
Surviving D2C's Boom and Bust
From Ecommerce Conversations by Practical Ecommerce
April 24, 2026 · 38 min
About this episode
Chris Wichert shares his journey of building and exiting his luxury shoe brand Koio amidst the challenges of the D2C market.
Chris Wichert is an investment banker turned direct-to-consumer entrepreneur. His luxury shoe brand, Koio, launched in 2015 and quickly scaled. Then the pandemic hit. By late 2022, he says, the D2C hype and funding had collapsed. He slashed costs, stabilized cash flow, and successfully exited the company. In this episode, he shares his story of boom, bust, and survival. For an edited and condensed transcript with embedded audio, see: https://www.practicalecommerce.com/surviving-d2cs-boom-a...
People in this episode
Guest: Chris Wichert
Topics covered
- direct-to-consumer
- entrepreneurship
- business strategy
- financial management
- company exit
Keywords
- D2C
- luxury shoes
- business exit
- cash flow
- entrepreneur
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Koio
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