What's Working

Nik Sharma sold his agency Sharma Brands for a reason most people miss, and now he's building entire DTC brands using only AI, from ads to assets. In this episode of What's Working Podcast, Nik breaks down the exact move that led him to sell Sharma Brands through a reverse RFP process, why he wanted a blank slate going into January, and how he went from running one of the most recognized DTC agenc...

Roman Khan has spent the last decade building, scaling, and acquiring e-commerce brands, taking his portfolio to nine figures in revenue. From nearly going bankrupt to achieving a 3% OpEx and netting eight figures in EBITDA, Roman has mastered the mechanics of highly profitable DTC businesses. Now, he’s shifting his focus from private equity to the highly inefficient public markets. In Episode 12...

Chris Meade took the ultimate leap of faith, pulling his $7,000 life savings from a 401k to build Crossnet. By age 27, he had grown the invented sport into a massive $10 million business netting $2 million in EBITDA. Today, he has moved away from the brutal grind of physical products to focus on high-cash-flow brick-and-mortar Pilates studios and the ultra-exclusive Founders Club. In Episode 11 of...

Jason Levin went from ghostwriting for tech founders to going undercover in the meme world, ultimately raising a $3 million seed round from industry giants like Balaji Srinivasan to build Meme Lord an AI-powered SaaS platform combining Google Trends and Canva for marketers. In Episode 10 of What's Working, Jason breaks down why "Memes Make Millions" isn't just a catchy book title, but a billion-do...

Maxwell Maher went from owning a failing moving company to building "Clean Girl" a media juggernaut that racked up 18 billion views and 27 million followers in under two years. Now, his products are sitting on the shelves of 5,000 stores across the country, including Target and Walmart. In this episode of What's Working, Maxwell breaks down his insane entrepreneurial journey: from knocking on door...

Colin McGuire acquired a dormant Australian hair care brand and scaled it to $7 million in just 18 months. His DTC growth was so explosive that Target's lead retail buyer actually filled out a customer service form on his website begging to stock the product. In this episode of What's Working, Colin breaks down his incredible e-commerce journey, starting from running Facebook's earliest "Dark Post...

Connor MacDonald helped scale Ridge from a couple million in revenue to over $200 million a year. How? By ditching the traditional agency model, going in-house, and ruthlessly optimizing everything from growth-hacking subreddits to coining brand-new e-commerce metrics. In Episode 7 of What's Working, Connor (CMO of Ridge and host of the Marketing Operators podcast) breaks down his wild origin stor...

Aaron Orendorff went from an infantry soldier and pastor to burning his life to the ground, only to rebuild it into becoming the Chief Content Officer for The Operators and former Editor in Chief at Shopify Plus. In Episode 6 of What's Working, dive into his wild journey of faking Wix blogs to land bylines in the NYT, shaping the early days of Shopify Plus enterprise, and building the DTC Index at...

What if your best employee wasn't human? Meet "Liam", the autonomous Open Claude AI agent fully integrated into Asana and Slack, actively running data analysis, generating action items, and doing meeting prep for an elite agency. In Episode 5 of What's Working, Cherene and Jacob from Growth Capital Co. pull back the curtain on building a truly AI-native growth agency. They share their journey from...

Jared Orkin went from setting up AOL accounts for seniors at age 15 to building Activate Talent, the offshore staffing empire placing hundreds of employees at massive brands like Hexclad , Fashion Nova , and Comfort. On Episode 4 of What's Working, Jared breaks down his wild entrepreneurial journey, from launching a hyperlocal Groupon competitor in college to dominating Amazon FBA. He reveals why...

Shray Joshi runs Good Peeps, the biggest CPG agency you’ve never heard of, managing up to $25M/month in ad spend and driving over $1.1B in retail sales over the last year. If you want to build a massive physical product brand, this episode is your masterclass. On this episode of What's Working, Shray breaks down his wild origin story, from reversing his own severe autoimmune issues using real...

Is it possible to scale a supplement brand to $50k/month while still working a corporate 9-to-5? TJ Bongiorno did exactly that, balancing a career in tech startups with the growth of what is now The Outgoing Co. In this episode of What’s Working, Zain Ali sits down with TJ to discuss the gritty details of his recent rebrand—from the logistical nightmare of losing all Amazon and TikTok reviews to u...

What happens when an elite affiliate marketer enters the old-school publishing industry? He accidentally builds the 10th largest book brand in the country , selling up to 12,000 units a day entirely through Meta ads. On this episode of What's Working, we sit down with legendary affiliate marketer and agency owner Jason Kutasi. Jason shares his wild journey from dominating Yahoo's early ad platform...