Mitesh Desai's Profile
Mitesh Desai
Recent Messages
#executive-strategy - December 13, 2024 at 07:59 PM
I'm also sorry to hear about your previous exit - that said it's a great lesson to learn given you've clearly got some entrepreneurial spirit if you've managed to make a second succesful business! Much easier to avoid those pitfalls next time around
#executive-strategy - December 13, 2024 at 07:58 PM
Hi Kasper, you're absolutely right. The management team we have is worth its weight in gold.
#executive-strategy - December 11, 2024 at 12:57 PM
Finally: Selling is a massive pain in the ass. Don't have any active working role in a business you intend to sell. The two are not possible to manage side by side.
#executive-strategy - December 11, 2024 at 12:56 PM
Last thing (maybe more personal for us compared to most): Earn-outs and exit clauses. Every buyer we met has either asked or made offers contingent on my staying involved. That has probably been not so fun for my sisters who, on paper, get paid way above market rate and who nobody wants to keep around post-exit. That underidentifies their strengths and values but is probably not nice for them regardless. So I guess I'd say think about who is going to get killed off in the story of your exit and who might get hurt. Whatever you can do to manage that; do it. Relationships are worth more than money
#executive-strategy - December 11, 2024 at 12:52 PM
Next: Look very carefully at your accountants. When we first spoke to PE the first thing we were told is that we would need new accountants if we wanted a relatively painfree exit. Our accountant had worked with us for 20 years but wasn't an industry expert, wasn't trusted and so this was invariably going to cause loads of pain in the due diligence process. The change caused different types of pain but also highlighted a number of key deficiencies in our accounting processes that would've made a sale virtually impossible.
#executive-strategy - December 11, 2024 at 12:50 PM
Next: Talk to tax planners. If you have loved ones and can hive money into tax free trusts then make it happen as early as possible. You never know what is around the corner and ultimately for the UK based people you need to survive 7 years to ensure that money passes on without any tax. There is lots to consider here but typically my best recommendation is to ask the richest person you know to introduce you to someone. Often whatever extra you pay up front comes back out the other side
#executive-strategy - December 11, 2024 at 12:48 PM
Think about your life after an exit. In our case we are exiting (in theory) with around an 8-figure valuation. So It's great but there's no guarantees in life that it will last forever. Our intention is to invest a decent portion of the exit amount but that raises the next question for us; are we skilled investors? What is the goal of our investing? In our case we've been making investments of varying sizes for the past twenty years so we have a reasonable sense on this but it's easy to say you'd like to switch from running a trading business to trying to earn a passive income but ask yourself serious questions to determine if you'd have any edge in this or if you'd just become the lemon in the car lot
#executive-strategy - December 11, 2024 at 12:46 PM
If you are thinking of exiting in the next 5-10 years then speak to someone today. Depending on your size, Private Equity, a broker in your industry or anyone like that is always happy to have a chat. I've never known a PE guy to say no to a conversation and in almost every instance we have learnt something
#executive-strategy - December 11, 2024 at 12:45 PM
Christening this new formed group with some thoughts on exit processes.....ours is a family business and unfortunately the rules and regulations around a lot of stuff 42 years ago when it started are quite different to today. In most cases nobody was paying much attention until we realised we wanted to exit...here are some thoughts which I hope will help others
#ask-the-community - November 20, 2024 at 03:13 PM
We find that BF isn't even our busiest time of year typically, it's usually a couple weeks later and so we just reward a lot of random 1 off customers who don't really repeat so there's little LTV or upside in acquiring them that one time
#ask-the-community - November 20, 2024 at 03:12 PM
We have completely abandoned Black Friday price cuts this year. Instead we're offering gifts with purchase rather than explicit extra discounting.
#ask-the-community - November 20, 2024 at 03:11 PM
This is such a good idea. I really like that you've managed to create a feeling of exlusivity for something that is basically common across the industry at this time of year
#ask-the-community - November 13, 2024 at 01:37 PM
Hi Napala, There are loads of factors that will affect shipping costs - average weight/size etc will also be factors too. If it's UK I know a 3PL and can send you an old contract we had which details costs etc
#ask-the-community - November 12, 2024 at 10:27 AM
I think it's probably great for an interior designer type business but not so good for e-comm in our experience...
#ask-the-community - November 12, 2024 at 10:27 AM
We have tried it but find you get very high view count and very little conversion
#meta-ads - November 12, 2024 at 10:26 AM
Wow ok thanks. I guess in our case we work on quite low margin and there's currently no subscriptions so it's not realistic for us to acquire customers anywhere at such a high cost. We stopped meta ads a while back but we spend around £30k a month on google ads now (Pmax brought out CAC down a lot)...we spent a decent chunk of money on meta ads to realise it didn't suit us
#meta-ads - November 12, 2024 at 09:54 AM
Compared to google where we acquire customers for £4
#meta-ads - November 12, 2024 at 09:54 AM
Could I ask approx what is your CPA on meta ads? We trailled it for a while and the best we managed was acquiring customers at as cost of around £80
#growth-and-marketing - November 04, 2024 at 12:52 PM
I suspect most of us have worked with at least one influencer who has broadly been useless too...at least this set up is properly affiliated and attributed
#growth-and-marketing - November 04, 2024 at 12:51 PM
For example 4500 people have made videos on Tiktok which reference products we sell. It has involved zero work on our side beyond setting up tiktok shop and setting a default commission rate
#growth-and-marketing - November 04, 2024 at 12:51 PM
To some extent this is already what Tiktok have done. You can offer "Open collaborations" on there and random people can make videos and rave about your product. If they generate sales they get paid a commission.
#ask-the-community - November 04, 2024 at 12:50 PM
We are trying to build in a big focus on opportunities for an acquirer. All the easy wins that help provide an early bump in turnover/profit which makes the sale more exciting
#ask-the-community - November 04, 2024 at 12:49 PM
This is invaluable advice, Brian. Thank you.
#ask-the-community - October 31, 2024 at 02:45 PM
Thanks that is all really great advice. We're just in the process of exploring brokers and speaking a few that specialise in our industry. They also seem quite process driven which helps with the timeframe suggestion.
#ask-the-community - October 29, 2024 at 04:52 PM
Just starting on the process of exiting our business. Patrick mentioned there's a few second time founders in here. Any advice/red flags or mistakes I can avoid making?
#ask-the-community - October 29, 2024 at 04:52 PM
I can introduce you to the guys at Ethix digital if you want to see if they could help?
#growth-and-marketing - October 29, 2024 at 02:57 PM
Internal team costing around £70k p.a and external technical SEO costing about £14k. Worth their weight in gold....but too many pirates in the industry
#introductions - September 13, 2024 at 01:26 PM
I think we possibly met at the NOPE this year! Hope you're well
#ask-the-community - September 02, 2024 at 12:13 PM
I know a great copywriter. Happy to introduce you and see if she can put something together
#tech-stack - August 28, 2024 at 11:02 AM
Amazing! They quoted me $1250 for lowest tier membership which I think covered 10k transactions a month
#discount-codes - August 28, 2024 at 11:01 AM
Hey if anyone wants supplements from Landys Chemist we can usually offer 20-40% off. Just send me a message and I'll sort for you 🙂 Fragrance we can also do 10% off site prices. We also have a Chanel agency so can sell Chanel fragrance for 25% off SRP. Don't be shy to get in touch!
#introductions - August 27, 2024 at 03:37 PM
My wife is a very loyal customer of your business! Huge fans. Welcome
#tech-stack - August 27, 2024 at 03:36 PM
Looks very interesting. We get quite a lot of sketchy customers due to perfumes etc so this is quite tempting. Also had a few carding attacks recently
#tech-stack - August 27, 2024 at 03:36 PM
Is anyone using Kount?
#introductions - August 02, 2024 at 11:48 AM
Love your brand, Chris! Welcome
#ask-the-community - July 29, 2024 at 03:43 PM
When we pushed our page speeds up a lot we found conversion rose by 15-20%
#ask-the-community - July 29, 2024 at 03:43 PM
Your page speed score on mobile is relatively low. 70 is achievable IMO especially when you have such a great desktop score
#ask-the-community - July 29, 2024 at 03:43 PM
Hey Andrew,
#ask-the-community - July 29, 2024 at 03:40 PM
My head of digital marketing is going I think
#tech-stack - July 18, 2024 at 10:57 AM
Personally our digital marketing guys are really happy with it compared to other platforms. The signup loops and other little on page popups you can set up are really easy to use and monitor for effectiveness. On top of that segmenting the database is straight forward so you can send hyper-targeted emails which result is really great open/conversion.
#tech-stack - July 11, 2024 at 02:23 PM
Yes that part is positive! Can't decide whether to renew again now though
#tech-stack - July 11, 2024 at 01:45 PM
Does anyone else use Noibu? In the first year we had it it was amazing and helped us find incremental revenue worth around £750k but it's definitely serving less of a purpose now
#ask-the-community - July 11, 2024 at 01:43 PM
We used to use a client called Nosto that had some great automations around customer retention too
#ask-the-community - July 11, 2024 at 01:41 PM
Ours is around 35%...we're lucky because the product mix many of our wellness customers get from us can't be replicated at many/any of our competitors. In addition because it's wellness I think customers are quite captive naturally. Basics like reward points keep customers engaged but automated email services through Klaviyo are a great way to re-engage customers who haven't purchased in a while with relatively low lift from a business perspective.
#linkedin-love - July 11, 2024 at 11:56 AM
1 issue is how to exit. We're gearing up to sell in the next 12 months and it feels like it might be a challenge to find a buyer who wants to take on the mix of in store/online retail.
#supply-chain - July 05, 2024 at 11:47 AM
Happy to introduce. Gary was really accomodating and hard working
#supply-chain - July 05, 2024 at 11:46 AM
I know a 3PL based in Northampton, England if anyone needs to change. We tried them out but it didn't work for us because we sell 10k different items and barcodes are always changing etc etc
#introductions - July 05, 2024 at 11:44 AM
So many of my brands talk to me about the great work you guys do! Lovely to connect
#ask-the-community - June 25, 2024 at 08:58 AM
Hey Tom, We took a slightly different approach. Rather than focussing on our business as the centre we focussed on a concern of our customers and built the community around that. As we built we were able to recommend things we sell as a bolt on to the other advice we were giving