your investment thesis is milk! it's dairy! it goes off!
This is a MONSTER insight! Skims co-founder Jens Grede says big corporations are TOO SLOW! Their year-long plans are worthless because pop culture is dairy, it expires! He moves at the speed of culture, making decisions in weeks, not years. This is how you find the next rocket ship! BOOYAH!
Listen up! If you're using last year's data to make this year's investment decisions, you are going to get CRUSHED! Crushed! Jens Grede, the marketing genius and co-founder behind Skims, dropped an absolute bombshell of a lesson that every single investor needs to tattoo on their brain.
He obliterates the slow, bureaucratic decision-making of big companies. You know the type. They spend a year building consensus, running everything by committee, and by the time they launch something, the world has moved on. Grede says this is a recipe for disaster.
His secret? Moving at the speed of culture. 'Pop culture is dairy, it goes off,' he declared. WHAT A LINE! It's not wine that gets better with age; it's milk that's going to stink up your fridge if you don't act fast!
Here's the playbook he uses at Skims, a brand that has become a cultural phenomenon. Instead of planning a year in advance, they operate six *weeks* in advance. 'Imagine if we operated six weeks in advance,' he explained. 'Well, six weeks in advance, I know who's going to be nominated for the Oscars. I know who's likely going to be up at the Grammys. I know that the next season of White Lotus is coming out.'
This is the edge! While other brands are stuck in meetings, Skims is signing the breakout stars of a hit show *as it's peaking*. They featured Shai Gilgeous-Alexander during his breakout NBA year. They had Sabrina Carpenter right before 'Espresso' became the song of the summer. They're not predicting the future; they're reacting to the present faster than anyone else.
Their decision-making process isn't some 100-page PowerPoint. It's a simple, powerful question: 'Wouldn't it be cool?' That's it! 'Wouldn't it be cool if the two girls that we're all a little bit quietly excited about were our Valentine's couple?' That's how they got the breakout stars from *White Lotus* for a campaign. It's instinct, it's taste, it's action!
This is a lesson for every investor, especially in consumer brands. You can't just look at the balance sheet. You have to look at the zeitgeist. Who is capturing the cultural conversation *right now*? The ability to identify and act on cultural momentum is a massive, underrated source of alpha. Stop looking at stale data. Start paying attention to what's happening on the street, on TikTok, in the group chats. That's where the next 10-bagger is being born. DON'T BE LATE!
Learning Outcomes
Actionable Practices
Pick a public consumer company and analyse their last six months of marketing campaigns. Do they feel timely and relevant, or stale and corporate?
Use a social media analytics tool (even free ones) to track the 'share of voice' for a few competing brands in a sector you know. Is the leader the one with the biggest market cap?
For your next consumer stock idea, ask 'would it be cool if...' and try to map out a culturally relevant partnership for them. Does the brand have the agility to pull it off?