Mike Morg🎄

Founder of @ornamentallyyou, 2023 Inc 5000 #174 🚀. Interested in anything physics, math, history, molecular bio, evolutionary psych, & of course business

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

It was a major goal for me personally: making it into the Inc 5000 fastest growing private U.S. businesses.

#174 🎉
OrnamentallyYou 🚀

https://t.co/xOhaZDlh3R

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

@Seanfrank Same here. 379% YoY growth. 50%+ increase in MER. 100% because of new products. Preach!
(Not nearly as impressive as ridge but my co. doesn’t have a lot of non-linear opportunities e.g store rollouts).

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

Survival is evidence of hidden function.

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

@Seanfrank Why wouldn’t the same dynamic (factories owning the end product listing) apply to fashion?

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

@RomanEcom @robj3d3 Why Hong Kong over Guangzhou? Administrative?

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

@retiremeplease @davidbessis @WestsideLAGuy Really? Give me one (not sarcastic—motivation porn instead haha)

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

@MehtabKarta Where’s the best place to look for this?

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

Surprisingly on point https://t.co/qCeDtnUlwc

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

Finally started Physics after spending quite a bit of time building my mathematical foundations in calculus. Let’s see where I’m at in a year from now…
Side quests currently are linear algebra, my typical inveterate book reading, learning some Korean.

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

@CuckedbyVC @thedanielokon @zachmstuck Yup I’m getting trolled.

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

@CuckedbyVC @thedanielokon @zachmstuck This is such terrible advice that I’m convinced it’s a troll, and people actually agreed with it….

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

@thedanielokon @zachmstuck Terrible advice…. Trying to grow too fast almost tanked my own company. At a way smaller scale too.

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

@spikeballchris @Seanfrank @typesfast Good question.

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

@Seanfrank Do you think it’s possible if a brand itself doesn’t have a unifying angle? Like us for example — we have a lot of call shirts. But the brand doesn’t represent depression or anything potent like that (the tees have different themes).

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

@Linahuaa According to his own posts, he knows people who have been competitive in it as well as field medalists, plus he’s a practitioner so I really wouldn’t know how thats possible in an intuitive sense?

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

Bring “childish” has nothing to do with wisdom. Experience does. But thats beside the point: what you might interpret as childish is rather someone frustrated to the point of exhaustion, my guess— because of their familiarity of the subject and its fallacious baggage.

Considering your lack of expertise in the given field, and his connections/lifetime of work, that more charitable interpretation should be afforded to him.

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

@marcuslemonis Hey @marcuslemonis my company is a marketplace partner with some of your largest competitors. We applied within your ecosystem but have not heard back from anyone.

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

In the span of 1 year, we have dropped 1085 t-shirts, 335 tote bags (released this year), 141 tumblers (released this year), around 500-1k ceramic mugs, and at minimum dozens of ceramic ornaments. We're growing 100%+. This wouldn't have been possible if we didn't run our own warehouse. (retweeting)

[Mike Morg🎄 @MikeMorg55]

In the span of 1 year, we have dropped 1085 t-shirts, 335 tote bags (released this year), 141 tumblers (released this year), around 500-1k ceramic mugs, and at minimum dozens of ceramic ornaments. We're growing 100%+. This wouldn't have been possible if we didn't run our own warehouse.

[Bill D'Alessandro @BillDA]

"If your brand operates a warehouse, your growth was 4%. If you contract out to a 3PL, your growth is 30-35%."

I learned this the hard way. We had over 50,000 sqft at one point. Now we are totally virutal.

Running a warehouse is seductive. It's thrilling to see and feel your business humming. It strokes the ego to tour people through the floor and hear them ooo and ahh.

BUT - it's a massive distraction.

It comes with lots of headcount and thus HR (hire, manage, fire, etc). Carrier contract negotiations. Capex for shelves and forklifts. Pick/pack process optimizations. Lots of moving pieces of all types just to get packages out the door.

And even if you're good at it - you're not even close to the scale of a 3PL.

It's the same reason everyone runs AWS now instead of servers in closets. A 3PL can get better at shipping packages than you ever will. They can justify capex to save pennies and seconds that you never could.

Everyone who thinks running a warehouse is cheaper than a 3PL isn't looking at the fully burdened cost per package (rent, utilities, insurance, workers comp, HR overhead, etc).

And every second you think about the warehouse is a second you don't think about growing revenue.

I'm honestly totally unsurprised by the finding - but it's awesome to see it so clearly in the data.