This is Nick, this is Jack, and this is Snax Daly. Welcome back. It is Monday, January 11th. Let's get this out of the way. Last month in the United States, the number of jobs shrank, shrank for the first time in eight months.

Twenty, twenty one. What are you doing, Jack? Let's make this our best one yet, TBA for our first story, Barch Box. The Birchbox for your dioxin is going public via a jack fun fact here. Your dog, they can get subscription and this can happen to Canine's unless your dog is still in the password from some other dog. Right, because your dog's not a cat, Jack. Second story, what do we got? Bud Light, seltzer, lemonade, peach.

That is actually the latest drink from Anheuser-Busch.

Funny thing we noticed knackers. This is the same strategy as Apple did with iPhone.

You just reminded me that Apple's also a fruit for our third and final story. Facebook, Twitter and the rest of social media just blocks the president. So Jack and I are looking at automation. Great for scaling, Jack. Terrible for public discourse. Not just is just awful. Do less, do less, actually actually do a lot more, but please do a lot less.

But before we jump into that wonderful mix of stories to start this week, one hundred and twelve year old General Motors wants you to know how young it is. So for the first time in like sixty five years, GM got some work done. The logo for General Motors just got updated in Detroit to trying to look more like they interned in San Francisco last semester.

They really didn't take any risks here. They made the classic move. They went from Capital G, Capital M to lower case G, lowercase jack and the logo.

Now, it used to form a square, remember, a lot of hard edges, kind of like if you were running with scissors, you get cut.

It was sharp, but they wanted to soften the corners to show these millennials and gen ears, you know, they're approachable. Plus they went from navy blue to like me, a harmless skin care product. Blue. That's the new tone, according to the press release. The whole goal here is to send electric vibes to reflect like the future of GM's electric cars. Hey, Nick, it's Jack. It's just us. We just want to talk to you for a second.

The logo, your logo. That wasn't the problem. If you think about it, General, isn't a very inspiring adjective.

Exactly. The issue was actually your name, not the logo.

General admission is the cheapest seat in the House, generally speaking, means speaking with no passion.

And our buddy Merriam Webster says that general is defined as the main parts, but not the details. And it's all about the details. General Motors, here's the solution. You should have just rename to the general general.

It's much stronger as a noun than it is as an adjective. So true. What's it? Our three stories. You tune in the next day. You spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something legal out of the way about the food. He said, Candy, they don't reflect the views of her family. It's all informational. Just so you know, we're not recommending any securities. No, it's not a research report or investment advice, not an offer of a sale of a security by next is digestible business news for you.

If Finance LLC member Fagbug APC for our first story, we're actually we're laughing out loud about this one trailer park box, the original dog subscription box. It's going public in a one point six billion dollars SPAC this year. I think it's the only dog subscription box. But our question is this a company? Is it just a product? It's a fair question, but we're going to go back to 2011. Company was founded in 2011, Jack. Basically a pretty simple concept here.

It's a subscription box for your profit puppy. Yes, it is. Comes once a month and now a million people have signed up for you. Drop in twenty three dollars a month. You get free shipping to toys to treat. And there's one theme every month.

The dog actually smells it. Next brother in law, they have a dog and the dog goes crazy. When the mailman approaches the door with the bark box, they know they can tell.

We dare you to unsubscribe to that thing. I am definitely subscribing to this because when River doesn't have something to chew on, I feel like a terrible person.

You get that pet parent guilt, you know, you get that pet parent can't. But they have themed monthly boxes. For example, in October, a liquor treat arrives at your door. Jack, how about November? You got the dogs giving themed box this December. The bark box was called Home Alone last year. Twenty nineteen they did The Nutcracker. Also, there's something called Bark Buddy that this company has launched. They're calling it the tender for dogs.

You swipe right to adopt an abandoned cockapoo. That's how it goes down. Impressive.

We think tinder's the wrong analogy, but very good to promote dog adoption. All right. We check out the metrics on this thing. Cancellation rates for these bark box subscription boxes. Extremely. Love your dogs. Puppies looking up at you are something you cannot say no to.

Your cuteness is a powerful yet that churn strategy subscription businesses are fantastic, but running a subscription box company is complicated. Chewy like. The Sell Everything Dog Stuff online company, they have a subscription program with a wild statistic, the subscription program drives 70 percent of their sales, 70 percent of sales are customers that just set it and forget it and get refills every month. And Shuey investors, they love that recurring revenue from those set it and forget it, reliable customers.

But subscription companies aren't necessarily profitable. Yeah, Birchbox makes subscription boxes.

They're struggling to make a profit, trying to get you to buy the Sephora lipstick that's in their little Birchbox and blue apron, which tried to do subscription boxes of food that you still have to cook is basically on the McDonald's dollar menu on Wall Street.

But here's what Jack and I found fascinating about Birchbox. Out of the three hundred and sixty five million dollars of revenue they brought in last year, two hundred and twenty one million was gross profit.

That's squeezing a whole bunch of profit juice out of those melons. Yes, it is, because they're selling their own products in these Bach boxes. It's their own goods, the two and one memory foam dog bed in a doughnut shaped jack, the bark bright toothpaste.

Those are both produced and manufactured by Bark Box, and that's how they get the big profit. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Bark Box? Mark Box is neither product nor company. We think it's a future learn acquisition. All right. Check out the whiteboard out here. You got General Mills, you got Nestlé, you got Unilever, all of those big companies, they bought up smaller dog food companies in just the last few years.

Historically, they were food companies, but they recently recognized that humans, they're kind of treating their beagles better than their babies. We basically do. But Jack, developing a direct to consumer subscription business, that is hard. Jack, how about building a passionate audience around that subscription business? That is really tough, Jack.

How about running that online based subscription startup profitably? I quit. I can't even do it. Yeah, it's the hardest thing. And that is why Unilever acquired direct to consumer startup Dollar Shave Club a few years ago, because it had to learn how they did it. Big companies haven't been able to learn themselves how to run a direct to consumer subscription company.

So most have to learn by buying one. That is why Bark Box could be a future learn acquisition.

For our second story, all of social media and even e-commerce are boycotting President Trump this week. The longer term problem is that social media is automation. Strategy is failing. All right. So it's been almost a week now. Five people lost their lives in that insurrection last week, and the reputation of America's democracy was badly damaged for like a long period of time. Also, we witnessed a double standard in the way the police treated Trump's mob last week.

Yes, we did. Compared to the way that police treated the Black Lives Matter protesters this entire past year. So if you add all that up, this event basically became the straw that broke social media's back in a couple of days.

Tech decided all at once on Wednesday and Thursday last week that the president must be muted and snackers.

Here is the key distinction you got to keep in mind. While lying is protected by free speech, inciting violence and endangering the public safety, that's not protected.

Nick, you know that thing. You scroll through the terms and conditions. When you're setting up a new account, you just click, except you don't even read it. It's like a totem. It's charming. You never see it when it comes to a tech platform. There's actually language in there forbidding you from using the platform to promote violence.

And we saw that put into action last week with this epic run down. First, Twitter blocked Trump's account permanently on Friday, and Facebook has blocked it for the next two weeks. And Amazon blocked his Twitter account so he could not live stream video to people. And then PayPal and Shopify, they jumped in, blocked his ability to sell merchandise and even accept donations.

And YouTube changed their policy. Instead of simply removing single videos that break their policies, YouTube will now start blocking entire channels of Trump's Jack. How about Snapchat and tick tock? They kind of had to make moves after Facebook and Twitter. Yeah, they decided to take away Trump's megaphone as well. Put that all together. And we got ourselves a striking demonstration of tech's power in refereeing speech and commerce on the Internet.

Yeah, that's a whole different takeaway for a different day.

So, Jack, what's the takeaway for today for our buddies over in tech?

Facebook's strategy of automation is failing. Yes, because Facebook has a whole bunch of rules about what you can and you can't post, for example, paid political ads on Facebook. Those cannot lie and nobody can promote violence with their posts on Facebook. All right. So when we look a little bit deeper into Facebook, they've got fifty six thousand employees. On the other hand, they've also got two point seven billion users.

It's quite a ratio there.

So to monitor all the post to make sure they're not breaking rules, each Facebook employee would have to oversee the posts of forty eight thousand Facebook users across Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and whatever other apps. It's basically like each employee would have to have their own dominion. So instead of that, they use artificial intelligence, which. Reads The post that we make and flags the rule breakers so that a human can check them out. But here's the thing, as was shown last week, that artificial intelligence strategy is failing.

Thanks to The New York Times. We know that Facebook groups were used to organize the attempted insurrection by Trump supporters last week.

Yeah, eventually got taken down, but only after reporters had to tell the FBI all about and thanks to separate reporting from a guy named Judd Lagom who runs a great newsletter, we know that misleading political ads were up this campaign season, four days viewed by millions of people just like the Facebook groups. Eventually, they get taken down, but only after reporters alert the FBI to them.

Here's how it seems to always go with Facebook. Artificial intelligence misses something, OK? Someone finally flags it and lets them know step two. Then Facebook takes it down, but only after the damage has been done. And that process is all because of automation with no human involvement. It's low cost. And that is why Facebook is incredibly, ridiculously profitable.

But it is also why the platform has so much misinformation and so much policy. Breaking content still makes Facebook the automation.

It's failing for our third and final story.

Honestly, just in time for dry January, Bud Light is launching a hard seltzer lemonade.

It's actually a little late for the lull a couple of weeks later. True.

But that lemonade part of the story is actually an iPhone strategy to Jack. Feels like we got to we kind of got a pendulum situation here.

The pendulum swung from, like light beers back in the day.

Yeah. Meely five freshman year, we had we were in college all the way to like Heddy quadruple IPAs. You had to, like, eat this. It was liquid bread.

That's the late 20s through until today for me. Well, that got intense with beer, but then the pendulum swung back to lighter stuff. And that's where White Claw came in White Claw Summer. It's kind of a health trend. People want to get drunk for under one hundred calories per drink and go gluten free if possible, minimum sugar.

And that basically is why Budweiser stock is down thirteen percent in the last year, because beer sales only grew less than one percent. And that's because the spike seltzer market doubled again last year for the third year in a row. A little context we got to sprinkle on here. Snackers hard seltzer growing crazy fast, but still only four percent of the beer market.

So big beer is still the big player in this market, but they don't like that.

That tiny little wedge is growing so darn fast. Oh, they didn't like it. So in just the last three hundred and sixty five days, get how many beer companies have jumped into spiked seltzer. Molson Course Jack Corona added to the list natty lite, which we didn't know could get any lighter. Now it could apparently that Budweiser also Coca-Cola is getting into this.

And despite all of them jumping to this fun foray of Spike Seltzer, still white cloth controls over half the spike. Seltzer market truly controls about a third of the spike seltzer market. And the rest is like kind of split between a bunch of your friends and cousins. It just launched some spikes out to start ups.

Now, when Anheuser-Busch, which is Budweiser's parent company, when they first got into Spike Seltzer, they launched Bud Light, Strawberry and Bud Light, Black Cherry, Spike Seltzer, that kind of stuff. That's like on the Jolly Rancher flavor spectrum. That was the goal. But then our buddies over at Anheuser-Busch, they noticed there were fewer Spike Seltzer's in the lemonade flavor, but that that little category was growing faster than the rest.

It was a niche within a niche. And that niche of spiked seltzer lemonade was growing nine times more than it did the previous year. Anheuser-Busch decided that's where we should be. Yes. So they're launching their first Bud Light Spike Seltzer lemonade this summer, kicking it off debut style with the Super Bowl ad in February. Go big or go home.

So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Budweiser? It's counterintuitive, but segmentation can drive growth.

So here's what you think Jack and I are talking about this or what you'd think. You'd think that simplifying your product offering would be better for everyone.

It's easier for the consumer to choose if there's just one thing, it's easier for the company to make it. If there's just one thing. However, if a company has the resources to segment, then it can launch a specific product for specific types of customers. If there is a product just for you, you are one hundred percent satisfied. You don't have to compromise. Every customer gets exactly what they want. Funny thing, Jack and I noticed Apple does this exact thing when it comes to price.

It used to be one iPhone. That's your only option. Six hundred bucks, pretty expensive, unaffordable for many.

Now, they got like a dozen iPhones starting at four hundred dollars for the AC, but it goes all the way up to the fourteen hundred dollar ruby crusted twelve pro Macs plus handcrafted by Tim Cook every other Tuesday.

Now Apple used price segmentation to grab more of the smartphone market.

Bud Light is using flavor and product segmentation to grab more of the Spike Seltzer market.

Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us to start the week? Mark Box just got acquired by a spec called North. Star Aquisition Corp., soon that company will change the name to box in the box subscription business, it is tough so they could become a learn acquisition. Second story, social media has blocked President Trump for encouraging a mob to storm the US Capitol. But honestly, it was their failing animation strategy that was an enabler in last week's attack.

For our third and final story, Bud Light spiked seltzer lemonade.

Peach rolls off the tongue, Jack. They're segmenting the spiked booze market kind of like an apple segment.

Smartphones.

Now time for our snack fact of the day. This one sent in by Silas Findlay from lovely Waco, Texas, where he's a fan of a lovely Waco, Texas.

The invention of Dr Pepper occurred in Waco, Texas, in eighteen eighty five. It turns out Dr Pepper preceded the invention of Coca-Cola by one single lovely year. Impressive. There's also a Dr Pepper museum in Waco, Texas, it turns out also. Seventy five percent of the world's snicker bars manufactured in Waco, Texas. Waco, the city that feeds the world's sweets. Waco, Jack. We don't do local. No, we don't. We pay power.

Chicago snackers. We love starting the week with you. If you haven't yet, you can scroll down and we'd love if you drop a five star review. And if you're listening on Spotify, it's super easy to share.

Is a story on your Instagram, please, that helps us grow. We love how that looks and we can't wait to chat with you tomorrow. See you then. If you know. You know. And before we go. Happy birthday to Emily and Lucy, a mom and daughter combo. We happen to share the same birthday in Hood River, Oregon. Incredible. I heard Hood River is gorgeous, especially for mountain biking. Yeah, it's supposed to be great.

And happy birthday to Katsumi in Houston, Texas, and Inessa in Los Angeles and Katrina Seagrove in South San Francisco. I can see from here Katrina and Holly and Clements in Philadelphia and Hayden Flores in Santa Barbara. I hope it didn't sound creepy and happy. Name day to Hickman in Dubai and Brad Thompson. Nic and I are impressed that you're kicking off your NBA down in Miami. And Kunhardt Batel also kicking off the NBA up in New Jersey. Happy anniversary to Antonio and June in Oceanside, California, and a two year anniversary for Irwin and Ronnell and in Portland, Oregon.

This is Jack, I own stock of Amazon, Nikken, stock of Apple, Shopify and Northern Star Acquisition Corp. The Robinhood Snacks podcast you just heard reflects the opinions of only the hosts who are associated persons of Robin Hood Financial LLC and does not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets Inc or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. The podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to serve as a recommendation to buy or sell any security and is not an offer or sale of a security.

The podcast is also not a research report and is not intended to serve as the basis of any investment decision. Robin Hood Financial LLC member, FINRA, SIPC.