01 - THE MOOD
Hi divas 🤍
Amelia won a $10,000 grant on Thursday. She applied four times. Three weeks ago she was working out how to pay her developer at the end of the month, and she filmed every day of it anyway. I have watched a lot of founders this year and the ones who get there are not just the most talented, they’re the ones who apply a fourth time. I call this relentless perseverance. I am so proud of her I could burst.
The best thing I did this week happened in the car. Three and a half hours on Saturday, Brisbane to the coast and back, and I spent the whole drive talking to Claude out loud. Not typing, talking. For weeks I’ve been stuck on the MOODY partnership stack, the actual document that says what a brand gets when it works with us and what it costs, and I could not get it onto a page. Something about the drive and having to say it out loud, the way you would to a friend who happens to be a very good advisor, shook it loose. By the time I pulled into the driveway there was a first cut of the deck waiting for me. We kept going from there but the talking was the magic bit. If you’ve got a thing you’ve been circling for a month, take it for a drive.
The other thing I’m on is money health, because I’ve decided it’s the same project as the health kick. I built a little agent this week that runs every Sunday and goes through my subscriptions looking for the leaks. Embarrassing result: about $400 a month in things I’d forgotten I was paying for. Four hundred dollars. It took four minutes to set up and it is the single highest-return thing I’ve done this year.
The chat line of the week belongs to Pinky, who asked for a Brisbane pop-up venue and had three options inside ten minutes: “You girls are better than ChatGPT.” Rosie sent a photo on Saturday of Hollie on her Melbourne couch, two women who met in this chat, with the note “All because of you.” That one’s going on the fridge.
Brooke x
If a girl in your life would get it, forward this and add her to the chat.
02 - THE VLOG
No vlog this week, so watch this one instead. Sophie Hood on the Amazon pod. Scaling Seoul Tonic into thousands of stores, playing offence on Amazon, and the one job AI doesn’t get. Her update this week: So Topical is “going really well, everything has still been entirely organic,” and clinics and PR are next. Watch → · Read →
03 - THE READ
The week in consumer, here and everywhere, and what the girls said about it.
→ TVSN is closing after more than 30 years. Direct Group couldn’t find a buyer and has put Reader’s Digest up for sale too. Alexis and Levina both had clients on it and asked the chat where that shopper goes now. She’s 55-plus, she buys on a demo, and she’s already on TikTok Shop and Facebook Live with nobody in this country building a channel for her. That’s a gap, not a funeral. Inside Retail
→ Country Road Group is pulling 100 of its 283 concessions out of David Jones. DJs has lost $170m over two years and its CEO admits a “perception problem.” Chanel, Dior and Gucci had already walked; this is the landlord’s own biggest tenant. When your anchors would rather pay their own rent than share your floor, the problem isn’t perception. Inside Retail
→ Suboo is in liquidation owing $655,000. The Bondi swim label worn by Gigi Hadid and Matilda Djerf, stocked in 300 boutiques across 17 countries, owes Shopify $140k and Wayflyer $105k. Seventeen countries of wholesale is seventeen sets of payment terms and one cash-flow problem. Inside Retail
→ Australians will spend $346 each this Black Friday, up from $324, and 62% will use AI for part of the shop. Shopify’s report, with Princess Polly already on an AEO roadmap. Six weeks out, the job isn’t a bigger discount, it’s making sure ChatGPT can read your product pages. The six steps are in 005. IT Brief
→ Kmart pulled its Anko camera glasses after the Privacy Commissioner opened an investigation into the Chinese developer, which ignored the regulator’s letters. They sold out in under a week in July. Kmart’s superpower is speed to a trend; this is what happens when the trend outruns the due diligence. B&T
→ Leslie launched Paparazzi Day. Built in public, with the chat’s notes. Watch →
→ Vera launched ZON, sun-protection clothing, and wants your feedback. zoncollection.com
→ Jay-Z is reportedly weeks from buying LVMH’s half of Fenty Beauty. His fund MarcyPen is closing on the 50% stake. Fenty did about US$450m in 2024 and Rihanna keeps hers. Read it as LVMH admitting it can’t grow a celebrity brand past the celebrity. theGrio
→ Adore Beauty opened its biggest store, at Melbourne Central. Double the range, 150 brands, a K-beauty shop inside, and the group hits 25 doors by year end. The pure-play that swore off stores now opens one a quarter, because the maths on paid social lost to the maths on a lease. If you’re a DTC beauty brand, this is your wholesale channel for 2027. Inside Retail
→ Banu Skin is in 23 Sephora doors in the US. Roz Samimi’s acne brand sold out online in its first week and came through Sephora Accelerate. The programme is the door. Apply. Inside Retail
→ Pinterest launched AI Beauty Guides and its first Beauty Trend Report with Sephora. “Caramel nude” nails up 943%, cluster lashes up 646%, and 85% of users say they see beauty trends there first. The most under-used channel in Australian beauty is about to get expensive. Cosmetics Business
→ Boots sold for US$8.9bn to the Weston family, No7 included. Private equity bought it, stripped it, flipped it. Chain Store Age
→ Sophie at MYRRAR shipped a new feature. Send it a product link from social and it tells you if it suits you. @_myrrar
→ Meta banned ByteDance from advertising on its apps in seven markets including the US, after TikTok throttled links out to Instagram. Meta’s line: “We don’t have to run ads from a competitor whose goal is to pull people off our apps.” Three weeks ago TikTok stood on a stage in Sydney and told a room of Aussie brands to go all in. The platforms are at war and your brand is the ground, so don’t build the whole house on either. Music Business Worldwide
→ Pinterest now lets brands sponsor your Pins without a deal. You get an email, you approve or decline. A platform finally paying creators for the back catalogue, not the next post. If you’ve got five years of boards, turn it on. Social Media Today
→ Week five. The 30-day yap challenge didn’t end on Wednesday. Ari posted new prompts this morning and the chat kept going. Britt’s yap, “you can be great at marketing and still have a weak brand,” is worth the minute. Britt → · Ari →
→ Rosie Chong went full-time freelance as a personal branding and LinkedIn strategist. LinkedIn →
→ ChatGPT got a visual interface. Charts, calculators and maps inside the answer, alongside GPT-6. Every one of those is a product page that didn’t get a click. TechCrunch
→ Meta and Sierra published a standard for how AI agents deal with businesses. Shopify, Stripe and Walmart are among the launch partners. This is the quiet one that matters. Next year a chunk of your orders will be placed by software on someone’s behalf, and if your store can’t talk to it, you’re not in the answer. Constellation
→ Claude moved into Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. Sidebar, all paid plans, asks before it edits. The “paste it into ChatGPT” era is about six months from over. Reworked
In our chat: the Tech + AI girls compared cloud credits. Lauren Kennedy runs vision on GCP and text on AWS, Sababa says Azure gave the most, and for GCP “make sure you have a product website, not just a landing page.”
→ Firmus pulled its $7.1bn float. The biggest IPO in a generation at a $44bn valuation: the offer was set at $11 a share, advisers tested $9 and then $5.50, and on Friday morning the board walked. Same week, Square Peg closed over $1bn, its biggest raise, on $1.4bn returned across 19 exits. Not even plastering Roxy Jacenko on this one could save it. The private money is there; the public market isn’t. If you’re raising this quarter, that’s the room you’re walking into. SmartCompany · Forbes Australia
→ Nicola Forrest put $20m into Antler’s new fund and $10m aside for women founders. $60,000 non-dilutive at first cheque and again at the next milestone. Antler’s own number: all-women teams return 2.6x against 2.1x for the fund. Women outperform the fund and still needed a billionaire to ring-fence the money. Startup Daily
→ Amelia Godfrey won SPARK’s $10k women in business grant for Pelvy. Danielle Lewis gives out $15k every quarter to SPARK members a year in. Moodi’s $1,000 grant is announced at Born of Ambition’s Thursday night in Sydney, applications shut tonight. SPARK → · Moodi →
→ Oura is defending a US lawsuit over its sleep-staging claims, a fortnight after postponing its IPO. Wearables sold themselves on “clinical.” The lawsuits are the bill for that word. B&T
In our chat: Sughra pulled together a Melbourne girls’ dinner at JUNI on Friday, “most of us met each other through MOODY,” and five of them have already asked for the next one. Paige is making personalised hypnosis audios with AI and copped to being “a skeptic with some woo in me,” which is the room in one sentence.
04 - THE DIARY
Where we’re showing up.
Today, Sydney. Australian Marketing Summit, ICC. Sababa has free tickets, ask in the chat. australianmarketingsummit.com
Wed 14 Oct, 7pm, online. How To Make AI Your Co-Founder, Cortney and Jami’s free webinar. “Mischief when the Moody gals get in the same room.” RSVP →
Fri 16 Oct, 8am, Sydney. Konnectile Breakfast with Mirela. Luma →
Sat 17 Oct, 11:30am, Melbourne. Cook, Connect & Feast, hands-on Vietnamese cooking with Udoka and Musefunnel, GK Tapas, Moonee Ponds. Pay what you can, 20 places. Luma →
Sat 17 and Sun 18 Oct, 11am, Sydney east. Rosie’s roseyefilm x South Dowling Sandwiches, half-price sandwiches and 35mm photos. @roseyefilm
25 to 27 Oct, Shangri-La Sydney. Kadwood Atelier made-to-measure suits. Eight to twelve weeks’ lead time, so this is the window for anything you’re wearing on a stage in 2027. invitation.kadwood.com
Tue 27 Oct, 7pm, London. Mode Office London launch, The Sloane Club, Chelsea. £60. RSVP →
Wed 4 Nov, Brisbane. The Build x Become Room with Alexis Fenton and Dante Amato, Spicers Balfour, 18 seats, $1,495. Details →
Thu 5 Nov, Sydney. Techella Fest, UTS Underground, from $595, three quarters sold. techellafest.com
Fri 6 Nov, Melbourne. Fashion Law Supper Club. Sold out, waitlist open. Waitlist →
Sat 15 Nov, New York. Female Founder World at Pier Sixty, $249. Abbey’s going, Alison’s buying, Leah’s “not 100%.” Abbey also needs a sublet 13 to 22 Nov. Join the waitlist →
Wed 18 Nov, Sydney. GTM & CRO Summit, Doltone House, $147. Luma →
05 - CLASSIFIEDS
What a girl wants, what a girl needs whatever makes you happy sets you freeeee - to quote the icon Christina.
→ A CRM expert looking for work. Kristen’s asking. Francesca’s already said “Me!!!” but go anyway.
→ A full-time creative director, film and media, for a New York studio. Ro, in the NYC chat.
→ Content creators for an events business. Imogen Marty, Sydney chat.
→ Pilates models, Sydney, around Fri 16 Oct. Half-day shoot, late 20s to 30s. Email Nicole@nikkicolesurfer.com, subject PILATES CASTING, with height, headshot and full-body.
→ A female DJ for an Olivia Dean listening party this month. Polly, @yoursliceof.
→ First hospital pilots for XTRA TIME. Christine’s hospital parking tech needs intros. christine.nikolopoulos@xtratime.com.au
→ Offers: Saskia Mulvihill, commercial lawyer at RedeMont, for contracts, IP and brand protection (saskia.johnson@redemont.com). Pippa Corry’s philo & co for sustainable packaging (pippa@philoand.co). Fern will shoot a fashion event for the cost of travel (hello@ferncawthorne.com). Nicole at SOLVVVED is doing free brand-world audits. @solvvved.atelier
→ Still open: venues and brand partners for the MOODY headshot day and the end-of-year manifesting night. DM me.
06 - THE CASE STUDY
A vitamin brand raised $15 million. It just sold for $1.25 million guaranteed.
Vitable, the personalised vitamin subscription Larah Loutati and Ilyas Anane founded in 2019, agreed last month to sell to an ASX penny stock for a headline $3.5 million. It raised more than $15 million to get here: Global Founders Capital, Rocket Internet, Artesian, BWX, a crowdfund, a media-for-equity deal. In April 2023 it had $14 million of ARR, 13,000 orders a month and a $100 million target. Today it has $5 million of revenue and 7,850 subscribers.
I read the ASX announcement so you don’t have to. The $3.5 million is not $3.5 million.
What the filing says. It’s an asset sale paid entirely in shares of Elixinol Wellness, a hemp company trading under a cent with a market cap of about $3.5 million. The buyer is the same size as the thing it’s buying, and the maximum share issue (476 million) is more than Elixinol has on issue (454 million). Of the $2.5 million base, $1.25 million is unconditional over twelve months. The rest is a two-year earn-out against revenue and EBITDA targets, plus a $1 million kicker that only pays if Elixinol’s market cap passes $20 million. It’s at $3.6 million. So the guaranteed number is $1.25 million in sub-cent scrip: eight cents in the dollar on what was raised.
One more detail. Vitable shareholders led by Ben McHarg’s Brenteca, which led the 2021 Series A, are putting $500,000 into Elixinol and McHarg is “in discussions to advise the board.” Elixinol’s chairman until last December sat on Vitable’s advisory board in 2021. Same people, both sides of the table. Not sinister, that’s small-cap Australia, but it tells you the price was negotiated between friends, not found in a market. The only statement from Vitable has no founder’s name on it.
The five things that set the price
1. Which way revenue is pointing on the day you sell. $14 million to $5 million. Scaled subscription brands get three to four times revenue (Eucalyptus went to Hims & Hers in February at roughly 2.5x). Shrinking ones get one to two, floor around 0.6x. Vitable’s headline is 0.7x, the guaranteed part is 0.25x.
2. Churn, and whether you ever said it out loud. Vitable never disclosed it. The DTC supplement benchmark is 5 to 8% a month, under 4% is top tier. At $50 a month and 70% margin, the gap between 5% and 8% is about $260 of lifetime margin per customer. Across the 100,000 customers they claimed, that’s the gap between a $100 million ambition and a $5 million business.
3. Cash versus paper. When someone offers you a stake in a company smaller than yours, you’re not being bought, you’re being merged into their problems.
4. Guaranteed versus earned. $1.25 million is certain. $2.25 million depends on performance the founders may not control inside someone else’s group. Every earn-out is a bet the buyer is placing on you with your own money.
5. How much you raised. This is the one for the room. Take $15 million and any exit under about $18 million is a loss for everyone. The same business on $2 million would have made its founders life-changing money at this price. The money you raise sets the floor on what counts as winning.
The other side. Care/of sold 70% to Bayer in 2020 at US$225 million; Bayer shut it in 2024. Bioniq went to Herbalife in March for up to US$150 million. Thorne went to P&G for US$3.8 billion in August. The category works. Personalisation on subscription economics, without retail and without a hero product, mostly doesn’t. Which is why Antler’s $60,000 non-dilutive cheques matter in the same month: money that doesn’t set a floor on your exit.
Monday. Work out your real monthly churn, not the one in the deck. Open the cap table and find the exit price where every investor gets their money back, that’s your floor. Then find one grant to apply for this quarter.
Forward this to one girl who’d get it.
Brooke x
MOODY is Australia’s answer to the serendipity Americans take for granted. The room where founders, operators, corporates and creatives are in the same group chat, and it turns out they needed each other. These are the girls who get it and we are in a MOOD.
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