Charles

how I funded launching my own brand through time, hard work and patience 👇

I'm 44. I've bootstrapped a company, raised $50M+, sold to PE, and now own manufacturing facilities across North America. If I was 25 again building my first brand, here's what I'd tell myself. 1. Bootstrap. 99% of the time. Don't raise money. Bootstrap all day every day in consumer. There's rarely an instance where you should raise outside capital. Most of my pain over the last eight years running this business has been because I have investors. I would never do that again knowing what I know now. 2. Competing incentives will break you. There's so much brain damage running a company when you have other people involved. Founders and investors can very easily have competing incentives and interests. You think you're aligned, but over time they become disjointed. They have their own set of incentives that you hope are aligned with yours. Often they're not. 3. The 1% exception. The only time raising makes sense is when you need heavy capex. Building factories. Deep R&D like Lomi where research and development is super cash intensive. That's why we did it. Otherwise, the downside to raising money in consumer is much higher than the upside. 4. The hard part of bootstrapping. The downside to bootstrapping in consumer is cash/working capital sucks. Even if your business is profitable, a lot of your growth gets financed from cash flows. You don't make a lot of money personally because so much gets cycled back into inventory and working capital. Consumer is not a great place for outside capital. There are very few cases where it makes sense. Build lean. Stay in control. Go for positive cash flows over everything else.

London 🙂

@JoeWelstead take that back

IMO this would have been great for Porsche.

@JoeWelstead no info, no one time purchase option, no mention of the word subscription, reminder emails that aren’t clearly stating you have another on the way…

Oh so you hide the subscription info and trick people into signing up without them knowing? Must be nice having no morals.

@joshakers93 Agreed, didn’t think Leeds played that bad

No shame losing to the best team in the country and the scoreline definitely flattered them. Full focus on the 5.30 KO as that was always the more important match for us today.

@JoeWelstead Designer: here’s what the market looks like Nobull: yes please

@JoeWelstead @ZachCPG right to be based on food/bev, but supplements are a no no useless you love law suits and angry big pharma 😂

@ZachCPG Cough cough @CharlesInstone

One of the biggest missed opportunities in consumer is acid reflux. 825M people globally deal with GERD. roughly 10–14% of the planet. 60M bottles of Tums are sold in the US every year. many CPG founders are under 30 so it is not hitting them or their peers yet. (likely why it is getting ignored by entrepreneurs?). high intake of sparkling and carbonated beverages pushes it even further. Booze is coming back too (see last post). For the e-com world, imagine all the insane creative around a brand like this. for retail, crazy point of differentiation to get on on shelf. (yes, there are players like Fody and smaller low acid coffee brands, it is not completely untapped). still, no brand has cracked it the right, vibey/coded way: The winning brand will be built on food / drinks / snacks that are materially EASIER on reflux. (so, not a prescription for it). this category is sitting wide open for 2026 and beyond.

I’m sorry but this tracking detail from Amazon is absolutely mental 😂 “Likely delivered yesterday” 💀

@JoeWelstead See attached

@CharlesInstone Yes.

Another day conversing with the general public, smashed it 👍

@JoeWelstead You’re showing off

@CharlesInstone Someone got angry with us today because we did not sign them up to a subscription. They were mad because they placed a one time order and expected renewals 😭

@dtc_alchemist Bit harsh too… subscribed to marketing emails > gets marketing email > is annoyed Not sure I’m the one to blame here 😂

@CharlesInstone Brutal hahaha

@therahulissar Dust yourself off and go again 😂

@CharlesInstone Another day in the office haha

@JoeWelstead @tomfgoodwin @ajwillshire one day 😂🤐

@tomfgoodwin @ajwillshire Paging @CharlesInstone …….

Someone should make a podcast where recently retired people say everything they wanted to say for years about their industry , but held it in.

@JoeWelstead Wait so I’m not special?

With all due respect, JUST TELL ME YOU’RE SELLING AD SPACE

North London 🥲

I’ve been interviewing for a new role in my company, 70% of those interviewed were unemployed or being made redundant….. never seen anything like it

@JacobCollierMP Ah, working too much is bad again If you don’t understand why a high minimum wage could be bad for people & the economy you don’t understand economics and should not be an MP Or you do understand and are being disingenuous - which is perhaps worse

This is a man that earns over £1.1m from 12 different jobs as well as being an MP.

@mr_james_c The hatred towards the top earners will only lead to tax rises for those demanding it, eventually Once the top go, who pays? On top of that, what talent can you attract with an exit tax… expect this is just another false flag to soften the blow when lesser measures come

Re this "settling up" thing, since this is the term they've decided to use. The top 30% of earners in the UK are *net contributors* to the UK. So if they're leaving, "settling up" would suggest that the UK owes them money, not the other way around.

@damian_soong @BladeoftheS Fun fact, 53% of the UK don’t “pay” Just because you pay tax doesn’t mean you net pay your way The “anyone but me” tax policies are the only thing that will result in “you” paying, eventually

@BladeoftheS My god you really don’t actually understand anything about economics, tax or accounting.

People don't understand the level of corporate and billionaire benefits. When you buy a house, you have to pay for it. When they buy a house, a supermarket, an oil rig... whatever. They deduct it off their taxes. You pay.