#9 - Behind the scenes of Hexclad's financial operations

Heya, ya you. Happy belated Valentine’s Day. You deserve all the love 🧡

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Today in 5 minutes or less, you’ll learn:

1. How Connor finds work/life balance and why he’s friends with lots of people he works with

2. What metrics Hexclad is tracking to drive 9-figure revenue targets 

3. How Connor sets goals for the team to ladder up into the overall company goal (hint hint they still use Excel!)

4.  What data points Connor looked at to  drive hero product acquisition (their 13-piece set)  

5. How Hexclad is diving into personalization to build a brand mote

First, let’s introduce our guest, Connor Rolain, Director of Growth for Hexclad, the Bentley of cookware products.  Seriously their pans and knives have completely changed my cooking game. They’ve rapidly grown on DTC, Amazon, and Costco.

I learned a ton in my chat with Connor and will share my notes below, but to get the in-depth version, definitely be sure to check out the full episode here.

What metrics to track for your growing business

Every single decision Hexclad makes is rooted in MER goal which is ultimately rooted in EBITDA Margin.

"Our marketing and finance teams are so in lockstep" - unifying marketing and finance is HUGE and is only going to continue to be a focus for best-in-class data-driven brands.

They use a daily metrics tracker (this is a spreadsheet) that tracks COGS, Shipping Fees, and Transaction Fees, to boil down to contribution margin. Everyone on the team knows this is the source of truth and checks it on a daily basis.

Transformational decision making

Hero acquisition offer product (13 pc set) as core scale offer > other products

• Very similar to the Oats Overnight story releasing in the near future

• Tracking LTV

• Huge fan of tracking blended performance (hey I'm the same way..)

• Back into blended CAC // know roughly what our pre-ad costs are/take order value x all costs (gross profit %) - CAC. Everything boils down to contribution margin

How to build a brand mote with personalization 

You read that right, personalization can be a brand mote, here’s how Hexclad is nailing this: 

Early and often they’re collecting information on 2 data points from their potential customers:

• Who are you cooking for? (Family, yourself, significant other) 

• What are your eating habits? (Meat eater, Vegan, Vegetarian, ect) 

They do this through their popups, in email campaigns (using Spellbound), and using their post-purchase surveys.  

They then use this data to better target their customers and provide product recommendations.  For example, if you are cooking for a family they’ll recommend the 13 pc set, if you’re cooking for yourself or a partner, they’ll recommend a smaller starter set. 

As always thank you for reading, we’re always open to feedback so hit that reply button if you have anything - good or bad.

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