The Rise and Fall of Black Rifle Coffee

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Black Rifle Coffee built a nine-figure brand on YouTube videos, a Shopify checkout and 287,000 people on autoship. Then they went public, chased retail shelves, quieted the content that built them, and watched the subscriber base fall to 150,000 while the stock dropped more than 97%. I break down the 3 pillars they had, the 2 they gave up, and why keeping it simple is what lets a brand scale and sell.

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(0:00) How Black Rifle Coffee went from viral videos to a billion dollars, and back

(0:42) The 1 number to remember: 287,000 people on autoship

(1:17) The 3 pillars of a brand you can scale and sell

(2:09) Audience first: a $1,800 Black Friday test and 300 pounds of coffee

(3:17) Viral videos and the exposure that compounded

(4:26) Content, a subscription and a Shopify checkout: that was the whole business

(5:10) The 2021 investor deck: 70% organic traffic, 7% conversion, 43% margin