Moment

Mission: Go more places. Capture more moments.

The Brand • Website • Instagram • YouTube • TikTok

The Story

Moment is a beloved brand with creators.

It's also one of the few DTC stories that has lasted a decade (with minimal capital) through an ever-changing marketing landscape. When we launched Moment on Kickstarter, Instagram was just starting—there were no other channels. Photographers were on the rise and YouTube was years away from being the creator mega platform it is today. Even Facebook wasn't the channel it has become today.

Over the last decade, Moment has been on an incredible journey with plenty of highs and lows along the way. The rise of the iPhone camera was wind behind our backs, while the recent shift from creators to entertainers has been a headwind. Through all of it we've kept true to building an avid community—the type of customers who continue to inspire us in where they travel and what they capture.

Today Moment is healthier than it has ever been. We have gone around the world from product maker to retailer, and now back to product maker. We de-venturized the business, built high gross margins, and have a small fantastic team building the brand. We're incredibly grateful to our amazing community who has supported us all along the way.

Go To Market - The Vlog Era [2016-2019]

In the early days we tried everything with Moment—social, films, adventures, photo walks, etc. This strategy is based on the belief that early on you have to crack the code on what works to reach another customer. Is it another product? Is it advertising? Is it sampling?

We tried a lot of tactics, but what really stuck was organic content. Call it luck, but one of the tests we did was putting a creator on our YouTube channel to create Vlogs. They were a unique mix of both adventure and education…essentially how to shoot on your phone. Inspired by Casey Neistat, we decided to do the opposite of every other brand and instead emulate Casey. What would Casey do?

It worked to awesome results.

• We started with one full-time creator (as an employee) and over time grew to four unique personalities on the channel. You can even see that crew today with their own production company, Sunny Sixteen.

• We took the mantra "what would a creator do" and brought it to all of our other social channels—killer photos, simple voice, DIY-style ads, etc.

• We then expanded beyond YouTube to in-person experiences, connecting our audience to our own creators. We'd host photo tours and even built the world's largest mobile film festival—inspiring the next generation of content creators.

• In the end, over 80% of new customers were coming through YouTube, either directly from our channel or other creators posting about Moment.

Once COVID hit, everything changed. It forced us to change as well.

Go To Market - Creator Era [2020-2022]

Prior to COVID we had shifted Moment from a DTC brand making mobile camera accessories to the premium online marketplace for creators. We were emulating REI by making our own goods, selling third-party goods, and helping creators run their own photography adventures. We even launched Moment Travel, photography trips around the world with your favorite creators. It was the fastest-growing new product we ever launched.

Overnight everything changed.

• Moment Travel halted on a dime. We had to quickly unwind every trip we had planned.

• Our marketing messaging became irrelevant. The #1 reason people shopped at Moment was because they were going to take a trip. No one was traveling, so we had to pivot all of our advertising, messaging, etc.

• Creators all of a sudden had no income, so we launched Moment Courses. Our YouTube team pivoted to creating incredible online courses with our favorite creators.

• Sales at first tanked and then took off in ways we never anticipated. It led to huge backorders on items we could no longer get in a reliable way.

With it we changed our entire marketing approach.

• Creator prices exploded with their newfound viewership. Consumers were at home watching more YouTube content than ever. So we pivoted our relationships from marketing partnerships to revenue sharing…helping them grow their revenues.

• We put creators at the center of our marketplace—courses, digital goods, and selling the gear they recommended most. We were supporting hundreds of creators through direct revenue programs, from affiliate fees to product sales.

• We launched new products with creators, some as single items and some as brands.

• We ramped up our paid marketing to support the roaring demand for everything we sold.

That lasted until late '21 when we realized this was not sustainable. We had ramped revenue significantly, but there was a small problem….we couldn't get stock. At the peak we had $5M in annual refunds for cancelled orders. It instantly made us unprofitable.

Go To Market - Real Customers [2023-Present]

By the end of '22 we had to make another hard pivot. Not only was our business model unsustainable, the interest in being a content creator was dying off. We were returning to the mean before the COVID craze. We saw this decline both in our data but also in the data of creators. All of them were losing views.

• We turned off paid marketing and focused 100% on organic channels—SEO, articles, email lists, etc. We then started to bring back paid marketing in '24 once our margin structure was fixed.

• We moved to a very small internal marketing team and instead created programs that enabled us to work with lots of creators. Our Residency Program and TikTok Teams are some great examples.

• We turned off discounting and kept our core best sellers at the same price, enabling our wholesale partners to grow.

• We got back to launching killer new products. Especially Pro Camera II, our #1 rated camera app.

• We've doubled down on customer reviews, seeding, and telling real stories from actual customers.

We ended up taking Moment down to the studs to rebuild the business model and the marketing. We are just coming out of this work now. The business has never been healthier with margins, profits, and a killer team. But to get there we had to make some hard changes.

The Team - Building Young Leaders

Building and running a team with your second company is much easier. The people dynamic is always unique, but having a clear POV on how you like to run a team makes this significantly easier.

The leadership changes based on the size of the company, but the methodology is the same.

• Organize the business around clear areas of ownership. Put one person in charge of that area to own, build, and improve.

• Teach them business speak so they understand how to get results—what's revenue vs. margins vs. opex, etc. This makes every decision they make better.

• Set a clear north star and have a running 12-month plan.

• Set a cadence by which you prefer to run the business. We used trimesters as 16 weeks was enough time to make a real impact but not too long you lost your way.

• Build your team leads up so people grow into leadership vs. hiring leaders that now manage them.

• Connect your compensation method to the cadence and metrics of success. If possible, it's best to provide a base and upside based on profits.

Moment has always believed that young, inexperienced people deserve a chance. It led to our most successful people growing their way from individual contributor to leadership roles. Keep in mind leadership doesn't necessarily mean management—it means owning (and leading) a piece of the business.