Operator's Template Nº02

DTC Brand Value & Capital Calculator

What your brand is worth, what actually hits your bank account, and what your capital really costs. A valuation model that builds your multiple out of the metrics you already manage, a bridge from headline price to the check that clears, and an APR normalizer that puts every financing offer on one scale. Every band is sourced on its own tab.

What you get06 sections

01The multiple builder: eight levers, each with a premium and a discount threshold, that turn metrics you already manage into turns of EBITDA. A 35%+ repeat rate is worth half a turn. One channel above 70% of revenue costs you a full turn. This is where paid social stops being a marketing line item and starts being enterprise value.
02The add-back engine, scored the way a quality of earnings review scores it. Excess owner comp, perks and one-time legal are accepted. Marketing investment, customer acquisition costs and recurring bonuses are rejected no matter how badly you want them. Add-backs run about 29% of adjusted EBITDA, and at a 6x multiple every $100k that survives is $600k of enterprise value.
03The Bridge, which is the section almost nobody runs. Headline enterprise value down through funded debt, the working capital peg, advisor fees, escrow, rollover and earnout, to the number that actually clears. Earnouts pay out at 21 cents on the dollar and 79% never pay at all, so the model discounts them by default rather than letting you count them.
04The Cost of Capital normalizer and the one formula under it: APR equals fee % divided by (repayment days over 365). A 6% flat fee repaid in four months is 18% APR. The same 6% repaid in two months is 36%. Paying it back faster makes it more expensive, which is precisely backwards from how it gets quoted to you.
05Your offer priced against nine alternatives on the same scale: bank revolver, asset-based lending, venture debt, fintech inventory lines, invoice factoring, revenue-based financing, PO financing, vendor terms and equity. The model tells you in dollars what you are paying for speed and access.
06A decision dashboard that grades you against benchmark on gross margin, EBITDA margin, channel concentration, add-back load, cash at close and net-to-you, plus a Benchmarks tab citing the source behind every band (SRS Acquiom, GF Data, FE International, BizBuySell, CT Acquisitions).

Signal

What operators are saying

Kartike S.

One of the more thoughtful takes I've seen around the Meta ecosystem lately. Your posts consistently show a systems-level understanding of Meta rather than surface-level dashboard thinking, and that's pretty rare.

Usama S.

No fluff, no flattery, but your content is really great, amazing. I recently read a couple of your blogs and it blew my mind.

Jonah C.

Super helpful, thanks for sharing this. The 1 ad per ~$3k framing really clicked. This gives me a clearer way to help diagnose what's ads.

Chris G.

Lots of alpha in your newsletter. I really enjoy your content on LinkedIn. Keep up the good work.

Mark C.

I read some of your posts and you seem to have a very well rounded understanding of how to monitor and maintain profitability of a Meta account.

Daniel B.

Came across your substack and love the content.