 10 apps for what Shopify can do natively Here’s what the best brands do differently 1. Build on a scalable foundation, not a patchwork setup 2. Focus on speed, UX, and trust 3. Automate retention with checkout, email, and personalization Your brand might be small today, but it deserves enterprise-level foundations. Shopify gives you that from day one What’s stopping you from switching? #Shopify #Ecommerce #BrandBuilding #ShopifyPlus #OnlineBusiness

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Eventbrite just got acquired for $500M. Meanwhile, a 6-person team is quietly eating their lunch. Here's what most people missed about Luma's rise (and what it means for you): News dropped yesterday: Bending Spoons (the Italian tech giant) is buying Eventbrite for $500M all-cash. Eventbrite raised over $300M, went public, and now they're selling at an 82% premium because the stock was tanking. The company acquiring them bought Evernote in 2022, laid off most of the US team, and "ruined the product" according to users. While Eventbrite was busy being a "real company," Luma did something different: The team: - 6 full-time people (3 engineers, 3 designers) - Raised only $3M in seed funding (2020) - Zero sales team - Zero marketing team - Grown to millions of users purely through word of mouth How they work: - Only 2 recurring meetings per week (15 minutes each) - Remote-first, async communication - No Slack, no corporate BS - Founders work 99% of days because they love what they're building (according to Victor) What Lu.ma didn't do: - They didn't raise $100M Series B - They didn't hire a VP of Sales - They didn't build "enterprise features" nobody asked for - They didn't spend on ads - They didn't do partnerships or live demos Instead, this is what they did: Ship a product so good that millions of people chose it organically. Lu.ma now dominates tech events in the Bay Area and NYC. Companies that switched from Eventbrite to Lu.ma: Alo, the NBA, Stripe. The lesson here is about focus and craft over scale and hype. Eventbrite (founded 2006, raised $300M+, went public): Selling for $500M in distress Lu.ma (founded 2020, raised $3M, 6 people): Quietly dominating the space Now with Bending Spoons taking over Eventbrite, we're about to see what happens when a cost-cutting conglomerate tries to "optimize" a struggling platform. I predict that more event organizers will quietly move to Lu.ma. The best products don't need to yell. They just need to work. Are you a Lumaer or Eventbritee? Would love to hear from you. Ed ❤️ Follow me for more stories on startups, community building, and products that actually matter.

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Founders are often surprised when I tell them that SaaS on the Beach is free. We’ve chosen to keep it free intentionally, and the main reason is simple: For this kind of event, the value is in the people in the room. We want to bring together 60 founders and CEOs who are building meaningful SaaS companies and who are in a position to really contribute to the conversations. And there just aren’t that many people like that. So adding a ticket price would add friction and would make it harder for us to achieve our goal. Of course, we can't do any of this without support. We’re able to do this because of a fantastic group of sponsors who believe in the format and have helped make it possible: Expandi, L40º Tech M&A, Pavilion, re:cap, Undertow, Valueships, zcaler, and ChartMogul. And they are aligned with how we want to run the event. We have a non-solicitation rule, and that applies across the board. The goal is not for people to show up and sell to each other. It’s to create an environment where people can learn, be open about what’s working and what isn’t, and build real relationships. Interestingly, that trust-first approach often does lead to business afterwards. But it works better when that’s not the immediate agenda. We still have a few seats available, so if this sounds like your kind of event, you can apply through the SaaS on the Beach website and join us on May 20-21 in Barcelona.

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Pax Historia is one of YC’s most popular in-batch startups this year with 2.7M monthly visitors. That figure makes it one of the highest-traffic in-batch companies in recent batches, with ~266 k visitors being the record from the previous YC F25 batch. Pax Historia is a browser-based, AI-powered grand strategy and alternate-history sandbox game which allows players to select any country at any point in history to rewrite events, with AI-driven, realistic reactions to player actions. Four other startups have also crossed the 100k monthly visitor mark: Didit, building the AI-native, developer-first identity verification platform; 21st, building tools that let developers remix UI components at speed; ARC Prize, the AGI-benchmark competition used by teams like OpenAI and Pocket, the company building custom hardware coupled with an AI note-taking app that turns conversations into structured action items. Here are top 10 most popular companies of YC W26: 1. Pax Historia Founders : Eli Bullock-Papa, Ryan Zhang 2. Didit (YC W26) Founders: Alberto Rosas, Alejandro Rosas 3. 21st Founders: Sergey Bunas, Serafim Korablev 4. ARC Prize Foundation Founder: Gregory Kamradt 5. Pocket (YC W26) Founders: Gabriel Dymowski, Akshay Narisetti 6. Bubble Lab (YC W26) Founders: Selina Li, Zach Zhong 7. Luel (YC W26) Founders: Inigo Lenderking, William Namgyal 8. Chasi (YC W26) Founders: Sarman Aulakh, Akash Pavan 9. CodeWisp (YC W26) Founders: Elvin Fu 10. Ressl AI (YC W26) Founders: Abhishek Eswaran, Arushi Gandhi

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Most small DTC brands waste ad dollars by blasting random creative. There’s a smarter way to test, even with $300k–$700k revenue. - Start with three core angles (problem, solution, lifestyle). Test one at a time. - Swap in big, clear visuals: not tiny tweaks. Fast testing is about obvious differences, not perfection. - Keep copy direct and short for testing. Fancy taglines come later. - Run everything against your best-performing ad. Winner faces the next challenger. - Track results weekly. Don’t trust gut, trust the numbers. Keep creative testing focused, fast, and simple. That’s how small brands play like the big dogs( without burning cash.)

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Scaled a DTC Brand from $5M to $8M/Month at 3x MER 💰💰 Using this Multi Funnel Scaling System 👇 Most brands think scale = more budget. Wrong. This brand was already doing $5M/month. But: - CAC kept rising - MER kept dropping - Google attribution was distorted - Meta was sending cold traffic straight to PDPs Performance looked “okay.” But true acquisition was broken. Here’s what actually changed everything: Meta became the demand engine - Persona-based segmentation (nurses, shift workers, plantar fasciitis, etc.) - Story-driven pre-landers - Pain-point education before selling CTR ↑ 30–40% Meta ROAS 1.5x → 2x Then Google was rebuilt around intent →Branded & non-branded separated → Intent clusters (standing all day, wide toe box, arch pain, etc.) → Margin-based ROAS targets → PMax with strict brand exclusions Google ROAS 1.5x → 3x Spend scaled $200K → $700K Microsoft added profit stability. YouTube expanded TAM. Feed engineering stopped margin leakage. Server-side tracking stabilized bidding. Result after 12 months: Revenue: $5M → $8M/month Ad Spend: $2.5M → $2.3M Blended MER: 2x → 3x - Higher revenue. - Lower spend. - Less volatility. We didn’t “scale ads.” We engineered the acquisition ecosystem. I turned this entire system into a step-by-step case study. Want it? → Like this post → Comment “CASE STUDY” I’ll DM it your way. P.S. Repost for priority access ♻️

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Daniel Fazio spends $300,000/month on paid ads to cold traffic. This is exactly how he gets strangers to pay him ridiculous amounts of money: 1. Cold traffic only buys tangible deliverables Warm audiences may buy vague transformations: • “I help you increase conversion rates” • “I help eCom brands scale” • “I do CRO” But cold audiences don’t. They only buy if the deliverable is concrete: • “I set up your cold email system” • “I build advertorial funnels” • “I build low-ticket product funnels for coaches” If a stranger can’t picture exactly what they walk away with in one sentence, the offer dies. 2. One-time payments reduce friction and drive conversions Cold traffic converts best on: • Low-ticket ($27–$97) • One-time builds Cold traffic hates commitments. So a one-time payment turns a risky decision into a “why not?” decision. 3. Guarantees work (but only if you require proof of action) Daniel tested this: • “Refund for any reason” = ~5% refunds • “Refund only if you prove you executed” (ex: send 100 cold emails) = 0% refund rate Because 95% of refund requests are fraud unless you require proof of action. A guarantee requiring buyers to do an action: • Assures real buyers • Filters non-buyers • Protects you from refund abuse Everyone wins. 4. Never push free lead magnets to cold traffic Daniel has tested free offers and $1-$5 offers. He found that: • Cold traffic + free = non-buyers • Cold traffic + even $1 = buyers who keep buying People who take freebies never become customers. And people who buy once (even $1) keep buying. 5. Movement creates opportunity (“Duck Luck”) Daniel shared a mental model: A duck looks calm above water, but underneath its feet are kicking nonstop. That kicking = action And action = luck The operators winning at cold offers aren’t the smartest. They’re the ones who: • Test ideas quickly • Ship messy • Ask “Who already knows the answer?” instead of researching forever • Stay in the game long enough to run into luck Meanwhile, many “smart” people stay stuck planning. Momentum beats IQ. 6. Hyper-specific offers outperform broad ones Many of the biggest cold-offer wins I see come from extreme specificity: • A 7-figure flute-instruction business • A piano-lesson info business • An agency doing paid ads only for a dog-brand ecommerce Why “niching” works: When your offer is extremely specific, the buyer instantly understands the outcome and doesn’t have to change anything about their current setup. The TL;DR If you want your offer to close cold traffic: • Sell a tangible deliverable (“You’ll get X system”) • Use one-time payments • Add a guarantee with requirements • Avoid free lead magnet ads for cold audiences • Niche down (so the buyer knows you only ONE thing and do it well)

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