DTC POD: How The Best Brands Are Built

Matt Lanter is OpenStore’s Head of Product and Co-Founder. Matt served as an engineering and product leader at Opendoor, Facebook and Apple. He was the Chief of Staff at Founders Fund where he worked closely with entrepreneurs building the next set of companies. OpenStore provides life-changing liquidity to Shopify business entrepreneurs that are ready to sell their business so they can move on to...

Andrew Benin is the co-founder & CEO of Graza, a Brooklyn based DTC brand reimagining extra-virgin olive oil.  Andrew previously served at DTC powerhouses including Magic Spoon, Casper, & Warby Parker where he worked in key operational roles. His new brand, Graza, had one of the most successful CPG launches of 2022. 3:29 - Becoming a CPG addict Andrew got his start working for hot DTC Brands like...

8:21 - Pivoting from SaaS to ecommerce Raphael was surrounded by Saas founders, but followed his instincts when he found himself far more interested in the ecommerce space. “I started SplitBase when most of my friends were SaaS founders, because that's what I was familiar with. I always like, well, SplitBase is going to be a conversion optimization agency for SaaS companies. Now a couple of things...

4:47 - When goals make sense Goals can be a waste of time at a young company. But once you grow, you need to figure out what to prioritize. I think to start off a company where you're at zero and come up with this master plan and all these OKRs and goals, I think it's just a huge waste of time. You should just spend more of that time talking to customers and figuring out building something that th...

1:26 - Rebuilding the vitamin category Sara realized that traditional vitamins weren’t built in a way to truly optimize health. “I was starting to struggle out of nowhere really with chronic inflammation, digestion, sleep issues, you name it. And I've always considered myself a relatively healthy person. I had a healthy diet. I didn't really know what was going on. Went through a lot of allergy te...

4:36 - Embracing clean beauty A long-time advocate of health and clean ingredients, Bobbi Brown founded Jones Road Beauty. The challenge was to make clean versions of all the best products. “Bobbi parted ways with her company that she founded and had a non-compete. And most people would be retiring at that age, but she just didn't feel done. And she felt like she had so much that she wanted to tea...

Key Takeaways 3:35 - Starting with Kickstarter Jarod and his partners knew they could have gone through the formal fundraising process, but wanted to get market validation first. “Having some startup cash to kind of get going, especially when you're talking about a CPG brand, it definitely helps a lot for a lot of levers. For us, sure, we could've gone out and raised money. But you know, that's li...

During this episode, you will learn about; [00:05] What’s in for you in today’s episode [01:36] Who’s Shane Rostad and his area of specialty [06:34] Typical mistakes that brands make [08:44] Tips to improve your site’s conversion rate [12:48] Things to focus on when brands are collecting customer’s data [16:54] The different ways to gather qualitative data from your customers [19:41] Commercial Br...

9:56 - From bio major to builder Daniel’s journey into entrepreneurship started as the desire to make money for weekend college fun, despite the fact that he didn’t have time to work a traditional job. “I was a biology major. I was actually going to school to be a dentist and. I always knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And that's what drove me. That was interesting. And doing new projects,...

During this episode, you will learn about; [00:16] What’s in for you in today’s episode [01:43] Bailee’s career background information [03:57] What is branding and the areas of business it affects [07:28] The importance of brand guide during the branding process [09:49] Branding your brand in a way that resonates with people [12:16] Validating your branding through social channels  [14:01] Promoti...

4:47 - The night CROSSNET was invented Chris and his friends were throwing ideas for a product invention at the wall to see if anything stuck when someone mentioned four-way volleyball. “ESPN was on in the background. Not sure if that motivated it or not, but Mike wrote down four-way beach volleyball. Mike’s one of our other co-founders, grew up playing soccer and basketball. Four-way volleyball n...

[00:16] What’s in for you in today’s episode [01:20] Stephanie career backstory [02:39] Ekster’s customer service before and after Stephanie joined the agency [03:39] The strategy that Stephanie followed in building a scalable team  [05:18] The metrics you should focus on to meet customers’ support demands [06:27] Understanding customer psychology when selling to multiple markets   [08:56] Lessons...

“As you discount your product, you could potentially see better ad conversion.” @jayde3sai #DTCPOD “Sometimes when you discount to both new and returning customers, and your margin ends up going down. ” @jayde3sai #DTCPOD We Speak About: [01:17] DTC discounting twitter thread Learn more about how and when to discount   In today’s episode of DTC Finds, we’re looking at a Twitter thread by David Rek...

“We're helping brands and agencies learn what creatives are working best and why” @rezakhadjavi #DTCPOD “Teams who take naming conventions really seriously have  a really important cultural effect.” @rezakhadjavi #DTCPOD “We want to create an environment where our creative strategy is data driven.” @rezakhadjavi  #DTCPOD “People are putting on a lot more of a creative strategist hat and thinking c...

“Not all organic creative can be paid creative and not all paid creative can be organic creative” @flexiblefoodie #DTCPOD “If you don't have the right partners in place, it's only going to cost you more down the road, so put time in your creating process.” @flexiblefoodie #DTCPOD “Just because you have the assets you have doesn't mean you have to present them in the way that you have them.” @flexi...

“It's common nowadays to see lots of discounts around the holiday season, and so why not take this opportunity to really ramp up your sales ” @jayde3sai #DTCPOD “Bundles give you an opportunity to generate more value out of each transaction” @jayde3sai #DTCPOD We Speak About: [00:44] Black friday and cyber monday strategy article  [01:47] Rewards and bundle discounts  [04:20] Testing new products...

“We're basically curating all of the Web's emerging brands, culture defining brands all in one place.” @ maggiebethgibson #DTCPOD “We're trying to simplify the vast web of DTC brands that are currently continuing to pop up in the market” @ maggiebethgibson #DTCPOD “We really want to give a voice to underrepresented founders and allow people to shop on their brand values and support the brands that...

“An editor’s pick section for your blog is great because you have some really high performing content that maybe is performing well on search or something that you want to highlight specifically that you think is important to helping people and guiding people through the purchase process.” @jayde3sai #DTCPOD “Make sure you have some strong internal linking. That's a good SEO that you can do to hel...

“It's really all about the resources that you have and how you can really put that together” @kristenxjones  #DTCPOD “We're inclusive, and  you have to be consistent in that and really show up for every person that you represent whenever you have that type of branding.” @kristenxjones #DTCPOD “Understanding the customer journey in the beginning, I think, is the most important thing that you can do...

“A really good strategy that you can do with SMS heading into Black Friday Cyber Monday is sending an email push for SMS sign ups for early access.” @jayde3sai #DTCPOD “SMS is very different than email, in the sense that SMS messages should be more skimmable than email.” @jayde3sai #DTCPOD We Speak About: [00:41] Strategies to boost SMS sales and sign ups  [04:51] Optimizing the landing page and D...

“We built the brand up to this incredible business that has helped so many women find the right beauty products for them” @itsJoanneCoffey #DTCPOD “There's so much information that people are just putting into your hands, all you have to do is know how to find it and how to use it.” @itsJoanneCoffey #DTCPOD “We're really creating a relatable experience to that customer.” @itsJoanneCoffey #DTCPOD “...

“If you're working on consumer goods,  stay focused, double down in that sense before jumping into retail.” @jayde3sai #DTCPOD “If you can give some sort of estimate of shipping speed, that's a really good thing to add in” @jayde3sai #DTCPOD We Speak About: [00:57] Awesome twitter thread from Corey Nicholson [06:29] Cushion Lab’s product page Learn more about this DTC data and how to optimize the...

“Influencers have proven organically to be able to create content that engages with people” @TaylorLagace  #DTCPOD “We're trying to find as many veins as possible to bleed dry, and  once one starts going, we want to lean into that as much as possible.” @TaylorLagace #DTCPOD “People tend to allow human decision making into the matter a little bit too much.” @TaylorLagace #DTCPOD “The only way you l...

“DataMilk analyzes your user’s behavior and then it launches UX changes automatically and then tests them to see how conversion goes.” @jayde3sai #DTCPOD “Figure out what is the right discount for your brand that is relevant to your margin.” @jayde3sai #DTCPOD We Speak About: [00:20] What does DataMilk do for your brand  [03:21] Top DTC holiday campaigns  Steal these DTC finds for deals and profit...

“You need one single unified environment to manage your businesses” @ jbernard23 #DTCPOD “There's such a connectivity between how a digital commerce grows, and you really need to have all of that data in one environment.” @ jbernard23 #DTCPOD “The digital commerce landscape has changed in terms of consumer expectations for speed and shipping costs.” @ jbernard23 #DTCPOD “There's a great opportunit...