Most founders assume growth requires more products, more categories, and more complexity.
Mark Hasebroock and Doug Nielsen started with one.
A hammock.
No research deck.
No market thesis.
No multi-year plan.
Just a rough day after the giftcertificates.com IPO collapsed, a bad website, and one phone call from a guy named Dave in Yelm, Washington.
What happened next didn’t come from luck — it became one of the clearest playbooks for turning a single product into a portfolio by following adjacent demand.
This is that story — and how founders can use the same approach today.
1. The Starting Point: A Hammock, a Domain, and No Grand Plan
After the giftcertificates.com collapse, Mark was burned out and packing up his desk when he answered one last call.
Dave had a tiny website: hammocks.com.
The site was ugly, basic, and forgettable.
The domain was unforgettable.
Mark bought it.
Not because he had a strategy — but because he wanted a simpler, more human product to work on. And because he sensed something founders often miss: direct-to-consumer brands with clear, differentiated products were about to matter.
The early numbers were simple:
- ~$50 CAC
- ~$90–$100 AOV
- A one-and-done product… unless they turned it into something more.
“More” showed up almost immediately.
2. Listening for the Next Product: The Porch Swings Moment
One of the first customers called and said:
“I love the hammock. Do you sell porch swings?”
Mark kicked Doug under the table. Doug typed porchswings.com.
Available.
There was no brainstorming session.
No category expansion meeting.
No prediction model.
Just a customer revealing where the next product lived.
Dundee-style principle:
The simplest form of customer research is answering the phone, asking why they bought, and listening for what else they’re trying to solve.
Adjacent demand always starts with lines like:
- “Do you also sell…?”
- “We’re redoing our backyard…”
- “I need something that goes with…”
Mark and Doug weren’t guessing.
They were listening.
3. From Backyard to Full Catalog: Mapping Adjacencies in the Real World
To find the next categories, they didn’t whiteboard ideas or browse trend reports.
They drove around Omaha and looked in backyards.
They saw:
- Adirondack chairs
- Porch swings
- Bird baths
- Patio umbrellas
- Patio furniture
Instead of asking, “What do we want to sell next?”, they asked:
“What already exists in the same physical scene as our current product?”
This became their operating model: scene-based adjacencies.
Backyard scene → hammocks → swings → chairs → umbrellas → furniture.
Later: kitchen scene, office scene, rec room scene.
Founders today can map these “scenes” in minutes:
- Scroll Instagram
- Walk a Home Depot aisle
- Look at Amazon “Frequently Bought Together”
- Study customer photos and review images
The scene tells you the next product better than a brainstorming meeting ever will.
4. The Micro-Store Strategy: Focus First, Aggregate Later
As they identified adjacencies, Mark and Doug bought domains in bulk:
- hammocks.com
- porchswings.com
- adirondackchairs.com
- patioumbrellas.com
- barstools.com
Eventually thousands.
Each became its own micro-store — narrow, focused, and incredibly high intent.
Why micro-stores worked:
- Search intent: “I need a hammock” → hammocks.com
- Relevance: One category, no confusion
- Better math: Lower CAC, higher conversion
- Authority triangle: Paid top, paid side, organic first
Only after validating dozens of micro-stores did they roll them up into NetShops… and later, Hayneedle.
Operating lesson:
You don’t start as an “everything store.”
You earn the right to become one.
5. The Math Behind Adjacent Demand: Knowing When to Scale and When to Kill
From day one, they tracked four numbers:
- CAC
- AOV
- Gross margin
- LTV
And they made decisions quickly based on those numbers.
Simplified rules:
- Maintain 40–50%+ gross margins
- Expect ~10% of revenue for marketing
- If margins drop to ~15% and marketing is 10%, only 5% remains → the store won’t work
Their criteria for launching a new store:
- Strong margins
- AOV above ~$100
- A winnable keyword or domain
- A competitive supplier base
Mark’s line still holds:
“Most founders don’t actually know what it costs them to acquire a customer.”
Without clean CAC, AOV, and margin math, “adjacent demand” becomes noise, not strategy.
6. What Broke — and What They’d Do Differently
Two major missteps challenged the business.
1. Investing too heavily in inventory
Drop-ship was working.
Margins were clean.
Growth was strong.
Then they moved too fast into inventory-heavy models.
Capital got stuck in product instead of powering growth.
They unintentionally became a logistics company.
2. Hiring a “professional” management team too early
The résumés were impressive.
The integration wasn’t.
More layers created more friction:
- Committees
- Slow decisions
- Meetings instead of momentum
Founder lesson:
Growth stalls more often from organizational complexity than market limits.
7. How Dundee Applies This Playbook Today
When Dundee evaluates a founder or business, the first question isn’t:
“What’s the next product?”
It’s:
“Will this founder execute the work required to identify and test adjacencies?”
Before diving into strategy, Dundee looks for:
- Clarity — Does the founder understand their customer and their numbers?
- Discipline — Will they act quickly, test ideas fast, and adjust based on data?
- Capacity — Is the business structurally simple enough to expand without breaking?
Only then does Dundee evaluate:
- CAC
- AOV
- LTV
- Gross margins
- Operational complexity
- Hidden adjacent demand
How this shows up in practice:
- Tightening pricing or margins before expansion
- Mapping the real “scene” where the hero product lives
- Removing operational friction before adding new categories
- Testing new products with small, controlled experiments
It’s the same thinking that built Hayneedle — applied to modern DTC and consumer brands.
8. How to Apply This In Your Business (Simple Framework)
Here’s a practical version founders can implement immediately.
Step 1 — Identify your “hammock.”
What’s your current hero product?
Where do you already have traction and clean PMF?
Step 2 — Map the scene.
Where does your product physically live?
Backyard, kitchen, office, workflow, daily routine?
List 5–10 items that co-exist naturally.
Step 3 — Listen for “porch swing” signals.
Review:
- Support tickets
- Sales calls
- Reviews
- DMs
Highlight every:
“Do you also sell…?”
“I wish you had…”
“I also need…”
Step 4 — Run the math.
Estimate:
- CAC
- AOV
- Margin
If the unit economics don’t work, don’t build it yet.
Step 5 — Test with speed.
Launch with:
- One offer
- One page
- One channel
Review weekly.
Scale winners.
Kill losers quickly.
9. Closing: You Don’t Need a Perfect Plan — Just Direction and Discipline
Mark didn’t have a TAM analysis or a category model.
He had a bad day, a simple domain, and curiosity.
What created Hayneedle wasn’t luck — it was discipline:
- Listen to customers
- Map adjacencies
- Test quickly
- Let the numbers decide
You don’t need 100 products to build a portfolio brand.
You need one product people want — and the discipline to follow where it naturally wants to grow.
If you’re somewhere between your first hammock and your own version of Hayneedle, that’s exactly the stage Dundee loves. Reach out if you want a second set of eyes on the math and the map.