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: 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: 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: 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.”
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: 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: 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”
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,…”
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.”
Dunn: Bonobos Chinos Line Required 4,000 to 5,000 SKU Variants
“And if you look at our chinos business, we've got 36 waist and inseam combinations, four different fit silhouettes, and we might be running 15 to 20 colors. So if you do the math, that's four to 5000 variants.”
Andy Dunn started Bonobos with $3,000 in cash and $160,000 in debt
“When I graduated business school, I had 3000 dollars in the bank and 160,000 dollars of debt. And I started a company with that balance sheet.”
Dunn: Bonobos sold $16,000 worth of pants in one day at Stanford
“One day, we had a pants party at our house, and I think we sold 16,000 dollars worth of pants that day.”
Dunn: Benchmark co-founder Andy Rachleff backed Bonobos at a $3M valuation
“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 reached $90,000 in monthly revenue within six months of launch
“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: Bonobos was eight days away from missing payroll in 2009
“We had, I guess, promised a supplier through a letter of credit, and we were about Eight days away from not making payroll”
Dunn: Bonobos raised its first $8M from over 120 individual investors
“We ended up raising our first eight million from, you know, over, over a 120 investors.”
Dunn: Launched Bonobos with $3,000 in the bank and $160,000 in debt
“When I graduated business school, I had 3000 dollars in the bank and 160,000 dollars of debt, and I started a company with that balance sheet.”
Walmart acquisition talks began six months after his 2016 breakdown
“The acquisition conversation with Walmart wouldn't come till about half a year later, so we were more in the warm-up phase.”
Andy Dunn turned down Maveron job offer to build Bonobos
“I have this offer from a venture capital firm, which was a firm up in Seattle called Maveron, and I said, but I don't think I'm going to take it, because I'm going to sell pants on the internet.”
Dunn: First Bonobos NYC trunk show converted 13 of 14 attendees
“Seven guys bought three pairs of pants, six guys bought two pairs of pants, only one guy didn't buy anything, and it was at that moment that I decided, we need to build this company in New York.”
Dunn: Bonobos did $2M in first full year and $4M in 2009
“We did two million in that first year, and of, kind of, full operations in a way, and then four in a nine, and then we were heading towards seven or so”
Dunn: Stanford Graduate School of Business does not disclose grades to employers
“There's no Grade disclosure to employers. So they remove the competitive dynamic of how you do in your classes.”