8fig understands the growing pains of early, high-growth eCommerce brands and it’s been huge for us.
Glitch Energy Powers Sales with Product Integrity.
Glitch Energy is a natural energy powder formulated with dynamine, a supplement that increases the half-life of caffeine by 2x. President and co-founder Jacob Johnson considers the energy powder a healthier and more premium alternative to competitors that crank up caffeine doses to achieve similar results.
“We wanted to bring some more integrity to the supplement space, so we set out to create a premium product with a higher cost per unit to double down on what we believe in,” said Johnson. “A lot of competitors try to shave costs and hide behind proprietary blends and that wasn’t something that we wanted to do.”
Glitch launched in 2021 and achieved fast success, but with that came inventory stockouts and cash flow concerns. The team began looking for solutions and was approached by a VC for a 7-figure funding deal, but they decided to turn down the offer to pursue a funding partnership with 8fig instead. Here’s their story.
Influencer Marketing: Glitch’s Go-to-market Strategy
Glitch Energy was designed to scale as fast as possible. Glitch’s founders include Jacob Johnson, Zac VanDeWate, and professional gaming Youtuber Tyler aka Wildcat. As serial entrepreneurs, they wanted to test out whether they could build a brand incubator from an influencer marketing strategy.
Since the energy powder improves cognitive function and performance, the founders marketed it as a superior gaming performance enhancer during launch. Wildcat’s large audience on Youtube came in handy here, and Glitch was able to test its influencer marketing strategy straight from launch.
With a successful influencer strategy in place, Glitch spent less than $100K on paid media in 2021 and achieved 7-figure growth.
“We brought in Tyler (Wildcat) as a cofounder. We decided we would rather take a chunk of equity and capital off the table for a really good partner and content creator versus spending a lot on acquiring cold customers,” said Jacob. “Him knowing all the details behind the scenes gave him more conviction and authenticity around his promotion, which showed through the videos he created.”
The investment paid off, and the new era of energy’s sales went through the roof. By mid-February, they had sold through 40% of their inventory and needed cash to restock. That’s when they knew it was time to look for outside funding.
Deciding to Turn Down a VC Offer in Favor of 8fig Funding
The Glitch team knew they had a high-demand product, and that their limiting factor was supply chain costs. That’s why they considered a 7-figure offer from a VC firm early into their launch, but the chemistry felt off when investors asked for revenue share and a quick exit strategy.
“We wanted to keep as much of the business as possible and build a brand incubator, but the VC firm wanted to see an exit within a few years,” explained Jacob. “It was a 7-figure funding deal, but with the exit standpoint and revenue share royalty, we felt it just didn’t really align with our plans.”
At this same time, Jacob and the rest of the Glitch team were in talks with 8fig. They’d heard about the innovative new funding platform from a podcast, and were curious if it could supplement VC funding in a way that made sense for their eCommerce business.
After building a Growth Plan with 8fig and taking a hard look at our supply chain, we realized we could rapidly scale without raising money on the VC side
Turns out it could. “After talking with the 8fig team and building a supply chain plan, we realized we can scale without raising money on the VC side,” said Jacob. “The flexibility of modifying lines and changing things on the fly has been a game-changer for us.”
We’re not limited by short-term cash flow and we don’t have to bootstrap off of product sales.
Scaling During a Shipping Crisis: Flexible Funding is the Secret Flavor
Glitch launched and scaled to 7-figures during a supply chain crisis. And because 8fig offers flexibility in both the payment and remittance schedules, cash flow wasn’t an obstacle despite disruptions.
“When you are a high growth eCommerce brand, your limiting factor is supply chain. All that matters is that you have a product to sell to customers consistently as you grow,” Jacob explained. “Our 8fig Growth Plan allowed us to stay malleable with our product roadmap and supply chain in debatably the worst year for supply chain ever.”
Our 8fig Growth Plan allowed us to stay malleable with our product roadmap and supply chain in debatably the worst year for supply chain ever.
With an 8fig Growth Plan, eCommerce founders build out a supply chain plan and we provide a funding offer based on that roadmap. But since supply chains are dynamic and always changing, your plan moves with it. 8fig’s change request feature gives sellers maximum flexibility to adjust their payment and remittance schedules so their cash flow stays healthy.
For Glitch, this flexibility came in handy in a number of ways. If a shipping lead time from a manufacturer changed, the team could either push back the payment or move it to another area of the supply chain such as marketing using the change request feature (pictured below).
They could also add more inventory batches to a new flavor launch once they saw how fast other flavors sold out in the early months of launch. It also gave them the opportunity to get creative with their supply chain as delays happened, and they were able to explore both co-packing opportunities and blanket purchase orders from preferred suppliers.
“I have not run into anybody quite like 8fig, from a flexibility standpoint and being able to cover every base of financing,” Jacob said. “You guys understand the growing pains of early, high growth eCommerce brands and it’s been huge for us.”
Here at 8fig, we’re helping small to medium-sized sellers level the playing field and scale without VC capital. You built your business, and you deserve to own 100% of it.
Start building your free 8fig Growth Plan today. Once you’ve mapped out your supply chain, you can submit the plan for a funding offer. You can also check out more seller stories to learn about how 8fig is helping sellers reach financial and entrepreneurial freedom.