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. 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.Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTok Alex Plugaru - Co-Founder & CTO GorgiasRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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 need. And in 2020 he decided it was time enter the oil business. At the same time, he cofounded Zero Acre Farms to remove destructive vegetable oils from the food system. 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. Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTokJeff Nobbs - Co- Founder & CEO of Zero Acre FarmsRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

In this episode of DTC Pod, Oren has a candid conversation with Blaine and Ramon about the social strategy behind the FYRE Festival, why he’s tired of talking about the festival, and how he’s 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 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.Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTok Oren Aks - Founder of Atomic Milk MediaRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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 don’t 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 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.Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTok Darian Khosravi - Founder & CEO of Kosmo’s QRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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://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.Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTok Thomas  Shea - Founder & CEO of AdgileRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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 he’s 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 Forever3:45 - 4:04So when I went to go do this travel part of what I wanted to do, instead of it just being like, Hey, let’s go do this for fun. I wanted to come back with a skill set. And that skill set was to be able to shoot and to edit. So I bought my first camera. And for the first 100 days I shot every day, I edited a video, and I uploaded it to YouTube documenting my travel.This Brand Got 300M Views, Without Spending A Dollar18:29 - 19:01We did finally, I think crack the code of TikTok to what people connect with. And that was what enabled us to grow so fast, so quick. And yeah, it’s been our biggest. Especially now like you’re talking about the troubles that are happening in paid social, like everybody cutting budgets and the CAC to get people now  is so high, but we haven’t had to do any paid so far. And so our CAC is like zero, and TikTok  has been driven everything from Shark Tank reaching out within the first five days wanting us to come on the show to retailers reaching out. The Framework for Building Viral Organic Content23:26 - 24:09It’s all about there’s this formula. You have a hook. I mean, you have 2 to 3 seconds to get somebody to stay there. You have a hook. You have a conflict that happens. And then you have a resolution or a call to action to that. And so every single video since then has been some sort of a hook. “This is how we failed.” “17 minutes to know if our product was going to make it or not” “The worst phone call since we started our business.” All these things.  Not  that they’re  all bad. But to be honest, some of the negative ones are the ones that seem to perform the best. And then you just talk about that conflict, what happened.  Boxes came and we had an a ship but lollipops were broken. And this is the resolution, we stayed up all night, we checked one by one every single lollipop and threw away their broken ones. And we’re going to be able to make it to launch. 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.Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTok Kasey Stewart - Founder & CEO of SuckerzRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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 Jack’s digital marketing program, the strategy and logistics behind omnichannel commerce, attracting consumers to Every Man Jack’s DTC channel, how he approaches advertising, and the different advertising channels he is excited to experiment with. How to differentiate your DTC channel20:35 - 21:53How I thought about every man Jack is digital, younger, and trial. So this is about me This is first and foremost, we're going to create a great digital experience, where it's not just going to be focused on merchandising, it's going to be focused on education, have to have that right to this is going to be about a certain type of consumer, which is a younger consumer. And we know that if we're going to be if we're going to be effective in digital, then we're going to try and focus on do getting product into your hands. And knowing that as you graduate over, you know, five to 10 years, if we get you early, as you graduate, we're going to have this incredible layer of distribution around you that, you know, once you start running to the store to go pick up things for your kids and your family, like we're gonna be there for you eventually. So it's all about figuring out for at least in my experience, it was about figuring out the real role of the site, not just like, let's get every man jack up online, like what is its place? As a as a channel? Within our overall channel mix?This is the next wave of advertising  42:37 - 43:20  And then in terms of what I'm looking forward to in the future. We're you know, like many brands were were really bullish on on streaming and on CTV and linear. And I think we've been so focused on direct response. It's been, it's been really great for us to really kind of open the floodgates. And we have a we pushed our relationship with with Disney even further. And we're just we're really interested in in buying ESPN media for the back to school campaign. So I think we're really we're really excited about August and September.  49:33 - 51:09 The Q’s to Ask BEFORE Spending Money on Ads  And I think it comes down to thinking about your product and the role it's playing. Is this is this brand new technology? Is this a brand new way of doing things that even just the slightest even even just hearing about it causes me to look into it? Versus Is this a brand that needs to be seen? Like does hearing about this brand do anything for the consumer or is it simple And that needs to be seen, or thinking about the demographics of your ideal user? Is this someone who like is this someone that needs to be 18. And they need to see this brand being held or being used by an 18 year old, or an if my core consumers 18 year old, well, then I have a, I have some channels that are ideally suited for that.  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.Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTok Nick Hasselberg - VP of Growth Marketing & eCommerce at Every Man JackRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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 OpenStore’s credibility and ethos made them the right buyer, what payout and transition looks like, and what opportunities look exciting next.11:27 - 12:15“New Age Entrepreneurship Methodology”I think something unique that that we did, it’s kind of the New Age Entrepreneurship Methodology now is to kind of like pre launch products. So before we actually put $1 into inventory, we launched the entire collection for all the brands that we did. So we have done a sock company, a tie dye company, jewelry company, yoga company, men’s apparel company, a couple other in there, but those were our five kind of most successful brands. Every one of those was pre sold at the start. So we just built out the collection, didn’t have any inventory, just told our customers that we were going to be pre selling. And we just were trying to gauge interest and drive some some traffic and see how well the site converted. See what our cost per clicks were on Facebook and see if we had real traction before we started pursuing the product.24:56 - 25:37Having Trust Saves Time And MoneyThe one piece of advice that I would say is to find one supplier instead of like going through Alibaba, that might be how you have to find an initial supplier, but build a relationship with one supplier that you really trust. Because even if like our jewelry supplier, for example, she didn’t manufacture yoga mats and socks and all that kind of stuff. But she was able to give us recommendations. We’d say, hey, we need to source x, y. And she would say, I’ll introduce you to my friend who has a manufacturer who does this. And cutting Alibaba and the online lists out of the process will save you a ton of time. But in the beginning, it’s kind of necessary to build that first relationship.1:01:30 - 1:02:12Don’t Let Failure Slow You DownWe have had way more failures than we’ve had success. We’ve probably launched 15 to 20 stores. We’ve had 5 successful 5 or 6 successful stores. Like we just move fast test things. The classic move fast, break things, fix it. Especially with eCommerce online business, it’s easy to move fast. You have no excuse not to move fast, and at least test concepts and ideas. And then when you have something you believe in or at least believe that can be a success, then taking the time and investing in the cop (edited) 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.Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTok Brendan Brosnan and Chris Heckman- Co-founders of YogasteRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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. 23:01 -23:58Never Underestimate the Power of a SelfieWe wanted people to know that they were buying the product from us. And so everything was hand packaged we never use a fulfillment center in the early days. And every single thing like we would buy custom, tissue wrapping paper, we’d wrap up the products, we would write a handwritten note. And then me and my wife used to take a Polaroid selfie. Every Polaroid would be an authentic one, because we would be taking it ourselves with a Polaroid camera. And so it would it would take about 10-15 seconds per photo. And so we would do that for like 1000s of orders. We didn’t get a fulfillment center until after our first million dollars in sales. And so that all of that was just pure I guess sweat, sweat equity that we put in everything. And that really, really helped because people used to post with it all the time to like who are these people? And why is there a photo of them in the package. And it was actually like kind of cute, like people really, really liked it.12:36 - 13:04Before Creating a Subscription Program, Ask Yourself This. I actually still think that subscription, as great as a business model is, it’s really annoying from a customer perspective, if it’s not a good experience. And so what we try to do is like we first have to find, okay, natively, how are people using the product? How are they like consuming? What’s the frequency on which they’re consuming it? What kind of person is that that requires us this product on subscription? And then we very specifically cater our subscription offers to those kinds of customers.27:10 - 28:00When Hailey Bieber Loves Your ProductI saw the PayPal notification pop up. And then I was like oh wow is this really her? And so I looked it up and I was like, Oh wow that’s really her. So we sent her some product. And  we wrote a handwritten note or whatever. And then five days later she orders like five more. And so I was like Oh wow she really likes her product. And then basically, we shipped it out to her. And then her assistant at the very end of it sent me a message being like Hey, I know you shipped the product, but it’s not getting here fast enough because Hailey’s gone tomorrow, and she needs the product today. And so I was in LA at the time. So I was like You know what can I  just come and drop it off? And she’s like Yeah you can come up drop it off. Just come to Justin Bieber’s house. I was like Yep I’m on my way there. So me Siff and literally like Siff’s brother and one of our team members, we all loaded up in my car and we just drove over to Justin Bieber’s house to go and hand deliver this product. 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.Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTok Nishant Samantray- Co-founder of ArraeRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

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. He’s also collaborated with several major brands like Gucci, Hermes, Land Rover, and The New Yorker to create unique dining experiences. Now Jonah is entering the CPG startup world and building an energy empire called Pzaz. Jonah joins DTC Pod to talk about his launch, developing product and form factor, brand positioning, local retail distribution strategy, and how to make a big impression in a crowded CPG landscape.Highlights:32:04 - 32:28Embrace every part of your productPzaz is not a flavor first brand in the sense that I don’t want people to buy it because they think it’s the most delicious, delicate, unique flavor they’ve tasted. It’s functional first. And we don’t have paragraphs and paragraphs on our website about all the functional ingredients. It’s functional in that it wakes you up. If you want to wake up and you don’t want a beverage or you can’t have a beverage, this is the product for you.35:54 - 36:51Most Subscriptions Get This WrongWe only sell subscriptions on our website. If you don’t want to subscribe, if you cancel your subscription, that’s fine.  I’m not here insisting on having the lowest churn rate of all time. We’ll catch you somewhere else on Amazon, Go Puff, at the bodega. That subscription version of purchase needs to be so distinct and rewarding from any other type of purchase, you need to get, you know a giant Pzaz tattoo when you order from Pzaz.com. You need to get a little zazz chain to wear on your neck that connects to the cap so you can take it out on your third order. There should be a real reason to join that DTC community for everyone who comes into the fold. And if they don’t, we’ll still keep them as part of our digital community and solicit content that really raises up the amazing retailers who are carrying us in their stores44:03 - 44:55The Ultimate IRL Launch StrategyWe’re at multiple parties going on in the city, multiple clubs, music venues, sporting events,  private parties, art openings, you name it there there will be someone with a backpack of Pzaz putting these tubes out in the bathroom, at the check in counter, at the bar, wherever you might stumble upon it. We have a little, all the energy drink companies have cars. Red Bulls got the Mini Cooper. Monsters got this big truck. We have a single electric scooter sort of like you know in New York they’re called Revels, and we’ve decked it out. It’s it’s ridiculously zazzy. It looks like this office. It’s bright yellow. It has like ludicrously bright rainbow lights, a huge Pzaz flag. And we have  people driving this scooter every hour of every day of the summer.”50:21 - 50:54Should New Brands Use Distributors?The vast majority of their revenue from just a few huge companies that sell massive quantities, but are giving the distributor a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage. So they’ll take on, like almost any. They’ll take on plenty of new brands and not really push you at all, not help that much, take a lot a lot of your margin. And I didn’t want to get caught in that. And I also I think I wanted to have some experience at launching, really understanding what it means to hit the pavement and deliver product and deal with people saying no.56:34 - 57:31Every Startup Needs a Laser FocusConsumer packaged goods in the energy space are really missing a cultural moment and an opportunity to explore new form factors, delivery mechanisms, and of course, branding. And we have a lot of interesting new product ideas, new avenues to take to approach this mission. But  I would say we’re, I am and I try to have our whole team aligned on this, really keeping ourselves quite laser focused on launching and remembering what our key objectives are. We want to be in stores, doing well, building a community and driving digital interactions that everybody finds valuable and exciting and fun. And, that’s what we’re really focused on. So I hope anyone listening who’s made it all the way to the end of this. Get your ass to Pzaz.com. 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.Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!DTCPod InstagramDTCPod TwitterDTCPod TikTok Jonah Reider- CEO of Pzaz.comRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel