Elevator Talks

Sabrina is the co-founder of 4AM, the skincare brand that built an entire routine into a single wipe. She built it while still in medical school - performing surgeries by day and posting on TikTok at night - and grew it all with a 2-3 person team into Target nationwide. In this episode she breaks down: - How she spotted the hero product that became 95% of her sales - The TikTok Shop strategy that...

Austin Harrison is the CEO of Northbeam, the marketing analytics platform that measures over $31 billion in ad spend across the top DTC brands in the world. He doesn't see what works for one brand. He sees what works across the entire industry. In this episode he breaks down: - What the brands that explode do to grow this fast - The one metric most operators completely ignore (and why it pred...

Most founders burn out chasing more. Alex Ikonn did the opposite. He built Luxy Hair into one of the first ecommerce brands built almost entirely on YouTube: 500M+ views, 3M subscribers, millions in annual cash flow, two employees. Then he sold it, because the success left him empty. He went on to build Intelligent Change, the company behind the Five Minute Journal, into a business he's run f...

Alvaro Gellings co-founded Day One with Arda Saatci, Germany's largest creator, 2.5 years ago. They launched with the Cyborg Season campaign: Arda ran 3,000 km from Berlin to New York, generated over 1 billion organic views, and hit seven-figure revenue on launch day. No paid media at launch. Day One is now an 8-figure business growing 400-500% year over year. Everything from this episode, st...

Ryan Babenzien sold Greats, the first D2C footwear brand, to Steve Madden. Then he built Jolie into the #1 filtering shower brand in the world. $50M in revenue, profitable for 15 of 17 quarters, with Meta at just 25% of the total marketing budget. This is the full anti-paid playbook. Everything from this episode, structured into a free playbook: https://www.elevatorgoods.com/talks/ryan-babenzien I...

Nick Shackelford has spent over $200M on Meta ads and runs paid for 7 DTC brands that all share one thing: a subscription engine underneath them. His agency, Structured, spends north of $15M a month. He flew to Hong Kong and sat down with us to break down how he actually picks products and runs brands in 2026. We’ve consolidated everything from this episode, into one playbook. Download it for free...

Most e-commerce brands are boring. They copy each other, lead with product specs, and wonder why nothing sticks. Bob Verlaat, co-founder of Hears and Dore & Rose (OOAK Brands), has spent two years doing the opposite, building brands that people talk about without being paid to. Everything from this episode, structured into a free playbook: https://www.elevatorgoods.com/talks/bob-verlaat In thi...

HiStrips launched in summer 2024 with one product and no creator budget. Eighteen months later, their affiliate channel is bigger than paid media. 1,500+ creators. $0 upfront spend. One person whose only job is managing the army. Sam Posthuma breaks down the full system: how they built it, how it feeds the ad account with 100-200 pieces of creative per week, and how it unlocked a partnership with...

Vince Nijhof co-founded OOAK Brands. In this episode he sits down with Monish at Elevator Talks and breaks down every system behind it. If you sell online - whether you're just starting out or already scaling - this is the most practical conversation on ecom we've ever recorded. Download the free Vince Nijhof operator playbook here: https://links.elevatorgoods.com/episodes/vince-nijhof C...

📘 Full playbook from this episode (free): https://links.elevatorgoods.com/episodes/notorious-foodie  Every framework Notorious broke down - the 6 revenue streams, the creator-to-brand launch sequence, the content flywheel behind Notorious Cookware. Bookmark it. 20M+ followers. Instead of maxing out brand deals, he built a real business. Monish sits down with Notorious Foodie to break down how. 00...

Danny Yeung turned a dinner with David Beckham into the fastest-growing supplement brand on record. In 12 months. We break down exactly how - the product, the partnerships, the unit economics, and what most DTC brands get completely wrong. — 0:00 Intro 0:03 The David Beckham dinner 3:31 Building the formula 13:53 Month one: $581K 15:46 Why 98% D2C 20:38 Paid ads at scale 25:18 The unit economics 3...

Roman Khan runs $200M+/year in ecommerce across multiple brands. In 2018, he nearly went bankrupt. That moment changed everything. In this conversation, he shares: → The supplier framework that protects your cash flow → Why world-class operators run single digit opex → His hiring philosophy (and why he avoids US talent) → The micromanagement system he swears by → How to budget when you can't...