Application — Growth
Coal shows 268 reviews on its site, yet its tagline, "Quality Beanies, Hats, & Accessories", says nothing a customer can picture.
Who I am
- Former COO of Tabs. Built its creator program to 100M monthly social impressions, and the paid ad engine alongside it.
- Founded Mainstreet, a consumer home-services platform: a team of 70, $25M raised (Greylock, Khosla, YC, Tim Ferriss). It failed.
- Before that: Quintessential Ventures, an early seat at a high-growth startup, and entrepreneur-in-residence at Prehype.
- I'm moving into growth specifically. The creative and top-of-funnel work is what I want to be doing every day.
What I noticed
- The Provo UPF Tech 5-Panel Cap is $45.00 and has 35 variants, while the site explains UPF 50+ in its own words. That is a ready-made ad story: sun protection you can check.
- The Vice Pom Beanie sits at $19.95 with $29.00 struck through, and The Benny Ultra Tall Knit Beanie also shows $19.95. These low-price entry points are easy first-order offers for cold traffic.
- Free shipping appears with three thresholds in the text: $49+ (US only), $50 and $75.00. One cap like The Bridger Fleece 5 Panel Cap at $40.00 never reaches any of them.
What I built
What I'd do here
- My KPI: scale ad spend, hold target CAC. Everything else follows from that, whether it is a $20.00 Stanley beanie or a $45.00 Provo cap.
- Week to week: launching a bunch of different experiments, losers killed early. One variable per test, across beanies, caps and balaclavas.
- Creators: trail runners and hikers for the Provo UPF cap, snowboarders and skiers for the balaclavas and fleece, parents for the kids' Ridge Hood.
- Reporting so you never have to ask. Daily CAC. Weekly what we learned. Monthly cohort payback, split by beanie, cap and balaclava.
- Event tracking I'd spec and work through with your team. That part isn't me, and it matters for the shipping protection add-on too.
Month one
| Metric | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creators live | 0 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 |
| Creator videos / week | 0 | 14 | 28 | 42 | 56 | 70 |
| Landing pages live | 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| New ads / week | 12 | 12 | 12–20 | 12–20 | 20 | 20 |
| Unique experiments | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 6 |
Creators come on two a week, ten live by week six. Each posts the same number of videos a week, seven, so 70 videos a week by then. New ads and landing pages follow the creators, never lead them. Proposed.
Creator videos a week = creators live × videos per creator. Week 1: 0 × 7 = 0; Week 2: 2 × 7 = 14; Week 3: 4 × 7 = 28; Week 4: 6 × 7 = 42; Week 5: 8 × 7 = 56; Week 6: 10 × 7 = 70.
How I'd start
- Build a claims sheet from the Provo sun-protection wording and the Bridger fleece description, so every creator brief stays inside Coal's own words.
- Recruit the first creators around Uniform beanies and Provo caps, then write one hook library per product before any ad goes live.
I'd love to chat if this makes sense. Grab a time here.
Danilo