Billion Dollar Brand Club

by Lawrence Ingrassia

A leading business journalist takes us inside a business revolution: the upstart brands taking on the empires that long dominated the trillion-dollar consumer economy.

Dollar Shave Club and its hilarious marketing. Casper mattresses popping out of a box. Third Love’s lingerie designed specifically for each woman’s body. Warby Parker mailing you five pairs of glasses to choose from. You’ve seen their ads. You (or someone you know) use their products. Each may appear, in isolation, as a rare David with the bravado to confront a Goliath, but taken together they represent a seismic shift in a business model that has lasted more than a century.

As Lawrence Ingrassia--former business and economics editor and deputy managing editor at the New York Times--shows in this timely and eye-opening book, a growing number of digital entrepreneurs have found new and creative ways to crack the code on the bonanza of physical goods that move through our lives every day. They have discovered that manufacturing, marketing, logistics, and customer service have all been flattened—where there were once walls that protected big brands like Gillette, Sealy, Victoria’s Secret, or Lenscrafters, savvy and hungry innovators now can compete on price, value, quality, speed, convenience, and service.

Billion Dollar Brand Club reveals the world of the entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and corporate behemoths battling over this terrain. And what fun it is. It’s a massive, high-stakes business saga animated by the personalities, flashes of insight, and stories behind the stuff we use every day.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Startup, Buisness, Entrepreneurship, Business Leadership

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 2020

Reviews

[CatReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lawrence Ingrassia is a business journalist who worked at the New York Times for many years; I'm familiar with him through his 2024 part-memoir, part-medical thriller book, A Fatal Inheritance: How a Family Misfortune Revealed a Deadly Medical Mystery.

In 2020's Billion Dollar Brand Club, Ingrassia writes about direct-to-consumer disruptor brands who largely got their start online in the 2010s and found and marketed to customers via social media platforms -- brands most Americans in the 2020s have probably heard of, like Casper mattresses, Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker glasses, Glossier beauty, Third Love bras, etc. Keeping in mind that the business landscape (especially for startups) is volatile, some of this information is out-of-date as I was reading this book in January 2025. However, what's clear is that the traditional brick & mortar Goliath businesses who haven't adapted or pivoted in today's market will continue to be prone to disruption by this up-and-coming Davids, to the net benefit of consumers looking for more customization and lower prices. I found this book well-written, engaging, and would recommend it to those who gravitate toward "the rise of"/"the fall of" business genre books.

Further reading: disruptors
Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier by Marisa Meltzer | my review
The Everything War: Amazon’s Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power by Dana Mattioli | my review
Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business by Frances Frei and Anne Morriss | my review -- dated, but many of the companies Ingrassia cites follow these formulas

My statistics:
Book 37 for 2025
Book 1963 cumulatively

[Miebara Jato · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is a compilation of internet businesses started by obscure entrepreneurs. The model of these businesses is direct-to-consumers. And they take up the industry leaders in their game. Because they are industry leaders, the big guys never take theses new entrants seriously until it's too late. I admire America. Indeed, it is a country of possibilities. Many of these startups will fail if they were started in places like Nigeria, etc because the infrastructure and the venture capital support is not available.

[V · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

Lots of stories about so-called disruptors in the realm of consumer products, a few about meta-disruptors servicing the needs of these direct-to-consumer startups.

While each story was, in its details, different from the others, the general storyline was-- someone from outside an industry notices a problem, has the audacity to start a company to address the issue using new(er) technology and internet-based business practices, makes bank while the old guard in the industry is slow to catch on. The implicit message was something like "serves them right for their hubris" and "hooray for these new guys for figuring out how to do this better."

I was disappointed that there was no real discussion about how the disruption of industry is painful for the people being replaced and what this massive shift in the way we buy goods and services means to the overall labor force and society in general. Not all in-person shopping experiences were as traumatic as buying a mattress or a bra: for example, small brick-and-mortar bookstores were among the first victims of the online revolution. And, although this book was about the market for retail goods, other forms of "disruption" are catastrophic, e.g. the effect that the likes of Airbnb have had on the real estate market. Disruption produces unintended consequences and it would have been a more honest book if Ingrassia had more closely examined the darker side of disruption rather than only writing an homage to several companies selling things in new ways.

[Serge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on the rise of DTC subscription e-commerce. There were so many companies with which I was unfamiliar as I am not their typical demographic and am not the target of their social media advertising campaigns. I was surprised by the number of Wharton grads who have found a profitable niche in this personalization market (Warby Parker, Away, etc..) Also surprised by the number of multinationals like Henkel and Unilever scooping up startups as fronts for their legacy business to mitigate disruption of DTC. Finally, for all of my students who always list supply chain and logistics as their intended majors, I was shocked to learn about the seemingly endless opportunities of last-mile shipping and flexible warehousing. Mohawk appears to be the highest risk and highest reward logical extension of this push for customization and quick turnaround. Value as Ingrassia points out trumps quality many times. Great read!

[Howell Murray · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most attractive idea here is that the world of the internet today makes it possible to start businesses that challenge very big and successful companies that dominate their industries. This is especially interesting at a time when multiple acquisitions have left many industries with only a few companies. I found the book a bit of a slog at times, because the author goes into a lot of detail. But that’s because he covers the hell out of his topic. People interested in the retail industry will probably love it.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably closer to 3.75 stars, only because I went into the book with an existing knowledge of these brands and their "rags to riches" stories (which is a focus for the majority of this book). That said, it was written well & compelling in its own way.

[Michael Duyvesteijn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve just started a D2C business in socks and this book couldn’t come at a better time. 🙂 It’s an excellent collection of startup coming-of-age stories taking advantage of behemoth inaction towards e-commerce in the 2010s. Like how Gillette scuffed at the poorer quality of Dollar Shave Club’s razors while completely underestimating the convenience a clean shave on home-delivered subscription basis would bring to the average Joe.

I’ve picked up quite a few great takeaways from the book like how fast shipping and above-and-beyond customer experience contribute to building reputation. Or how 30-day trials like bra brand ThirdLove made consumers buy into a product they weren’t as confident in purchasing online. It’s also clear that the future of D2C is omnichannel - Digital brands eschewing retail at first, found out soon enough that retail still counts, whether that’s through improving the connection with the customer or overall sales.

The book is definitely very US focused and it almost seems like every upstart in the book magically cracks the code of industry disruption. But that’s balanced out with excellent writing and some failures of Tomorrow Sleep (mattresses) and smart luggage startups Raden and Bluesmart.

[Rūta Putnikienė · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tikrai nebloga apžvalga pastarųjų metų JAV startupų, apie tai, kaip jie į rinką paleidinėjo fizinius produktus privatiems klientams ir challengino įsigalėjusius monstrus. Tarp skirtingų startupų istorijų gražiai atsiskleidė juos įsukančiųjų charakteriai, verslo sėkmės logika, investuotojų mąstymas, kintantys skaitmeninio pasaulio kontekstai (pvz išsireklamuoti fb 2016 buvo visai kas kita nei dabar). Smagu buvo aptikti knygoje gausiai cituotą lietuvį.

Knygą gavau “Lūžio taške”, kur autorius buvo keynote speakeris. Ir tada, ir dabar knygoje visgi pasigedau kažkokio gilesnio užkabinimo ir įžvalgų.

Šalutinis knygos efektas - visus aprašytus verslus googlinau, ir kai kas tikrai užkabino. Jaučiu, pirksiu:)

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good storytelling about the direct-to-consumer brands that are changing the marketplace and upending companies like P&G.

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a little too just-so in its narrative and I found myself consistently frustrated at the lack of discussion around sheer luck vs. survivorship bias. That said, I enjoyed reading about the companies themselves.

[Jacky Liang · Rating 1 out of 5]

I will begin by saying I am half way through this book and I do not enjoy it. The author focuses too much on the surface-level parts of building a D2C company and not the actual parts that are difficult and have substance.

Here is what I learned from reading this book:

- If you weren't from Princeton, Harvard, Wharton, some Ivy League, Bridgewater, or any top 5 consulting firm, don't bother starting a company or billion dollar brand. The author seems to have a very very strange obsession over introducing the founder's shiny backgrounds from prestigious and privileged backgrounds. I am not exaggerating when I say the number of times "Wharton" gets mentioned is more than 30-40 times. I'm not saying that coming from Wharton or any privileged background makes you bad - but you start to really get tired hearing about privileged backgrounds after the first few times. Except the author does not refrain from it at all, and instead, doesn't stop.

Chapter 7 "Eyes on the Customer" is absolutely the worst offender of this. It seems Warby Parker only hires prestigious Ivy League educated upper class kids. This is so far from the truth of the majority of startups where founders often have humble beginnings NOT from privileged backgrounds.

- If you don't have a Rolodex of connections that can angel invest $100,000 into your brand before you even have any revenue, don't bother. The first few chapters focuses on how many of these D2C brand founders all seem to know each other and can just pull funding out of nowhere. Oh did I mention that they're all from Wharton so they can tap into their Whartonite network? Well whether this is true or not, that is how the founders are portrayed. Warby Parker's founder was from a former Wharton that lost his $800 dollar pair of glasses. The bra brand was from former MIT. Then there's the Harvard Law School drop outs. Oh how ostentatious to read.
- A very surface level of the operational building of a startup. The author himself (not a founder or investor) is a curator of the most exciting parts of building a startup, not the actual difficulties or intricacies. He uses sweeping generalizations on many parts of the story.
- Focus on marketing and advertising. The recurring themes
- Billion dollar brands don't have to care about managing their growth and funds because they have millions poured into them like fuel. Which is what this book focuses on - the most well-funded startups on earth
- Obsession on valuation over substance. The startups chosen as case studies here are generally brands being built that are unattainable to the laymen because of the sheer amount of venture capital funded into them. It includes successes and now-failures such as Casper or Away. While if you're not part of the Silicon Valley ecosystem, showing off your valuation and amount of capital raised is very impressive, it is only a small part of what makes a successful startup.
- Most billion dollar brands are actively making the social media platforms worse. They focus on ads that litter your feed with clickbait, substanceless short videos, insanely detailed targeting, profile building, and more.

If you are reading this book, do not expect the following:
- How to actually build a good and reliable brand that lasts the test of time.
- How to build a good product. The book focuses more on the selling aspect (the marketing, the advertising, the numbers, the prestige, etc) than the logistics and fulfillment that is a very core part of building a D2C brand.
- Don't expect to be able to follow in the footsteps of the founders because you are not from Wharton or whatever privileged background most of these founders come from. Did I mention the author name drops Wharton a LOT? You'll read that word so many times that you'll start wondering if he was paid to name drop them.

The best chapter in my opinion was the chapter regarding eSalon, which actually goes more in-depth into product development and the operational side of things. It is a shame that the other chapters aren't like this.

I really think this book had potential and I came into it hoping to learn something. But the way the author portrays the founders with all the non-stop credential flexing just makes me dislike the brands, dislike the way they creepily target customers using algorithms, feel a disdain towards the founders because of how they are able to build startups because of their backgrounds, and more.

I will still finish the book, but I do not feel like my opinion will change.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 rounded down. Fascinating book! I've used Dollar Shave Club for years, but was also introduced to some brands I did not know. A wide variety of interesting tales about startups and how they succeeded, or in some cases didn't.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interested in how disruptive start-ups are capturing consumer hearts, minds, (and wallets) while turning the establishment upside down? Learn how some innovative underdogs became highly valued unicorns while others had missteps that sealed their fates. Ingrassia shares captivating stories of entrepreneurship and brand marketing with prose that maintains reader interest and sparks the dreamer in us all.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well done. You can get much of this info elsewhere (e.g. podcasts focused on founders), but the author is very thorough and this includes more detail than you may get elsewhere about how each business was created, and it puts lots of info in one excellent source. This is not a how-to book, although you can find some pointers and ideas via examples presented; maybe some inspiration too if that's what you're seeking. Otherwise, this a bit like the NPR show How I Built This in writing. Good stuff, very well reported and researched if you're curious how some disruption takes place.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

[Greg Kopstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

In today’s era of direct to consumer brands and mystical unicorns of millennial business, this book is definitely a business manual for our time. But it’s more of a good concept, then good execution. It has a lot of potential, but it is too scattered to do justice to any specific brand. There should be standalone chapters to just a handful of success stories - billion dollar brands - and maybe one or two studies of failures. Perhaps some brands fail because there’s too much competition for attention, which is also what happens with this book. It’s a fine read, but not a true business biography of billion dollar brands.

[Jade]

read for novel research

[Anandh Sundar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book deserves a 5* because instead of reproducing success stories of the Dollar Shave Club and other D2C consumer startups, it also gives the failture/underplayed stories of the few others in the segments of luggage, matresses, as also the listed player who sells on Amazon. Some notes from the book which explains how the confluence of lean manufacturing(and small lot size), Alibaba, Ad-tech and 'Just good enough' helped wins, but why future will be hard

(a) It was so successful that it couldn’t fully comprehend the disruption that could be caused by a start-up with a “good enough” product using the internet to level the playing field and change the rules of the game. Gillette may offer the best shave, Pakman thought to himself, but Dollar Shave Club was offering the best value.
(b) Companies have outsourced production for decades, but in recent times, the global supply chain has become more diverse and sophisticated than ever. An abundance of potential manufacturing partners, many with excess capacity, can be found in Asia, the shop floor to the world. If anything, the challenge isn’t so much finding a supplier as it is sifting through dozens of possible suppliers to find the right one.
(c) As trade boomed and more competitors emerged to produce goods for just about every industry, ambitious suppliers looked for a way to stand out. Today, if you want help designing your product, Asian factories can do that. Because they have been manufacturing so many products for years, at times on contract for big brand names, the best offshore outsourcing companies have built up knowledge about materials and parts, learning over time what distinguishes a higher-quality widget from one of lower quality. They have also developed engineering expertise and can suggest ideas to improve the design of the products they make. That way they can charge more or get more business, or both.
(d) And as factories have become more automated, many suppliers have instituted lean manufacturing techniques that enable them to switch production lines in and out much more quickly and with less downtime. This means they can operate profitably on lower volumes—which means they are more willing to accommodate smaller orders while keeping their plants operating at a high capacity. Many Asian manufacturers that might have insisted on a minimum order of twenty thousand units will now accept an initial order of only a few thousand.

(e) Information on suppliers that once was available only to big companies because it was buried in raw customs import data that was hard to access and decipher has now been democratized. “Smaller companies didn’t used to have market intelligence,” says Rogers from Panjiva. “Now they do.”
(f) Most advertisers in Facebook’s early days were big corporations that treated the platform as just another advertising channel, much like TV, to increase brand awareness. It wasn’t yet recognized as an ideal venue for “performance marketing,” that is, funneling in new customers and driving sales growth. Facebook then began introducing a series of features to make it easier for advertisers to identify people who weren’t already customers but who demographically fit the profile of potential customers.
Both Google and Facebook require advertisers to place bids for keywords. The winning bid is based on a formula that includes the amount of the bid and the likelihood that someone will click on the ad. The critical difference when it comes to advertising, Shah says, is that Facebook is an audience platform, while Google is an “intent” platform. Google is great at identifying people who enter a search term—that is, those who actively express an intent or an interest in something. Facebook is better at identifying a target audience, people who might be interested in something but haven’t yet expressed that interest online.
“With Google, you can go find a thousand people who might be searching for a master’s in teaching today,” he explains. “But on Facebook you can find tens of thousands of people who identify themselves in their profiles as substitute teachers who might be thinking about getting an advanced degree but haven’t searched yet. That was the insight. You can target the right people, catch their eye, and sign them up.”

[Brat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stumbled upon this book in an article and immediately acquired it. This was the thing I have been wanting to understand – how can a small upstart launch a consumer brand and take over the big giants that have painstakingly built a brand and a business around it for so many decades?
The book has some wonderful case studies and explains the story behind the rise of many of these companies and how they have disrupted across so many categories. Starting off with Dollar Shave Club, to multiple mentions of warby parker, the book covers a host of startups across the spectrum of mattresses, personal care, etc..
The simple modus operandi of each of these upstarts has been – target a corporate giant’s weakness (high prices or inconvenience or a stodgy image) with the right message, the right product value creating a new brand virtually overnight.
Most, or rather all of these new age companies have leveraged on the breaking barriers of entry – both in terms of physical availability (by going online and directly servicing the demand) and mental availability (leveraging social media and other digital means avoiding big spend TV campaigns). . One other thing that has helped these startups is the fact that manufacturing expertise has become just another commodity for sale.
The have managed to move from branding to bonding directly with the consumers.
An insightful sentiment echoed through the book, and articulated well is – “They’re not going to do what we are doing as they cant get out of their own fucking way. They cant cut prices, because theres the pressure of delivering earnings for the next quarter. And they don’t want to go online and screw up their relations with retailers”. Summarizes the dilemma faced by big corporates perfectly.
One other thing these startups have shown is that you don’t need innovation around what you sell. You can succeed with innovation around the way you sell it.
Some pointers that VCs look at while evaluating a business model disrupting a category is –
1. Where the dominant players sell larger through retailers
2. Depend on broadcast advertising
3. Thus, don’t have a direct connection with customers
4. Products with robust profit margins where the market leader would be reluctant to cannibalize its own business
5. “Sum-Zero” products – where a customer buying your product doesn’t buy your competitors product
There is a case study of a company – serta simmons – a bedding company, where the CEO takes the bold step of forming a subsidiary within its own company to compete with itself and all other startups. It failed, discouraging many other established companies from taking that route vis-à-vis the inorganic route of buying out a startup.
While most of the cases mentioned here are of upstarts creating a brand in a category wining directly with consumers, there is another company Mohawk using an artificial intelligence machine (called AIMEE – AI Mohawk E-commerce engine) which scans through oodles of data on amazon and recommends which product category is ripe for disruption with a commodity in that space. Alarm Clocks, small electronics, and such kinds are then contracted to a manufacturing facility in China and with little marketing push, the said product becomes the top seller offering the best value. They rely only on using ratings and reviews and completely ignores the process of brand building.
Overall, I found the book quite informative with the diverse case studies and the recency of the book. One thing that I was hoping but missed in the book was maybe a chapter on what is ticking for these companies, why is it happening now versus anytime in the history and the fundamentals behind such a trend across categories.
Would still recommend this book to anyone keen to understand the impact e-commerce has and is bound to have, and the new reality of Brand building in the consumer space.

[James Lovaas · Rating 5 out of 5]

In what seems like a moment, we move from the totally new to the familiar. For example, the touchscreen phone went from an option for those that wanted the newest gadget to an integral part of our daily lives over a period of just a few years. Similarly, there are millions of people across the globe that have become accustomed to ordering products as diverse as razor blades, mattresses, contacts and even eye glasses from online manufacturers and stores. Billion Dollar Brand Club introduces us to several of the innovators that have changed the way we shop.

Ingrassia starts his book with the unlikely story of a razor subscription service and their viral videos. Dollar Shave Club began when Michael Dubin stumbled upon the opportunity to sell surplus razor blades. He didn’t promise the best razors available. He didn’t promise new technology. Dollar Shave Club would simply provide an affordable product in the most convenient method possible.

Readers will also meet the founders of Warby Parker – four Wharton students that believed there had to be a better way to shop for and attain new glasses. In this case, students David Gilboa and Jeffrey Raider share their frustration at the hassle and expense of replacing expensive glasses. This is further exacerbated by their knowledge that glasses were being produced at far lower prices within feet of the expensive brands.

This book goes on to describe businesses ranging from custom bras to hearing aids to mattresses delivered directly to your door. Each business case is an interesting story in and of itself. Ingrassia describes the business settings, the context, the personalities, and the journeys. Some were immensely successful and others remain to be seen.

If all this book did was introduce us to innovative companies, it might be worth a quick read – perhaps from the library or a cursory overview at Amazon.com. However, this book does more than just provide an introduction or review. This book helps us to understand the thought processes and innovative nature of these brands. The founders and owners have helped to re-shape the way we shop for mattresses, glasses and so much more. They can also help us to think differently about how we serve our customers or clients. That may be the most helpful part of this book – understanding how different businesses have identified the needs and pain points of their customers. In the midst of what we do, we can often just continue to refine our system of serving customers within the framework that we believe works best. However, by looking at other industries and processes, we may find ways to better serve our market and grow our business. We might also identify new opportunities and new markets. 2020 may be the most volatile year many of us have encountered. These lessons might just help us to navigate the tumultuous waters in our future.

[Thanh Nhàn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cuốn sách cực kì informative về sự phát triển mạnh mẽ của DTC (direct-to-consumer) e-commerce.

Mới đầu nghe mấy brand trên bìa sách thì thấy lạ vì chủ yếu họ hoạt động/target khách hàng ở Mỹ, đọc xong thì shock sương sương về cách các founders xây dựng và kiếm hàng tỉ tỉ đô từ personalized market. Và cái hay ho nhất đó là các các tập đoàn lớn như P&G và Unilever đối ứng với các brands này như thế nào khi nó đe doạ tới mô hình kinh doanh của họ 😉

Lâu lắm mới lại có cuốn khiến mình tâm đắc thế này đây 😀

Principle #1 — Sell direct to consumers. The success of Dollar Shave Club showed that by targeting a corporate giant's weakness, a start-up with the right product, the right amount of added value, and the right message can create a new brand almost overnight. You don't even have to invent a better product or having lots of money for advertising to succeed. You just have to align with what customers are thinking.

Principle #2 — Find stale categories. Warby Parker is a great example of what direct-to-consumer brands offer. It succeeded because the usual category leaders sell largely through retailers and depend on broadcast advertising. That means they don't have a direct connection with customers. Furthermore, if the category leader enjoys large profit margins, they will be less likely to cannibalize their own business model and compete. These are the sweet spots for new DTC brands.
Principle #3 — Use data to learn. Most people assume direct-to-consumer brands are all about the digital distribution channel, but that's not actually correct. These brands use data to connect and listen to their customers, to bond with them, to learn what they want, and then to find ways to work with customers going forward. "The algorithm is always right" is the mantra of billion-dollar brand builders.

Principle #4 — Never lose sight of the customer. In what is almost a classic Back to the Future moment, many direct-to-consumer brands are now opening physical retail stores, despite them proclaiming physical retail is so last century. The difference is these stores are now used to gather customer data which is then applied to increasing online direct-to-consumer sales. It's about making connections rather than sales. The legacy retailers were sitting on a goldmine of customer data they never took advantage of.

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[Karen Hewitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Billion Dollar Brand Club" by Lawrence Ingrassia takes readers on a captivating exploration of the rise of several iconic direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands that have achieved remarkable success. With its in-depth analysis and compelling narratives, this book earns a solid four-star rating.

One of the book's strengths is its in-depth research and storytelling. Ingrassia provides readers with a behind-the-scenes look at the creation and growth of companies like Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, and Casper. The detailed accounts of these companies' journeys offer valuable insights into the world of entrepreneurship and branding.

Moreover, the book highlights the disruptive nature of DTC brands in traditional industries. It underscores the power of innovation, customer-centricity, and digital marketing in reshaping the consumer landscape. Ingrassia effectively demonstrates how these companies challenged established players and disrupted age-old business models.

Additionally, "Billion Dollar Brand Club" delves into the challenges and obstacles these companies faced on their path to success. It explores the complexities of scaling a business, managing supply chains, and navigating regulatory hurdles. These real-world challenges add depth and authenticity to the narrative.

Furthermore, the book encourages readers to reflect on the changing dynamics of consumer behavior and the evolving retail landscape. It prompts individuals to consider the factors that contribute to the success of DTC brands and what traditional businesses can learn from their strategies.

However, some readers may find that the book's focus on a select group of DTC brands limits its scope. While the featured companies are undoubtedly influential, a broader exploration of the DTC landscape and a more diverse set of case studies could have added depth and variety to the book.

In conclusion, "Billion Dollar Brand Club" provides a captivating and informative journey into the world of direct-to-consumer brands and their impact on traditional industries. Its in-depth research, compelling storytelling, and exploration of the challenges faced by these companies make it a worthwhile read. While it focuses on a specific group of brands, its insights into entrepreneurship, innovation, and disruption justify a solid four-star rating. Highly recommended for readers interested in the business of branding and the changing dynamics of consumer markets.

[Karin Künnapas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gave a quite in depth look to some of the new disruptors in straight to consumer products and how they have changed the lives for big brand manufacturers. This covered everything from razor blades, bras, eyeglasses to even mattresses.

There were many stories I had no idea about and I liked how sometimes these have left the feeling that they were an overnight success (i.e Dollar Shave Club and the viral video), then here Lawrence actually goes into the backstory and how long it took to get to this product and this success.

There were two things that bothered me a bit though. Firstly, in quite a few cases, after the initial idea it was said how they raised 200k, 1.2m, 3.5m like that was such an easy thing. I know that money was and has been more easily available in Silicon Valley, but I just felt that it was understated how gruesome this process can actually be and even if you have a great product it doesn't mean you'll succeed.

Secondly, I think the stories could have been shorter to still get to the same point. There was quite a bit if name-dropping that didn't give that much additional information.

Anyway, to summarize, if you're into startups then definitely read this one. You'll learn some great stories, get more insights how the consumer product market has changed and maybe even will get inspiration to tackle some category yourself.

[Izalette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it’s really a good compilation of all the big direct-to-consumer brands we have seen 2010-2018.

Dollar shave club was very good at marketing even tho their product wasn’t as good as Gillette but good-enough. They spent $$$ for a Super Bowl Ad and it worked. Finally in 2017, Gillette cut prices by 12%. It took out ads in Wall Street Journal stating that “You said you wanted the best shave at lower prices. Done.” Gillette had the chance to acquire or invest into Dollar Shave Club at a very low price. The price reduction ended up costing Gillette more than USD 100 million a year in lost revenue.

quip toothbrush. They sold at target but not the brush refills so people will go to their website later.

Mohawk leverages Amazon data to develop products and does dropshipping.

Third love was disruptive in using Computer vision app for measurements and they also used Facebook ads to increase sales. Stitch fix used predictive analytics for recommend clothing.

Casper vs Tufts and Needles

Away managed to gain luggage market share by adding a battery. Raden was on Oprah list, which was a great marketing strategy but still lost to Away in long-term.

[Thk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glad to have picked this up a the local library (thanks again for investing in such up-to-date books).

I had read previously of Dollar Shave Club and Casper through Businessweek/Fortune, but had no idea how developed such startups have become in recent years, and how they had disrupted the various business sectors and upending common business wisdom.

The author provides an expansive and comprehensive view of the various startups, how they had utilised the rise of the internet, the commodification of online sales, the growing sophistication of the global supply chain to answer the needs of consumers. This underlines the importance of customer satisfaction, the need to be nimble to respond, and ultimately that the consumer can do with "good enough" as long as the proper branding and relationships between customers and companies are built.

The writing is easy to read, but belies the skill of the author in still delivering the necessary details and narratives to understand the inner workings of such innovative startups.

[T. Laane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book full of underdog stories against the big players who did not act before it was too late. And even so, they can not go against the direct-to-consumer brands that are cheaper anyway AND manage to get a better bonding experience with the client. “The world has moved from BRANDING into BONDING“. But even the success stories in the book make it look like hard work (and there is NO chance without investors) - and of course then there are all the failed companies in the book that only get to show hard work, not end success. Get promoted by Oprah (smart luggage)? Doesn’t matter if you don’t have enough stock and Your business will still die when airplane flight regulations change. I guess this book affirms my belief that this road is not the path to happiness. When the process is not something You are loving, then DO NOT do it with the goal of big success someday. Because that rarely happens. And I am loving my process right now, so the book affirms me to keep the pace and culture that I like with no sacrifices to “big success”.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I don’t work in this space but D2C brands have fascinated me since Dollar Shave Club came on the scene, and have since watched them take over Target and the mall. I reference these brands frequently in the work my agency does for startups so it was great to get a deeper insight into HOW these brands scale.

The book tells stories of brands like Warby Parker and Away, and the technology and venture capital firms underpinning them like Forerunner VC or Locus Robotics. It also weaves in insights into how brands do what they do. Overall it strikes a good balance between the both, not being overtly journalistic, while not over-explaining key points.

My only wish is that the author found a slightly better way to weave together the themes. Each chapter had a story or two and a principle hidden amongst them, but between chapters it was difficult to tell how they connected.

[Huy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Billion Dollar Brand Club has many great stories of how each brand disrupted the industries they were in. I thought the stories were amazing and each story gave me an idea on what to implement for my own business to be successful.

I give it 4 stars though because it felt like the stories went back and forth too much. Referencing other companies when it was on another. That’s my only criticism, other than that it was great!

My biggest takeaway from Direct to Consumer is that customer experience is everything. They shared many stories on what these brands did to keep customers happy, gain their trust, etc. It’s extremely relevant for my company as we are going through the same process.

If you are looking for a book to learn more about E-Commerce and some marketing strategies these companies used to grow their brand to that billion dollar mark, you should definitely give this a read

[Jennifer Sung · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a fun read on the origins and evolution of some beloved DTC brands taking over industry goliaths in sectors that have seen little to no innovation in decades. From Dollar Shave Club to Casper to Glossier, the author takes you through the journey of these new age brands and the VC investors and ecosystem players that have been pivotal in their story.

The author provides a comprehensive view of how leading DTC ventures leveraged social media, growing sophistication in global supply chains, diminishing brand loyalty and strong customer focus to service the needs of consumers. Its not a "how-to" book but you may find some inspiration in these stories. There are plenty of podcasts, blogs and articles on this subject but this book stands out because its well reported and very thorough.

[Madhukara · Rating 5 out of 5]

In our day to day life, we use products from a dozen different brands which are mostly bought online. We rarely stop to think it's a very recent phenomenon and there was a different world where things were not online.

This book shows how direct to consumer revolution started in 2010 and how different companies started changing the way we buy things. Every chapter talks about different companies and different aspects of the business. Each chapter is short and to the point. In no place, the author tries to add his own opinions and most of the information is balanced and backed by facts.

If you want to understand what it takes to build a brand that you use every day, this is the book to read.

[Zulugoat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great short instructive book, well written and with tons of interesting insights

One thing I would love to ask the author however...

How are you able to say that most of the fake 5-star reviews on Amazon are from Chinese companies?

It seems to be a crazy assertion that is at best impossible to measure and prove and at worst, indicative of some kind of pretty problematic bias... frankly well beneath the tone/rigor of the rest of the book... please avoid this kind of thing in the future... no American company has ever written a fake 5-star Amazon review? really? really, Mr Ingrassia? Come on...