Crocs, WeFunder and Selina
Stakeholder Labs takes closer look at their community and retail investor strategies
Welcome to another edition of The Roundtable Roundup! We really appreciate the engagement and feedback so far. This week we’re focusing on three companies that are setting themselves a part with their retail investor outreach and customer engagement. We want to give a special thank you to Jonny Price, VP of Fundraising at WeFunder, for hopping on a call with us to discuss the case study he generated from WeFunder’s own crowdfund. Jonny’s analysis correlating equity participation with significant uplift in platform loyalty is ultimately the metric we’re hyper-focused at Stakeholder Labs and it’s always encouraging when we see breakthroughs in this area.
$CROX Community Strategy Drives Growth During Economic Downturn
Crocs was named #2 fastest growing brand in 2022 by Morning Consult despite historic inflation creating record lows for overall brand purchasing consideration. The report summarizes:
Crocs’ leaders attribute the company’s success to a turnaround plan that began six years ago and focused on key consumer audiences, capturing both trend driven shoppers who attach to the brand’s collaborations and those that appreciate the core product. The splashy collaborations range from HiddenValley Ranch to Justin Bieber. Furthermore, a strong social media presence helps potential customers overcome styling challenges of these nontraditional shoes. These combined efforts help to keep brand buzz consistently high, particularly among GenZ adult.
In August, Yahoo! featured Crocs as potentially the ‘No. 1 opportunity in retail’ by social arbitrage investor Chris Camillo who picks stocks based on social media and trends data - $CROX has increased over 22% since publishing.
Despite Crocs success creating brand loyalty across all age-groups, less than 10% of its shares are held by retail investors and there is a big opportunity for Crocs to translate the organic social media interest in the brand with more equity participation among it’s customers.
Leading Crowdfund Platform, WeFunder, Shows Equity Participation Increasing Customer LTV (Linkedin)
WeFunder recently released a report comparing investment activity of users who were direct investors in the WeFunder platform vs. users who were not and the results were fascinating:
Avg. WeFunder shareholder has made 8.9 investments for $10,400 compared to 1.6 investments for $2,600 for non-shareholders (~5.5X more activity).
Avg. WeFunder shareholder has made 3X the number of follow-on investments ****as non-shareholders and 45% of WeFunder shareholders went on to make a second investment vs. only 21% for non-shareholders.
WeFunder has pioneered equity crowdfunding since 2012 and is a Public Benefit Corporation creating a movement to ‘fix capitalism’ by allowing retail investors to participate at the earliest stages of a company. The company’s platform hopes to address:
More equitable distribution of returns among pre-IPO companies
More investment in underrepresented founders
More loyalty and participation among a company’s earliest customers
Founder and CEO Nick Tommarello recently wrote about the impact of WeFunder, “One of the most powerful forces in the world is when someone believes in you and backs it up with a bit of their own money. We can now do that at scale.”
Hospitality Company Selina ($SLNA) Hosts Its First Investor Roadshow On Twitter Spaces (Benzinga)
Selina ($SLNA), the lifestyle and experiential hotel company targeting Millennial and GenZ travelers, hosted a series of retail investor-focused roadshows and fireside chats live on the Twitter Spaces platform ahead of the Special Meeting of stockholders.
Equity Animal, an investor relations firm, facilitated Selina's use of Twitter Spaces and attracted over 2700 retail investors to participate over three sessions.
"This series with $SLNA management is the apotheosis of our vision of creating a level playing field for retail investors and affording the same access to management as institutional investors have traditionally been allowed when a company goes public," said Mark Moran, CEO of Equity Animal.
Equity Animal measures the success of their initiatives by increasing the % retail investors among the company’s shareholders and early indications suggest this has been a successful one for Selina.