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Not many industry stories make me groan out loud and wish I were a loose unit on Twitter again. But these do. They frustrate me no end.
Wesfarmers spent $230 million on Catch and another $50-60 million shutting it down. Woolworths spent $243 million on MyDeal and $100 million closing it. Coles built Swaggle from scratch, gave a small team an innovation license, opened a physical store, ran national campaigns… and then shut the whole thing down after just a couple of years.
It’s not necessarily bad management or the inability to pick the right opportunities (remember, they make BILLIONS at an unbelievable scale) - it’s a structural problem, and luckily, it keeps giving small and medium-sized brands room to innovate.
Big companies have a hard-wired immune system
Large organisations aren't bad at innovation because the people are bad. They're bad at it because the whole machine is optimised for the bigger beast. The systems, the governance, the reporting cycles, the approval layers. All of it exists for good reason. And all of it works against the thing that made the acquisition or startup interesting in the first place.
Catch didn't die because Temu arrived. It died because a business built on speed and scrappiness had to justify itself inside a machine with a different operational pulse. It suffered from the lack of a founder’s love. MyDeal didn't fail because Australians stopped buying online. It lost its reason for being the moment it had to fit inside a supermarket's strategic framework and became a lower priority.
Innovation is not natural for corporate retail
When corporate retail decides to innovate in ecommerce, the clock starts ticking at double pace. Not because they will run out of money to support it or don’t have the resources to keep it alive - it’s because the pull towards the way things have always been done is stronger than anyone is willing to admit.
As I said, when I first heard these stories, they do trigger me. Innovation has been served up, swallowed and flushed. Absorbed for the data and the capability, stripped of what made them interesting, and switched off when the excitement wears off. But most of all, the teams that built these disruptors are some of the best ecommerce operators in the country. They’ve had their mission taken away from them. That shits me.
The upside for challenger brands
If you're running or working in a small or mid-market ecommerce business, it's easy to look at those massive war chests and feel behind. They can absorb losses you can't. They can outspend you on acquisition. They can place bets across a whole portfolio while you're all in on one hand. They have the power.
But they cannot wake up on a Tuesday and change how they do things. They cannot move on instinct. They cannot give a small team permission to try something that might risk the parent brand. You can.
The story of the brand that broke the corporate shackles
Sam Moore from PYRA is a good example of what happens when you actually get that freedom.
PYRA started as a vertical brand inside Culture Kings. Dream distribution, fast revenue. But the budget always flowed to Culture Kings first. There was no clean P&L. No customer data Sam could call his own, because every sale ran through Culture Kings' platform, not PYRA's. When a.k.a. Brands took over and went public, they told Sam the arrangement was too messy. He had to either sell or buy back.
So, he raised capital and bought it back.
But that’s where the fun started. He inherited a pile of C-grade stock that he had no choice but to buy. Had to do clearance for a year. Had to rebuild his email list from zero because three years' worth of customers belonged to Culture Kings, not him. Had to raise money while explaining to investors why a brand doing $7 million in revenue had no real P&L to show them.
Fortunately, he made some big decisions and got through it. Flipped from 80% wholesale to 90% DTC. Rebuilt the brand the way he always wanted it. Fired up the founder-led marketing. Niched down and was unapologetic about it.
It’s not just a story of a founder who saved their brand from corporate, it’s a story about the opportunity when you are nimble and free. The beast has deep pockets and will make lots of money in the process. It just can't move as you can. Twitter rant over.
Cheers,
Bushy
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Sam Moore from PYRA on Buying Back Your Brand and Building a D2C Machine | #610
Sam Moore has done almost everything in this industry wrong order and made it work anyway. Sold a brand too early. Built another one inside someone else's business. Bought it back without a clean P&L. Inherited stock he didn't order. Rebuilt his customer list from zero.
What he's landed on is a fascinating playbook for running a lean, founder-led DTC brand in 2025. Content system, product range pyramid, LTV mechanics, Meta creative testing. Really practical tips… and lots of honesty.
“Most D2C brands now are almost just content marketing companies. The amount of content we're having to pump out weekly to drive Meta is crazy. Comparing that to my old brand five years ago, it was probably 1% of the day and now it's like 90.”
One of PYRA's best-performing Meta ads globally is an iPhone video of a bloke standing next to a river. It's been running for two years. That tells you something about how Sam is experimenting with the brand and finding the breakthrough moments.
In the ep, Sam breaks down his content layering strategy on Meta, how he uses a product range pyramid to drive repeat purchase, why hats are a deliberate LTV strategy and not just a product line, and why a plain-text founder email at the end of a Klaviyo flow is closing customers that nothing else could reach.
KEY MOMENTS
6:05 – The Birth of PYRA: From Dead Studios To a New Vision
10:07 – Shifting Focus: From Wholesale to D2C
12:38 – Technical Performance Meets Streetwear
15:21 – Content Creation Strategies for Engaging Audiences
22:28 – Maximising Performance Content
26:42 – Capitalising on Customer Lifetime Value
30:24 – Building Trust with Manufacturers
34:30 – Global Expansion and Market Testing
40:46 – Brand Partnerships and Marketing Strategies
47:40 – Bushy’s Takeaways
Three things that stuck with me from this one:
Own your customer 🤝
The PYRA buyback is a stark reminder of what you lose when your brand lives inside someone else's business. No customer data, no clean financials, no leverage. Every sale you make through another platform is a sale where you don't own the relationship.Content is the product now 📱
Running a D2C brand today means running a content operation. The brands winning on Meta aren't the ones with the biggest budgets. They're the ones producing the most volume of genuine, varied creative and letting the algorithm find what works.Niche down to scale up 🎯
The instinct to broaden the range and appeal to more people is understandable. Sam's experience shows the opposite works better. Getting sharply specific about who you are for, and ruthlessly cutting what doesn't fit, is what makes a brand memorable and a customer loyal.
If you want to get into the weeds of what it takes for a brand to stand out in today’s ecommerce environment, this is a hands-on masterclass.
The full chat is live wherever you get your podcasts.
💡 Work with Nathan
Need help making a big call or sense-checking your strategy? You can book a consultation session to tackle challenges, test assumptions or connect with the right people in ecommerce.
I also partner directly with retailers and tech providers on team coaching, transformation strategy and advisory roles. If that sounds like what you need, get in touch, and we’ll take it from there.
