The Ledger
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Andy Dunn was arrested for assault during a 2016 manic episode
“And I was arrested for felony and misdemeanor assault of my now wife and mother-in-law who were Trying to keep me from running into the street naked out of my apartment on ninth street.”
Dunn: The venture capital system is fundamentally misogynistically wired
“So we have a mismatch where men who don't understand women or how women shop are trying to decide how to make investments, and only nine percent of VCs are women. So it's a fundamentally misogynistically wired system.”
Dunn: Venture capital is a fundamentally misogynistically wired system
“So we have a mismatch where men who don't understand women or how women shop are trying to decide how to make investments, and only nine percent of VCs are women. So it's a fundamentally misogynistically wired system.”
Andy Dunn: DTC apparel is an impossible business model due to CAC
“I spent 13 years building something that I think in retrospect is an impossible business model, which is DTC apparel. Like, I don't actually think it works. Like, the math doesn't work on it, because it's too expensive to acquire, acquire customers, right?”
Dunn: Investment capital is flowing to profitable wholesale brands, not DTC
“All the money is going into profitable wholesale led brands now, not into DTC brands.”
Bonobos' retail stores and Nordstrom wholesale profits funded its e-commerce losses
“And our second most profitable were our retail stores, and those two businesses' profits were funding losses from the e-commerce business, which is a wonderful paradox to the way that we conceived of the company.”
E-commerce platforms will vertically integrate proprietary brands just like Netflix
“The future of e-commerce was gonna look a little bit like the history of Netflix. That a platform that was streaming other people's content and distributing other people's content would vertically integrate and start to develop their own proprietary content.”
Dunn: Founding a business with friends destroys the friendship's emotional support
“Once you get into a business partnership with a friend, the friendship gets totally sublimated to the business partnership. So a lot of the stuff that you used to talk about or do, you don't have time to do because you've got to work on this little growing bab…”
Dunn: Bonobos' physical retail and wholesale channels ultimately funded e-commerce losses
“Our most profitable business became Nordstrom. And our second most profitable were our retail stores, and those two businesses' profits were funding losses from the e-commerce business, which is a wonderful paradox to the way that we conceived of the company.”
Dunn: Zero-inventory clothing stores generate higher retail sales per square foot
“You create a clothing store that has no clothing. And that was the insight, which is the customer doesn't need it right away, and that flew in the face of everything everyone in retail told me from the traditional industry. Instant gratification. And it turns …”
Andy Dunn: Giving equity to celebrity influencers beats Instagram ads
“And if I could go back and do bonobos again, I wish I understood how much better it is to dilute your brand by giving the equity to someone like that than running Instagram ads.”
Being an employee is often harder than being a startup CEO
“And I have to say, it is such a profoundly humbling, meaningful, good, And challenging, sometimes maddening experience to realize that all these years you were, you know, woe is me, being a CEO is so hard, and it actually turns out that being an employee in a …”
Marc Lore is the best entrepreneur on the East Coast
“Was Mark Laurie, who I think is the best entrepreneur on the East Coast.”
Hypomania is nearly indistinguishable from an entrepreneur who is 'on'
“I think that hypomanic state is almost indistinguishable from an entrepreneur who is quote unquote on, right?”
Startup volatility often masks clinical bipolar mood swings in founders
“It's easy to explain away The mood swings you might experience as a person with bipolar disorder, if you're also an entrepreneur, as being due to the fact that you're an entrepreneur, when there's something else that you need to be dealing with as well, that i…”
Dunn: Going into business with friends completely sublimates the friendship
“What I realized is once you get into a business partnership with a friend, the friendship gets totally sublimated to the business partnership.”
Dunn: Opening a Bonobos engineering office in Palo Alto was catastrophic
“You know, we opened an office in Palo Alto, and it turned out to be a catastrophic error.”
Dunn: E-commerce platforms will vertically integrate proprietary brands just like Netflix
“The future of e-commerce was going to look a little bit like the history of Netflix. That a platform that was streaming other people's content and distributing other people's content would vertically integrate and start to develop their own proprietary content…”
Dunn: Warby Parker and Harry's succeeded by price-disrupting incumbents
“If you think about why, why did something like Warby Parker work or Harry's work? It's because they price disrupted Luxottica and Gillette respectively.”
Dunn: Curved waistbands had not been meaningfully used in men's pants
“And that was this genius insight that actually the way to do this is to make pants with a curved waistband, which would bring in the pant around to your waist in a way where the overall shape looks, looks great. And that hadn't really been done in a meaningful…”
Dunn: Bonobos was a 50-50 partnership, creating decision-making gridlock
“Because we were fifty-fifty partners. You know, I had the title of CEO, but Brian had a ton of business acumen, and so it really was a partnership of equals, and it becomes difficult to figure out who makes the call.”
Bonobos was eight days away from missing payroll in early 2009
“We had enough cash in the bank, I thought, to make payroll, but then we had, I guess, promised a supplier through a letter of credit, and we were about Eight days away from not making payroll, which is not an inspiring moment for your employees.”
Lead investor Joel Peterson walked away after Dunn sent a condescending email
“The second angel round that we raised. We raised it too high of a price, and actually, Joel was pretty upset about this. I, actually, I think I wrote the email to Joel that Was a condescending email in some regard around supporting the company, and it was the …”
Andy Dunn: Opening Bonobos' Palo Alto office was a catastrophic error
“You know, we opened an office in Palo Alto, and it turned out to be a catastrophic error.”
High-SKU apparel retail operates best as zero-inventory showroom stores
“And so the incredible insight was, you don't. You don't stock it. You create a clothing store that has no clothing.”
Andy Dunn: Bonobos could be built on $20M-$30M in hindsight
“I can't go back in time and do this company on 20 to thirty million. Which is what I think it would take, knowing what I now know”
Andy Dunn: Backlash to Walmart acquisition subsided after 72 hours
“For 72 hours, there's a really big reaction and an availability bias of the most vocal people. And then business returns to normal. The vast majority of people don't think about this stuff that much every day.”
Dunn: Curved waistbands were a novel breakthrough in early menswear design
“And that was this genius insight that actually the way to do this is to make pants with a curved waistband, which would bring in the pant around to your waist in a way where the overall shape looks Looks great. And that hadn't really been done in a meaningful …”
Dunn: Retail is a bundle of physical products and customer service
“Retail isn't just physical products. It's a bundle of physical products and customer service, and those two things together create the experience that drives customer enthusiasm.”
Dunn: The Bonobos board initially rejected his request for additional founder equity
“They said no at first. And, you know, said, hey, like, you need to work for the shares that you've got. And then, you know, ultimately I just wore them down, and I got some alternative perspectives from people in the venture capital backed company space, and s…”
Dunn: Knowing what he knows now, building Bonobos required only $30M
“I can't go back in time and do this company on 20 to thirty million. Which is what I think it would take, knowing what I now know”
Dunn: Founders have a moral obligation to deliver liquidity after ten years
“Once you've got venture investors who've been in For seven years and angel investors who've been in for 10, it just would be wrong to not make other people money.”
Dunn: Marc Lore is probably the East Coast's best e-commerce entrepreneur
“So probably the best third-party e-commerce entrepreneur on the East Coast.”
Dunn: Brand acquisition backlash typically lasts 72 hours before returning to normal
“For 72 hours, there's a really big reaction and an availability bias of the most vocal people. And then business returns to normal. The vast majority of people don't think about this stuff that much every day.”
Andy Dunn: Carraway scaled through 3,000 unpaid Instagram gifting partners
“I'm a, I'm an investor, angel investor in a brand called Carraway. It's pots and pans and kitchenware. And what he did that I thought that was so smart is he actually built an army of something like 3000 Instagram partners. It was just value exchange for free …”
Dunn: The alcohol shot category has only about five major competitors
“There's a million alcohols to compete with, but in the shot culture, there's like five.”
Andy Dunn: Bonobos Did Not Do Layoffs Until Year 12
“Like Ipponobos, we didn't do a layoff until our 12th year.”
Bonobos sold to Walmart for $300 million in 2017
“We sold the company for three hundred million dollars”
Dunn disclosed his psychiatric crisis to only four key Bonobos executives
“What I did, Guy, was I told a small cohort of people who just had to know
I told our general counsel.
I told our head of HR.
I told our CFO.
I told my assistant.”
Dunn sees a doctor twice weekly so 72 hours never pass unchecked
“I'll still be seeing a doctor twice a week, And twice a week is a lot, right? Seeing a doctor twice a week is a lot, but I do it because I don't want more than 72 hours or so to pass without him having a read on how I'm doing.”
Bonobos sold $16,000 of pants in one Stanford house party
“One day, we had a pants party at our house, and I think we sold 16,000 dollars worth of pants that day, and that was when I kind of looked at him.”
Joel Peterson offered $100K at $3M valuation or $300K at $2M
“He said, at three, we'll take a 100,000, but if you dropped it down to two, we'll take the whole round.”
Dunn: Benchmark co-founder Andy Rachleff backed Bonobos at $3M valuation
“Well then I went to see the other professor from school who is an amazing business person named Andy Ratcliffe, one of the co-founders of Benchmark, and he also offered to invest, and he was willing to do it at the three million dollar price”
Dunn: Bonobos revenue grew from $10K at launch to $90K monthly within six months
“So we properly launched BonobosPants.com in October of oh seven, and we did 10 grand that month, then in November we did 20, December we did 30, came back from the holiday break in January, and we did no sales for the first five days, and I thought, oh my god,…”
Dunn hid his clinical depression while leading Bonobos through co-founder conflict
“I got depressed. So it turns out I have a propensity clinically for depression. And so I got to the place where I kind of had to fake it at work that I was doing okay, drag myself out of bed and come to the office and kind of put on a show.”
Bonobos raised its initial $8 million from more than 120 investors
“And then I had another 90 conversations like that over the course of the next couple months, and pieced together another round, and, you know, we ended up raising our first eight million from, you know, over, over a 120 investors.”