Goodbye TikTok: Now What? 👋
Inside TikTok's 'ban', Graza's new soap, soaring Zyn sales, Kim Kardashian's fundraising woes, the NYC reservation blackmarket, and MORE!
GM everyone. This may be one of the most stacked newsletters in quite some time. Today we’re discussing the TikTok ban, Kim Kardashian’s private equity struggles, non-compete agreements, Graza’s new soap, and more.
I just got back from Equinox, where I accidentally spilled the whole bottle of eucalyptus all over the steam room so sorry for that.
Let’s jump into the news—
News
TikTok looks poised to be ‘banned’ after legislation passed the Senate. The bill would force TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to divest from the insanely popular app (150M+ U.S. users) within the next 9 months if signed by President Biden (he’s going to sign it)
Essentially, ByteDance would need to sell the app to a U.S. based firm in order to maintain operating here. This comes amidst various concerns into ByteDance’s alleged ties with China’s Communist Party, and fears the app is being used to spy and influence Americans. There are a lot of stakeholders in the mix here so this is sure to continue to reverberate in the coming months. TikTok has been used by businesses to exponentially increase awareness and sell products, and if this vital messaging channel ceases to exist, where do they go next? Where will users to migrate to for short form video in the event it actually goes away?
Social media managers will have to hold their breath (very excited to read what
has to say about this), as the ban will likely be challenged in the Supreme Court, and ultimately if the ban is legal, its in investors best interests ByteDance divests. Various U.S. based investors are tied into ByteDance, which is one of the world’s most valuable startups at $225B+, which complicates how the app could be sold.As far as I am concerned, the TikTok ban represents the ability for the government to ban apps it deems a ‘danger’ to the public, which does set up a worrying precedent for how they can control the free flow of information. Even if you hate TikTok, the precedent could come back to bite when the your favorite app is being potentially banned.
Sporty and Rich is starting a run club. The wellness, athleisure brand will kickoff their run club this Sunday at the Greene St. store, as announced by
on Instagram. I am honestly surprised the brand hadn’t done this sooner, as it seems like every brand (whether or not they are associated with fitness) is starting a run club. In the past few months, S&R has pushed to create a sense of community around their flagship store, hosting talks with nutrition experts like Max Lugavere, and outfitting the store with a clinic and offering smoothies. I wrote extensively about this here.
Zyn is the fastest growing CPG brand on the market. The nicotine pouch has taken on a new life as the brand has been adopted by finance bros, startup employees, and newsletter writers. (Credit where credit is due
put me onto Zyn after writing about it in Feed Me) In Q1 the brand shipped 443M cans, and has grown 80% YoY. Estimates show 22 million pouches are consumed a day, and the brand is still raising awareness with consumers. How long until its banned too?
New Yorkers are spending thousands of dollars for exclusive reservations. The New Yorker wrote an incredible article detailing the twisted world of selling reservations to exclusive places like Carbone, 4 Charles, and Torrisi. People are flocking to an extremely janky looking site called AppointmentTrader to sell and bid on primetime reservations.
The people booking reservations are making a killing too…
Alex Eisler, a sophomore at Brown University who studies applied math and computer science, regularly uses fake phone numbers and e-mail addresses to make reservations. When he calls Polo Bar, he told me, “Sometimes they recognize my voice, so I have to do different accents. I have to act like a girl sometimes.” He switched into a bad falsetto: “I’m, like, ‘Hiiii, is it possible to book a reservation?’ I have a few Resy accounts that have female names.” His recent sales on Appointment Trader, where his screen name is GloriousSeed75, include a lunch table at Maison Close, which he sold for eight hundred and fifty-five dollars, and a reservation at Carbone, the Village red-sauce place frequented by the Rolex-and-Hermès crowd, which fetched a thousand and fifty dollars. Last year, he made seventy thousand dollars reselling reservations.
In the NYC restaurant world, the paradigm is shifting from quality to exclusivity. Do you really like the spicy rigatoni at Carbone enough to bid $1,000 for a reservation, or do you just want to go because normal people can't? Frog Club went viral earlier this year for making it nearly impossible to get a reservation at the mysterious (no photos allowed) new restaurant.
The Polo Bar When I wrote my Frog Club review I had tons of people reaching out to me to book reservations for them since I had an in. Perhaps I missed out on a good way to make money. The fascinating thing here is that the prices these restaurants are charging (they are already expensive) are honestly probably too low. Carbone could easily raise prices 50% and still be booked to the gills with people more interested in posting about the pasta than actually eating it.
The FTC is banning non-compete agreements. If you’ve ever worked for a startup or high profile company, you may have had to sign a non-compete. Its an agreement that when you leave your company, you can’t go work for a competitor for a certain period of time. It was often used by companies to avoid trade secrets being used by competitors, but has been abused by companies looking to keep industry talent on the sidelines, and has caused headaches for workers. But now they are a thing of the past with this new vote.
Even Kim Kardashian is having trouble raising money. Her private equity firm, SKYY Partners, began a year and half ago, in partnership with the Carlyle Group’s Jay Sammons, and has raised $120 million, far short of their $1-2 billion goal at the firm’s onset. Late last year, SKYY invested in Truff, the truffle infused CPG sauce heavyweight (valued at $250 million) While Kim Kardashian is arguably the greatest brand ambassador to ever live (Skims is worth $4 billion) LPs are slowing down investments in the consumer space.
Graza is launching a soap. This is the brand’s most recent foray into infusing their olive oil into another CPG product category. Its called Sudsy and its created in partnership with metahaiku. If its anything like their potato chip I would say they should keep it (they were really bad) It honestly confounds me why Graza is doing these weird off shoot collaborations. Maybe they are selling well?
Kanye West is allegedly launching a porn studio. The controversial artist, who released his Christian-rap album ‘Jesus is King’ 5 years ago, is in talks to launch a Yeezy porn studio. Let’s hope this is one of those Kanye projects that never actually happens.
PHEW that was a lot of f*cking news. You’re welcome. See you tomorrow.
Jake Bell is a content marketing and creative strategist based in NYC. He specializes in content creation, branding, art direction, creative strategy, and making things cool.
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