Ecommerce Conversations
Ecommerce Conversations
Practical Ecommerce
Surviving D2C's Boom and Bust
37 minutes Posted Apr 24, 2026 at 1:00 pm.
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Show notes
Chris Wichert is an investment banker turned direct-to-consumer entrepreneur. His luxury shoe brand, Koio, launched in 2015 and quickly scaled. Then the pandemic hit. By late 2022, he says, the D2C hype and funding had collapsed. He slashed costs, stabilized cash flow, and successfully exited the company. In this episode, he shares his story of boom, bust, and survival. For an edited and condensed transcript with embedded audio, see: https://www.practicalecommerce.com/surviving-d2cs-boom-a...