We just launched Good Sport ⚡

Happy Tuesday!

Today I'm so damn excited to announce the official launch of Good Sport, my brand new backyard games super company, co-founded with Youtube legend Danny Duncan.

Since last September I've been working behind the scenes with the CROSSNET team to launch the world's first creator-led sporting goods company and design dozens of brand-new indoor & backyard games. Today we'll be launching to Danny's audience of over 15M subscribers & followers and promoting our three new games SmashNet, Backyard Pong, and Bubble Bash.

Over the past year, I've learned more than you could ever imagine about contract management, patience, how to work with one of the world's largest creators, go-to-market strategy, and the power of having a built in audience of over 15,000,000 people that are obsessed with every piece of content you put out.

How did it happen?

Long story short - Last Black Friday I tasked my team to land us one big Youtube creator to create some badass CROSSNET content. Growing up my brother and I always loved the Jackass type funny content and Danny was perfect in our eyes. We reached out to his team, offered him $40,000 for a video and was immediately shut down.

His team sent out some merch to the house and I ended up thanking them and getting Danny's number. A few days later I got invited to his house and we showed him some new games that we were working on and that was the beginning of Good Sport.

Why did it happen?

Creators want to own equity. Period. Every creator understands that they are one account deletion away from losing something they worked years on. The sooner they can own assets that they can control and not rely strictly on views & ad revenue the better position they can be in.

So what can you do?

At a time when so many things are going wrong for brands (acquisition costs going up, cash getting more expensive, recession on the horizon) partnering with a creator who has a built-in audience that you can sell to for free is starting to make a lot more sense. This is exactly why we are seeing such massive success from brands like Happy Dad & Feastables and hopefully, Good Sport will soon be following in their footsteps.

As more and more creators begin to be interested in owning equity they have never been more accessible. Find their manager's information in their social bios or on LinkedIn and give them your best pitch. Deals can range from a straight equity play (if you're in DTC, I'd expect at least 20-51% of the business), royalty per sale, and a combination of equity + royalty.

You have to think that these people are getting pitched business ideas every single day. You have to make yourself stand out, provide the most attractive deal, paint a clear story on how this could be successful, and most importantly make sure it makes sense for the influencer. Sports are Danny's life. Every video he's ever made involves him doing dumb shit with his friends and playing sports. Me pitching him a makeup line or an alcohol company when he doesn't drink would be pointless. The opportunity to create backyard games that families play for the next 50 years? No brainer.

How to get started?

I'd be lying if I said I had a foolproof way of building a super company with a creator but I am 100% certain that the future is trending this way. It is harder than ever to start a brand from scratch and once you do all the heavy lifting of finally launching you haven't even cracked product market fit and if you can acquire customers responsibly and profitably.

Have an idea? Dope.

Next - Find a content creator that resonates with your future brand. Don't be stuck on the concept of them having to work with a massive superstar. Start somewhere. Even if the "influencer/creator" only has 20,000 followers they can prove to be a valuable asset that is worth giving equity away for if they can drive loyal, engaged, and eager buyers to your site. If you're reading this and already have an existing company, you can strike a similar arrangement on a royalty deal without giving away part of your company.

Last Minute Black Friday Tips

I sincerely hope the above section on creator-led brands inspired you. If a kid from a small farm town in Connecticut can work with one of the largest Youtubers in the world, you can absolutely figure it out.

I wanted to end this newsletter with some last-minute tips & tricks for my e-commerce nerds. Make sure you're checking all these boxes.

1) Make sure your media buyer knows exactly how much you want to be spending on Black Friday and at what return. Don't be playing guessing games! For our Australian market we want to get up to $7500/day on that week, so we are increasing budgets 20% every 48 hours to get to that number in just a few weeks. Our media buyer knows he is free to increase budgets IF AND ONLY IF we are hitting at least a 3.2 MER.

2) Make sure your email team adjusts your welcome & abandon cart flows to match up with your holiday strategy. I can't tell you how shitty it is to have a 50% off sitewide sale going and then your customer gets an automated email from you 6 hours later. only showing 10% off. Double and triple-check everything, including SMS flows.

3) Build a dedicated landing page - it's a no brainer

4) If you work with retailers, make sure they are aware of your pricing strategy. There is nothing worse than receiving an email saying "Chris WTF are you doing? How could you drop the price this low on our biggest day of the year. You are an awful partner and we're dropping you next year."

5) Call your credit card companies! Tell them how much you are going to be spending. Give them the heads up! Nothing worse than getting your card cut off and begging your friend to max out their Amex with $75,000 of spend so you can continue to run ads. Ali Khalil you're a real one buddy, if you're reading this I love you. It's also not too late to get yourself hooked up on Parker so you're paying on Net 60 terms AKA you're not paying your Facebook ad bill until January when all the dust has settled.

Vendor of the Week: 021 Inc. - Unlimited Copywriting

If you know my good friend Nick Shackelford, you know that he is an e-commerce OG and one of the most loved and respected people in our industry. He hit me up the other week because he just started working on building this new copywriting agency called 021 Inc. which is incredibly sick.

Essentially for less than the cost of a full-time hire, I'm talking like $2800-$3500 a month you get three full time writers to work on any and every project you can possibly ask for. I tried it for the past month heading into Black Friday and this is what their team banged out for $3000:

• Copy for nearly 10 landing pages

• Reviewed and edited all Facebook & Google ad copy

• Email & SMS copy for nearly 35 sends across 3 countries

• Built 5 advertorials that will be perfect for the holidays

Check out this one they built that I'll be hosting on my site sometime this week:

5 Reasons CROSSNET Is The Perfect Gift For Everyone On Your List

Don't make the same mistake I've done a dozen times over. Hiring somebody full time when you only really need them for 3-4 busy months.

021 is a no brainer solution that you can flex on and off to help with turning all of your ideas into an actual reality. Respond back to this email and I'll make a personal introduction to their founding team for the best sign up discounts.

See You Next Week!

I'll be heading to Austin, Texas for the first time in years tomorrow morning for a 50 person e-commerce & founders dinner I'll be hosting. If you haven't signed up and are in town, I'd love to have you stop by! Where should I host one next? I'm thinking about Salt Lake City & Miami!

I'd love to hear back from you and help answer any questions that you may have on building a creator led brand & last minute advice on Black Friday.

Of course, go check out Good Sport and get your friends a Christmas gift they actually want this year :)