AI-managed supply chain for the creator economy
Think air traffic control for merchandise. Built and proven in music, portable to every creator vertical.
01 · The Business
We built the platform by being its first, best customer
We run the supply chain
Design, production, supply chain, D2C, retail, touring.
Design, production, supply chain, D2C, retail, touring: 90 full-service clients, 400 in the wider ecosystem, all tracked and managed in real time. Our network and market knowledge mean we build the right platform, tested on our own operation before anyone else touches it.
No advances. No equity. Better returns.
We built the control layer
float by terrible*
float by terrible* runs and manages every process and every transaction: sales, inventory, logistics, supply, data, reporting across every channel, with AI models sharpening every decision as more creators, artists and brands come onto the platform. 89% client retention. Platform revenue growing 40% year on year.
With float, complex operations become infinitely scalable.
float is the platform. terrible* is the proof, in the hardest vertical there is. The next stage takes float beyond music and scales it to match its ambition.
02 · The Platform
float by terrible*
float runs terrible* internally and every client externally - we built it because we needed it ourselves.
- Every transaction
- Real-time sales across e-commerce, retail, touring and D2C in one view
- Every data point
- Inventory, splits, venue settlements: all held by terrible*, fully accessible to every brand and artist on the platform
- The switching cost
- Years of purchasing history, fan data and inventory intelligence. Starting over costs too much
- The compounding advantage
- Every year of tenure adds data. Better data, better decisions, better margins. The moat grows with the relationship
- The AI & data intelligence play
- float sees fan purchasing behaviour before labels, agents or publishers do. A sold-out tour tee is a genuine demand signal you can’t fake. float is built to use that signal across the creator economy: predicting demand, optimising inventory, and surfacing brand and artist trajectory insights that have value well beyond merch
03 · Our Clients
Trusted by the brands and artists who define what music and culture looks like
The xx· RUM· Stamptown· Jamie xx· King Krule· Sampha· Japanese Breakfast· CHVRCHES· Oneohtrix Point Never· Underworld· Jamie Charlotte Marshall· Takanaka· J-digs· Crack Magazine
“Not one of these brands or artists were approached. They came to us.”
terrible* has a proven track record in music, brands, beauty and entertainment with 89% client retention. We have never done outbound marketing.
04 · The Market
AI-managed supply chain for a $250 billion creator economy
$250B
Growing at 23% CAGR (Grand View Research, 2026)
200M+
Active creators worldwide monetising audiences
High margin
Merch, the highest-margin, most loyal revenue stream a creator has
$250B, growing at 23% CAGR. 200M+ creators worldwide. Physical product is their highest-margin, most loyal revenue stream, and the least digitised part of their business. No one runs it for them as a managed layer.
float is that layer: AI-managed, real-time, built and proven in music (the hardest version of this problem) and portable to every creator vertical.
05 · The Problem
The creator economy has no managed layer underneath it, so it defaults to bad deals
20–30%
Commission: industry standard
Advances
Pay brands and artists upfront, extract margin for years
Heavy lift
Costly and slow for merch companies and creators alike
The advance model up close
Without a managed layer underneath them, brands and artists are stuck choosing between doing it themselves or handing margin and control to intermediaries who don’t run supply chain either. They just take a cut of the outcome.
06 · What We Do
AI-managed supply chain, sales, data and fulfilment
Industry
Design. Production. Supply chain. D2C. Touring. Retail. Data.
float by terrible* is the managed layer the creator economy doesn’t have: AI-managed supply chain, full data ownership, and end-to-end fulfilment, run through one platform for every brand and artist on it.
07 · Traction
Three consecutive years of growth, across every territory
£3.6M
GMV through float v0.1, annually
89%
Client retention YoY
90
Active full-service clients
400
Brands and artists in the wider eco-system
Key numbers
Margin shift
Our gross margin improved from 28% (FY22/23) to 61% (FY25/26) as revenue shifted from physical product to the managed platform layer, not the products moving through it. Current YTD running at 69%.
Unit economics
Commission and platform revenue
£14k (FY22/23) to £255k (FY25/26). Three consecutive years of commission growth across all territories, 30%+ CAGR across all years.
08 · How We Grow
Six ways to grow - most already in motion
First outbound ever
We have never done meaningful outbound marketing or lead-gen. We are now building the first structured client acquisition effort in company history.
Scale US operations
The UK model, deployed in the US, at scale. Capitalising on increased UK Export focus from HM Government as a firm entry route.
Pricing normalisation
Moving to 10% net with full cost pass-through on all platform costs. A 50% net take-rate increase on existing GMV.
Service tiering
Higher-tier fees for full-service clients. A lower-barrier entry point for high-potential emerging talent and brands, bringing them into the ecosystem early and growing with them.
Vertical expansion
Sport, film, comedy, gaming. The operational model transfers and we already have clients in these new segments.
Self-serve, powered by float AI
Any creator gets the tools our biggest clients rely on, without needing a team to run them. The same platform, opened to the whole market.
09 · Roadmap & Vision
18 months to scale and three ways to win beyond that
Phase 1
Deploy (Months 1–6)
- First outbound programme
- Pricing normalisation - 10% with full cost pass-through. 50% net take rate uplift
- terrible* store build - own-label, whole roster listings and artist collab planning
Phase 2
Scale (Months 7–12)
- US market growth - roster relationships as entry point
- Vertical expansion - one adjacent category
- float revenue target: £325k annualised by month 12
Phase 3
Expand (Months 13–18)
- Wider EU fulfilment reach
- Service tiering - lower-barrier entry for emerging creators, artists and brands
The longer view
10 · The Team
Founded and run by people who know this industry from the inside
Tersha Willis
CEO
Financial services and private equity (Rothschilds, KKR, Fidelity, BNY Mellon). Built terrible from a streetwear brand into a full-service merch operation
Jack McGruer
COO
20 years across consumer and music. Experience at major and independent labels. The industry relationships that open doors
Ed Hayes
CTO
Festival headliner and top 10 UK chart credits. Spent the last 5 years building the tech stack that runs terrible*
Rich Cahill
CRO
Designer, investor and business development leader. 10 years building AI tools for lifestyle companies, fashion houses and vehicle companies. Joins terrible* from Lovable
Advisors
Simon Wheeler: Director of Commercial Strategy, Beggars Group (minor stakeholder) - strategic advisor
Brent Stiefel: Founder, Votiv (US based entertainment company) - investor and strategic advisor