Insight
King: Wealthy early adopters make the most effective evangelists for new products
“Instead of trying to sell to the base, which is probably your late majority, if you're looking at the innovation adoption curve, you know, crossing the chasm, or your even early majority, the majority, the biggest part of the bell curve, It is just asinine. It…”
Insight
King: Never launch e-commerce without manually pitching 200 potential direct buyers
“And I say, if you can't ring up 200 people and get them either interested in buying your product directly or know someone who would like that product, then you shouldn't get into it. You shouldn't begin.”
Insight
King: Founders should build owned distribution channels before launching physical products
“I think it's the single greatest thing that a founder or entrepreneur can do is become a channelpreneur first. What I mean is develop channels, own those channels, own the audience, have the email addresses, be on the multiple platforms, make that bulletproof,…”
Insight
King: Administrative friction destroys unit economics on five-dollar physical e-commerce orders
“The administration for e-commerce is just
Absolutely crazy, and that's where a lot of my e-commerce ventures have gone to die, but everything coming together, it was one of those ideas that if it worked,
And we started a new trend and don't get me wrong.
We…”
Insight
King: Commute habits dictate Asian visual mobile dominance versus Western audio dominance
“In the East, everyone's on a train, so they're on their phone, so they're scrolling.
In the West, everyone's driving, so they're listening, and that's the reason podcasts and audiobooks.”
Insight
King: The biggest e-commerce margins exist in support and financing infrastructure
“So if you can be in the support layer, the administration, the financing layer of e-commerce, well, there's a pretty penny to be made there.”
Insight
King: Healthy e-commerce brands use cheap bank debt, starving private lenders
“Now you look at it and the healthier they are, the less they're going to need your money. So now you're competing against other forms of finance and banks. So that's where things get really tough is quality deal flow.”
Insight
King: High e-commerce financing rates reflect astronomical underlying startup failure risks
“The unit economics are really tough in financing e-commerce, and that's the reason these interest rates, like even you look at PayPal, like PayPal's got oodles of money. They're sitting on bags and bags, a war chest of money that they could be empowering. All …”
Insight
King: Unseen back-end logistics consistently crush product-focused e-commerce founders
“Most e-commerce entrepreneurs have an idea for a product. Great. Maybe some branding, maybe some marketing, social media, but logistics and all that stuff that happens behind the scenes, it crushes them.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
King: A 20-something Amazon FBA roll-up founder is generating over $100M annually
“The kid is in his early twenties. I can't remember. He's doing over a hundred million dollars in revenue a year.”
Disclosure
King: I passed on a $1M-per-month brand after finding founder diligence red flags
“And I was very interested in working with him, helping him, raising for him, investing directly. But then I got into his finances and he was transparent with what's going on in his life. I said, I can't touch this with a 10 foot pole, right?”
Disclosure
King: I only write angel checks expecting the money to go bye-bye
“It's angel investing, and I never expect to make any money. I only write checks that I prepare to say the money go bye-bye.”
Disclosure
King: Retail distribution deals with Walmart and Costco nearly killed our company
“I've been a part of e-commerce brands. I wasn't the founder, but I was a VP where we had a deal with like Walmart and Costco and they almost killed us. Like they just send back the product, you know, type thing.”
Assertion Contradicted
King: IBM Watson boosted cupcake sales 10% by correlating frosting to weather
“IBM's Watson, they were doing this thing where they were predicting what type of frosting on cupcakes would sell based on the weather. And they found out hot days, vanilla, Cold days. Chocolate. And since IBM owns the weather network, They were able to do that…”
