On this episode of DTC Pod, Sanya joins Blaine to talk about what it means to be an effective brand marketer. They discuss frameworks for building ironclad brand, how brand marketing evolves with scale, how to tell an effective brand story, brand purpose, figuring out what you stand for, layering performance on top of brand, building a cohesive funnel, increasing points of connection, content programming & initiatives, partnerships, collabing with Gucci, and much more.5:15I think it's just really about, what types of, not necessarily needs you're trying to solve, but really what types of communications you're, you're putting out into the world and, and what you hope to gain out of your consumer. whether it's really sort of telling them what you're about at the highest level. I sort of see that as, almost like a bit of a speed date with the consumer. Like here's what I'm about as a brand. Here's what I stand for, here's my purpose. And then really leading them, all the way through, and giving them a reason to buy.8:10I personally am a huge fan of Patagonia. I think, they've been around for so many years, but every single piece of brand advertising that they do communicates the value of, of why they exist. So I think that, we, we hear, we hear this so much, but attention economy, we're losing people three second attention span. but I think it's more important than ever to remind people why you exist. So even if you are a household name, even if you are a mainstream, I think giving consumers more, points of connection and, deepening their understanding of what you bring to their life on.11:30You shouldn't be thinking of like, okay, from one campaign, I'm going to go now go to another campaign to do my third or fourth campaign in your, from, from quarter to quarter or for your full year. But it's really sort of thinking like showrunners in terms of like seasons, right. And in what your, the types of stories you're, you're telling your consumers, through, through your campaigns. And I think those messages need not be extremely different.16:00So really understanding, like who are we solving for, right. Whether it's a meeting with the product marketing team meeting with product supply, chain operations, really understanding sort of what is that experience that we're delivering to our end user? and for me, the challenge has been like, not thinking about it, just in terms of like a purchase journey where it's like, okay, this is awareness, this is consideration, this is conversion, but really breaking those silos, and understanding, okay, from a human experience standpoint, like what do we want people to hear at this point? What do they need to, what's going to offer them reassurance, when they're trying to troubleshoot, with customer service, like what's going to offer them reassurance, when they're coming on, coming onto our website and learning more about our features.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 subscriptions 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 TikTokSanya Deshpande - Brand Marketing Lead at ŌURARamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of DTC Pod, Carter joins Blaine to discuss how General Mills is starting to compete in the DTC arena and launch DTC channels for their brand portfolio. They discuss the learnings about what performs well, which brands to prioritize, how they think about building tech stacks, how DTC plays into the bigger strategy, how to think about positioning yourself as a new brands, fighting for retail shelf space, finding scale, and much more. 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. 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 TikTokCarter Jensen - Senior Manager of Global Commerce (DTC) at General MillsRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of the pod, Clayton joins Blaine to discuss everything from starting a newsletter, building a community, getting into menswear, how big retailers approach buying merchandise, the intersection of retail and e-commerce, creator led brands, winning growth strategies in apparel, positioning in fashion, successful collabs & drops, branded community partnerships, and much more. 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. 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 TikTokClayton Chambers - Founder of SprezzaRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of DTC Pod, Allegra and Shirin join Blaine & Ramon to talk about building one of the first creator led brands, before the recent wave of influencer led brands started to take over. They talk about getting started as a creator, building a community, starting in apparel from the ground up, working together as co-founders, identifying a market gap, tips for sourcing products, optimizing ops, building a brand greater than the individual creator, creative strategy, aesthetic development, and much more. 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. 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 TikTokAllegra Shaw - Creator & CoFounder of Uncle StudiosShirin Soltani - CoFounder of Uncle StudiosRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of DTC Pod, Patrick joins Blaine & Ramon to talk about frameworks for building successful businesses. We talk about his background, taking the leap to start, evaluating risk, bootstrapping SaaS, developing an MVP, taking a product to market, how customers think about pricing, willingness to pay, pricing strategies, scaling, navigating an exit, and much more. His Lightbulb Moment To Become A Founder (5:00)And then all of a sudden just jumped in and was like, I'm gonna start a company. This was the hardest thing I realized I could always find a job. Like, I had so much insecurity about that, but then I was like, Wait a minute, this doesn't make sense. Worst case, like I'm living poor, I can go get a job as a barista. I can go get a job on a construction crew. Like I, I can find those skills. and that gave me the confidence to be like, Well, let's try this for nine months and see what happens.The Secret To Pricing (8:00)Like what is value based pricing? Oh, it's like figuring out what your customer's willing to pay and then charging that rather than, like most eCommerce people do is they look at their costs and they're like, well the VC said I gotta get to 40% margin, let's just slap 40% margin on top of it, right? And it's like, yeah, but if your customer's only willing to pay like less than your cost, you're don't force it like you have a problem, you have a wrong customer, a wrong product, like something right or bad cost depending on what it is.This Business Sold for $200 MILLION (13:15)Basically started with a little app that you could send a survey to your target customers, your email list, your current customers. And we would say, Great for this group that you surveyed, your price should be a hundred dollars and here's kind of your curve. So if your price went up, like here's how many people you'd expect to lose if your price went down, here's how many people you'd expect to win or lose, and so on and so forth. And that was the mvp. And then we eventually put service on top of it. 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. 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 TikTokPatrick Campbell - CEO of ProfitWell (now Paddle)Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of DTC Pod, Alexandra joins Blaine and Ramon to talk about company building. They cover the creation of Gilt, building early demand, sourcing supply, creating a marketplace, the evolving commerce landscape, team building, the overlap between commerce and services marketplaces, understanding your ICP and working backward, how she invests, why she loves Miami, and much more.49:00We were not a big company. We were just kind getting going and pulled this off. So I think startups, sometimes I hear founders be like, well, I don't really have budgets to do creative things. And you can be guerilla marketing, tactical, boots on the streets doing clever things with fewer dollars than one thinks they might need.55:00 I smile because I'm like, yeah, I've been there. I I remember when I had migraines every day for six months in the early days of GILT because I was so stressed. Yes, I remember that. it's very, it's very real. And so I think founders appreciate that I've spent more time in my career on their side than the current side. But that also sometimes makes me tougher because I'm like, wait what do you mean you're going on vacation all the time? Or what do you mean you're turning your phone off or you're not hustling?60:00 So I don't know how to do something not as part of a team. I think it's super important where nobody's good at everything, and it's so important to know what are your superpowers? What are you good at? What do you enjoy doing? And, and answer that question for every co-founder or your early team members. And one of the reasons Gilt worked really well, and all my partnerships, I think because there was clarity. It was just obvious who does what and, and who's in charge of what. 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. 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 TikTokAlexandra Wilkis Wilson -  Co-founder of the Gilt, GlamSquad, and ClerisyRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of the pod, Matt joins Blaine & Ramon to talk about building a successful CPG brand from his dorm room, finding product market fit, discovering the companies ideal customer, using tech as part of the companies DNA, iterating with product feedback, raising capital, scaling up, and much more. 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. 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 TikTokMatt Czarnecki - Co-Founder & CEO of Verb EnergyRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of DTC Pod, Lee joins Blaine to talk about the crossover between growth marketing and performance editorial. They talk about how ritual grew to a 9 figure brand, the power of affiliate, the importance of search intent, new media models, audience targeting, first party data, team building, and much more. 3:00 Performance x Press 🚀What ultimately changed the trajectory for Ritual was a few bespoke content partnerships with a handful of top-tier publishers. Like BuzzFeed was one of the standout ones, and we worked with them in ways that had never really been done before, leveraging their press and leveraging their editorial in paid acquisition, paid advertising in new and novel ways. It was, at the time, really groundbreaking and really, really changed the trajectory for ritual.7:30 Start With Intent & Work Backwards 🔁Google's really a strong place to be this really strong search intent. People are very specifically looking for, whether it's a prenatal vitamin or a multivitamin, or a postmenopause, or whatever it may be, people are searching for what they need. So it was almost like, crazy to not be showing up there, and it became very quickly a really big channel for Ritual.8:15 Podcasts & Higher LTV 📈As a subscription business, we had visibility into, where our best customers were coming from. And podcast customers were always at the top of that list. I think those are the customers that really, took the time to educate themselves, were really, not making impulse decisions on like seeing a cute Instagram ad. And, that more educated consumer really stuck around and became that really high LTV customer that we were trying to acquire. So then we kind of became obsessed, like, where else can we find, this type of customer? 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. 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 TikTokLee Joselowitz - Co-Founder of The Quality EditRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of DTC Pod, Ben joins Blaine & Ramon to talk about the importance of experimentation in growth for startups. They talk about demand gen, building a waitlist, content production, GTM strategy, marketing personas, educational marketing, UGC, in-house content programming, and much more. 8:10 Great Products Make A StatementWe call it levels in the wild. Someone sees the patch on someone else and you give the like head nod, you're like, Hey, you're one of us, right? Because you feel like you're part of this club and it still happens to this day. And so there was a lot of UGC and a lot of earned media that we would get out of that where people just wanted to show others like, I'm trying to take agency over my own health and like here's what I'm doing about it.9:10 Fill Your Funnel First 🚰And we grew at roughly 7% month over month over the course of two years. So when we launched, like our wait list was at 265,000 people, it's like that's a significant number of people if they're actually engaged. It's not about trying to target them for conversions. It's about how can we start to educate them about metabolic health so that they can change their behavior without needing to buy levels to feel like they're, they're making behavior changes in their life.11:00 Let Your Process Compound 💰But he ran this ninja process of we're gonna get the founders on every podcast possible and ramp up to be higher and higher tiers. Like would the material they talk about, would the education they provide be interesting enough for someone like Tim Ferris to say, Hey, come on my podcast. If you start to do that, you get the right partners on board. Now Tim is a partner of ours where he's got the levels out link slash Tim Reads, right? And that's an amazing thing.22:00 Every Partnership Needs THIS ✨So with thought leaders, they all work on social proof, right? It's like who else is showing up to the party? No one wants to be the first of the party, but if they know that, like if, what's the probability that somebody that would be at Tim Ferris's level is also interested? If Tim is interested and their friends well, a lot higher than if Tim feels like he's on an island by himself and he is like, none of my friends are at this party, right? 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. 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 Grynol - Head of Growth at LevelsRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated

On this episode of the pod, Vasa joins Blaine & Ramon to talk about how brand building and product positioning. They also cover topics including creative direction, the role of content in growth initiatives, how to nail a creative brief, how to design content for different parts of the marketing funnel, learnings from working with some of the top brands in CPG, and much more. 5:05It started with content creation and the why behind content creation. I like to say, content within context, something along those lines. You can't just post pictures of your product. It's gotta balance information and entertainment and a bunch of other things. And there has to be a goal behind it. And it's not just like a shot in the dark, let's go viral type thing, which a lot of founders kind of think can happen, especially that don't have the, um, experience in CPG or in marketing in general.10:30But I think where people fail is in the creative creative brief process. So part of a creative brief is where is it going, the exhibition of it. But they don't really like chime into what problem are we solving, what's the goal? And most importantly, what part of the funnel are we in? So from a creative perspective, if you're running certain ads, top funnel, middle funnel and bottom funnel, you're saying different things. The top funnel might be a, this is why we exist, here's some cool things about our product, this is a problem we solve. You might be saying different things down further in the funnel.15:00 I speak always in the lens of food and beverage and for me the foundational element of creativity is how do you set up your positioning statement To me that is the Rosetta Stone of any brand. And there is a positive correlation between brands that know that like the back of their hand and how well they do and the brands that are figuring it. Like everyone's figuring it out. I figured it out for a period of time for Perfy, but the faster you can get to that, there it is, the better chance of success that you have. 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. 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 TikTokVasa Martinez - Founder & CEO of PerfyRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Seated