William Hicks

According to Co-Founder & CEO William Hicks, Magic Mind sells one shot every three seconds. The milestone comes as Magic Mind pushes deeper into retail, securing distribution at Target, Fresh Thyme, New Seasons Market, and several other chains.

Magic Mind wins Mindful’s 2024 Beverage of the Year! 🏆 Thanks to our team and fans for making this possible. We’ll keep delivering the best to keep elevating mental performance. Cheers to more wins ahead!

I never want to hear the term LTV again. Every ecommerce brand should be run off two true north customer metrics: LTR and LTP. The problem is that LTV is a revenue metric. Not profit. Not cash. Revenue. And the next words out of people's mouths after "LTV" is usually "CAC" - and revenue is a pretty dumb thing to compare to CAC. Revenue still has to survive COGS, freight, fulfillment, refunds, merchant fees, and all the other little margin goblins hiding in the P&L before you can use it to pay for CAC. This sounds obvious until you see how often it gets abused. Brand says: "Our LTV:CAC is 4:1" and means "We paid $50 to acquire a customer who eventually spends $200." Great, except that $200 might include $60 of COGS, $25 of shipping / fulfillment, $7 of merchant fees, and $20 of refunds, subscription discounts, fraud, etc. So your $200 "LTV" is actually $88 of contribution profit before CAC. Your "4:1" ratio just became 1.4 to 1 And that’s before fixed overhead, agency fees, payroll, software, and profit (you do want profit right?) This is why ecommerce brands should kill the term LTV entirely and split it into two metrics: LTR = Lifetime Revenue. This is what most people are calling LTV today. It’s useful! It tells you whether customers come back, how strong repeat behavior is, how long the reorder cycle is, whether cohorts are expanding or decaying, and whether the product has real downstream demand or you just bought a first order. But LTR is not profit. It’s a revenue metric. Use it for retention, cohort quality, forecasting, merchandising, subscription analysis, etc. Do not put it in a ratio with CAC. LTP = Lifetime Profit. This is the number that actually matters. LTP = lifetime revenue - COGS - shipping / fulfillment - merchant fees - refunds / discounts. You can argue about exactly what else belongs in there - customer service, packaging, duties, pick/pack, whatever. Different businesses have different cost structures. But the principle is simple: how much contribution profit does this customer generate before acquisition cost? That is the pool of money available to pay CAC. If LTP:CAC is below 1:1, you are losing money on acquired customers and you need to pull back. If you spend $60 to acquire a customer and they generate $45 of lifetime contribution profit, you are not “investing in growth.” You are paying people $15 to buy your product. That may be intentional. Maybe you’re venture-backed. Maybe you’re buying market share. Maybe you have a credible path to better gross margin, higher AOV, stronger repeat purchase, cheaper shipping, or lower CAC. Fine. Just call it what it is. The question that really matters for brands is: how much profit does a customer generate, how long does it take to show up, and what did we pay to get it? So yes, track lifetime revenue. Just call it LTR. But run your customer acquisition on LTP. And stop comparing revenue to CAC. I never want to hear about LTV again.

I love the window seat

Another Protein Shot Hits The Market 💪 Dr. Mike Israetel, an entrepreneur, competitive bodybuilder, and fitness influencer, launched a protein shot brand called Genius Shot. Each 3.38 oz shot contains 23g of whey protein along with BCAAs and EAAs.