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, amazon vs. retail, scaling out teams, and much more.Want to try out Lokai or Elements?Use the Code "Podcast15" at check out for 15% off 25:30Save This Formula For SuccessIt starts with a product high quality product, great price point, something that everyone could afford. And then on the customer service side, being as incredible and supportive as we can be. Our goal is to make every single customer happy. So if you buy a Lokai and it breaks and you email us, we'll just send you another one, no questions asked. We try to really make every interaction we have with our customers as positive as possible.33:52The Secret To Building A $$$$$ CompanyWe've been talking about how it's a marathon and how long it takes to really build an incredible company. And you need to have a founder CEO at the helm that understands that and is able to see the long-term kind of plan that needs to be built and is in it for the long run as well and is not emotional when the tough decisions need to be made. Every business goes through highs and lows, and it's about not being stubborn, not putting your ego first, and doing what's best for the business in the long run. And I believe you can figure it out on the way and build a great company if you do those things.34:48The Best Advice You'll Ever Get 🤓I'm a huge believer in product, right? It doesn't matter how good your marketing and your sales are, your pitches, if the product isn't great customers won't keep coming back. 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 TikTokSteven Izen - Founder of Lokai and Elements Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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 channels, how to build an organic audience, launching an SMS community, and much much more.Learn more about JT here:https://www.barnettx.com/JT's TikTok Masterclass for Brands:https://www.thetiktokmasterclass.com/ 9:32 Get Your Brand Voice Right On Every ChannelOh, a hundred percent that the companies right now are trying to get one person to speak Chinese English, German, French, all of them at the same time. And what I think they should do is go and find somebody that speaks that specific language that enjoys it, that is like native to that platform and bring them in for only that you'll go, you'll go deeper. It probably will be cost efficient when, because you can just hire them for just that on a project basis. and I think that you'll get way more out of it because the person that you're hiring now knows what they're doing and can go deep into that. 21:50 How Organic Algos Workthe way that it takes off the algorithm works is it is testing your content when you post it, it gets shown to a certain amount of people. I usually just call it. Let's just say it's shown to 10 people and it gets shown to 10 people. And it's testing to see out of those 10 people. Do they engage and interact with that? Th those the metrics that they're actually tracking or like, do they watch the whole thing? Did they share it? Do they favorite it? Do they like it? Do they comment on it? Those kinds of things. If they do, if a certain number of those people engage with it, it gets shown to a bigger set of people. And then that test because it recurs and recurs, so it happens, starts at 10, say a majority of them engage with it. Then it gets shown to a hundred, a majority of them that it goes to a thousand. So on and so forth to where it's on the main for you page, where it's like, what people consider viral. 22:40 Content & Advertising BasicsSo to get people, to actually engage with the content, you need to be doing something that is providing them value. Most people call it like educate, entertain or inspire, but like, you're trying to provide them with some sort of value or something that will get them emotionally engaged. When people talk about advertising, what they're really trying to get as a consumer to buy in with their emotions, because that's what you usually buy with. So what I think about in content is like, you need to be doing something that they will actually like want to watch and want to share with somebody or want to save to their phone and, or like favorite app.  23:15 How To Tell Your StoryAnd, and the thing that works the best that we see is some sort of storytelling. That means that within the content that needs to have some sort of challenge in some sort of resolution. If you look at like a narrative arc, like, you know, everybody that went to English and then in high school, you learn about these narrative arcs. I was a terrible student, but now I'm going back. I'm like, I actually feel like I remember that you're talking about, you know, you have an intro to video and then you have some sort of a rise to it that sets it up. And then there's a challenge. And then there's a resolution. And I think in every single company's story, if you were to just literally like timeline, like the origin, the company to where you are now, everybody has so many of those little challenges, but they don't talk about them because we come from an Instagram culture that is don't show the flaws, just show the wins, just show the wins.  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 TikTokJT Barnett - Founder of BarnettXRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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, Brookshire’s, 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-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 TikTokMark Samuel - IWON OrganicsRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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.7:31Your Name Is EverythingI'm a big believer in naming an idea and the name being very important. And until you've got a name, you don't necessarily have an idea. That kind of came at a moment, it was kind of like a shower thought, that just popped into my head one day when I was thinking about athleisure. And I was like, well what's the opposite of athleisure? What do you wear when you're doing nothing but zoom calls? And “corpleisure” kind of brought that all together.10:26Starting A Business? Do This FirstFor me it really helps when you know your purpose. Right. I spend a lot of time in my day, whether I'm working on corpleisure or anything else, I'm thinking, okay, what is, what is the purpose of like this brand or this piece of communication? Um, and then what's the takeaway that I want people to take from it, you know?17:34Your Brand Starts Here.If I was just going to tell someone in a conversation about this product, how would I do it? And the chances are like, if you're going to tell a friend over drinks or something, or telling someone at a barbecue like that's kind of your natural voice. And probably somewhere within that is your brand. Because when you speak naturally, especially about your own brands and about your own product, that's when you talk with passion, right? And if you could potentially maybe record yourself doing that, you'd probably hear those words that you use when you're excited about telling someone about this new product that you've got, um, and that's kind of your voice and that could be your brand. 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 TikTokOriel Davis-Lyons - Founder of CorpleisureRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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.9:46Product 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 unmarked cups. And we always laugh that that's when we knew that we had found a white space.22:52Community = Real Growth 🚀I'll give you an anecdote but we started doing these tiny “supper clubs” we called them, these community events with 15 to 25 moms- and they started out in person. It was meant to be a regional event, but we're still seeing that those zip codes perform better than some other zip codes. They became virtual and now we're kind of rethinking that model, but I think this idea of how do you do community or organic acquisition at scale is really intriguing.33:42This Is How You Build Supply Chain 🔗We try to keep a healthy amount of cover for ourselves, just in case something were to go wrong, which kind of brings us back to building for security. It's not a matter of if, but when something will go wrong, because it will. So to have as many backup solutions in our back pocket that we can, whether it's a quick ingredients switch, or a supplier switch, we've got an emergency solution just in case anything goes wrong.39:10Forecasting Demand In 2022 📈Demand forecasting is definitely both art and science, but we use that subscription data and a lot of really detailed cohort analysis to identify which of these marketing moments is the most successful. And when we repeat it and make sure that we're planning for that appropriately. So we use both of those in conjunction to kind of build out our demand forecast models and then we plan production and inventory accordingly. But especially right now, and especially for early founders, you need to manage that with the cash that gets tied up in manufacturing inventory. So it's always a balance that you're trying to strike. 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 TikTokSofia Laurell - Co-Fonder & Co-CEO of Tiny OrganicsCarolyn O'Hare Batyske - Co-Founder & President & COO of Tiny OrganicsRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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 best brands, what the future of commerce looks like, and how brands can think about evolving loyalty and retention frameworks, social commerce, and more.Wanna Sound Smart? Save This 😉12:30So as many people have spoken about, Web1 was about read only, WEB2 two was about read-write where you can post on social networks, and WEB3 is all about ownership. And to me, ownership from a brand really is about super fans and loyalty, right? Like what can you do with your super fans?13:40Where Brands Should Focus in 2022Brands can't acquire customers efficiently through the paid channels like they used to in the past. Brands need to focus on increasing conversion rate, increasing average order, lowering abandonment, dealing with the traffic that they have now, like 97% of the people that come to your site, don't buy. There's like plenty of opportunities to do things there and I think Novel gives the tools to the brands to help enhance that.32:17The Real Reason Social-Commerce Hasn't Taken OffI don't think shopping is social by human nature. Like I think people pride themselves on them finding and discovering things at good prices at great brands. Like they want to be the person that is wearing it out there first, and then their friends ask them. It's not like you want to go shopping with your friend, and like find the same thing.. and then what are you going to do? Both wear the same dress? I just think inherently shopping, maybe isn't social.35:17THIS is how much to spend on MarketingSo one question we ask is how much money, or what percentage of revenue do you spend on paid marketing? And if that number's like 20 or 25% or greater, it's just not for us. We want a scaled DTC brand to be 12% or less. Okay. If you're spending more than on paid marketing, you have a drug habit, you are addicted to the high of spending money to make money. And it just won't last because your tolerance will just increase and you'll never be able to go to rehab and get off that drug. So spend the money on content creators and content studios, and build like own the house that your audience is  in, don't rent the house. 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 TikTokBrian Sugar - Founder of Sugar Capital Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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 - 11:48The Essential Trait Every Entrepreneur Needs...If there’s one thing I can impart on new founder it is equanimity. Equanimity through it all. Like you’re going to have highs and you’re going to have lows. And I think having that balance is incredibly important. It’s a little Scott Galowayian in a way.. I don't know if that's the right way to refer to that but nothing is ever as good or bad as it seems.38:50 - 39:18Why EQ Is So Valuable For StartupsCompetence is not thinking or infallible, it's knowing you're not and holding yourself in high regard. I think that's an insanely valuable headspace to live in for everybody that's going into a startup and it connects back to that equanimity. Hold your head up, communicate effectively, communicate early, communicate often, be self aware, have that IQ and have that EQ you really need to have that EQ when it comes to a start up. And I think you're gonna do your best work. 19:59 - 20:33Knock On DoorsI still remember you know getting the first two prototypes, and I just actually moved back to the US got to New York, and never lived in New York didn't know much about it, and was just told that cool stores are in Soho. So I had two prototypes, and I knocked on 100 doors inn Soho and said can I serve coffee to weekend crowds? And you knock on 100 doors and 5 people say yeah, and that's how it started and frankly I’m actually weirdly appreciative of that moment. I felt like I was living the pursuit of happiness in reverse, you know he starts off schlepping machines on the subway. 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 TikTok Sahand Dilmaghani - Co-Founder & CEO of Terra KaffeRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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 wellness.Sami Bernstein is Partner in FORM and previously served as SVP of Influencer marketing at Markett and is CMO of Kickback, a social shopping app that incentivizes sharing the brands you love. Sami has collaborated on influencer campaigns with some of the largest brands including Nike, Sephora, Apple Music and worked with thousands of influencers across her roles. 39:56Building Community? Save This.We love love love our community and talk with them all the time. So first and foremost starting the facebook group - literally before launch. Do people still use facebook? Do people still use facebook because I don't, BUT.. facebook is the only place where you can converse back and forth. And our biggest thing is this isn't about me communicating with them but it's more about them communicating together. Because that's going to grow then they're going to meet amazing people that are likeminded - so we're like we have to go to facebook.. AND IT WORKED! 46:45 - 47:20For Brands: Why Scripts ≠ StorytellingThere's a journey into what needs to happen before pressing, you know, complete purchase. And there have been so many different instances for influencer campaigns where all that matters is the ROI and I really encourage brands and founders to take a step back from that and lean into their storytelling through influencers and the way that influencers cannot read a script but really tell their own story on that brands behalf. I really think that brands that can do that well will convert so well.47:26Tell Your StoryAnd have the brand tell their story. People LOVE to know how they got to where they're at, they love the process rather than "hey we made it" and "try our product".. I mean tik-tok get raw with it, share the story!48:34-48:58 How TikTok Saved A Businesses CRISISThey were like "I'll take the crooked".. and i was like "you will?". Thousands of people liked it saying they'll take it. We were so upset we wasted all this money, everything was crooked, here comes tik tok "we LOVE the crooked" "give me the crooked".. so i made a tik tok wearing the crooked and i said "these are live right now, they are crooked, but go get em". We called them the tik tok special. I only put them on tik tok. They sold out in 5 minutes. 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 TikTok Sami Clarke - Founder of FORMSami Bernstein- Partner of FORMRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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 - 14:41The Reason Customer Personas are KEYIt's the least impulsive purchase you can make is infant formula. You actually need to have an infant and you actually need to feed it formula. And there's only a short window of time in an infant's life where it consumes formula, it's the first 12 months. So for us, it's really,  so much different than DTC acquisition in other industries, like so many purchases or impulse purchases, and there's ways that you can incentivize and motivate someone to purchase. So much of our purchasing journey revolves around research. I mean, it's a high AOV product, it's high stakes, you need to know what's in it. So when we think about growth, we think about educating people around why this option is the right option for them.An Overlooked Hack for Growth Marketers22:46 - 23:05I will say like for the growth marketers out there, media is such a massive growth channel that you know, PR and media, I feel like it's a little bit underrated by growth marketers, but it you can get spikes in traffic that you will never see with paid advertisingWhy You Need A UGC Strategy27:55 - 28:16it's the UGC that comes from real customers that always does the best. So when we turn back on again, it's I know exactly how we're going to turn the machine on. It's going to be taking that UGC and creating a production house to push it out and continue iterating on 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 TikTok Cherene Aubert- Director of Growth of BobbieRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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 L’Oréal. Prose has achieved immense success and is a leader in hyper-personalization consumer goods. They’re backed by the some of the biggest names in VC like Insight Partners, Forerunner Ventures, and Lerer Hippeau Ventures. The Unique Strategy That Fueled Prose’s Growth20:38And it was like “No, no, it’s actually great to create friction. And some friction is sometimes useful, this is how we make a sale. And this is how we think of the time to actually close on the sale. As opposed to just click here, you didn’t understand anything about the product, but hopefully you’re going to buy it. So we spend a lot of time creating this funnel and creating the tech stack to, to make it workThe 2 Things Every Entrepreneur Needs To Know22:48 - 23:16And if I have advice for any entrepreneur or anyone thinking about who their consumer is. Like my first is not to listen to advice. That’s my first advice to everyone. But the second one is thinking about the channels and how you want to use It. Like maybe you’re not a direct-to consumer brand. Maybe you’re just like a very cool CPG brand, but you’re not direct-to-consumer. And maybe that’s okay.How This Famous Brand Pulled off The IMPOSSIBLE26:45 - 27:03I think a lot of CPG brands actually outsource their uniqueness. And then it’s hard to experience what makes you unique it’s just like, we all use the same lab, creating more or less the same product, we change the fragrance and the packaging but no, It’s our own chemist, it’s our own lab, it’s all our own tech platform. Again, not because we want it to be that but because we had to come up with a tech platform to create these customized products. And then overall it’s our own platform, our own data too.The Trick To Building Businesses That Last38:35 - 39:01The importance of a direct to consumer brand is not to sell one product and run away, right? Like no one can create a sustainable direct consumer brand with just one sale. It’s the LTV. And if you’re serious about the LTV, of course, you have the retention team. And of course, it’s what we have. And we think about like lifecycle marketing and all these things. But also like just really using the feedback that you have from your customer into the product is so important. 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. Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox?Check out our newsletter hereHave 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.Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTok Paul Michaux - Co-Founder & Product ProseRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel