Hanabi Agency

Hanabi Agency eCommerce Agency – Partner, supporting global brands and startups with digital growth.

💰 Growth stories don’t raise capital anymore.Profit stories do.🚨 You can be running £3M ARR with 40% growth — and invest...
07/11/2025

💰 Growth stories don’t raise capital anymore.

Profit stories do.

🚨 You can be running £3M ARR with 40% growth — and investors still aren’t celebrating.

They’re asking one question:

👉 “When’s profitability coming?”

💸 Beauty VC funding dropped 40% in 2024.

The growth-at-all-costs era is over.

Now it’s all about operational efficiency and sustainable unit economics.

🏎️ Think Formula 1:

Anyone can go fast for one lap.

Winners are built for 300km consistency —

Every system connected. Every pit stop optimised. Every decision aligned.

⚡ Most D2C brands are sprinting.

🏁 Profitable ones are racing.

🧠 The difference?

Tech infrastructure that unifies:

→ Product data

→ Inventory & ERP systems

→ Financial planning

→ Customer insights

All connected into a single operating system for growth.

Not glamorous — but it’s what separates strength from dependency.

📊 Only 20–30% of D2C brands hit profitability within two years.

Those that do? Made profitability a *feature*, not a *fix.*

✨ Read more about architecting a profitable growth system with technology infrastructure → [link in bio]

💄 84% of new beauty launches fail within a year.Not because of market size — but because of market noise 🔊Every week, ne...
05/11/2025

💄 84% of new beauty launches fail within a year.

Not because of market size — but because of market noise 🔊

Every week, new brands appear with the same story:

✨ clean ingredients

📸 pretty packaging

💬 “brands didn’t get me”

The result? Only 41% of consumers trust new beauty brands 😬

🌙 Unfabled built a movement, not a product line — focusing purely on menstrual wellness. Within months, they landed a Boots partnership by owning a niche everyone else ignored.

🧠 Ulta Beauty scaled from 20 → 65 experiments a year using AI-driven testing. One recommendation experiment alone drove major revenue growth.

⚗️ AI formulation platforms now cut development cycles by 60%, while

🧬 eClinical trials and

💻 digital twins are transforming product validation — turning marketing claims into measurable results.

🏎️ Think Formula One: everyone sees the data, but only teams with wind tunnels can validate before race day.

Tech isn’t decoration — it’s differentiation.

The brands winning in 2025 don’t just have better stories.

They have systems that turn theory into performance ⚙️

💭 Are you building genuine differentiation — or just cosmetic positioning?

📰 Subscribe to The Hanabi Newsletter on Substack for evidence-based insights on scaling D2C beauty and wellness brands → [link in bio]

📉 The £61 CAC crisis is real.D2C beauty founders are feeling the pain.💰 Ad costs up 89% since 2023🤖 Meta dependency = ex...
04/11/2025

📉 The £61 CAC crisis is real.

D2C beauty founders are feeling the pain.

💰 Ad costs up 89% since 2023

🤖 Meta dependency = existential risk

🛍️ 70% of promo-period customers never buy again

So what’s *actually* working in 2025? 👇

✨ Huda Beauty doubled Klaviyo revenue by only emailing 120-day engaged subscribers. Cleaner deliverability, less fatigue.

🌸 The Beauty Crop grew flow revenue 999% with a 14-segment Klaviyo setup + LoyaltyLion integration. Contextual messages = higher conversions, fewer returns.

💄 Ulta Beauty increased testing velocity from 20 → 65 experiments per year with AB Tasty — minimal dev support, major revenue lift.

🧩 The pattern:

The best brands aren’t trying to *win the ad war* — they’re building retention-first systems where acquisition fuels LTV, not the other way around.

🏎️ Think Formula 1 pit strategy.

You don’t win by burning fuel faster — you win through precision and efficiency every lap.

🔧 The 3 tech foundations driving results:

1️⃣ Customer Data Platforms → unified profiles (Segment, Twilio)

2️⃣ Experimentation Infra → faster optimisation (Statsig, AB Tasty, PostHog)

3️⃣ Loyalty Systems → automated reward journeys (LoyaltyLion, Loyoly)

At Absolute Collagen, 65 k+ Klaviyo subscribers ran through behavioural journeys that turned buyers into year-round customers.

🚨 The D2C playbook from 2019 is broken.

Those rebuilding their tech stack now will thrive.

Everyone else? Funding their own obsolescence, one costly customer at a time.

💭 Retention or attention — which are you building for?

👇

Read the full framework at [link in bio]

and follow .agency for weekly D2C strategy insights.

**We all know the feeling.**🕒 *3 a.m. Black Friday.*You refresh Shopify for the 47th time.💥 Dots firing across the map.📈...
29/10/2025

**We all know the feeling.**

🕒 *3 a.m. Black Friday.*

You refresh Shopify for the 47th time.

💥 Dots firing across the map.

📈 Numbers you’ve only seen in your most optimistic forecasts.

Then… January hits. 💤

The dashboard goes silent.

Here’s the truth:

**Scaling beauty & wellness brands** don’t wait for February reports.

They segment, re-engage, and retain *while everyone else recovers.*

—

💡 **The Framework That Works**

👥 Segment by *behaviour* — Explorers, Value Seekers, VIPs

🎯 Strike in **January’s empty battlefield** (CPMs ↓ 30–40%)

🧘 Align with the *wellness transformation mindset*

🔁 Run **2–3x weekly retention touchpoints** while engagement’s high

💡 Move from *discount-driven* ➜ *outcome-focused*

—

📊 *5% better retention = 25–95% more profit.*

Yet average beauty retention? Still 23%.

🏆 Sephora’s Beauty Insider → 80% of transactions.

💛 Absolute Collagen → 65k+ subscribers, friction-free.

Most brands will run Boxing Day sales 🎁

Smart ones will **lock in loyalty** during January’s quiet battlefield. ⚔️

🚀 Acquisition gives you the 3 a.m. dopamine hit.

🔒 Retention builds enterprise value.

—

💭 What’s your post-BFCM strategy?

👇 Drop it below — or read the full breakdown on hanabi.agency/blog (link in bio).

**Your D2C brand just hit £10M revenue 🚀**Everyone thinks you’re *killing it*.But your **cash runway is on life support ...
29/10/2025

**Your D2C brand just hit £10M revenue 🚀**

Everyone thinks you’re *killing it*.

But your **cash runway is on life support 🩺💀**.

Welcome to the **65% Working Capital Trap ⚠️** — the point where growth stops *feeling* like growth.

Here’s the painful truth founders learn fast 👇

You scale from **£2M → £10M**, and suddenly working capital balloons from **15% → 65% of revenue 💸🔥**.

Not because you’re bad at finance — but because growth forces **inventory reinvestment faster than cash returns**.

Your P&L says ✅ **profitable**.

Your bank account says 😬 **“are you joking?”**

Cash is trapped in **stock, PO cycles, and disconnected systems 🔒**.

And here’s the real kicker:

This isn’t a **finance problem** — it’s a **systems problem 🧠⚙️**.

Your data exists… just not together:

🛒 Shopify

💳 Payment gateways

📦 ERP & 3PL

🏦 Banking APIs

Instead, it’s buried in exports and **manual spreadsheets that lie to you.**

Most finance teams waste **10+ hours a week ⏳** rebuilding forecasts using **2–3 week-old data 📉** while making real-time decisions.

—

💡 **The Fix (Yes, it exists):**

Build a **real-time cash intelligence layer**:

🔗 API-connected systems

👀 Live cash visibility

📊 13-week rolling forecasts

🔔 Automated alerts *before* the cash crunch hits

Brands doing this unlock **20–30% working capital in 90 days 🚪💷**.

Not “efficiency.”

**Free cash.**

For growth. For breathing room. For founder compensation. 🎯

👉 Read the full breakdown: [link in bio]

*(or visit hanabi.agency/blog)*

For CEOs and Founders of £2–50M DTC brands 👋Part Five of our Strategic Framework for AI is here.Phase 3 is where you sep...
24/10/2025

For CEOs and Founders of £2–50M DTC brands 👋

Part Five of our Strategic Framework for AI is here.

Phase 3 is where you separate from the pack. 🚀

Not through more AI tools… but through systems that improve themselves 🤖⚙️

Phase 2 builds capability. Phase 3 creates the moat. 🧱✨

✅ Self-improving demand forecasting that refines accuracy 2–5% quarterly without manual retraining

🧪 Predictive NPD identifying ingredient trends 6–12 months ahead of mainstream adoption

🧠 Autonomous orchestration where churn predictions trigger coordinated responses across inventory, marketing & CX — not just retention emails

This is compounding advantage 📈

Each improvement generates data that fuels the next — widening the gap every quarter.

📍 Research confirms: organisations building continuous learning systems “secure significant competitive advantages” that rivals cannot easily replicate.

The beauty industry is consolidating toward AI-native operators 💄🤝

Market share will flow to brands operating with compounding efficiency, while competitors remain manual and reactive.

You have a choice:

🔹 Build autonomous systems now, while the gap is small

or

🔸 Compete later against brands who have been compounding for years

Are you building self-improving systems — or waiting until the advantage becomes insurmountable?

👉🏻 Link in bio

Enterprise AI case studies in the Health, Beauty and Wellness space inspire but can be overwhelming.L’Oréal deploys pred...
20/10/2025

Enterprise AI case studies in the Health, Beauty and Wellness space inspire but can be overwhelming.

L’Oréal deploys predictive systems globally. Sephora uses computer vision. Nike compresses forecasting from six months to 30 minutes.

Your team is stretched managing campaigns, NPD, customer acquisition, and somehow finding time for strategic initiatives. The enterprise case studies from L’Oréal and Sephora feel inspiring but inaccessible with the resources you have available.

Here’s what I’ve learned: the principles transfer. The tools don’t.

Timeline reality: 3 months to prove capability, 6 months to scale, 12 months to establish autonomous foundations.

Progress over perfection. Start where enterprise brands started. Scale as you grow.

Are you building predictive foundations, or waiting for perfect conditions that never arrive? 👉🏻 Link in bio.

Passing the Test: 4 Questions Investors Will Ask About Your D2C Tech:Preparing for technical due diligence isn’t a last-...
10/10/2025

Passing the Test: 4 Questions Investors Will Ask About Your D2C Tech:

Preparing for technical due diligence isn’t a last-minute scramble; it’s a strategic process.

It requires transforming your technology from a simple operational function into a compelling asset that de-risks the investment and proves your capacity for disciplined growth.

Make your technology investor-ready 👉🏻 Link in bio.

Optimising a subscription business is a continuous process of refinement. It requires a deep, hands-on understanding of ...
06/10/2025

Optimising a subscription business is a continuous process of refinement. It requires a deep, hands-on understanding of both the customer lifecycle and the technology that powers it.

Many brands focus so heavily on acquisition that they ignore the leaks in their bucket: customer churn and low lifetime value.

If your technology isn’t optimised for the entire subscriber lifecycle, you are leaving money on the table.

Make your technology work for retention 🔗 Link in bio.

There’s never a straight line to rapid growth when building D2C brands in the health and beauty space. I’ve pulled toget...
01/10/2025

There’s never a straight line to rapid growth when building D2C brands in the health and beauty space. I’ve pulled together three tech strategies that have helped the teams and organisations I have worked with - from the NHS, through to brands like Cloud Nine and Absolute Collagen. 🔗 Link in bio.

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