DTC POD: How The Best Brands Are Built

On this episode of DTC Pod, Stefany joins us to dive deep into the world of commerce, content, regulation, and go to market as it pertains to the functional mushroom and psychedelic space. They cover the details of their formula which does not contain psilocybin, the patenting process, tailwinds around psychedelics, promising academic studies, the roadmap towards potential decriminalization, how things are unfolding globally, building infrastructure ahead of regulation, the overlap between the two lines and the distinct differences, brand voice, taking mojo into retail, and much more.[00:02:04] Psychedelic Renaissance spurred by pandemic leading to popularity of functional mushrooms which improve health and immunity.[00:03:34] Stefany found new purpose in career in psychedelics after pandemic hit and previous work in greenhouses in Arctic.[00:06:27] Psychedelics gaining research and attention; legalization uncertain; cautious optimism.[00:08:52] Many creative people using psychedelics to improve health, lifestyle and consumer brands.[00:11:14] Gwella and Mojo created to provide guides and tools for exploring psychedelics and microdosing, and to make it more accessible.[00:14:00] Psychedelics are hallucinogenics such as psilocybin, LSD, DMT, etc. with different strengths and experiences, and can be bred similarly to fruits or vegetables.[00:17:11] Mojo is legal, contains no psilocybin, and includes functional ingredients, nootropics and adaptogens.[00:18:42] Different retail locations require different verbiage depending on consumer understanding. Use of "microdose" versus "brain boosting" may be better suited for different stores.[00:21:17] Patenting formula to protect product from copying; focus on building brand and community to deter copying.[00:28:44] Psychedelics to be used medically, with potential for personal use, to help with mental health; brands to create micro doses for recurring revenue; offshoots like guides, clinicians, clinics, events, retreats to grow with or without legalization.powered by castmagic---Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like:• #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth• #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content• #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views• #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands• #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook• ​​​​#243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands----- Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?Shoot us a DM; we'd love to hear from you. Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox?Check out our newsletter hereFollow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTokStefany Nieto - Founder & COO of GwellaRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of DTC Pod, Zawwar joins Blaine & Ramon to talk about the intersection of creators and commerce and how the most successful creator brands are built. We cover brand management at P&G, developing brand strategies, the three types of creator archetypes, how each creator type lends it self to brand creation, aligning products with a creator, how to create buzz around a product, different outlets for creators to monetize, creator owned brands versus endorsements, successful outcomes, where the creator economy is moving, hot takes, predictions for 2023, and more. Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like:• #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth• #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content• #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views• #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands• #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook• ​​​​#243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands----- Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?Shoot us a DM; we'd love to hear from you. Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox?Check out our newsletter hereFollow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTokZawwar Khan - Founder of Rel BrandsRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of DTC Pod, Anders and Andy join Blaine & Ramon to discuss the next wave of creators and commerce. They talk about social commerce, creators as a performance channel, innovation happening in the space, what personalized storefronts mean, the opportunity for creators as key brand affiliates, the current funding landscape, when to bootstrap versus raise venture, and more.[00:01:37] Andy and Anders have co-founded companies previously, with experience in building in both the bootstrapping and vc frameworks.[00:03:40] Commerce merchant needs assessed and personalized landing page created with custom features; minimal customer/creator work needed.[00:20:37] Both paths of bootstrapping and fundraising can be beneficial depending on business, market, timing and other factors.[00:23:51] Evaluate exit potential and acquirers to determine future success.[00:26:34] Engage with brand, understand community, incentivize customers and creators, focus on performance, recruit, activate and educate customers and creators, focus on top 5-20%.[00:29:59] Social commerce is affiliate links to product pages and microcommerce experiences, with fully contextualized experiences tailored to traffic source.[00:36:22] Shift to service-based ecommerce, embedding commerce into organic posts, medium shift to AR needed for new social commerce platform.[00:41:54] Merchants define subcategories, hire in-house; ideal customer >$5 million, shareable product, find champion, 300-500 influencers to double down on 10-20.[00:45:02] Merchants build basic landing page and add content from Trend, influencers, creators. Customers and creators select content, upload own content. Merchants recommend doing most of the work. Activation levers to get more success.[00:47:55] Create best mobile video storefronts for marketers to test and find their top customers/creators.  Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like:• #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth• #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content• #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views• #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands• #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook• ​​​​#243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands----- Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?Shoot us a DM; we'd love to hear from you. Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox?Check out our newsletter hereFollow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTokAndy Cloyd - Co-founder of SuperfiliateAnders Bill - Co-founder of SuperfiliateRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of DTC Pod, Megan joins Blaine and Ramon to talk about how brands can better leverage consumer insights to validate ideas, develop new products, build more powerful brands, increase revenue and purchases, build better wholistic customer experiences, mitigate risk, find exciting opportunities, build off flagship products, and much more. Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more.Additional episodes you might like:• #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth• #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content• #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views• #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands• #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook• ​​​​#243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands----- Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?Shoot us a DM; we'd love to hear from you. Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox?Check out our newsletter hereFollow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTokMegan O'Brien - Founder of Arch InsightsRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of DTC Pod, Adam joins Blaine to discuss building and formulating products from the ground up. They talk about identifying a problem, coming up with a unique formulation, what you need to take the product to market, navigating restrictions and FDA, positioning yourself to sell in other markets downstream, patents, ingredient licensing, launching Paris Hilton's line, the pros, and cons of working with celebrity talent, navigating managers and other involved parties, leveraging talent for retail distribution, and much more. 35:48 - The Formulation Behind Paris Hilton's Skincare LineLaunching a product line with a celebrity, it's just exciting because you can immediately get an interested consumer. There's instant, recognition of your brand because you're tying it to and someone like Paris, I think you said it earlier, she did a lot of things first. And being a celebrity that wanted her own skincare line yeah, she was one of the first. And the way she wanted to do it was different, I think, than most celebrities. She wanted to own it.40:30 - The Reality of Partnering With Celebrity TalentEspecially when you get into bigger influencers or bigger celebrities. And that's the challenge. Developing a working relationship and a business structure that satisfies everybody. You have to take into consideration maybe not a lot of celebrities understand the difference between royalties and owning a business. Maybe a business manager has never done a deal where there's equity in a company. Maybe they're only used to royalty checks.27:00 - Save These Q's For Your Next BrandYou have to decide your brand position in the market. Are you the cost leader? Are you prestige? How are you going to price it? what is your brand position? What's on the box? What colors are we going to use for not just the logo, but everything to develop the brand feel. Is this going to look clinical, or should we take it the other way and make it look super high end? Like you'd buy in a, blue Mercury or a Sephora? Where are we going to put this? Is it ultimately going to be in a drugstore? Or are we going to sell it in Nordstrom? Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more.Additional episodes you might like:• #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth• #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content• #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views• #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands• #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook• ​​​​#243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands----- Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?Shoot us a DM; we'd love to hear from you. Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox?Check out our newsletter hereFollow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTokAdam Xavier - President of XG FormulationsRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of DTC Pod, Jack joins Blaine to talk about how to build a brand in today's landscape. They talk about identifying a problem, bootstrapping, which channels to start on, how to think about capital, working with suppliers, building at the right pace for your business, speeding up cash conversion, subscription & retention from the customer's pov, the importance of unified data, the power of layering brand at the right time, and much more. More info on  the Duradry brand here. Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more.Additional episodes you might like:• #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth• #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content• #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views• #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands• #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook• ​​​​#243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands----- 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.Recharge- Visit https://rechargepayments.com/dtcpod to see how over 15,000 commerce brands power their subscriptionsPeel Insights- Visit https://peelinsights.com/dtcpod to uncover actionable data insights to drive your brand's growth Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?Shoot us a DM; we'd love to hear from you. Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox?Check out our newsletter hereFollow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTokJack Benzaquen - Founder & CEO of DuradryRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of DTC Pod, Victoria joins Blaine to talk about building marketplaces from the ground up. They explore topics like getting your first customers, how to build out the supply side of the marketplace, building early demand, challenges matching supply to demand, how to launch new markets, starting a marketplace in NYC, keeping the flywheel going, transformation through company growth, and much more. Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more.Additional episodes you might like:• #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth• #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content• #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views• #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands• #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook• ​​​​#243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands----- 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.Recharge- Visit https://rechargepayments.com/dtcpod to see how over 15,000 commerce brands power their subscriptionsPeel Insights- Visit https://peelinsights.com/dtcpod to uncover actionable data insights to drive your brand's growth Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?Shoot us a DM; we'd love to hear from you. Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox?Check out our newsletter hereFollow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTokVictoria Eisner - Co-founder of GlamsquadRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of DTC Pod, Roy joins Blaine & Ramon to talk about building one of the largest e-commerce platforms, closing down his services business and betting everything on the Magento opportunity, leveraging open source for early growth, building a community that lives & breathes your product, the ethos around building an amazing product, market timing, building developer first, startup vs. corporate culture, navigating an acquisition, looking back at Shopify vs. Magento, investing at R2, exciting technology trends, building companies again, and more. Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more.Additional episodes you might like:• #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth• #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content• #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views• #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands• #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook• ​​​​#243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands----- 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.Recharge- Visit https://rechargepayments.com/dtcpod to see how over 15,000 commerce brands power their subscriptionsPeel Insights- Visit https://peelinsights.com/dtcpod to uncover actionable data insights to drive your brand's growth Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?Shoot us a DM; we'd love to hear from you. Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox?Check out our newsletter hereFollow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTokRoy Rubin - Was the Co-founder and CEO of MagentoRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of DTC Pod, Dae joins Blaine & Ramon to talk about the process of launching a successful fashion label. They talk about the inspiration for Sundae School, leaning into taboos & counterculture, the importance of aligning narrative and motifs with brand, the power of creative, what makes creative pop, getting picked up as a staple by Hypebeast, featuring in New York Fashion Week, building challenges to grow community, building campaigns that have done 100M+ views, cross selling across categories, launching DTC channels after going wholesale, and much more. Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more.Additional episodes you might like:• #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth• #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content• #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views• #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands• #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook• ​​​​#243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands----- 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.Recharge- Visit https://rechargepayments.com/dtcpod to see how over 15,000 commerce brands power their subscriptionsPeel Insights- Visit https://peelinsights.com/dtcpod to uncover actionable data insights to drive your brand's growth Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?Shoot us a DM; we'd love to hear from you. Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox?Check out our newsletter hereFollow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTokDae Lim - Founder & Creative Director of Sundae SchoolRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of DTC Pod, Ben joins Blaine to give an overview of how to generate cash as a DTC brand. They talk about everything from first financial decisions as a founder, to inventory management, financing options, how to think about equity vs. debt financing options, raising a round, speeding up cash conversion, raising the right amount of capital for your business, going omni-channel, tools like revolvers, asset backed loans, factoring, what the macro environment means for DTC businesses, and more. 7:00 Speed This Metric UP!!The cash conversion cycle is literally you buy, inventory, you pay for your suppliers, you put money out, and then there's this period of time when it comes into you, and then you sell it. And then when you sell it, that's the end of the cash conversion cycle. And oftentimes people don't think through that well enough. And the problem is, you have ever increasing money going out before you can generate it yourself.9:50 - The Overlooked SECRET to AMAZON's SuccessWell, the all time hero of this is Amazon, right? Which was able to pull off a negative cash conversion cycle. And so what that means is that they were getting paid in advance of having to buy the inventory. And so when you think about, Amazon, I'm old enough to kind of remember when they sold books, that's all they sold. But, that was like, why they could drive the prices down so low. Because, in effect, they had this cash flywheel and they didn't have to worry about it.34:30 - MATCHING (finance not fashion)The key is matching. That's the thing that's often overlooked. Everybody wants to jump into interest rates and the cost of capital, but you really want to focus on the matching. So what matching means is like, the use of the capital that you're borrowing matches your ability to I said this wrong. The term in which you have to repay it matches your ability to use it. So the way to think about this is like, if you were to go get a bank term loan, and it's like a three year loan, right? You close it and then the next day they wire you that million dollars, and guess what? You start paying interest on it and sitting on your balance sheet.45:30 - Turn Your PO's into $$$And because it's Walmart credit, they're like, oh, well, it could be, like, $0.95 on the dollar or some really high rate on it, because they're basically just taking Walmart credit risk at that point. So factoring can be a terrific way, as you build your, omnichannel business, to find that growth, because everybody faces that problem, right? I got an order from Target. We're going to kill it. And it's like, Holy shit, I got to come up with, like, $2 million of inventory. Now what do I do? ---Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more.Additional episodes you might like:• #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth• #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content• #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views• #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands• #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook• ​​​​#243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands----- 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.Recharge- Visit https://rechargepayments.com/dtcpod to see how over 15,000 commerce brands power their subscriptionsPeel Insights- Visit https://peelinsights.com/dtcpod to uncover actionable data insights to drive your brand's growth Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?Shoot us a DM; we'd love to hear from you. Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox?Check out our newsletter hereFollow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTokBen Tregoe - CEO and Co-Founder of Bainbridge GrowthRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated