Show notes
How do you raise prices on a DTC brand without killing demand?Derek Jaeger founded Last Crumb in 2020, priced a box of cookies at $110, then moved it to $140. He says that is when the company took off. Eric Dyck gets the full DTC marketing story on the DTC Podcast: pricing as positioning, ecommerce growth without a repeat purchase, and why he killed the weekly drop model that made the brand famous.Get the DTC Newsletter: directtoconsumer.coWHAT THIS EPISODE SOLVESYour premium product is not moving and you are about to discount it. Derek tested upward instead. At $110 Last Crumb was fine, at $140 it had a differentiator, and the drops started selling out in one second.You cannot hold a high price on packaging alone. He built the box as shipper and gift box in one, tested the angle each cookie sits at, and landed on 35 degrees with 90% of the lettering visible on open.Scarcity launched you and has become your ceiling. Why a drop model cannot stay a value pillar forever, and how moving to evergreen was the test of whether he had a real company or a hype company.Your customer acquisition cost will not clear on a single order. No subscription, no natural repeat, and a product that mostly gets gifted. What carried ecommerce growth when paid could not.You are paying creators for content that does not perform. Last Crumb briefs nobody. They watch for organic posts that already work, whitelist those, and run the same asset on Instagram and YouTube. One repurposed video pulled 300,000 views.You lose control of the product the moment it ships. The last seventy two hours in a UPS truck, and why owned retail at $8.50 a cookie fixed what ecommerce marketing could not.ABOUT THE GUESTDerek Jaeger is the founder of Last Crumb, the luxury cookie brand he started in Los Angeles in 2020 and has since moved to New York, with production in Brooklyn and its first store in Williamsburg. He still writes every recipe himself. lastcrumb.comSTAY CONNECTEDNewsletter: directtoconsumer.coRECORDING TIME | CHAPTER00:00 Two ex-affiliates sitting down01:18 The affiliate years, penny clicks and dollar CPMs02:44 Walking away from performance marketing03:33 A year of brand building before a single box shipped04:38 The brief: the opposite of every mom and pop bakery05:47 Pricing as position one06:53 The box, the pull tab, and the 35 degree cookie angle08:45 Liquid Death on the vision board10:01 The Monday noon drop model11:28 Why he banned paid ads at launch12:35 Fifty boxes in LA, and the move from $110 to $14014:01 Chrissy Teigen posts and it goes ballistic15:15 People posting receipts before the box arrives16:43 Sifting flour in the original kitchen17:26 Investors show up, and 1,500 orders left in carts19:16 Building the cap table20:22 Where the first money went21:18 Killing the drop model22:26 Why paid media does not scale on a gifting brand23:34 The company today, 16,000 square feet in Brooklyn24:20 Why he has never been CEO25:58 Managing the operator you hire27:20 Building a smaller pack for TikTok Shop28:53 The last 72 hours you cannot control30:38 A unique dough for every flavor31:59 What he kept from affiliate marketing33:09 Moving the company to New York35:17 Retail pricing and the Levain comparison36:52 Retail as top of funnel38:33 Whitelisting organic creator content39:59 Product as the reason any of it worked41:56 Where the brand goes next43:01 The Crumbl lesson45:40 Why GLP-1s might help a premium cookie brandhttps://directtoconsumer.typeform.com/DTC-Brand?utm_source=podcast-648&utm_medium=podcast
