🧠 Takeaways:
Solo Brands is down 81% + bleeding out. Revenue collapsed 30% in one year. They're spending $34M on griddles they can't sell and coolers nobody associates them with, while sitting on a $100M+ apparel brand growing 9% that could solve their debt problem today.
Replace the board - 6 seats, wrong backgrounds, zero consumer brand DNA, and a staggered class structure designed to protect itself
Kill the new categories + free Chubbies - the only move that saves equity holders from getting wiped
The stalking horse play - when this goes belly up, here is exactly how to buy Chubbies for 80 cents on the dollar
+ I'm building a group chat of 10 AI-obsessed founders. Reply 'I'm in' if you want the spot.
LBAB Community: Looking for 10 founders as cracked on AI as I am
If running 5 projects across Claude, Claude Code, Claude in Browser, and OpenClaw sounds like your jam…
I’m putting together a group for cracked-on-AI founders to trade notes with.
What we'll swap:
Tactics + what's actually working
MD/swipe files
Tools and stacks
What you're building
Hiring in the age of AI
Org structure when your team is half agents
I'll share first: my full Openclaw content system - the exact workflow behind the 60K+ view posts.
The group:
10 founders (min $1M/yr rev)
In Slack
As obsessed w/ AI as I am
Reply 'I'm in' if you want in.
Let’s Examine This Biz
Note: As always, none of what follows is legal, tax, investing, financial, or any other sort of advice. And I was never here.
Solo Brands (portfolio of DTC brands: Solo Stove, Chubbies, Oru Kayak and Isle) is sinking, and the board is arguing about what color to paint the deck.
Stock price: $6.49
Market Cap: ~$11M
L5 Performance: -81%
P/E Ratio: N/A
Stock down 81% in 52 weeks, and they have $20M cash against $253M in debt, compounding at 9%. If they don’t hit $25m in Q3 EBITDA, that debt comes calling.
I’m bearish they’ll hit $25m.
Today, we’re making 1 final plea to save 1 of the most important DTC brands of the last decade.
Financial Summary
FY 2025 Financial Statements (YoY Comparison)
Rev: $317m (-30) 🤮
Gross Profit: $188m (-28%) 😟
SG&A: $176m (-32%) 👍
Net Loss: -$145m 😬
OCF: ~$10m 😥
TLDR Analysis: 1 good brand. 1 dying brand. 1 board can’t tell the difference
Rev -30% - Solo Stove -44%, Chubbies +9%. The good brand is growing. The flagship is in freefall.
Gross margin UP 210bps to 59.4% - the only metric moving right, and only because they stopped discounting
SG&A cut 33% faster than revenue fell - real discipline, but not enough
The portfolio model is killing this biz. Now it’s too late to save the healthy parts. And the disease from the dead brand is spreading.
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Returns are the WORST.
After spending the time, money, + effort to get a sale, now you’re losing money processing the return.
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+ Loop (today’s sponsor) just rolled out their newest AI platform for retention.
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Forecast Returns volume to get ahead of the rush + update policies/ops to win when it matters.
Stack all these features to reduce your team’s time spent on the painful, boring, routine work they don’t want to be doing anyway.
The true cost here isn’t only the $1m/yr in return costs.
It’s your CS + Ops resources to manage these processes.
Let’s TLDR This Biz
Founded:
2010, Austin TX. Bootstrapped DTC brand built on Kickstarter camping stoves.
Brothers Jeff and Spencer Jan grew it 132% CAGR 2016-2021 selling smokeless fire pits.
Aha Moment:
2016 - turned ultralight camping stove tech into a $300-500 luxury backyard fire pit.
12x the price. Same core innovation. Category did not exist before they created it.
Growth:
DTC-first with massive influencer play. Cult brand.
IPO October 2021 at $17/share raising $219M. Summit Partners cashed out. Founders sold.
Then: bought Chubbies, ISLE, Oru Kayak, IcyBreeze, TerraFlame in 18 months.
Model:
Premium fire pits + stoves $100-700. DTC + growing retail.
Thesis: one DTC platform, multiple lifestyle brands, shared infrastructure.
Reality: 4 brands w/ 4 different teams, strategies, and marketing budgets.
Collapse:
IPO at $17 (Oct 2021). Peaked ~$22. Now $4 post 1-for-40 reverse split.
Going concern warning in 2024 10-K. Ticker changed from DTC to SBDS in July 2025.
$358M+ in goodwill impairment charges over 3 years.
The portfolio thesis is dead. The board just hasn't announced the funeral yet.
Let’s Fix This Biz
Here are our 3 moves to turn Solo Brands into a win for someone - just not current shareholders.
1) Blow Up the Board
6 seats.
Overseeing one of the worst sets of biz decisions of the last decade.
Who approved every acquisition? This board.
Who watched the company lose $2B in market cap? This board.
Who approved $34M in 2026 on COOLERS & GRIDDLES? This board.
There are some real Consumers players on this board: ex President of Deckers (Hokas) and GM (Hummer). What have they been doing?
What this biz needs:
1 Operator who has built a premium DTC brand past $500M in the last 5 years.
1 capital allocations specialist who has run a distressed asset sale before a clock starts.
Takeaway: The same 6 people who burned it down are sitting + waiting for it to die.
2) Coolers and Griddles… REALLY???
For context, this biz is worth $10m.
They have $20M cash.
AND $253M IN DEBT!!!
Since they aren’t rolling their interest into the debt, their new covenant is that they have to hit $25m in EBITDA this Q3.
With that context, their genius plan is to spend $34M launching:
Griddles:
Weber + Blackstone merged in May 2025 ($1.5B biz). Dominating this space with 70+ country distribution + $199-249 price points on the category they invented and are best known for.
Solo Stove plans to enter this category at $399-599.
While they struggle to sell their core product for $200.
Misting coolers:
This is IcyBreeze (biz they just shut down) with a new logo.
Relaunching the same product against YETI (Rev + 7%) who is seeing their outdoor unit (aka coolers) shrinking. Yeti is being propped up by their drinkware biz.
Who TF on the Solo board is doing this research?
Propane fire pits:
The only right move they’re making. This segment has an 8.8% CAGR. A natural brand extension with no entrenched competitor they can charge a premium for to move away from the Amazon knockoffs.
But this shows how little they get it.
That same $34M invested in Chubbies (+9% YoY @ 18.2% EBITDA) would actually generate profits and more value to the overall portfolio.
These categories aren’t sexy, working, or what consumers want to buy from Solo Stove.
Meanwhile Chubbies is chugging along and accounting for the company’s profits with no proper investment.
Takeaway: Make the core better. Stop chasing spreadsheet growth.
3) #FreeChubbies (But Really, Let’s Buy It Out of Bankruptcy)
Chubbies: $122m Rev (+9% YOY) @ 18% EBITDA margin. Zero debt. Clean financials reported as a standalone segment since 2024.
The best DTC apparel asset in this whole story. Trapped inside a going concern filing.
By the board sitting on their hands they’re destroying $157M - $224M in Ent value. For a Biz worth $10m.
If they sell Chubbies today at $200M+, pay down the term loan to ~$50M, Solo Stove survives as a lean standalone biz. The 2028 refinancing is a viable discussion with some growth.
The board must do this, but they won't because it means admitting the portfolio thesis was wrong.
And let’s be honest.
They already made all their returns from the IPO.
But that doesn’t mean Chubbies has to go down with the ship.
Realistically, the whole biz will hit $18-19m in 2026 EBITDA. The covenant floor: $25M.
The first debt deadline is: September 30, 2026. A proper sale process takes 4-6 mos. If they don’t do this by the end of April it isn’t realistically going to happen.
JP Morgan takes Chubbies to a 363 auction by Q3.
A realistic stalking horse bid of $50-55M (Buyer makes a bid on the way into bankruptcy), gets a $1.5-2M breakup fee, sets the floor, controls the process.
Clean assets. No debt. A healthy growing biz that has been neglected for years.
Takeaway: Always buy the unloved toys.
Final Thought
2 years ago, Solo Brands had a decision to make.
Solo Stove was generating $297M in revenue. Chubbies was growing. The portfolio had real assets.
Total enterprise value of the underlying businesses in a healthy sale: $400-500M+.
Enough to clear $253M in debt and leave equity holders with something real.
The moves that needed to happen:
Sell Chubbies at 10-12x EBITDA.
Wind down ISLE and Oru.
Stop acquiring.
Shrink to Solo Stove as a focused premium outdoor brand with clean financials.
Use the proceeds to eliminate the debt.
Rebuild Solo from a clean balance sheet (Sound familiar?)
Instead, they sat on their hands while the house burned down around them.
Chubbies at $22m EBITDA and growing is still worth $200m+ to the right buyer.
But no smart money will buy it now when it's about to be 75% off.
All the other brands are dying, which presented a simple obvious problem. When things go south, you have to retreat to your core. Instead, Solo Brands lost on all fronts. Luckily for us and Chubbies, they were the neglected stepchild in the portfolio who was allowed to keep growing.
We are buying Chubbies when the ship goes under.
See you at the auction.
