The Cheese #79 🧀 - All Gas No Brakes, Bobby Axelrod's House, and a Truckload Payday

Promised you the final July Whatnot number last week. Here it is. $402k, which crushes our previous channel record of $356k from May. The live team just flat out executed.

Zooming out, July was the biggest month in company history across all channels. And it happened without a mystery box drop, which is historically how we push the numbers into record territory.

Amazon finished July up 26% year over year. Second best month of the year. June still holds the top spot for 2026, but July was no slouch.

Membership has had a really solid couple of weeks. We are sitting almost exactly where we want to be. The next few days are always the unpredictable part. The monthly mission delivers, and some members churn because you cannot please everyone. We plan for it, but you still hold your breath a little.

On the BattlGames front, we are close to locking up all the Season 3 sponsorships. Closed all but two. Both are still expected to come in. One is just complex on the logistics side, but it is happening. The other one, you know who you are; pull the trigger, sir lol. Contestants are locked, and outreach is going out today. Full Season 3 announcement on YouTube Live next week. Very excited about this one.

The opportunity buy is paying off. We grabbed 89 pallets of survival gear for a little under $20k all-in, all or nothing, site unseen. Already past $100k in sales, and we have only moved through about 30% of the inventory. The early numbers are really good.

Also coming next week: our first exclusive member drop. A limited co-branded serialized knife in a unique colorway, going to members first, then to the public if anything is left. We have been building toward this, and I am genuinely curious how the first one lands.

Our member winback campaign got an upgrade this week. Walter and Kent rebuilt the dedicated landing pages for it and added one-click reactivation. The conversion rate jumped meaningfully. Big shoutout to both of them on that one.

The team is almost fully done with the QuickBooks Enterprise migration. We got a look at the June P&L, and Q2 finished strong.

eBay Live. We ran our first test show this week. The constraints are real. Catalog restrictions mean you are working one-per-SKU, which ties your hands. Even with those limitations, it showed real potential. Two more test shows scheduled next week, then we make a call: invest in building eBay Live out properly, double down on Whatnot with a second channel, or try to do both.

Still no official Whop replacement on the clipping side. We are talking to Vyro, MrBeast-backed, built by the ViewStats team. The product looks interesting, and we are in early conversations.

Had a good leadership conversation this week. The message was simple: all gas, no brake. The danger is not working too hard. The danger is getting comfortable when things are going well. This is exactly the wrong time to ease off.

Flew up to NYC yesterday for dinner with a group of brand operators. Spending today in the Hamptons for Camp Commerce, put on by Shoplift, Northbeam, Attentive, and Post Pilot. The event is at the house used as Bobby Axelrod's house on the show Billions. Really hard to complain about that venue.

Johnny's cough is still hanging around. Let's get into the rest!

Selling Your Business is the Wrong Goal

Eric Bandholz of Beardbrand wrote this one, and it is worth the read. Most people building a business are optimizing for the exit. Eric makes the case that the exit might be the wrong goal entirely, and the argument is better than the headline makes it sound.

How I Automated My Monthly Personal Financial Statement

Banks keep asking for a personal financial statement, and the answer has always been the same: an hour of digging through accounts to update numbers that should already be current. I automated it. Monthly report, ready to send the day anyone asks. Full walkthrough of how it works.

Situational Awareness Hedge Fund Collapse

Leopold Aschenbrenner wrote one of the most-shared AI documents of 2024, left OpenAI, raised money, launched a hedge fund, and it collapsed. I went and read what actually happened. If you have been following the AI space at all, this one is worth 15 minutes.

Unsolicited Advice for Dick's Sporting Goods

Spotted something in their shipping operation that I could not let go. Gave my unsolicited thoughts lol.

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That’s a Wrap on This Week’s Cheese-tacular Edition! 🧀

We hope this week’s cheesy treat made your day a little brighter!

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Stay cheesy, and we’ll catch you next week!

Queso-filled Wishes,
Team Online Queso