In-Store Promotions Scheduling

The question I hear most from founders during Sequoia Capital's Arc program is about #pricing. Pricing is one of the most underutilized levers for startups. Why does it matter so much? It has the most direct impact on revenue, and the moment you establish your pricing, you determine your TAM. Getting the pricing metric right is, by far, the most important one. The key is to imagine the future: when you are a large and successful company, how have you changed the world, and what metric correlates best with your success? Hitch your financial wagon to that metric! If you are Figma, success is all designers using the app; therefore, the pricing metrics is per designer seat. If you are VMware, success is all workloads run in virtual machines; therefore, the right pricing metric would have been a virtual machine. A pricing metric is like the genie in a bottle: once you get it out, it is tough to rein it back or change it. The pricing model is about when and how frequently you charge. Recurrent subscriptions are the predominant model for SaaS apps, and usage-based pricing is the model for infrastructure solutions. Usage-based pricing creates a beautiful alignment of incentives but is less predictable. Upfront credit purchases and commitments are efforts to make usage-based practice more aligned with the rigid corporate budgeting processes. You can be the premium solution or the affordable one. Both are legitimate approaches. But your pricing needs to be consistent with the rest of your strategy: with your product and distribution channels.  You can’t have an affordable solution distributed through an expensive enterprise sales force. In this case, you need to sell either online or through inside sales—the product better be simple and the sales cycle quick. Many technical founders are shy about asking for a lot of money for their product. Don’t be. If customers like the product and it delivers value, they will gladly pay for it. Unless you hear customer complaints that you are expensive, then for sure you are underpricing. Calculate the ROI of your product, and take 20% of that value as your price point. How much it costs you to build the solution should not guide your pricing. But you should do a sanity check that you have a decent gross margin. Most companies start by selling a single package. Over time, they realize that different customer segments have different maturity levels and willingness to pay. To price discriminate between these segments, you need to introduce multiple packages.  Start by creating a customer maturity curve to inform your decisions on how many packages you need. The trick is to have the smallest number of packages to cover the broadest range of customer needs. Your packages will change and evolve quickly as your product matures. 

Tesco, B&Q, John Lewis & Partners and Waitrose & Partners are teaming up to make retail media easier to buy at scale. Every retailer runs its own network, its own audiences, its own console, its own definition of "measurement". Planning one campaign across three retailers has meant running it three completely different ways. What brands actually wanted was scale, consistency and one way to measure it. dunnhumby just put forward a route to get there, and four of the UK's biggest names are testing it. The dunnhumby network alliance launched on the 19th June. dunnhumby, the data science company wholly owned by Tesco, is building it with ad tech firm Kevel. The promise: one way for brands and agencies to plan, activate and measure across multiple retailers, instead of stitching it together deal by deal. Pilots start this summer across DIY and household, health and beauty, and grocery, with more retailers expected to join. One scope note: this is a UK launch with UK retailers. The problem it targets is global. What's actually being connected: 🛒 Audiences. Shopper segments that today sit locked inside each retailer, made addressable across the group. 🛒 Inventory. One place to buy across networks, rather than one negotiation per retailer. 🛒 Measurement. Shared standards for activation and reporting, so campaigns can be compared like for like. The detail that matters most is governance. Retailers keep control of their own media businesses. dunnhumby is pitching this as the open alternative to closed ecosystems, which is a tidy way of saying "not Amazon." We've seen a version of this film before. Display advertising fragmented into thousands of sites, then ad networks and exchanges bundled them up, and publishers slowly lost pricing power to the layer sitting on top. #RetailMedia is running a similar playbook about fifteen years later, but it has learned the lesson: the retailers aren't ceding their businesses to the aggregator. That's the part that makes the open model worth backing. That a Tesco-owned company is building the connective layer for Tesco's rivals tells you how badly the whole market wants this solved. If it works, everyone gets something real. Brands get scale and cleaner measurement. Retailers reach demand they couldn't reach alone while staying in charge of their own shelves. Shoppers get advertising that matches what they came to buy. For once, the convenient option and the right option look like the same thing. Fragmentation was expensive - hopefully convenience doesn't mean add any additional cost to the experience? #Retail #Media #advertising #RMN #marketing #commerce #media #agency #mediaagency

What's the one quality you need to succeed in Google India's Marketing Team? While technical skills and marketing knowledge are important, I've learned that adaptability is the ultimate game-changer. Here's why: The Indian market changes faster than we can imagine. What works in one state might completely fail in another. Our consumers speak different languages, follow different trends, and react differently to marketing campaigns. Let me share a perfect example of adaptability in action: Kurkure's campaign in Uttar Pradesh shows exactly what I mean. Instead of running their usual national campaign, they completely transformed their approach. They worked with local influencers who spoke the language of UP, created ads using regional humor, and even launched a special flavor inspired by local tastes. The result? Their market share and brand awareness in UP shot up significantly. Why? Because they adapted to what their audience wanted rather than sticking to a one-size-fits-all approach. This is exactly what we do at Google India - we adapt, we learn, and we change our approach based on who we're talking to. Sometimes, the best strategy is to pause, listen to your audience, and be willing to try something new. To everyone aspiring to work in marketing: Your ability to adapt might be more valuable than any other skill you bring to the table. Agree or not?

Set and forget is not a pricing strategy ! Price--> Design--> Build We know that's what everyone says, but thats an oversimplification of what the entire process should look like. The assumption your pricing was correct in the pre-design phase and doesn't need change is dangerous, dangerous, dangerous !! I have seen too many physical and software products change drastically between initial design to final delivery. Product owners will typically assume that pricing still holds. You have to change that philosophy. In the real world we need a lot more iteration in price: Step 1: Initial Price: This stage you quantify the value and set an initial target price. This is a combination of internal/external research, some value quantification and pricing knowledge. Step 2: Design: With that price info, the product team designs a product that hits product and profitability targets. This is also where you need to keep track of the product margins. Often product will go design a better product at the expense of higher cost, and margins suffer before launch. Step 3: Reprice: Now that we know the new design constraints that impact the profitability, this stage gives you the opportunity to reprice the product based on the design. If substantial value has been added, price should go up. Do not fall into the 'lets over deliver on value and keep price same' trap. Step 4: Build: Now with that new price info and product roadmap the product goes through the build stage. Step 5: Pre launch reprice : Now significant time may have passed since last price review. The market for the product, the economy etc may have changed. This stage can assist in making last changes before product goes out. Good time to also establish guardrails for price performance, discount strategy, or sales strategy. Step 6: Launch: Goes without saying the product is out in the real world. Great way to capture feedback. Also a stage where performance is measured against the price guardrails. Step 7: Reprice 3: Based on sales feedback, you start charting next steps. Selling too slow, you may need discount or reprice. Selling too fast, it may be overdelivering on price vs value. Pricing metric may need change. Fx may have changed. This is the price adjustment stage, should be annual or semi annual. You can incorporate these steps into new product introduction framework or annual or semi annual pricing strategy process, either ways it will help establish good pricing principles in the org. I know of many products that once designed were never repriced years into its life.. Surely things must have changed all those years... Think of Pricing as a lifecycle !! -------------------------- We are in #Pricingtribe.

𝐌𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐬 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐡 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧 6 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐬. Here's why this partnership isn't just another logo mashup: They identified a real market gap. Women were choosing between performance or fit - never getting both. Nike brought athletic engineering. SKIMS brought body-conscious design. The result was: A category that didn't exist before! 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞: They merged audiences without cannibalizing either brand. Nike gained access to SKIMS' body-positive community. SKIMS borrowed athletic credibility. Both maintained premium positioning - no discounting, no dilution. Timing was surgical. Launched exactly when athleisure fatigue hit peak saturation. Consumers were hungry for differentiation. Kim Kardashian's influence amplified reach, but the product carried the message. Not her celebrity or borrowed credibility. It was a genuine innovation! 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐮𝐦 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚: Stop chasing celebrity associations. Start hunting for capability gaps. Strategic collaborations work when 1+1=3, not when you're just renting someone else's audience. Ask yourself: What can we create together that neither brand could build alone? That's the difference between a partnership and a press release. #Growth #Strategy

A chocolate brand in motorsport isn’t the first thing you’d expect but when it’s Feastables by MrBeast, you stop and pay attention. 🍫⚡ Feastables, the ethical snacking brand by MrBeast, is now the official snacking partner of Formula E. And while FMCG brands in motorsport aren’t unheard of, one built on YouTube, Gen Z values, and sustainability? That’s rare air. 🔥 Formula E has been pushing hard to become the motorsport of youth culture. Digital-first, sustainability-led, and entertainment-driven. So, teaming up with one of the world’s biggest creators could mark the beginning of a new era of sponsorships for them. 👀 And this didn’t come out of nowhere. Earlier this year, MrBeast got behind the wheel of a Formula E GEN3 Evo at EVO Sessions in Miami... and famously crashed it on Lap 2. 🏎️ That clip went viral and more importantly, it gave Formula E relevance through one of the most powerful digital ecosystems in the world: MrBeast's fanbase. And in return, Feastables gets to tap into a global sports audience. 🫡 That opened the door to:👇🏽 ➤ Drivers appearing in his content ➤ Sampling stations at races ➤ Activations that feel more like creator collabs than sponsorship ads ➤ Two brands using their shared sustainability values to connect with fans who actually care Now this partnership is – content-first, culture-led, and backed by real purpose: ethical sourcing + sustainable racing = a brand story Gen Z can believe in. It doesn’t feel forced but a right product association with a rightsholder that shares the same ethos. 🔄 Because in a space where attention is fractured, and audiences are harder to reach, the smart brands are going where the fans are… they’ll collide with the right moments. Just like this one! 🏆 #sportsmarketing #sportsbiz #sponsorship

Kai Cenat's Streamer University was a MASTERCLASS on brand partnerships! ICYMI, Kai C. just wrapped the second year of his creator bootcamp at Hendrix College. Five days, other big streamers like Ludwig and Pokimane teaching smaller creators about sponsorships and growth, all live-streamed. The numbers are impressive: - 1.2 million concurrent viewers at peak. - 58 million watch hours. - 16 brands got involved in some way shape or form. My first reaction was "Holy crap, 16 is a lot! How'd they do that?!" I've come to realize that it only worked because Kai built something BIG. If Kai was just streaming his normal content, brands would have limited ways to actually integrate. But with a big new project, suddenly there's this whole world of organic collab opportunities. The creators had lunch at Zaxby's, there were Red Bull fridges in the background of streams, the students were playing with Meta glasses on stream, etc. None of these integrations felt forced because it's all happening inside something big & unique that doesn't happen every week. Think about some of the most notable creator-brand partnerships that actually end up being press-worthy. They're never from integrations into regular content. They're always from creators doing something more ELEVATED than their normal programming. (ie: Ryan Trahan going to Airbnbs in every state. Airrack's world's largest pizza stunt. Dharr Man's Chief Kindness Officer role at the NFL.) These aren't brand deals integrated onto normal programming. They're creators building new projects first, then brands finding their way into those projects naturally. Creators, stop thinking about how to fit a brand into your next video. Start thinking about what big project you could launch that brands would want to be part of. The partnerships become a lot easier to close once you've built something worth partnering with...

Adapt, don’t just adopt. Silicon Valley playbooks often break in Indian markets. I have seen founders import a successful model from abroad, assuming it will thrive here unchanged - a costly mistake. India’s consumer landscape has its own nuances: price-sensitive shoppers, diverse languages, and complex distribution realities. Global D2C strategies usually need desi tweaks, from localised products to region-specific channels. The smart approach? Treat international success stories as inspiration, not a template. Winning in India requires adaptation, not just adoption. Founders who boldly tailor their strategy to local truths build companies that thrive where copy-paste models falter. (What works in New York or Shanghai might need a total rethink in Nagpur or Shillong.) Do you agree? #india #startups #strategy #success

In 2007, I helped Google go from 'the American Yandex' to Google in Russia. In the UK, mentioning I worked at Google would get such gushing reactions that I stopped sharing it. At Moscow dinner parties: Confused Pikachu expressions 😅 Background: As a Google Product Marketing Manager I moved to Moscow to help change that perception. Google's initial playbook was simple: launch markets from a central hub, without localisation. The assumption was that search was universal. Which was a mistake. Sure, it worked in most markets. But Russia was different. It had a strong local competitor in Yandex that had successfully copied what Google was doing in the US. Our strategy had to go against Google's playbook. So we built a local team to deeply understand Russian users' needs. We started by optimising the product for Russian language search, and then localised products like Gmail and Maps. The problem: Many Russians had tried Google's non-localised offering before and been disappointed in the quality of the search. We weren't just acquiring new users. We were trying to win back trust. Which is 100 times harder. Even for a titan like Google. Although Google gradually shifted from "American Yandex" to a legitimate competitor, closing the gap by a 1/3rd, Yandex has always remained on top. For founders, there are important lessons here: • Market Fit ≠ Market Transfer Success in one segment proves you understand that segment - nothing more. • Localisation vs Transformation  Don't just localise  your product. Transform your entire understanding of what users need. • Speed > Scale Your greatest competitive advantage might be your willingness to adapt quickly when others won't. That’s where startups will always outmanoeuvre F500 behemoths. ♻️ Found this helpful? Repost to share with your network. ⚡️ Want more content like this? Hit follow Maya Moufarek.