How AI Will Kill ☠️ Or Supercharge 🔥 Your D2C Brand
AI is changing the way D2C brands are built and operated. Learn how to use AI to improve your productivity, save money, and scale your brand faster.
By Benson & Otzai (our futuristic AI caveman)
WARNING: Everything below is actionable with how-to step-by-step for AI in your business. Not for the weak.
In Today’s Caveminds Deep Dive…
🍖🔥How AI Will Kill Or Supercharge Your D2C Brand (AI X D2C Deep Dive)
💵 Cut D2C Content Production Costs By 10X & Turn Months Into an Hour
🌟 2023 D2C AI Tools Masterlist for Hypergrowth and Cost Reduction
🗿 Caveman's Guide to GPT-4: 12 Ingenious Ways
🖼️ Midjourney: Crafting Perfect Prompts with Photo Uploads
🙌 Prehistoric Prodigy AI Leader of the Week to follow
Read Time: 10 minutes / Implementation: 30 Minutes / AI Rabbit Hole: Unlimited
If you haven’t already, click here to join our private Caveminds Slack community here and meet founders adapting toward the future of AI together.
🍖🔥How AI Will Kill Or Supercharge Your D2C Brand (AI X D2C)
Hey there, fellow entrepreneur! 👋 I'm writing this newsletter as if I'm sharing my AI insights with a good friend (that's you) in the D2C space.
But first, let me introduce myself and I promise to give you at least 3 💣🔥 actionable AI tactics for your time by the end of this.
To start, I’m by no means an AI Expert - I’m a founder just like you sharing my experiences with AI and figuring out how this all applies practically so you can ride the wave to success 🏄♂️ with the successes and failures (you get a front-row view so get some 🍿 and enjoy)
As a D2C brand founder and someone who works with some of the fastest-growing brands every day, I've got the inside scoop on how AI can revolutionize your D2C brand.
I'll give you a brief rundown of the current D2C landscape and how AI is changing the game then in the middle and at the end, I'll share mind-blowing actionable 💣🔥AI tactics that'll save you thousands of dollars and weeks of work.
Oh, and let me know if you like this newsletter format - I put a lot of thought into it (and owe some inspo to Sam, Shawn, and other great newsletters). 🙌
We're all cavemen (and women) trying to understand AI like our ancestors learning to master fire 🔥. So, let's dive into the AI X D2C world and see how it can make or break your brand.
As a D2C brand, it boils down to these core areas that you want to focus on for growth (doesn’t matter how big you’re):
Or if you want to define these by roles, here’s what it looks like:
Founder(s) (typically wearing all the hats at the beginning and it’s a balancing act before you start building a team so you can focus on strategy and core decisions)
Product Lead (Director of Product)
Brand Lead (Creative Director or Brand Manager)
Operations Lead (Director of operations or Operations Manager)
Marketing Lead (Director of Growth or E-commerce)
Finance Lead (Financial Manager)
Within each of those roles above, here are some of the most popular SaaS that most brands use as part of their tech stack to grow the brand:
Even some of these SaaS above have started to integrate AI (ChatGPT) into their software to get ahead of the curve and asked users to join the beta waitlist (otherwise they’ll get wiped out by new AI software that’s available and coming out on the market):
Gorgias -> https://www.gorgias.com/ai
Klaviyo -> https://www.klaviyo.com/one/omnichannel/intelligence
Triple Whale -> http://www.triplewhale.com/ai-ads
Now, imagine you're launching a new product or rebranding. Traditionally, you'd need a photoshoot, costing thousands of dollars and taking weeks to complete.
🍖🔥Well what if I told you that you can spend 10X less and get it done in a few hours? (Benson please STFU right now…) Ya welcome to the future of AI buddy
Here's how:
Snap a photo of the new product with your phone 📱
Use ChatGPT-4 to create all the planning and photoshoot guidelines and generates everything including prompts for mid-journey like use GPT-4 to create all the planning and photoshoot guidelines.
Simply ask it something like “I want you to act as a professional Midjourney prompt generator and I would like you to create perfect prompts for my product. My product is ____ and I want images with ____ style.”Go to Midjourney and generate hyperrealistic images of your product shots by uploading your product to get variations 🎨
Create shots with models and environments using Pixelcut.ai or Booth.ai 📸
Send the images to your designer to create marketing assets 🚀
What would normally cost us $5,000+ and 1-2 months to produce can now be done with a monkey eating a banana in one hand and typing some sentences to the AI overlord for a grand price 🥁🥁🥁…
…of $50 and 1 hour (maybe 2 hours if you procrastinate and watch cat videos)
Copy the above and send it to your team to implement (if you want a short video on exactly how to do it then make sure you’re on the email list)
Before your freak out 😱 and 💩 your pants (please don’t yet you’re going to want to see what I’m about to share with you below👇 “cue but WAIT there’s more! music 😂”)
Imagine AI as that nerdy kid in school who suddenly bulked up, donned the Infinity Gauntlet, kicked Thanos in the family jewels, and made him his “assistant”.
Yeah, it's that powerful 💪 (had to have at least one Marvel reference ahah!)
Now at the current stage, we can’t replace a human and we are still years away, but my god is it getting close to a point where in the next 1-2 years I believe that AIAAS or platforms will replace entire roles to the point where (cost X time X creativity) they become a commodity.
Cost
Human: $60,000 a year with salary, benefits, vacation time, time off, rest etc (humor and fun to work with is a bonus)
AIAAS: $240 - $1,000 a year and doesn’t need any of the above and can be whatever you want it to be
Time
Human: Whatever you want to be done “It’s going to take me one day, week, month to finish this.”
AIAAS: “In the time it takes you to walk to your kitchen to fill your water bottle or coffee it’ll be done with what you wanted and will update anything you want in seconds never days, weeks, or months”
Quality/Creativity/Productivity
Human: Quality and creativity is going to take time and cost more
AIAAS: Here’s a throughout provoking, quality, and creative article
All founders want to drive growth in a sustainable and profitable way - it’s just to what degree and how far are you willing to go.
We are so used to doing things the traditional way but now we’ve reached a point where that technology is here and becoming exponentially better.
What if you could get the exact same output but pay less and takes less time - who doesn’t want that? Aren’t you in business to make money?
🍖🔥Here’s a short list just to show you the potential of AIAAS for D2C/Ecom to implement
(There are new ones being built every day)
Finaloop: AI running your entire financial department 💰
Siena: AI running your entire customer service 👩💼
Datamilk: AI running your entire CRO for your website 📊
Uizard: AI creating your mockups and website concepts 🖌️
Browse: AI automatically pulls any data you want 📚
OctaneAI: AI for quizzes and personalization 🧪
TryMaverick: AI personalized videos 📹
If you’re the founder or on the team of the above AI Startups shoot me an email to ben@caveminds.com and let’s setup a partnership 🙏
With AI evolving at a breakneck pace, I believe we'll see a major shift in how D2C brands are built in the next 3-6 months, if not sooner.
Now, here’s where it all comes together I want you to look at this scenario and why the title of this article is “Why AI will kill or Supercharge your brand?”:
We’ve got D2C Brand 1 Vs 2. One is leveraging AI to its fullest and one is not.
Brand 1 (D2C AI)
$1M in revenue
Leveraging all the AI tools to 4-5X the productivity of each of their team members so they can focus on higher priority goals across all departments
Spending 10X less and getting things in days done faster on content production and across each department
Since they’re spending less on overhead expenses and the team is more productive they can execute faster and also spend more to not only acquire a customer but retain that customer for longer
Brand 2 (D2C Traditional)
$1M in revenue
Still on the fence about AI and not sure how to use ChatGPT, Midjourney, RunwayML, etc so productivity is normal
Still doing content production the traditional way spending more and taking weeks to months
Since they’re spending more on overhead expenses and people are the same and also spend the same as brand 1 to acquire a customer and retain them
Let me ask you: With all things being the same, who do you think will grow and scale faster and sustainably assuming they’re the top 2 competitors in their space selling a similar product?
AI isn’t going to kill your brand directly. Maybe if you’re an outdated software or SAAS brand that can’t keep up with the innovation that’s happening but what will kill you is your competitor that has fully integrated AI and has…
A 4-5X more productive team than you (it’s like playing against 5 Michael Jordans)
Efficient operations with a faster turnaround from months to days
Spending less on overhead so they can spend even more than you to acquire a customer and retain them longer
Eventually, the stronger, faster, more adaptable D2C brand will come out on top and that’s what you want to be.
To stay ahead of the curve, start exploring the potential of AI in your business today. Not only will it save you time and money, but it might also just save your brand from becoming obsolete.
Next week, I’ll dive deeper into the how-to of implementing AI into each of these D2C departments with specific use cases that are actionable and that you can share with a team member or you can implement and see an impact on your brand.
P.S. This post was written by me but proofread by ChatGPT and my superstar co-founders Aditya, Andrew, and Maxi
P.P.S If you haven’t watched the movie HER with then go watch it this weekend and if you’re building something like this or you want to start this then please reach out to me because I want to fund or start this.
P.P.P.S. If you enjoyed this email, don't forget to share it with fellow founders! The more, the merrier in the Caveminds tribe. 🙌
🌳🗿Actionable AI Highlights Of The Week
🚀Caveman's Guide to GPT-4: 12 Ingenious Ways
Can you believe there are 12 creative ways developers are using GPT-4 to reshape our digital landscape? From stone-age scribbles to advanced AI, we've come a long way!
Unearth these genius hacks, tips, and tricks that'll have you wondering if GPT-4 is the ultimate caveman's wheel. So, grab your club, and let's go on an adventure to explore the prehistoric potential of GPT-4! 👉 Click here to uncover the 12 creative ways
🖼️ Midjourney: Crafting Perfect Prompts with Photo Uploads
Ever wished you could travel back in time to capture the perfect image for your AI-powered prompt? Well, buckle up your loincloth because Midjourney is here to save the day!
With its mind-blowing photo upload feature, you'll be crafting prompts as legendary as the woolly mammoth. Ready to harness the power of imagery and create magic? 👉 Discover how Midjourney helps you craft prompts with photos
🙌 🙇 Prehistoric Prodigy AI Leader of the Week to follow
🔥 In this week's edition of the Caveminds, where we celebrate the innovative cavemen and women that are shaping the world of artificial intelligence.
That's why our AI Leader of the Week is none other than the prehistoric prodigy himself, Sam Altman! 🔥
In the early days of AI, when we were still painting algorithms on cave walls, Sam was there, leading the charge.
As the former president of Y Combinator and the current CEO of OpenAI, he's been a driving force in the AI revolution. But what makes Sam stand out from the rest of the AI tribe? 🤔
Well, rumor has it that he once tamed a wild algorithm just by whispering sweet nothings in its ear. Others say he can code in binary using only his eyebrows. While we can't confirm these claims, we can assure you that Sam has a unique ability to bring together the brightest minds in AI and guide them toward groundbreaking discoveries. 😱
Now, we don't want to spoil all the surprises about Sam's incredible journey, so we highly recommend you take a walk on the wild side and click the links below to learn more about this AI maestro. Trust us, you'll be left in awe of his "Alt-mazing" accomplishments. 😂👇
🔗 Discover Sam Altman on Twitter
🔗 Unearth Sam's Secrets with this interview
So, what are you waiting for? Grab your stone tablet and chisel, and start exploring the world of Sam Altman, our remarkable AI Leader of the Week! 🎉
😂AI Meme(s) Of The Week
🙏 Refer Fellow Caveminds To Join & Win
👍 EPIC WIN OR EPIC FAIL? 👎
How was today's deep dive, cavebros, and cavebabes? We want your 🗣️!
🍖🍖🍖🍖🍖 Yabba Dabba Doo!
🍖🍖🍖 Mehh... Just OK
🍖 Ooga Booga Oops! 😅
Don't be shy, give us your thoughts, whether it's a 🔥 or a 💩. We promise we won't hunt you down. 😉
🌄 CaveTime is Over! 🌄
Got cool stuff or AI Ideas? 🤔💡Talk to us!
📧 Reply or Connect with us: @caveminds / Caveminds Linkedin
Personal: @bensonsung / Linkedin
Thanks for reading, and until next time, stay primal!
yea Benson.AI !