On this episode of DTC Pod, Nigel joins Blaine to break down the foundational building blocks for brands that want to build profitable businesses. They cover topics like how to build solid unit economics, types of content that perform, optimizing customer journeys, understanding attribution, copywriting, landing pages, as well as benchmarks to hit to build a successful brand. 6:35 The first one, and we'll get back to this in a second, because it's the most important is unit economics by what are...
Oct 06, 2022•55 min•Ep 230•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of DTC Pod, Rob joins Blaine to talk about how to operate a consumer brand and think like a seasoned executive. They talk about what channels to focus on to grow, how to tap into existing infrastructure, deciding what to prioritize, how to nail a rebrand, finding quick wins for your brand, ins and outs of the beverage and wellness space, bringing a new concept to market, the similarities between marketplace and DTC as a consumer executive, positioning TaskRabbit in a competitive ...
Oct 04, 2022•56 min•Ep 229•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of DTC Pod, Jesse joins Blaine to talk about the future of commerce. They discuss mobile commerce, moving from agency to brand owner, increasing conversion, bootstrapping, fundraising, testing out MVPs, getting customer buy in, developing product roadmaps, and much more. 1:17 The Future of Mobile Commerce So the best way to think about Kahani is ask the question if Shopify or Squarespace or any of the big Ecom, website builders were to build today, what would they use? Would they...
Sep 29, 2022•49 min•Ep 228•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of DTC Pod, Gretchen joins Blaine to talk about wholesale as a massive competitive edge as a go-to-market strategy for consumer products. They talk about starting paddywax, scaling a business over a career, leveraging wholesale early on, merchandising strategy, selling into big retailers, the inspiration for Ink & Alloy, business building as a 2nd time founder, and much more. This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer ...
Sep 27, 2022•44 min•Ep 227•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of DTC Pod, Courtney joins Blaine & Ramon to talk about leveraging a niche audience to find scale in apparel. They cover topics including finding your market, your first production run, starting limited but focused, seasonal vs. season-less products, subtleties of niche markets, bootstrapping & growth, affiliates & influencer channels, influencer management tools, tiktok strategy, and more. 2:30 More children are being born to women over 30 than ever before in American history. W...
Sep 22, 2022•55 min•Ep 226•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of DTC Pod, Max joins Blaine to talk about starting the brand as a side project, getting early conviction, bootstrapping to launch, landing a major shark tank deal, product positioning, brand design, form factors & digital amplification, early retail strategies, fundraising, go to market point of entry, market disruption, and much more. 10:35 The Best Ideas Are Simple I think that, like, given this simplicity of the idea, it was hard to have a real conviction about it, right? Lik...
Sep 20, 2022•47 min•Ep 225•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of DTC Pod, Haris joins Blaine & Ramon to talk about how he built Miracle Brand into a profitable 8 figure brand. They discuss best practices in performance marketing, breaking through the 5M revenue ceiling, the dos/don'ts of working with agencies, incentives of ad networks, a crash course in affiliate networks, why affiliate & retail networks are so effective at scale, how to build with a big exit in mind, how to capitalize (and not capitalize) your business, and much more. 20:...
Sep 15, 2022•59 min•Ep 224•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of the pod, Lauren joins Blaine and Ramon to talk about her experience running marketing & affiliate at Ritual, how her performance-minded approach to marketing led her to Dreamday, lessons from the best-in-class brands, the affiliate marketing landscape, why affiliate is such an important channel, the tie between affiliate and PR, how to be competitive when securing press, the editorial landscape, inspiration for the quality edit, how to scale a content team, and much more. 16:0...
Sep 13, 2022•45 min•Ep 223•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of DTC Pod, Jasmine joins Blaine to discuss the landscape of PR for consumer brands. They cover topics like incentive structure for editors, how the landscape of editorial has matured over the last decade, where things are headed, how to nail your pitch, how to build relationships with editors, the role of PR in building consumer trust, how positive PR impacts purchase behavior and brand recognition, lessons as a founder, community building, and the future of consumer, community,...
Sep 08, 2022•47 min•Ep 222•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of DTC Pod, Ronak joins Blaine & Ramon to talk about evolving dynamics of the creator economy, how creator brands are typically launched, how Pietra solves for sourcing, fulfillment, and e-commerce, productizing a service for the most time-constrained customers, how their marketplace got started, how they raised their seed and series A from top VCs, brands that have launched on Pietra, what scale can look like in this niche, and much more. 6:10 The Fastest Way To Drop Your Own Li...
Sep 06, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep 221•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of DTC Pod, Steven joins Blaine to talk about building one of the most popular jewelry brands from the ground up starting in 2010, before applying those learnings to developing products for Elements of Balance in a CPG adjacent space. They discuss identifying brand mission and purpose, building visual identity, organic product growth, turning customer advocates into major league partnerships, product licensing and royalties, launching a CPG product in a competitive landscape, ama...
Sep 01, 2022•43 min•Ep 220•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of DTC Pod, JT joins Blaine in the LA studio to talk about how brands can unlock massive growth by thinking like creators. They cover topics including building your tiktok strategy, the ins & outs of the tiktok and instagram algorithm, types of content that perform best, how to generate winning content, brands that have done tiktok organic the right way, finding inspiration for meaningful creative, the role of consistency in content performance, finding your brand voice across ch...
Aug 30, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep 219•Transcript available on Metacast Mark Samuel is the founder & CEO of IWON Organics, a plant-based food company that makes bold, flavor-infused snacks and cereal made from plant proteins like peas, beans and brown rice. IWON's healthy snacks can be found in over 5,000 stores nationwide, including Kroger's, Wegmans, Sprouts, Whole Foods, Vitamin Shoppe, Safeway, Ralphs, Brookshires, and online at iwonorganics.com, Amazon and Thrive Market. This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obl...
Aug 25, 2022•42 min•Ep 218•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of DTC Pod, Oriel joins Blaine to discuss the role of creative direction in launching a new brand. They talk about brand formation and topics including coming up with a name, defining your brand's purpose, the power of copywriting, merchandise as a medium, language as a product, how to find your brand's voice, ways to minimize inventory costs, launching and testing new products quickly, the state of voice & podcasting, & much more. 7:31 Your Name Is Everything I'm a big believer ...
Aug 23, 2022•41 min•Ep 217•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of DTC Pod, Sofia & Carolyn join Blaine & Ramon to talk about company building, product marketing, brand marketing, finding product market fit, guidelines for each funding round, syncing marketing & inventory, building a resilient supply chain, building community, & more. 9:46 Product Market Fit It was a 90 degree day in Prospect park in Brooklyn. And we literally had a hundred plus parents come to pick up food from essentially complete strangers with unmarked coolers and unmarke...
Aug 18, 2022•52 min•Ep 216•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of DTC Pod, Brian joins Blaine & Ramon to talk about his career in digital commerce, media, and venture capital which has spanned 4 decades. Brian is a seasoned operator and investor, having led investments in companies including Everlane, Snif, Feastables, Caraway, Afterpay, Archive, Disco, & Tydo to name a few. This episode covers topics including the overlap of web3 and commerce, what makes businesses attractive to invest in, the evolution of digital media, learnings from the ...
Aug 16, 2022•50 min•Ep 215•Transcript available on Metacast Sahand chats with Blaine and Ramon about the idea behind Terra Kaffe and building a hardware company. He also discusses decision making frameworks, leveraging market trends, how Terra Kaffe had to pivot from B2B sales to DTC, raising capital, his philosophy on leading and growing a team, and much more (listen in for a surprise!). 11:29 - 11:48 The Essential Trait Every Entrepreneur Needs... If theres one thing I can impart on new founder it is equanimity. Equanimity through it all. Like youre go...
Aug 11, 2022•57 min•Ep 214•Transcript available on Metacast Sami Clarke is a certified health, wellness, & fitness trainer who built a large following for her workout videos and holistic approach to wellness. With millions of followers and hundreds of millions of views across Youtube, Instagram, & TikTok, Sami cultivated a strong community before deciding to start her own fitness & wellness platform, FORM. FORM not only offers digital fitness training and community access, but focuses on developing physical products that fit Sami's holistic approach to w...
Aug 09, 2022•56 min•Ep 213•Transcript available on Metacast Cherene Aubert is the Director of Growth at Bobbie, the first European style organic infant formula that meets FDA standards. Bobbie has raised over $50M to take the soon to be 100B+ formula market by storm. Cherene honed her craft and expertise in growth & ecommerce while working for agencies like Human Marketing and Common Thread Collective. In 2021 Cherene joined Bobbie as their key growth director and built Bobbie's growth playbook from the ground up. 13:49 - 14:41 The Reason Customer Person...
Aug 04, 2022•48 min•Ep 212•Transcript available on Metacast Paul Michaux is the co-founder & head of product at Prose, the DTC customized hair care brand. Michaux founded Prose in 2017 but he built up his expertise and knowledge of product, branding, & consumer goods working at P&G, Christian Dior, and LOral. Prose has achieved immense success and is a leader in hyper-personalization consumer goods. Theyre backed by the some of the biggest names in VC like Insight Partners, Forerunner Ventures, and Lerer Hippeau Ventures. The Unique Strategy That Fueled ...
Aug 02, 2022•47 min•Ep 211•Transcript available on Metacast Alex Plugaru is the CTO & cofounder of Gorgias , the customer service tool born from Techstars NYC program. Gorgias now has 9K+ customers (including some of the most well-known brands), $25M ARR, a global team of 230+ people, and $75M in fundraising. Before starting Gorgias in 2015, Alex worked as a web developer at various companies. This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours. H...
Jul 28, 2022•49 min•Ep 210•Transcript available on Metacast Jeff Nobbs is the co-founder & CEO of Zero Acre Farm, an environmentally-focused food company. Nobbs has been an entrepreneur from day 1. As a teenager in 2006, he cofounded cashback shopping website Extrabux. It was acquired by ebates in 2014. In 2015, Nobbs jumped into the food scene and started a healthy, fast-casual restaurant Kitava which he still owns today. When COVID hit, he co-founded HelpKitchen to combat food insecurity. HelpKitchen has since served millions of free meals to people in...
Jul 28, 2022•48 min•Ep 209•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of DTC Pod, Oren has a candid conversation with Blaine and Ramon about the social strategy behind the FYRE Festival, why hes tired of talking about the festival, and how hes reinvented himself since then. As an expert in branding & social media, Oren also gives us some tips on how to create a solid social strategy and also shares his personal opinion on the state of social media. This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation of...
Jul 21, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep 208•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of DTC Pod, we cover a lot like the best way to cook a steak, why serving up ads to customers is pointless, the idea of finding a calling, and more. For the students tuning in, Khosravi also talks about his personal experience and why you should never let grades or your past define you. This is an episode you dont want to miss. This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24...
Jul 19, 2022•48 min•Ep 207•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of DTC Pod, Tom discusses the evolution of advertising and why OOH advertising is ripe for disruption. We also dive into how he came up with the idea for Adgile, the revolutionary technology supporting this truck-side advertising, and why DTC & challenger brands are gravitating towards Adgile. Tom also gives us an inside look into how he thinks about sales and why trust is the foundation of any successful relationship. This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://op...
Jul 14, 2022•54 min•Ep 206•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of DTC Pod, Kasey discusses the art of storytelling on social media platforms, specifically TikTok. We talk about what makes a great TikTok video, a great TikTok hook, and why voiceovers are more important than visuals. Kasey also explains how hes used TikTok to create brand awareness, attract Shark Tank casting directors, and create retail opportunities - without spending a penny. The Vacation That Changed His Life Forever 3:45 - 4:04 So when I went to go do this travel part of ...
Jul 12, 2022•53 min•Ep 205•Transcript available on Metacast Nick joins Blaine & Ramon on DTC Pod to give the audience an inside look into the world of Growth Marketing & eCommerce. Nick talks about he created Every Man Jacks digital marketing program, the strategy and logistics behind omnichannel commerce, attracting consumers to Every Man Jacks DTC channel, how he approaches advertising, and the different advertising channels he is excited to experiment with. How to differentiate your DTC channel 20:35 - 21:53 How I thought about every man Jack is digit...
Jul 06, 2022•52 min•Ep 204•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of DTC Pod, Brosnan and Heckman join Blaine & Ramon to discuss the process of creating, scaling, and selling an e-commerce business. They cover topics including how to start an online store, how to validate before investing in inventory, getting started with print on demand options, tapping into sourcing agent networks, what makes a viable partnership with a manufacturer, options for acquisition, how to sell the business, how OpenStores credibility and ethos made them the right b...
Jun 30, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep 203•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of DTC Pod, Nish joins Blaine to talk about how he started Arrae with his wife, Siffat Haider. They discuss how to build a DTC brand with a product lens, what it took to get to the first 17K orders, personal touches to drive early sales, how they transitioned into scaling, how they got Hailey Beiber as a mega fan of Arrae, the tech stack that powers their growth, how they think about subscription experience, timing their retail strategy, and how they got into 13 Erewhon locations...
Jun 28, 2022•50 min•Ep 202•Transcript available on Metacast Jonah Reider is an NYC based chef, entrepreneur, and writer for Food & Wine. Prior to starting Pzaz, Jonah made a name for himself cooking meals in his dorm room at Columbia which turned into famed supper club and boutique condiments brand, Pith. Jonah hosts the bi-monthly column Supper Club at Food & Wine magazine, and has contributed to GQ, Vice, the Food Network, and more around the food & hospitality space. Hes also collaborated with several major brands like Gucci, Hermes, Land Rover, and T...
Jun 21, 2022•1 hr•Ep 201•Transcript available on Metacast 
