Dan Reich is a serial entrepreneur, investor, writer, and President and Co-Founder of DIBS Beauty, a makeup brand “that reimagines everyday beauty staples, making them easier, mood-boosting, and worthy of desert island status.” I wanted to catch up with Dan to discuss DIBS’ origin story, his investment thesis, the increasingly important role of influencers in marketing, and also get his take on the big, AI-driven changes rippling through ecommerce.
Along the way, we cover how social media has changed the influencer landscape. As Dan observes, “Years ago, there weren’t really influencers, the influencers were these big media companies and publications. They had eyeballs, they had attention through those eyeballs and they would monetize that with advertising dollars. So brands would give them things for those media companies to tell the world about which in turn drove sales, awareness and so on. And I think and know as a result of social media, that paradigm shifted, and now we see people that we call sometimes influencers I think about more like entrepreneurs. Many of these people have more eyeballs and engagement and, quote, influence, than those media companies did. In essence, some of these people are media companies onto themselves, some of them know it, and some of them don’t. And so, for me, that’s really exciting.”
Dan is excited about the possibilities that AI will unleash from both an investment thesis perspective and from a brand-owner perspective. He notes, “We’re in this bit of a hype cycle where there’s a ton of people with a ton of money rushing at the first incarnations of what these solutions can look like. Everyone’s got to hammer now in search of a nail. But I do think that in 12 to 18 months, we’re gonna see some really incredible things and we already are, but really, really incredibly different, unique and differentiated solutions for all sorts of things, whether it be accounting, tasks, health care, marketing, you name it.”
Dan also has some great advice for founders seeking to acquire companies. “Don’t break it,” he advises. “Keep it autonomous; help where you can help. Don’t be overbearing.”
