Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Launch HN: Moonshot Brands (YC W21) – We buy and grow e-commerce companies

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–75 of 75 posts

Re: Launch HN: Moonshot Brands (YC W21) – We buy and grow e-commerce companies

#71

Post by inthewoods »

How are you different from Thrasio, Perch, and host of other competitors? Seems like this is just a race to execute deals faster than the other guys - what is your competitive advantage?

Interestingly this is somewhat how Wayfair began back when they were known as CSN Stores. They started out looking to buy some ecommerce companies and realized they could arbitrage Google search with high specialized ecommerce sites. Of course it is different - they ended up creating the stores vs. buying other people's stores.

Re: Launch HN: Moonshot Brands (YC W21) – We buy and grow e-commerce companies

#72

Post by cjisakow »

callmeed wrote: post #70
55555 wrote: post #10

What's the actual business model here? Y Combinator shouldn't be backing a tiny PE fund, so this can't be that. What's the angle? There must be some financial engineering in the buyout or some unique plan for post-sale.

First, they have "Private Equity" job openings, so that's definitely part of it. More specifically it will be about scaling the brands they buy and cross-selling when possible. A lot of e-commerce brands/founders hit a ceiling around $1-5M in revenue. At that point, you need more experienced operators to get to $10M or $100M. People who know how to optimize marketing, conversions, fulfillment, and who can move into n…

Great insights especially the last one, some of the smartest investors we spoke to saw the end game being we can offer special perks for customers like an amazon prime like program. It’s interesting and I wonder why the traditional conglomerates like P&G don’t do it; probably because they don’t have a direct relationship with the customers? On the PE job post yes for MBA interns were were looking for folks who have the skills to find and evaluate potential acquisitions

Re: Launch HN: Moonshot Brands (YC W21) – We buy and grow e-commerce companies

#73

Post by jaxn »

cjisakow wrote: post #13
MattGaiser wrote: post #2

Is your goal to essentially become a conglomerate of niche e-commerce firms or do you eventually intend to resell the companies you acquire to others?

We plan to be long term holders, eventually taking the company public. We look at Constellation Software up in Canada (where Allan is based) as a great model. The entrepreneurs often stay with the company since they know the customer and product better than anyone. Then with shared resources, best practices, and talking to their peers they can grow their business.

This sounded a lot like Constellation to me. Love what you are doing.

Re: Launch HN: Moonshot Brands (YC W21) – We buy and grow e-commerce companies

#74

Post by Grustaf »

Seems like a potentially very profitable endevour, but the name is not very apt. Profit making e-commerce companies are sort of the opposite of "moonshots" - very low risk, no technological breakthroughs needed. Or is the idea that some of them could turn into decacorns?
Post reply on HN