Smart founders often use early omnichannel traction as a valuation accelerator, even before full retail scale. But here’s the nuance - they’re selling the signal of omnichannel scalability, not actual scale yet. Even modest retail revenues ($1M–$3M) can be used to project future revenue scaling across banners or regions. Founders build a “retail rollout logic” like: 250 stores → 3 turns/week → $X per door → project to 1,000 doors = $Y in 18 months. That creates modelled revenue momentum, and can work especially when:
- Repeat rate is strong
- Gross margins hold
- Retailer reorder velocity is visible
Investors may buy into the growth narrative, but without visibility into how that growth translates into EBITDA, the business becomes vulnerable to margin compression, inventory missteps, and inefficient spend. Valuation jumps ahead of fundamentals - while the data needed to validate EBITDA trajectory is missing.
OWYN’s Near-Miss: The Inflection Point Between Traction and Trouble
Take OWYN (Only What You Need), the plant-based RTD protein shake brand. OWYN’s initially leaned into retail growth fast. They landed early retail wins and had solid DTC traction. But early on, they realized:
- Store-level performance was unpredictable
- Reorders were inconsistent
- CAC was rising, and there was no feedback loop
So they stopped. And started rebuilding their “data stack beyond basic aggregation” in mid-flight focusing on the following:
- Deep Data Integration and Store-Level Focus: Most brands rely on broad, macro-level consumption data, which is accessible to everyone and offers little competitive edge. Instead, OWYN “hyper-focused” on store-level data to create actionable insights. This allowed them to test, learn, and develop playbooks that allows them to create trends rather than just report on them.
- Consumer-Centric Segmentation and Messaging: OWYN’s core audience is the “Informed Enthusiast”-consumers who seek information from credible sources like doctors and nutrition journals, not just marketing messages. Instead of targeting by demographics, OWYN segmented by mindset, using data to identify and engage consumers who are vocal, loyal, and likely to amplify the brand’s message to mainstream audiences.
- Lifecycle Marketing and High Repeat Purchase: With nearly 30% of gross revenue coming from e-commerce, data-driven initiatives (such as targeted ads and personalized offers) were used to nurture high repeat purchase rates of over 51% through some retail channels by understanding and anticipating consumer needs at every stage of their journey.
- Replicating and Scaling Successful Initiatives: OWYN used store, category, and consumer insights to identify what works in one market or channel and then systematically replicate those tactics elsewhere. For example, successful sales and merchandising strategies in one retailer are adapted and implemented in others, ensuring consistent performance as the brand scales.
To summarize, CEO Mark Olivieri credits OWYN’s success to its ability to source and implement a wide variety of information-especially at the store and consumer level-to drive repeat purchases, optimize retail launches, and replicate successful strategies across channels. This deep, actionable data approach, combined with capital efficiency and a focus on consumer mindsets, has allowed OWYN to outperform legacy brands and scale rapidly in the competitive plant-based protein market.
Which turned a promise of scalability into a real and repeatable business model, eventually leading to their acquisition by Simply Good Foods for $280M in mid-2024.
Key Takeaway
Today, data is a hat every founder needs to wear. It’s no longer enough to delegate it to a capable team - investors now expect founders to articulate a clear “data strategy logic”. They’re looking for investment narratives that go beyond the usual metrics and show data intelligence in action.
That means rethinking your data framework: not just collecting information, but defining how it fuels smarter decisions, validates expansion logic, and supports capital efficiency. Founders who can do this signal not just operational readiness, but strategic depth - which will drive enhanced confidence in funding conversation
