Pop Culture Revolution

🧠 Insights You Won’t Forget

Today's insights are inspired by a recent episode of Invest Like the Best w/ Jens, the co-founder and CEO of Skims

1. Pop culture is the last mass-market growth engine

   Jens Grede sees pop culture, and its overlap with sports, as the only remaining mass-scale distribution lever in a fragmented media world. Algorithms isolate consumers into niche worlds, but pop culture cuts across boundaries of race, politics, and interests. This makes it the most effective vehicle for building mass-market awareness and emotional resonance.

2. The shift from hip hop to country reflects America’s craving for comfort

   In uncertain times, culture moves from futurism to nostalgia. We’re seeing a boom in Americana (e.g., diners, country music, Olive Garden) because people are seeking emotional security. Skims leaned into this moment with experiences like its retro-themed Skims Diner, aligning the brand with that same comfort-first cultural tide.

3. Big brands now have an insurmountable advantage

   Digital distribution has become pay-to-play, and physical retail requires massive capital. The era of bootstrapped DTC brands is over. Skims reached scale at a rare cultural and algorithmic inflection point, today, replicating that success would be far harder. The “long tail” of brands is struggling, and “big will increasingly win.”

4. Product is everything, marketing is just an amplifier

   Grede frames marketing as “lipstick”, only valuable if the product is already great. He compares great product experiences to the “first sip feeling” of Starbucks or the tactile satisfaction of Vuori apparel. Skims’ success started with fabric innovation that created a distinctive, sensory experience worth paying for.

5. “Wouldn’t it be cool?” is the new creative process

   Instead of lengthy planning cycles, Skims moves at the speed of culture by acting on instinct and cultural intuition. The decision-making framework is simple: if it would be cool right now, do it. This led to partnerships with people like Usher pre-Super Bowl and the White Lotus actresses during their viral moment. Velocity beats perfection.

6. House taste is a startup killer

   Founders often fall in love with their own creations. Grede deliberately built feedback loops into Skims’ culture via social media and open internal dialogue to avoid being blinded by internal bias. Staying in touch with what customers actually want, not what the company thinks they should want, is a core principle.

7. Brands must evolve before they plateau

   Borrowing from LVMH playbooks, Grede emphasizes “transforming on the way up.” Brands that wait for decline before evolving are often too late. Skims focuses on staying culturally surprising and reinvents proactively, even when things are working, to avoid stagnation and maintain relevance.

8. Individuals now carry more trust than institutions

   In a post-truth media world, people trust influencers and cultural figures more than legacy outlets. Kim Kardashian is to the creator generation what Michael Jordan was to the athlete generation. That’s why Skims is built to be a cultural platform, not just a brand tied to one person.

9. Social media is no longer about “following”, it’s about entertainment

   Skims is shifting its focus toward owned platforms like its app (already 20% of revenue), where it can maintain direct customer relationships. Social platforms no longer reliably deliver reach, even to large audiences. Control now lies in closed networks, not open social graphs.

10. The next frontier is the creator-owned economy

    Grede believes creators are waking up to the fact that they don’t own their audiences on social platforms. The future lies in creator-led platforms and monetizable micro-networks, where influence can be exercised with control. He’s backing companies like Passes that help talent monetize directly and escape algorithmic dependence.

Recall from last week

1. Sidewalk Delivery Robots Failed Despite the Perfect Storm

   Despite a pandemic boom in food delivery and empty sidewalks, robots captured <0.1% of the market. Why? Sidewalks are “open worlds” filled with unpredictable corner cases. Lack of robust software and real-world data crippled commercialization.

2. Humanoids Are the Formula 1 of Robotics

   Humanoids (like Digit and Figure AI’s robots) are unlikely to commercialize fast, but their R&D pushes boundaries across the robotics stack, balance, motion control, power systems. These breakthroughs may trickle down to more practical robots.

💡 Eko Worth Remembering

⚡ Active Recall – Test Yourself 

🛤️ Off the Record

Happy Monday!

Not much to say atm, hope you have a great start to the week!

Eko’s Top Pods

Answer:

It makes cultural authority and personal narrative more powerful than institutional credibility. Brands must align with influential individuals or become one themselves to earn trust, visibility, and resonance in a post-truth, fragmented attention economy.

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