Bill D'Alessandro

Built & sold 8 DTC/SaaS companies. Pioneered the ecommerce aggregator model. Host the @acquanon podcast.

Acquiring and investing in CPG, pet, and ecom brands.

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

Here's my big personal news:

Natural Dog Company has been acquired by FoodScience, a Morgan Stanley Capital Partners portfolio company!

After 13 years, the journey that started with me quitting my job to go all-in on Elements Brands has officially come to an end.

What started as one guy in a rented office turned into $200M+ of sales and something much bigger.

We bought (and exited) 8 brands, from skincare to laundry detergent to pet wellness.

We pioneered the "ecommerce aggregator" model long before that was even a thing.

We built an incredible team with deep expertise across ecommerce, Amazon, retail, operations, and finance, all of whom are staying on to work on Natural Dog and FoodScience's other amazing brands.

And I'm not going anywhere.

I'm staying on as VP of Corporate Development for the combined platform, where I’ll be leading M&A - finding and acquiring the best pet brands in the world.

If you know me, you know I love this stuff. I can't wait to keep doing it with the firepower of FoodScience and Morgan Stanley behind me.

Huge thanks to everyone I've learned from here on Twitter/X, and especially the EcommerceFuel crew. Y'all have been my sounding board, my therapy sessions, and my second brain for the last decade. I've learned more from you than any MBA could've taught me. Thanks for being generous with your knowledge and support.

If you're running a pet brand and thinking about an exit - or know someone who is - DM me. We’re buying. I'd love to help you write your next chapter.

Press release is in the next tweet!

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

@Seanfrank Iron law of ecom - ROAS is shit during election season

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

@markgurman “Compromise” is never a good place to start from in design

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

@rossiadam @ShinghiD I’m finding it hard to wrap my head around how profitable big tech is going to get

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

Fun way to generate avatars for your bots

“…in the style of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”

This guy does all the accounting for our podcast

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

@MediaKing The whole internet is bought and paid for

Reviews, testimonials, celebrities, influencers, your friend’s instagram reel, everything

It’s all sponsored content

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

@anotherbearcap AI models answering tickets

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

One of my coaching clients cut her Filipino call center / CS staff from 14 last year to ONE this year - and her customer satisfaction scores are up

[Stefan Schubert @StefanFSchubert]

Global call-centre employment is contracting

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

You can see the trend historically - even pre-AI, tons of humans no longer clear the “can contribute more productively than a machine” bar.

Consider how many millions are effectively unemployed today vs. 1000 years ago. The welfare state has exploded.

UBI is troubling but feels inevitable

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

@MediaKing The whole internet is bought and paid for

Reviews, testimonials, celebrities, influencers, your friend’s instagram reel, everything

It’s all sponsored content

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

More convinced than ever that “be maximally truth seeking” is the ideal prime directive for an AI model

Grok doesn’t have the absolute best models, but sometimes you just don’t have time for Claude’s moralizing

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

@guessworkinvest This post gave me hives

Too real

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

@BobbyBizScout This type of engagement bait is so tired

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

@josephperson

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

@BizLikeMike @MatznerJon Trusting walmart to have the low price is usually a pretty safe bet

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

@cathrynlavery @joshmohrer I’ve been using Crosswalk for this - my wife’s bot and mine check it once and hour and send notes back and forth

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

@Sumohax0r @MehtabKarta This is the way

UniFi cameras connected to a UniFi NVR via PoE

You’ll have to pull cable to every camera, or go with their “G6 Instant” which is WiFi. You still need the NVR though.

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

@gkamstra Hmmm...AI

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

@jspujji Chase CSR Business is 3X on ads up to $1M year

Amex Biz Gold at 4X, $150k cap, but you can have multiple cards

Biggest problem is that Meta, Amazon, Google no longer take credit cards once you hit any scale

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

@gkamstra Good grief

Breathtaking red queen race between the hyperscalers to see who can spend the most capex on AI