Casper's S-1 and the DTC economy

Casper, the company fka as a mattress startup and now a “Sleep Economy” company, released their S-1 (document you file before an IPO) last week, and plenty of folks were dropping hot takes on Twitter. Here are a couple of good threads from @DKThomp, @danprimack, and @jstoffer.

The Casper S-1 chatter is interesting in the context of this Inc article about “the wild race to overthrow every consumer category.” In case you want to get up to speed on the DTC economy, the article does a great job describing:

• the history of the first DTC companies (including Warby Parker and Dollar Shave Club)
• the best categories for DTC retail (products for millennials and products with “broken” supply chains)
• how to find customers (from viral videos to Facebook and Google)
• the two ways to make unit economics work (make a profit on the first sale or lock in subscriptions)
• going back to physical retail (because it turns out stores work)
• what’s next for all of these startups (become R&D investments for their legacy competitors)

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