THE PATTERN REPORT #3

Monthly Trend Analysis for Founders | March 2025

PATTERN I’M SEEING:

The Retail Timing Revolution: Why Brands Going to Retail in Year 1-2 Are Crushing ‘DTC-First’ Purists

For the last decade, the startup playbook was gospel: Build DTC first, prove unit economics, achieve scale, THEN consider retail. “Retail is legacy. DTC is the future.”

But over the last 90 days, I’ve watched this orthodoxy collapse in real-time.