E033: Zach Stuck on the Core Marketing Tactics to Drive Growth As You Scale

[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of the Marketing Operators Podcast. We have the powerful Zach Stuck on today. Zach's a brilliant mind in ecommerce growth, marketing and operations. Today we're talking about how to find trends and how to find products that are about to pop off. And then we're going to transition into talking about the different tactics required to hit various revenue levels going from you know, your your 100k per month all the way to doing you know, 5 million per month and which tactics kind of drive most of the growth at these varying levels. It's a very

[00:00:29] tactical very fun episode. We're really really happy and honored to have Zach on. Thank you as always to our sponsors motion house rich panel impression and as always if you're enjoying the show we would love it if you could subscribe leave a comment ask your question share with a buddy. We're trying to get this podcast in the hands with as many marketers as possible so if you could help us do that that's much appreciated. Motion is a company that we've all been using forever hex clad Jones Road bridge we were all early adopters and now they're really gaining momentum.

[00:01:09] Motion just raised 30 million dollars in their series B and a ton of new stuff is coming along with that. They've been pushing out new features you haven't checked them out in a while you can book a demo and see all the new stuff that they've been shipping but a few of the ones that really stood out to me one creative research and Reza was on our podcast so he talks about this a bit they want to improve the input into the creative strategist role. So one you have creative analytics and two their new tool creative research completely free where you can build swipe files from all your favorite brands Connor Cody and

[00:01:38] myself put together our own so you can start there and then add some creative from your favorite brands to motion release a new advanced analytics feature called winning combinations. Winning combinations helps you instantly answer complex business questions like what ad concepts work best for specific product lines. What messaging themes are working across different influencers? What angles hooks and concepts are working best across all ad formats? This will help you get real clarity from all your testing variables and it takes seconds to pull insights. Plus they have even bigger features

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[00:02:23] All right we uh Cody couldn't make it today so we had to replace one powerhouse operator with another powerhouse operator so we got we got Zach stuck on the show today. Zach how you doing?

[00:02:34] Good glad to be here guys.

[00:02:36] Yeah we're glad to have you for those for those of you who don't know Zach and I go way back I was working at Homestead for what probably about three years I guess it was just under three years I think my my first day at Homestead was the first day of at home lockdown during COVID in Wisconsin so it was a very interesting time to uh be starting in a new role but yeah me and Zach go way back I've been excited about having you on the show for a while because of that so it's good to have you here.

[00:03:01] Yeah dude I'm stoked. Our first former boss on the show.

[00:03:05] Yeah yeah I'm worried I'm worried I'm sweating.

[00:03:10] I was hoping we'd get into some of the lore were you living in Wisconsin at the time Connor?

[00:03:15] Yeah so all right so here's the lore here's the quick and dirty story so I had started doing like digital marketing stuff media buying for like probably three years at this point in college and I took a different job outside of the space right after college but I knew I wanted to like do this full time and and so I kept

[00:03:31] doing the freelance stuff and I was posting stuff on LinkedIn about it and live and I moved back to Appleton at the time Zach's like what are you three grades four grades older than me three or four yeah so Zach and I didn't know each other in high school but I was putting shit out on LinkedIn about it and Zach's business partner Nate Lit hit me up was like hey we're hiring media buyers at this point it was Zach it was Tim Aiton it was Riley Trotter and then a handful of others and then I ended up joining

[00:04:00] Homestead like probably within three weeks after yeah you were like employees I think I was six or seven yeah Ryan was there uh Beta was around yeah and so then I I joined uh Homestead quit my job joined Homestead within like three weeks

[00:04:13] uh worked at Homestead for like three years and yeah it was uh it was a hell of a ride to say the least

[00:04:23] yeah um maybe people probably don't know Homestead at all so I know we've got Zach we were hoping to get a quick intro from you who you are what you do

[00:04:32] sure yeah so uh I'm the founder of Homestead it's a growth marketing agency we started at five and a half years ago

[00:04:40] um primarily focused on customer acquisition uh and retention so we kind of split our team up 50 50 between

[00:04:46] uh our email and SMS division and then our paid and paid creative division so

[00:04:51] yeah that team has grown as Connor mentioned uh or might mention later in the pod uh he was

[00:04:57] early at the company we went from you know just me kind of kicking it around uh doing some media buying to

[00:05:04] yeah we're 65 uh employees now um wow and my business partner Riley Trotter is the is the CEO now

[00:05:12] uh and runs the day-to-day over there and then for the last year and a half I've been focused on

[00:05:16] building on a portfolio of of DTC brands so we've acquired a few uh sold one already and we've

[00:05:22] started a few from scratch and that's kind of my my main operations now oh yeah and I gotta I gotta

[00:05:28] plug Homestead they do great work we still work with them on the paid social side they do great retention

[00:05:32] work um yeah if you're an econ brand looking for some outsource partners for that stuff great option I

[00:05:40] gotta I gotta do the shameless plug here they run a tight ship over there um so can we can we dig can

[00:05:47] we like um highlight that last bit like what you're focused on right now could you could you dive into

[00:05:52] that a little bit like what your what your strategy is with the brands and how you're thinking about like

[00:05:58] yeah like I know you've acquired some you've started some like yeah what's like your overall

[00:06:02] strategy there yeah so I mean as most people in the agency space like we always dream about hey I

[00:06:09] want to you know maybe at some point run my own thing it's fun to grow other people's businesses

[00:06:12] can I do it myself right so you know the intent of starting Homestead I've always I kind of started

[00:06:18] the business thinking hey let's build a let's build a great agency let's build a great team um but

[00:06:22] eventually I want to transition transition to the brand side um so it's kind of the plan all along and

[00:06:27] we finally got the agency to a pretty good spot and like I said my partner Riley uh who's been

[00:06:33] crushing it took over and you know more than doubled the business since I kind of stepped down

[00:06:36] a CEO so yeah I mean it's been about two and a half three years uh starting to build a brand

[00:06:42] portfolio I started by buying a notebook company called public supply uh I've learned a lot since

[00:06:48] then um basically bought a company for all cash I kind of joke about it every once in a while it was

[00:06:53] like it was it was a hundred fifty thousand dollar business that I bought but at all cash didn't

[00:06:57] finance anything and it's a b2b business that hasn't really grown since since then um and you know

[00:07:04] it's not the great selling notebooks and d2c is not necessarily the best product to sell so yeah I

[00:07:09] mean that was the first one um and then we bought like a home decor business that was licensed products

[00:07:15] kind of similar thing we ended up learning a lot through that business just about licensing we licensed

[00:07:19] through like anheuser-busch molson cores it's a lot of like beer product stuff um again that was like

[00:07:25] another business that we bought for around that same amount um and around that same time we we started a

[00:07:33] brand called hollow um it's a alpaca sock brand um great product hats and stuff like that great

[00:07:40] product thanks fan of the socks you should both be wearing them right now and if you're not I'd be

[00:07:43] very very upset but um yeah so hollow has been kind of the main one um I've got a pair here on uh on my

[00:07:51] desk for those that are going to watch this maybe on youtube but yeah they're alpaca socks we just

[00:07:54] rolled out these white ones but um we we started the business three years ago um a little over like

[00:08:00] three and a half years ago um and the intent there was like hey this is a product that actually solves

[00:08:06] a problem which is like what I'm usually excited about products that solve problems are much easier

[00:08:10] to sell online um and we launched the brand I started trying to sell it to everyone uh by kind of

[00:08:18] you know running angles and tests and hooks to cyclists to runners to hikers to hunters and this weird

[00:08:25] niche of like hunting started to resonate really well with the product very warm product great at

[00:08:30] what it does solves that problem for that that consumer and kind of that cohort and um yeah the

[00:08:36] business has kind of popped off since then we found found a few other you know areas we've started

[00:08:40] selling to like trades um and more blue collar workers which has been like a really interesting

[00:08:46] kind of cohort for us but uh yeah that that business we did a million our first year

[00:08:51] seven last year and we're pacing to do about 20 million this year just in hollow just with hollow

[00:08:57] and then and then since that we've launched two other brands ones in kind of like the sleep

[00:09:01] accessory space and one's a supplement but those two are are the newest ones so it's five five

[00:09:05] brands in total and those are your and you and you guys launched you launched those other two brands

[00:09:10] or those were acquisitions yeah so bought the first two and launched these last three got it got it

[00:09:16] yep that's awesome and then what's your we did have yeah i was gonna say we had one other brand that we

[00:09:20] brought in called fray that we bought um and we ran that one for about a year and a half that was

[00:09:24] the laundry detergent business um and we ended up selling ryan i ended up selling our shares of

[00:09:29] equity in that business we just didn't really see a ton of future with that one and just felt like it

[00:09:34] was a good opportunity to kind of get out of it so it was a decent outcome nothing crazy but

[00:09:37] so technically there were six brands now five um but yeah hollow is obviously still the

[00:09:43] i mean the biggest one in the yeah i've got a i've got a question here um we were really i was

[00:09:49] stoked to have you on because i joined ridge when they were doing five or six million dollars when i

[00:09:55] joined so like had proven out the concept and connor joined hex cloud when they were very big and i think

[00:10:00] cody has a similar story with jones so we don't have a ton of background going zero to one and you

[00:10:04] just listed off like a bunch of examples of that and you said something interesting recently you said

[00:10:09] that you would i'm paraphrasing never buy a brand again that you would just like launch net new

[00:10:16] brands um so why is that um well one of the things i think i shared this and this is even something that

[00:10:24] i maybe tweeted was like you're never gonna buy a brand that's catching a trend at the right time

[00:10:30] so like for us like the alpaca sock game like no one has heard of alpaca socks before it's always

[00:10:36] been wool or cotton or some synthetic of some kind um it's a great product and it's going to be a growing

[00:10:43] trend and we're kind of catching that right before it starts to pop so there was like maybe one or two

[00:10:47] other competitors in the space it's mostly mom and pop shop selling this type of products um and so for us

[00:10:54] like to go buy a sock brand like we wanted to find something that was unique and that was like pre-trend

[00:11:01] so my thought on like starting from scratch and again like i said we've launched two other

[00:11:06] two new brands this year um they're ahead of the trends you you search like the categories that

[00:11:12] they're in in sleep and and some health stuff uh they're early like no one is googling this stuff

[00:11:18] yet if you go look at google trends like the line is like basically flat still um when you want to buy

[00:11:25] a brand there's a chance that most operators at least like people kind of at at my own personal

[00:11:31] caliber they've probably already gotten a lot out of it already they probably already hit the trend

[00:11:35] followed it got as much out of it as they could and now they're trying to sell because it's they

[00:11:38] feel like it's a good time before maybe it falls off so for me personally i think if you know the right

[00:11:44] marketing playbook the zero to one kind of playbook that we run um it's much better to just start start

[00:11:49] your own um versus trying to buy a business that may already be flatlining that you maybe just are

[00:11:56] trying to maintain totally and that's an interesting distinction i hadn't thought about it that way but

[00:12:01] like your particular skill set isn't going zero to one from a marketing perspective ideating and

[00:12:06] executing on creative and add angles and scaling that way whereas someone who might buy a brand

[00:12:11] might be more of like you know you might be looking for like distressed assets and like improving

[00:12:15] operationally right um so i think that's maybe an interesting distinction people are out there like

[00:12:22] buying brands and being really successful but it might be because they're approaching it from

[00:12:25] like a different perspective yeah an opposite perspective yeah i mean like when we bought

[00:12:28] fray the laundry business they were a distressed business right so like the amount of work though

[00:12:33] that it took in that year and a half that i worked on it um when we bought it and then i sold my shares

[00:12:38] in the business it was the same amount of work that it would have taken to start a brand and get it

[00:12:41] the size that we got to right so like we got the business to mid six figures a month in revenue

[00:12:46] i think we could have got a laundry detergent business to mid six figures in revenue in a year and a half

[00:12:50] and and not had all of the mess and nonsense that we dealt with with like them burning you know

[00:12:57] relationships and us having you know debt on the books stuff like that so yeah i mean i think that's

[00:13:03] that's my personal like approach it's a who switches a massive software that their company uses right

[00:13:11] before black friday well we did jonesworth just switched to rich panel and we are thrilled about

[00:13:17] why did we make the switch well first of all we recently learned that ridge did it connor told me

[00:13:22] how much their love in it and we also just wanted to make sure that our customer support team had

[00:13:26] everything they needed to have a successful black friday we had a lot of issues last year just

[00:13:31] overall with cx and so i wanted our team to be ready beforehand because we're gonna have crazy volumes but

[00:13:36] i also didn't want to have to hire extra help with rich panels ai it's a game changer since switching

[00:13:41] our team has been way more productive way more efficient our ticket volumes are up but we're getting

[00:13:46] through tickets a lot quicker so our response times are actually way down ultimately improving

[00:13:51] our cset scores and so you know i normally wouldn't recommend switching to a new software right before

[00:13:58] black friday but it worked out for us the rich panel team made it super easy i held our hands every step

[00:14:03] of the way and it just couldn't have been an easier transition so bottom line your team will be faster

[00:14:09] your customers will be happier and you'll also save a lot on sas costs now if you are considering

[00:14:14] switching your help desk rich panel they offer free weekly 40 minute webinars that are designed to help

[00:14:20] your cx team and your cx lead understand the platform see how it's different understand what migration

[00:14:25] looks like and uh get support during and after migration so head over to richpanel.com check out their

[00:14:32] weekly webinar schedule and get your team in on a session so you can get ready before black friday

[00:14:39] what are you what are you looking for when you're trying to think ahead in and kind of find that

[00:14:45] trend that you think is going to keep trending upward like what's the are there any things in particular

[00:14:50] that you see that makes you think oh that's hot right now or oh that's going to be hot in a year

[00:14:54] and like we should jump on that like is it like how much of it is quantitative how much is it like gut

[00:15:00] feel like i'm curious and then also i'm curious if either of you have any uh i don't know trends or

[00:15:05] like products that you think are on the up right now yeah i mean i'm usually looking at what i would

[00:15:12] call like mid-tier influencers that are super obsessed with either like health wellness or

[00:15:19] something along those lines and they're the ones that are like trying stuff and just like talking

[00:15:23] about it naturally and they're not posting there's no affiliate deals there's no nothing like that

[00:15:28] um like great example i just bought a pair of like red light glasses red light glasses have been

[00:15:34] around for a long time um but there was a brand blue light blue light so these are like these are

[00:15:40] so it kills all the blue lights sorry so i'll pull up i'll pull up the name of the brand for you

[00:15:44] interesting plug them but anyways the idea here is like blue light glasses have been around for forever

[00:15:49] but no one is really making the lenses as quality as what they could have been to truly kill like

[00:15:53] everything so there's a brand there's like a guy that's super into health that i follow on instagram

[00:15:59] and he was just kind of talking about like hey yeah you can go to like whatever cvs walmart and go

[00:16:03] wherever and buy some blue light glasses but the lens quality themselves is going to be pretty shit

[00:16:07] and like it's actually not going to solve the problem um these glasses like when i wear them i

[00:16:13] like get sleepy like it's crazy like it literally kills all of the light so it's it's it's solving a

[00:16:17] problem that i've that i've had which is like yeah i might still be on the screen until right before

[00:16:21] i go to bed but at least this way it's going to like help calm me down and calm down kind of like

[00:16:24] my nervous system stuff so i mean like there's things like that right so this guy was just talking

[00:16:29] about them so i think finding natural conversations with people that are usually ahead of just like

[00:16:35] trying things right so it could be any category it could be like you know connor for you guys it

[00:16:40] could be chefs talking about something right there might be some weird unique like appliance or something

[00:16:45] that they're appliance or something yeah right that they're just like they're like it's a super niche

[00:16:49] thing but when you think oh okay this niche could be a massive tam everyone could that that works in

[00:16:55] front of a computer screen all that could use these blue light blockers that are like extremely deep

[00:16:59] light blocking like stuff like that right so that's usually where i'm finding these things

[00:17:04] um like i mean a good example is obviously all like the ice bath stuff right like that pops um

[00:17:13] we i was looking into doing those three years ago right like i i saw it early but i just like didn't

[00:17:18] didn't move on it because like the aov was a little scary to me you know the first po of like 10 000

[00:17:24] units was going to be like 60 grand and i was like yeah i might pass on that so um or 600 grand

[00:17:30] i forget what it was like 100 a unit that i was looking to do so yeah i mean i think it's like

[00:17:35] identifying people that aren't necessarily like massive influencers but people that you know are like on top

[00:17:41] of a game something specific health wellness to you know it could be a specific category it could be

[00:17:47] like a runner right if you're like wanting to start some type of running brand running's popping off

[00:17:51] right now following a runner and then they're talking about some in true insert and you're like

[00:17:56] oh yeah who's that dude from austin that's who i think of that that asian guy um matt choy yeah so

[00:18:03] we actually we're we're working with matt choy on on hollow right now so so nice yeah i mean that's

[00:18:08] what it has for ridge right like that guy is the like i don't think there's probably anyone better

[00:18:13] in the technology space to talk about like what he's interested in i get like i'm sure there's

[00:18:18] things he's talked about that became hot a year or two later yeah yeah i think that i think that's

[00:18:23] a good one i've got a slightly different answer i think it's technically worse than like organic

[00:18:28] influencer conversations but i think there's also a really interesting trend to like distill

[00:18:34] from books so like i remember reading omnivores dilemma which came out in 2006 and like so much of

[00:18:40] that content ends up dictating how we like all the trends in food over the next 20 years basically

[00:18:46] uh the other one that comes to mind four hour work week obviously if you followed that book in 2008

[00:18:50] you could have built you would have had you would have been early to virtual assistants you had been

[00:18:54] early to like uh routine optimization four hour chefs kind of like that a lot of tim ferris's stuff is

[00:19:00] like very early and then the other one that i read more recently was breath which is just about

[00:19:05] breathing that came out in 2020 and that like you can i have no idea what the hostage tape founder was

[00:19:11] inspired by but it feels as if it's a direct descendant of people caring way more about the

[00:19:15] quality of their breathing um and i just you can see kind of like cottage industries pop up around

[00:19:20] these trends i think it used to happen in books and i think now it's happening with creators and

[00:19:24] influencers for sure yeah funny funny enough what's really interesting is the i've got a story about

[00:19:29] hostage tape so they they actually reached out to me on on twitter dms the founder did right before

[00:19:35] black friday and what's fascinating is like i was i must have been in my feelings that day and just

[00:19:40] whatever or just like hyped up i don't know it was i must have been in a weird headspace but i was like

[00:19:44] hey this is my brand hollow go copy us go copy our whatever he like i was like just copy it one for

[00:19:51] one like you know copy our ads or listicles whatever and he sent me a screenshot like a week later

[00:19:56] was like yo it's popping off um but i think to that point though there's like very good people that

[00:20:02] are good at identifying trends but they might not be a marketer right so this is where like

[00:20:06] the combination so for me for all of my businesses i've got a co-founder in all of them

[00:20:11] and it's a product person like that person i didn't come up with the idea for alpaca socks i have a

[00:20:16] co-founder he's a minority owner of the business he brought the idea to me who's awesome by the way

[00:20:21] yeah shout out shout out to brian shout out brian yeah yeah um but uh yeah i mean i think it takes the

[00:20:26] combination of both of those things so zero to one to do it right you have to have the product concept

[00:20:32] which us as marketers me personally i'm not the product person i'm not the one finding these things

[00:20:36] i'm finding the people that love to be super deep into new things and just catch the trends early

[00:20:42] and then i'm just the internet person that goes and searches and says like hey who's selling this and

[00:20:47] is there an opportunity yeah does the math on saying hey can we you know acquire a customer and make the

[00:20:53] make the math work right so that's how i texted you about this last week right with your new

[00:20:59] rich just launched this new design that i love it's kind of this like almost like psychedelic uh

[00:21:05] you know super punchy colors and i was like what is like i'm just so impressed by the by the volume of

[00:21:10] ridge and how like how you guys continue to roll out just amazing variants of your hero product but

[00:21:16] that's basically the split you guys have right like the the founder and i mean the founder is a father

[00:21:22] son combo right they're all product and you guys are all all marketing all sales um and that's exactly

[00:21:29] what sax describing right now it's like these guys are producing incredible products and you're selling

[00:21:33] it do you have any like are you totally totally totally out of product development or like is that

[00:21:39] is it like a true true split or are you kind of involved a little bit like on the trend side of

[00:21:44] things connor like what what is like that working relationship look like between you and that in

[00:21:49] that father-son combo because i think that's very close to what zach's describing right right yeah uh

[00:21:54] it no it is it is it is pretty natural i mean sean and i came in as the marketers to help scale what

[00:21:59] was a like it was already like i said had been proven out in terms of product market fit you have

[00:22:04] this minimalist wallet brand uh they're doing a couple million dollars a year it was just daniel

[00:22:09] and his two buddies daniel's a son and his two buddies living together they just stopped shipping

[00:22:13] wallets out of their house so it was like as as nascent of a of a business as it could be in many

[00:22:18] ways um and this is a bit of a long-winded answer right but we came in because we we came in first

[00:22:25] as agency sean and i started an agency together ridge was a client so that's how we started we

[00:22:29] went internally because ridge clearly had a very long runway highly differentiated product large

[00:22:34] addressable market uh super high margins great payment terms cheap to ship cheap to store is what i

[00:22:40] always say it was like from a d2c growth perspective it was like the ideal product so that's why we went

[00:22:45] internal and it's exactly that we we had a growing trend in like men beginning to buy wallets for

[00:22:50] themselves and for different reasons um and the marketers who could help scale that up uh for a long

[00:22:56] time there was like i had very little influence on product that's kind of converged over time only

[00:23:01] because growth at this point requires like really close alignment and and it comes down to like

[00:23:08] my favorite product recommendations are like small accessories and things like uh the coin tray was my

[00:23:15] idea which is like a 17 little attachment that goes with the wallet i've talked about it before

[00:23:19] it like solves a problem for people we've actually sold more wallets because we introduced the coin

[00:23:23] tray so that's where i've found that's where i think i've been the most influential i'm not really

[00:23:28] so then they'll develop it connor so like you're like hey i think this coin tray would slap uh and then

[00:23:33] they're like okay i agree we're gonna go design this and then they come back to you with a product

[00:23:37] and okay got it and that's just it was just me like kind of shooting out ideas right the other big one

[00:23:43] was the key case i was like i was like pounding the table for years i'm like dude the ridge wallet of

[00:23:48] keys is a no-brainer attachment and like because again from a growth perspective it was like look we

[00:23:53] can scale this wallet but we need to be driving up units per transaction we need to be driving up

[00:23:58] aov we need an item that we can promo alongside it in bundles and kits let's do the ridge wallet of keys

[00:24:02] some sort of key organizer there were examples out there uh key smart orbit key people like that

[00:24:08] i'm like look people are doing it what is our version of that because i think it could really

[00:24:12] help from a marketing and growth perspective so that's where i've i've done it but we've got

[00:24:17] people with much cooler taste deciding on like the designs and the colors and the patterns and stuff

[00:24:21] like that so are they the ones are sorry daniel and paul's the dad um and paul's not super

[00:24:29] involved daniel's like uh like uh the main like a true product guy yeah right and then one of his

[00:24:35] best friends austin is our chief design officer and he's actually managing a lot of the like

[00:24:40] we call it uh surface design and material design that's going on existing silhouettes got it so

[00:24:46] are they the ones cultivating relationships with artists like this the one that i really liked was

[00:24:50] there was a artist collab so is that daniel does he have these connections to all i would assume

[00:24:55] right like he's an artist yeah that was austin finding an artist that he liked and then connecting

[00:25:01] with her and then launching it okay cool cool very interesting i i wanted to ask a follow-up

[00:25:07] question here do you guys have any products or trends i have one that i'm i am really bullish

[00:25:13] on right now do you guys have that you're like this is going to be hot i think people should jump

[00:25:17] on this you go first yeah you go first i all right so this is this is from uh my girlfriend who is like

[00:25:25] and now she's kind of transformed me into this as well but she's super up like on she tries all the

[00:25:31] skincare um and she's like super early on in it and i'm starting to see other people getting more and

[00:25:36] more onto this specific type of like i guess moisturizer for your skin but beef tallow based skincare

[00:25:44] is a fucking amazing dude it's unreal i have this whipped it's a beef tallow and manuka honey and like

[00:25:52] some essential oils from this this company called little tallow co it's amazing like it feels so good

[00:25:58] on your skin it it's unreal it's i like it better than anything else i've used and then if you go look

[00:26:04] out there there's there's a handful of brands that are doing it and i actually think a handful that

[00:26:09] have decent volume based on their review count but like none of them have super strong brand affinity

[00:26:14] or even like a super strong focus so i think there's room for a brand to come in and make an

[00:26:19] incredible product but really win people over on like the brand valence and just like make a brand

[00:26:24] that people feel really attracted to so that's my and it's a like 50 dollar jar 50 dollar four ounce

[00:26:30] jar you probably run through that in two months um and like it's one of those things you use every

[00:26:36] single morning every single evening before like after you shower so i think there could be really nice

[00:26:41] lifetime value potential um so that's mine that's the one i'm excited about right now i'm curious to

[00:26:46] see if anybody takes some big swings there i just thought of one so not sure if you guys are familiar

[00:26:51] with cane footwear so this is basically like if you took crocs and made them like sporty um they're

[00:26:58] positioning them as like recovery shoes um we were speaking of out you know uh like a few runners and

[00:27:06] stuff like that so like choy is one of their influencers uh i know that they have a guy named

[00:27:11] eric that we're familiar with and working with with hollow too but i think these guys are going to be

[00:27:15] a monster business i think this is a nine-figure business and coming in the next like god these

[00:27:20] shoes are so ugly so okay this is what i said this is what i said and you try them dude i wear them

[00:27:26] around the house every day now like they're actually really nice um i've been off the croc game i like

[00:27:32] completely just disowned everyone that owns crocs but like for some reason these cane

[00:27:37] shoes uh are actually really nice um great i think shoes could could be great camping shoes yeah

[00:27:43] for sure but um i think this is this is a new one i think this is like better look it'll slightly

[00:27:48] better looking crocs let's call it um that are that are you know obviously the positioning is solid

[00:27:52] too so that's mine kind of following that futuristic shoe trend that i feel like easy kind of started a

[00:27:58] little bit as well yeah totally they do kind of look like easies yeah although now what easy selling

[00:28:04] their shoes for for what 25 bucks right well dude that's giving them away that's the thing that's the

[00:28:10] thing like like at 80 bucks i'm sure these i would think they have great margins like i think there's

[00:28:14] something about the material like they sell crocs for cheap right 30 40 bucks or something like and

[00:28:20] i'm sure they have good margin so if you can get something similar at 80 bucks you make it kind of

[00:28:24] to your the point you made earlier like problem solution like yeah these are something you should

[00:28:28] wear around the house as recovery shoes um yeah i like it in footwear's footwear's big you get the

[00:28:34] whole family wearing them yeah i mean it's we do have we have a handful of footwear clients at the

[00:28:38] agency and the the worst part about that is like size so like returns is just brutal so like a lot of

[00:28:44] these footwear brands have like 30 return rate right um which is just brutal but i mean you but

[00:28:50] it's a lot of product that's a little it's a lot of exchange is it 30 true returns or does that include

[00:28:55] exchanges so i'd have to look but i remember we have one client specifically that it was like 35

[00:29:01] return rate it was yeah that's brutal like very high did you know that platforms over report performance

[00:29:10] 65 of the time in a recent study house found that 82 of incrementality experiments showed that platform

[00:29:16] reporting was either under reporting or over reporting by more than 25 and 60 of the experiments

[00:29:22] showed discrepancies of more than 50 percent this is why marketers are moving away from platform

[00:29:26] attribution towards incrementality measurement in order to maximize their growth and efficiency

[00:29:31] this is one of the many reasons that three of us connor cody and i all work with house so what is

[00:29:36] house it's a self-serve experimentation platform that allows you to configure regional tests and

[00:29:41] control experiments to measure incrementality and identify points of diminishing returns what does that

[00:29:46] really mean they tell you hey these are the 40 zip codes you need to exclude from this campaign

[00:29:51] and we can look at what results did you drive in the targeted regions compared to that holdout group

[00:29:57] really awesome we use it all the time as an example we just identified a lot of our non-branded ring

[00:30:02] search and shopping campaigns were not nearly as incremental as google as was reporting so we've

[00:30:08] been growing a ring business over 100 year over year and spending less on google so we've been able to be

[00:30:12] more efficient with every dollar spent houses built with cutting edge methods by phd economists and data

[00:30:17] scientists who have built these solutions before at companies like amazon and google the house platform

[00:30:22] allows you to test all your marketing channels both online and offline measure the impact across all

[00:30:27] your sales channels d2c retail amazon and calibrate your platform reporting for incrementality with house

[00:30:32] discover your marketing's true roi and unlock new growth with house go to house.io slash operators

[00:30:38] spelled h-a-u-s dot i-o slash operators to start your incrementality practice today

[00:30:47] so one thing i've been super impressed with watching from the outside in is watching you like

[00:30:53] get really really good at something and then kind of put yourself back at the ground level of the

[00:30:58] learning curve again and from my pov that's what you did with homestead like you got homestead into

[00:31:02] an amazing spot super successful agency you then you know then riley transison is the ceo

[00:31:08] ultimately because you wanted to go and start at the ground level again and launch and acquire your own

[00:31:12] brands very very very different i mean you and i've texted and talked about a little bit but like

[00:31:17] very different um skill sets and requirements so i'm curious first off like what's your title are you

[00:31:23] like do you look at yourself as like the ceo of these brands and then what are you really focused on

[00:31:28] like what have you had to learn in the last two three years running your own brands versus

[00:31:33] scaling other people's brands yeah um it's very different obviously than than agency life right so

[00:31:41] the one thing candidly about agency life is it's a cash flowing business and you know you're you're

[00:31:47] able to kind of look at your p&l very very lightly and be like cool we're cruising we're growing

[00:31:51] kind of know where we're at profitability wise we know if we can hire we know if we need to fire

[00:31:56] people are your biggest cost in that business so that's kind of like what you're you're essentially

[00:31:59] arbitraging people which sounds really kind of shitty to say but that's kind of the reality of it

[00:32:04] right so it's it's very simple otherwise of a business so i think i mean my my financial

[00:32:11] knowledge pre-building brands versus where we're at now is just like night and day um we didn't need

[00:32:17] to understand debt we didn't need to understand you know cash conversion cycles we didn't need to

[00:32:22] understand any any of that stuff right and in the agency world so i think um what i mean like

[00:32:28] what made me do it really was just i wanted to build something bigger um i want to build something

[00:32:33] that's you know either a nine-figure business alone or a nine-figure holding company and

[00:32:37] just like something i've aspired to do and wanted to do for for the last five years

[00:32:41] since starting homestead and watching brands like hex cloud and and others that we've been able to

[00:32:45] work with achieve that and it's just like seeing other people do it you're like okay maybe i'm maybe

[00:32:51] i'm capable of doing this so i mean that's kind of the main reason why i wanted to do in the first

[00:32:55] place but yeah i mean starting over it's it's kind of brutal to be honest because you need to

[00:33:00] you need to learn how how the cash flow of an e-commerce business works it's so much different

[00:33:06] right i mean you're basically fronting a ton of cash to buy inventory you usually have really bad

[00:33:11] payment terms out of the gate with these manufacturers so you're usually just like not

[00:33:15] taking any capital out of the business for a while um i mean like hollow for example i kind of shared

[00:33:21] numbers earlier but million like a million two in our first year i think i put in like 50 grand

[00:33:27] and then we were able to kind of like roll that and roll that and roll that i didn't take any money out

[00:33:32] of the business year one um we ended up having to get like a bunch of debt year two to grow from one to

[00:33:37] eight and then this year was just like absolutely brutal when it came to like going from eight to

[00:33:43] 20 it's a whole different ball game like it's just like the numbers get so much bigger um that

[00:33:49] learning how to not only navigate your like 13 week cash flow for you know statements and forecast

[00:33:57] but like then navigate like relationships with bankers lenders your your credit partners right

[00:34:05] it's like so much more about the finances side i've learned on going brand side versus agency side than

[00:34:10] it's than it's anything else i mean obviously the marketing stuff we've known pretty well

[00:34:14] when say i'm like the best in the world at it but i know it pretty well to the point that like we kind

[00:34:18] of knew what to do like we could kind of just like line up the dominoes and knock them over in that

[00:34:23] sense but like financing and growing the business really just that was like the majority of stuff i

[00:34:28] had no clue what to do and like when we're on the i mean i think what also changed is it seems

[00:34:34] like in the last one or two years profit has become obviously a bigger focus for a lot of direct

[00:34:38] consumer brands so us as an agency have gotten way more involved right like now we're working with

[00:34:44] you know finance softwares like iris and we're getting access to pnls and we're looking at daily

[00:34:49] contribution margin and stuff like that where three years ago it was very rare for a brand to be like

[00:34:53] hey what's our daily contribution margin goal like it just wasn't a thing it was like here's your mer

[00:34:58] goal and go spend into it um so yeah i mean that was a massive transition i think if i was like still

[00:35:04] agency side today and then when brand said i'd be a bit more knowledgeable but that's been the biggest

[00:35:09] gap that i that i didn't have and i didn't realize how much i was lacking in understanding on that side

[00:35:15] have you been able to service uh like obviously you're not an operator in homestead anymore but

[00:35:21] you're obviously still pretty connected and i'm sure you and riley are communicating regularly like have

[00:35:25] you i think you you started to say this but do you feel like you've been able to service your clients

[00:35:29] better because of what you've learned running your own brands a hundred percent i mean like just to the

[00:35:35] financials perspective we built on the brand side of what we call a profit matrix essentially builds in

[00:35:41] with your contribution margin with your opx with your cost of delivery everything into a spreadsheet

[00:35:46] then that allows us then to kind of play with revenue um and offset your opx offset things to

[00:35:51] understand like at what scale are we producing what contribution margin so like some brands will come

[00:35:56] into homestead and they're like hey we need to hit a 3 mer and we're like no you actually need to hit

[00:36:00] 2 7 but double your revenue and you're going to put twice as much to the bottom line

[00:36:04] um so things like that that i've been able to kind of like force inject in from just lessons and

[00:36:09] mistakes we've made in the brands that have been good um i think other than that yeah i mean it's

[00:36:15] using your own money to spend against like trying things out is obviously like scarier but has been

[00:36:20] fun i mean like we've learned some things on just from like software that makes our team more efficient

[00:36:25] um all sorts of stuff right but yeah i mean i think the mistakes that were made like earlier in the

[00:36:32] brand building like really even just like nine months ago have been i paid dividends for homestead

[00:36:36] clients at this point because it's just like hey don't go make this mistake hey go talk to this lender

[00:36:41] hey i bet you can extend your your credit card payment terms with this vendor like we're having all

[00:36:45] those conversations on the brand side that you don't realize if you can just add that extra value

[00:36:50] to your clients they might stick around a bit longer yeah have you had mentors that have helped you

[00:36:55] figure stuff out i mean i'm sure a lot of it's just baptism by fire right you try things you see what

[00:37:00] works and doesn't work but have you actually um seeked out anybody to like show you the ropes here

[00:37:05] because i know that's been like for me that's been huge for me in the last year like with hex clad like

[00:37:10] i'm working with a guy named daniel pearson he's mentoring me on some stuff and i am just thrilled

[00:37:16] at how much quicker i've learned a lot of these things by having him in my corner um have you had some

[00:37:22] folks like that yeah um i brought in a fractional coo um trey sisson is his name he ran a brand called

[00:37:30] baboon to the moon um a backpack and bag company favorite brands yeah yeah so trey's trey's an

[00:37:36] incredible operator um awesome person at the end of the day but he came into hollow right as we were

[00:37:42] wrapping up last year and i was like yeah i want to go from eight to twenty and he's like okay well

[00:37:48] your all of your models are completely screwed like we need to start over from zero like we need

[00:37:52] to build you like better better modeling here so yeah i mean he was instrumental this year to be

[00:37:57] honest like he he helped um myself and i brought in a junior finance employee he taught us a lot and

[00:38:03] then since that we've yeah i mean we essentially now will go out and go try to find fractional

[00:38:08] um cfo coos or the main ones that we talked to um of nine figure brands that are that are building

[00:38:14] you know in similar adjacent industries to just be like hey pick holes in our models and make sure

[00:38:20] that we're thinking about this correctly um also just for connections right so like lending connections

[00:38:26] bank lender i mean like it's half of it is about yes learning but half it is just about oh yeah i can

[00:38:31] get you an extra half point you know cash back on your credit card spending you know when you're

[00:38:37] when you hit the scale that we're starting to hit with hollow it's like yeah we're spending 800

[00:38:41] 000 a million dollars a month like an extra half a point on cash back is like a salary for the owner

[00:38:46] right so it's just like things like that that can really move the needle um through these relationships

[00:38:51] but yeah totally i mean i'm by no means do i have this figured out on the brand side yet uh it's

[00:38:57] definitely been like uh a very scary and also like enjoyable period but yeah i mean you got to have

[00:39:05] other people there's no way there's no way i mean also i mean to to your point we have the agency

[00:39:10] right so i've been able to meet some incredible operators that way i mean like meeting the team

[00:39:14] the best part of the tech squad and everything right like even just the people on the podcast

[00:39:17] even cody like just to be able to text these people and be like hey this is what i'm seeing

[00:39:22] am i wrong am i right am i dumb like what am i what am i missing here and people just being honest and

[00:39:28] you know that's been that's been massive yeah cody cody's been able to uh get out his his urge to send

[00:39:34] chopify screenshots through our through our group chats so he doesn't have to put it on twitter now

[00:39:39] yeah so i thought what would be fun zach so you said that hollow is pacing to do what 20 million this

[00:39:45] year yeah i thought it would be cool is to um almost talk through some like different revenue bands and

[00:39:53] speak to like broadly i would not get too detailed i think what we should focus on most is like the

[00:39:59] the tactics that have taken you um to where you're at now and like the last year but even if you want

[00:40:04] to like quickly be like like making that first 100k in revenue making that next 400k to 500k getting

[00:40:10] that million getting to 5 million and then getting from like 5 to 20 um i have some of the different

[00:40:15] revenue bands i think it'd be cool just to hear you speak to like the let's call it the core tactics

[00:40:21] that drove like 80 of that of that uh revenue in that band yeah so i mean the first 100k really comes

[00:40:28] down to from my perspective like you're running static ads you don't necessarily even need to worry

[00:40:33] about videos my in my opinion from your first 100k you're running static image ads um usually going

[00:40:39] to be slightly lower cpm slightly lower cost of traffic um and the whole intent there is you're

[00:40:44] running usually some type of hook angle some type of positioning right and then ideally what you're

[00:40:49] trying to do there is you're trying to find some leading indicator of a winner right so kind of

[00:40:54] depending on what you're selling right the intent here is that most brands should sell something that

[00:41:00] solves some type of problem if you're going to go full fashion great completely different strategy

[00:41:05] what i'm talking about here you're probably going to go hire a bunch of influencers seed a bunch of

[00:41:08] product to get your first 100k but for most of the brands 95 of people probably that listen to this and

[00:41:13] are thinking about starting a brand eventually create a product that solves a problem i mean that's like

[00:41:18] the number one thing that i would recommend um and then you're just trying to find a customer

[00:41:23] cohort that resonates with that problem and the solution that you're presented and how you kind

[00:41:26] of present it so i think yeah it's mostly done through through static ads to a product page to

[00:41:32] start you start to get traction one ad has a higher click-through rate than others maybe that headline

[00:41:37] you then turn into a five reasons why listicle you start running that ad to a listicle oh great now

[00:41:42] you've doubled row as like that is the tactical approach that i always take zero to 100k

[00:41:49] um 100k to 500k this is where like videos start to really like become necessary usually what what i'm

[00:41:55] trying to do is i'm trying to hire customers first um go to customer list go see reach out to them

[00:42:00] see hey we're we're hiring content creators we see you bought the products we see you left us a five-star

[00:42:05] review uh do you know someone in your network or are you a content creator that we could hire to make

[00:42:10] content to talk about the brand these are people that are usually like already care a little bit more

[00:42:14] um and are usually people that are like usually a lower kind of price point uh higher so usually

[00:42:20] those are people you can hire for 100 to 250 dollars to shoot a piece of content usually what you're

[00:42:25] trying to do is you're trying to brief them high level with you know the top ad hook angle that you

[00:42:29] know is already working in static ads um and then this is also where like landing pages start to become

[00:42:35] a bigger deal this is where maybe now you're taking just a five reasons why landing page you're maybe

[00:42:39] testing the shoppable landing page with an offer you're using landing pages to kind of like a b test

[00:42:43] headlines to see like what what value props or what angle or positioning actually resonates

[00:42:51] um that's kind of where you take that and the next step deeper um 500k to a million and i'm not sure if

[00:42:58] this is like per month but i'm kind of treating it as like kind of per month um 500k to a million

[00:43:03] per month um this is where uh i think that it's like cro on your website like most people can kind

[00:43:12] of not give a shit about their website until they get to 500k a month of revenue 500k to a million

[00:43:17] you might be able to make a couple small changes to adjustments to your cart to the way that you're

[00:43:21] positioning your offer to things like that that might increase your aov a little bit so like for

[00:43:26] example hollow hollow's aov last year for all last year was 75 pretty pretty solid we're like cool so

[00:43:33] you know dollars is great for socks this year we knew if we wanted to push up from you know 7 million

[00:43:37] to 20 million we needed to increase our aov to close to 100 so we rolled out a couple new offers we

[00:43:43] rolled out new bundles we tried a bunch of different things we tried some price testing adjustments we

[00:43:47] were able to get aov up to 105 so like now we're sitting at 105 aov which just allowed us to spend 10 more

[00:43:53] dollars on cac which just pushed us even a little bit further um so i think like that 500k to a

[00:43:58] million a month people really need to look at their website where are you pushing traffic to what is

[00:44:03] the one or two things you can do to push up aov uh is that like upsells in your cart is that upsells

[00:44:08] that are just pop-up upsells is this post-purchase upsells like the post-purchase upsell game is like

[00:44:13] undefeated i don't if people are not spending enough time on that like you can increase your aov 10 20

[00:44:18] dollars by just having a great upsell post-purchase um for us it's usually like you want to send it

[00:44:24] like you want to do something that's just like an egregious amount of some the unit that they just

[00:44:29] bought and then just discounted heavily so like for us we would do you know if someone buys one two

[00:44:34] three pairs of socks we'd upsell them 10 pairs of socks but for 50 off and it's just like boom that aov

[00:44:41] just went from 60 to 170 but the take rate on it's 30 so like the aggregate of it moves up your aov

[00:44:48] 20 and it's just insane so i think um go for is that is that like a pretty accurate upsell that you

[00:44:54] just walked us through yeah that's like what we run yeah so we yeah yeah yeah so it's like a really

[00:45:00] large average order increase and then you're getting take rate of 30 sounds like a lot but like you'd be

[00:45:05] fine having a relatively lower take rate but just getting a total massive increase yeah even if it's

[00:45:09] even if it's 10 take rate i mean just that the totally yeah that the averages of that starts to

[00:45:15] back out really nicely totally um so yeah i mean that's one thing that i always recommend trying like

[00:45:21] they just a lot of people say oh they just bought a pair of 180 shoes they're not going to buy another

[00:45:25] pair yeah they might if you discounted properly enough they've already bought one why not buy another

[00:45:30] right so it's the best place to sell and i think a lot of people like don't put enough emphasis on

[00:45:35] that because they're just like i need them to fill out my post purchase survey no you need to sell more

[00:45:39] shit to that first then do that right so um anyways that's kind of how i think about 500 to

[00:45:45] a million and then a million to five million a month to me this is the number one strategy that we're

[00:45:49] following it's it's it's partnerships white listing deals this is like the the money maker you want to go

[00:45:57] a million a month to five million a month like that is the bread and butter that we are we are doing

[00:46:01] um so we can get more white listed from these people review style ads so our our secret sauce to

[00:46:10] this is finding creators that are not just great at posting beautiful photos or just like a beautiful

[00:46:17] lifestyle photos but very very good at talking the camera so you're trying to find a creator that is

[00:46:21] already shooting content talking to the camera educating people ideally you find them in your niche

[00:46:26] now the sweet spot and like what we've been doing has been doing a lot of deals somewhere between

[00:46:30] three thousand and five thousand a month for one video and then 30 days of whitelisting access it's

[00:46:34] pretty expensive compared to like your normal ugc deal but the real sauce is you have this person talk about

[00:46:42] a story that leads to a problem that then your product solves but you don't let them talk about

[00:46:47] your product until 30 seconds into the video do not mention your brand not mention the product

[00:46:52] nothing so all that this is is just someone that you know if they like click through the profile oh

[00:46:57] they have 300 000 followers they have 800 000 followers they must know what they're talking

[00:46:59] about they go back to the ad they watch it it's just storytelling for 30 seconds and then they get

[00:47:04] into a problem and then they get into why your product solves the problem for them these are ads

[00:47:09] that are helping to scale drastically so right now like at hollow we have four creators signed

[00:47:14] so we're spending call it 20 000 a month on creator fees i bet by jan one we'll have 10

[00:47:22] all at 5k a month with some type of performance bonus so like one thing we started doing with

[00:47:27] these creators to get them really excited about the brand is we'll pay them a percentage of ad spend

[00:47:31] it's a small percent but it's like the new customer cpa we're driving with these types of ads these

[00:47:37] white listed very genuine ads from people of authority in the space it's like it's not even

[00:47:42] comparable it's 20 30 less cpas so paying three percent of ad spend to this creator and giving them

[00:47:48] some upside to be like hey we spent 300 grand on your ad last month here's a 15 000 check they're

[00:47:54] gonna be like hell yeah i want to shoot more content for you or like hey yeah next time i'm in your state

[00:47:58] or next time i'm running a marathon in chicago i'll come come up to you know green bay wisconsin to come

[00:48:03] visit you right so like these are the types of things that like we found that allow brands to

[00:48:09] really crank up volume um and it's just like a new thing obviously there's like ftc just rolled out some

[00:48:14] new regulations so there's going to be a little bit of like kind of figuring out kind of the sweet

[00:48:18] spot there but um that to me is like the number one tactic to go from a million to five million that

[00:48:25] a lot of brands aren't spending enough time on dude fantastic breakdown yeah i think that's a really good

[00:48:31] what so what i heard to say it like super simply i think uh like one 100k it sounded like finding

[00:48:36] product market fit like what is the problem solution that resonates with someone what's that angle

[00:48:41] then yeah the next two are basically building that out further which i think that's like when i joined

[00:48:46] ridge was it was like oh how do we just scale this up how do we drive up aov how do we increase

[00:48:50] conversion rate like you're optimizing it and then that last point is like how are you going much wider

[00:48:55] at the top and like how are you getting people in different ways with that problem and solution

[00:48:59] yeah very very compelling um outline there yeah and also very i i one of the trends i was uh noticing is

[00:49:09] like in informed high lift tactics right like don't go shoot videos and make landing pages which require

[00:49:16] a lot more resourcing a lot more time a lot more thought before you know what the angle is that

[00:49:20] works well and you can validate that with your static ad so now you're going into this phase two

[00:49:24] we're going to go you know shoot ugc you're going to select creators you're going to make landing pages

[00:49:29] but you know what you're going after like you're going after the what you said was the hunter that is

[00:49:34] like one of your big personas totally yeah and that's i mean this is the exact playbook we use

[00:49:38] for hollow to get us to 20 million this year right so it's like to a t what we did um i think like the

[00:49:45] one thing is people like you said connor they waste resources too early don't waste the resources too

[00:49:49] early run a bunch of different static ads like try to find the real cohort of customers that you can

[00:49:53] grow into that can be a 10 million a year cohort and then then worry about all the other stuff yeah

[00:50:01] so one thing we talk about a lot on this podcast is upper funnel investment measuring youtube measuring

[00:50:06] tv measuring you know out of home all that kind of good stuff it's something that's top of mind but

[00:50:12] it's not very easy to do recently jones road turned to pression ai to help us as our new

[00:50:18] mmm media mix modeling tool and we have been super impressed no joke it's really helped to quantify

[00:50:23] some of the things that we thought were true some of the things that some of our tests you know showed

[00:50:27] us but especially tv was very hard to measure we're spending about 10 of budget on tv and we just

[00:50:31] weren't really sure how it was doing boiler alert test of the week is actually looking great it's

[00:50:35] actually looking like our most efficient channel thanks to pression ai so we are in the midst of

[00:50:40] scaling it up and and results look good we are very happy with it youtube looks great as well you know

[00:50:45] been spending and scaling up youtube a lot based on this data so we are very happy with it it's actually

[00:50:50] not something that we were uh getting we didn't feel like we had confident data back from other uh

[00:50:55] mmm providers that we worked with before and so we are thrilled with some of the pression data that

[00:51:00] we are getting we're getting halo effects we're actually able to see you know how much value are

[00:51:04] we driving directly from clicks on channel versus how much is coming through organic direct and it's

[00:51:09] quite a bit um being able to measure tv uh has been really difficult until now but uh it feels very

[00:51:16] accurate and it's giving us a lot of confidence things are volatile and ddc we're able to build these

[00:51:20] new optimizations these new scenarios you know within days setup was super easy unbiased cross

[00:51:26] channel you know measurement we're not on amazon but i know brands like hex cloud will use it to also

[00:51:31] measure and validate you know spend going to amazon uh and so we're thrilled we're super happy with it

[00:51:37] couldn't believe how easy it was and the team is getting a lot of value out of it there's a reason

[00:51:40] you're used by top brands like of course jones road uh none other than hex cloud good american

[00:51:45] symbiotica timbuktu and many many more mike the co-founder hits me and connor up pretty much

[00:51:50] every day just telling them about some of the new brands that signed a lot of them from from

[00:51:54] listening to this so we are thrilled with pression it's made a huge difference so far and it's really

[00:51:59] going to help us leaning into q4 so if you want to be like us like hex cloud like jones road and many

[00:52:03] more go to pressionai.com operators to book a demo and see for yourself i was going to ask about uh

[00:52:13] channel diversification like we we talk whitelisting and partnerize and that's obviously getting more

[00:52:18] juice out of a meta or something like that uh yeah where are you at with channel diversification

[00:52:24] so we so we're now spending about 30k a day on meta um and we just started spending on ctv

[00:52:31] in a platform called apple oven so apple oven has actually been really really interesting i can run

[00:52:36] you guys through our numbers but um it's been it's been great to us so far um so yeah i mean i think

[00:52:44] i think you can spend in a meta till you're at a million a month and spend and not worry about

[00:52:47] anything else for the most part i mean like i think people over complicate it all the time they

[00:52:51] worry about tic tac shops and this and like can i spend more on google no do a better job at dr

[00:52:57] creatives mixing in uh your kind of branded content mixing in all you know diversification of creative

[00:53:03] everyone talks about this it's the reality like if you can do that right you can you can start

[00:53:06] bringing in these whitelisting contracts you can get to a million a month and spend on just meta and

[00:53:11] maybe 50 to 100k a month on google and i think that that's where most brands should focus their time

[00:53:15] and energy once you're at that point then i think you can start thinking about other channels and

[00:53:19] that's kind of right where we're at right now so yeah we started running connected tv we're working

[00:53:24] with neon pixel they've been great to work with um brooke and her team are awesome um upvote yeah

[00:53:29] they are we we basically took our top creative uh from from meta and just chopped it up um and you know

[00:53:39] made it tv made it you know right so you got you have the domain at the end and it's a 15 second

[00:53:44] clip right so it's really nothing special it's a it's the number one hook that we had the number

[00:53:48] one problem so we just like call it out are you sick of your toe toes being cold at you know whatever

[00:53:53] all these different one one off hooks that's the that's the first three seconds and then it's a

[00:53:58] couple value props talking about why our products better than others uh and then a cta at the end

[00:54:02] um nothing nothing crazy right um but yeah we're spending 5k a day now seeing the same kind of one

[00:54:09] day click row as and our mmm model is showing like the same row as is what we're seeing on meta so

[00:54:14] that's been great um i think it's like again don't over complicate it like be a little bit more direct

[00:54:20] take your top creative take your top hook turn it into a 15 second clip like give it a shot before you

[00:54:26] try to like over invest in some like 300 000 production shoot before you launch tv like you

[00:54:32] don't need to do that totally you know what i'd also say or at least what i'm hearing one reason i like

[00:54:37] the outline so much and i'm biased because i i advocate for this all the time so you're like

[00:54:41] you're talking my book here but uh it i think it's like the highest leverage approach right you're

[00:54:46] like hey we're gonna identify this problem solution we're gonna get good at content

[00:54:48] we're gonna scale up and then we're gonna scale across channels and it's like you can imagine that

[00:54:53] system happening in a really high leverage way it doesn't take a big team to spend a lot of money

[00:54:57] if you've nailed the problem solution the content you get on the right channels you allocate budgets

[00:55:02] accordingly where and i have this conversation with other brands this was a while back there

[00:55:07] was some sort of cool blanket brand and i was like this is this is rad i think it packed up or something

[00:55:11] um but they they reached out to me because i wanted to talk about doing influencer and they were at like

[00:55:16] four or five million a year and i'm like way too early i'm like don't you have to build out a whole

[00:55:22] net new function it's like a low leverage way to do it you need different people doing different

[00:55:26] things different measurement etc where i was like what you need is like you need to offer tests you

[00:55:31] to increase you need to get facebook to work way better and then even then if you get facebook to

[00:55:36] work better and you scale that up a lot your next thing is not to do influence your next thing is to

[00:55:40] like expand channels get on tv get on snapchat tiktok all those other things i was literally talking with

[00:55:45] jock from raindrop earlier today just like a little bit ago and i'm like it's funny we were talking about

[00:55:51] what are the brands that you see really hit with like clients that they've worked with um on these kind

[00:55:55] of bigger production shoots he's like they're all like 20 30 million dollar brands and those are the

[00:56:00] ones that like when they when they get meta right and then they can take that same concept and pop

[00:56:05] up production and you know tell the same story but do it in a more beautiful way and then they can get

[00:56:10] tv to work or linear or just connect to tv then that's where the you know 20 to 100 million really

[00:56:15] starts to happen but yeah it's like get really really good at meta because it's going to be the

[00:56:20] quickest one for you to figure out what's working what's not working what your customers are saying

[00:56:23] what people are saying in the comments is like so valuable and no one ever looks at it

[00:56:27] um yeah i 100 agree with that and then i mentioned apple oven that's the other channel that we just

[00:56:32] started spending into started at like 1500 a day then three grand a day now we're spending 12 grand

[00:56:36] a day so like we've been able to scale that one up in like two weeks um mm is that net new traffic

[00:56:42] net new traffic yeah it's looking really good so we're pulling like a two five two six on north beam

[00:56:48] one day click rose um from that traffic which is like pretty spicy so um how's that compared to

[00:56:54] facebook one day click it's like it's like pretty in line um wow yeah yeah it's pretty we're seeing

[00:57:01] the same it's just about the same as facebook for us too yeah oh you launched honor a couple

[00:57:06] like maybe two weeks ago nice yeah it's um the team over there i've talked to them a decent amount now

[00:57:13] we'll we'll onboard a couple more brands and some more homestead clients over there but

[00:57:16] yeah it's very good quality traffic it feels like early days of meta it's very weird um i don't know

[00:57:22] how they're doing it like i haven't gotten into the nuance with them but yeah i mean if you're

[00:57:26] spending 600 to 900k a month plus on meta like apple oven to stuff is something to look into this isn't

[00:57:32] like a checkout snapchat maybe spend through your end of day situation this is like could be another

[00:57:36] acquisition channel for you yeah i have a question for you guys about channel diversification and how

[00:57:42] it affects meta i'm curious if if you guys agree or disagree i think i heard this from

[00:57:46] matt from lomi um like a year or two ago and i and i agree with it i think

[00:57:52] i look at our ad account our facebook ad account the last two years and each year we've been able

[00:57:58] to scale up like two years ago like 60 increase in spend year over year this year like 45 50 percent

[00:58:04] year over year increase in spend and our efficiencies may remain pretty flat both years which i think is

[00:58:10] a major major win whenever you're scaling up spend aggressively and i think part of that's absolutely

[00:58:14] from all the creative diversification that we do and uh you know angle diversification landing pages

[00:58:20] all you know all the core levers you pull in a facebook ad account but i also think part of it

[00:58:25] is because by expanding to ctv and linear tv and twitter and snapchat and apple and all these channels

[00:58:32] you're reaching people that are you're not reaching on facebook like you're reaching fundamentally new

[00:58:37] audiences you're driving new people to your site that facebook's never that pixel's never seen before

[00:58:42] so you're basically giving facebook like an entirely new signal to go and you know in theory create

[00:58:48] lookalike audiences off of and i really think that's a real thing and so i think your your meta account

[00:58:53] gets even better and this is not remarketing by the way our net new visit rates have have also stayed like

[00:58:59] 70 to 80 percent over these two years so do you guys think there's any merit to that theory you think

[00:59:05] that's what's happening i mean for us rising tide lifts all boats i mean we're seeing it right now but

[00:59:09] again we're not at the scale that you guys are at so i'm curious what connor has to say

[00:59:12] so far it's proving yes to us but again we're a 20 million dollar brand not a you know nine figure

[00:59:18] business yeah yeah i don't i don't know what to make of it i mean what you know what they used to say

[00:59:23] that's all i'll be able to say is like what people say because i have no like real data around this but

[00:59:28] um what you used to say about tv is that there'd be like a halo effect that like you're serving more

[00:59:33] impressions people might find you more recognizable when they do see you on their instagram feed or whatever

[00:59:37] else um they become more likely to react so like uh they talk about yeah the small lift that you'd see

[00:59:42] across other channels if you're running tv that's like always how they do we didn't see that when

[00:59:46] we first got on linear um the other thing and cody has maybe described this on a podcast or directly

[00:59:51] with me but he just he said exactly that um was that driving a new visitor who's converting to your

[00:59:58] site facebook will observe that and then they know to go after a different type of person and that

[01:00:03] that can help you scale meta i don't know maybe i don't know there's any way to validate it with data

[01:00:08] like it's hard to be like well how much of this efficiency being flat was from all the assets

[01:00:14] we're pumping into the account how much it's like there's really no way to tell it's it's just a guess

[01:00:18] i guess yeah as long as number goes up into the right you know yeah that's all we care about yeah exactly

[01:00:23] yeah um so i think the that was an awesome segment on like the tactics i think like a final punctuation mark

[01:00:31] would be like how are you doing these things like what's the team stack are you are you utilizing

[01:00:37] homestead to service your brands do you have like actual actually separate employees that are focused

[01:00:44] on um what is it easy street is the hold co are like that's focused on the easy street brands like

[01:00:49] what's that team stack look like yeah so we we have a team seven um on the brand side now so we have

[01:00:57] head of growth uh head of ops uh operations assistant so two ops people a designer um a director of

[01:01:05] e-commerce director of performance creative um i'm missing someone which is terrible

[01:01:12] what about retention uh and then so retention we use homestead so all of our brands use homestead

[01:01:18] for email sms um we'll sometimes get it started like on a launch brand we'll kind of like internally

[01:01:23] whip it up copy basic flow stuff like that but then once we get enough volume we become a homestead

[01:01:29] client we we pay actually just like a homestead client i have different partners in some of the

[01:01:32] brands than i do with riley so we're actually a you know i'm a client of my own business which is kind

[01:01:36] of cool so um yeah i mean it's a very lean team i think like our op x is like i think 120k a month

[01:01:44] something like that and you know the businesses combined are doing you know three three five

[01:01:49] um top line a month so like op x is a percentage of our revenue is looking very good um which gives

[01:01:55] us a lot more room to go to go spend on acquisition but yeah i mean that's that's kind of the pod that we

[01:02:00] have right now um i think we're trying to figure out a sweet spot if we're going to actually start

[01:02:05] to build out teams underneath the brands like hollow's getting the point now where it's like i

[01:02:09] might need a dedicated head of growth um if we want to push from 20 to 50 over the next two years like

[01:02:14] we probably need someone just completely focused on this versus seeing other accounts the one thing

[01:02:19] that we're trying to figure out though is like oh finance i have a finance uh assistant that's the

[01:02:24] other role that i forgot um the the there's a few things so design will float across all brands i

[01:02:31] think it can continue to float our one designer who's just an absolute savage um can just like

[01:02:36] kind of work across all of them um finance can definitely float across all of them for a while

[01:02:40] yet uh growth and operations though those are the two like that we just need more dedicated resources

[01:02:46] so in the next like in the next three months we're hiring ahead of partnerships who will manage kind

[01:02:51] of this influencer stuff that i'm talking about because that's becoming such a big piece of our

[01:02:55] playbook and then we'll probably hire ahead of growth another operations person to start to

[01:02:59] to kind of work across the two top brands so one like i know how homestead and easy street work and

[01:03:05] i've always been fascinated by it and one thing i'd love is like it is going back to the point around

[01:03:10] how high leverage you're building the brands in terms of problem solution to content to scaling

[01:03:14] channels it's like you can see that in the team structure right you said seven full-time people

[01:03:19] essentially doing three five top lines so let's call it 35 million annual revenue you're sitting

[01:03:25] at almost five million per head like i think that's the highest number i've heard um and that's just

[01:03:32] insane and that's that's it would actually make more sense if it were a single brand but the fact

[01:03:36] that you're able to execute across a handful of different brands at such a high revenue per person

[01:03:40] just shows how leveraged the whole model is yeah i mean i think obviously like having the agency

[01:03:47] experience is a hack right that's my hack right we've been able to see 250 brands the inside of

[01:03:53] them how they operate the team org structures the like their marketing tactics their their their

[01:03:59] their products the way that they think you know once you see inside of 250 businesses you get to kind

[01:04:03] of learn all the mistakes to try to avoid right and i'm not saying that i've avoided all those mistakes

[01:04:09] by any means uh there's still mistakes we make every day but that's been helpful right and and i think

[01:04:16] forcing ourselves to be lean this way has just been it's it's made our team so much better it allows us

[01:04:21] to pay our team more which is really fun um and everyone to take more ownership of what they're doing

[01:04:26] on a daily basis versus just feeling like we're too bloated yeah so i i've got one more question

[01:04:31] here and then connor i'll kick it to you um do you have like have you thought about how big it could be

[01:04:36] with how many people like do you think you could do 100 million with 12 people or something i think

[01:04:41] we can do 100 million with 15 yeah we've kind of we've kind of mapped it up i think we can do 100

[01:04:46] million with 15 and i think that 100 million will be split between three brands yeah i think hollow

[01:04:51] can get to 50 and two of our new ones can definitely get to 25 um and we're pacing for that now within the

[01:04:58] next like 24 months so yeah i think our team can be 15 and we can do 100 and i i think this is super

[01:05:03] cool and it just seems like this also seems like a new development within d2c2 like these super super

[01:05:09] lean high growth teams um it's obviously correlated with like people's focus on profit right and cash

[01:05:16] flow like you said earlier nobody used to ask about daily contribution margin and it's like oh yeah

[01:05:20] people obviously weren't too concerned about headcount you know three four years ago um so it all kind of

[01:05:26] pencils out but i i'm super excited to see how teams get built over time and and how big some of these

[01:05:31] brands scale yeah i mean for for example we this is a wild one we had a we had a brand come in to

[01:05:37] to homestead uh as a client that we're not working with um so i have to be a little cautious of what i

[01:05:43] say here but it was like three full-time employees and 20 offshore uh team members and they were doing

[01:05:48] they were at like a nine-figure run rate it's absolutely insane just absolutely insane and it's

[01:05:54] like yeah if you you know you leverage the business right and you're able to bring in really talented

[01:05:58] offshore talent like it's the opportunity for for putting pretty big numbers to the bottom or

[01:06:03] is still there in econ totally and i don't know that brand but i would bet it's from a skew

[01:06:08] perspective low i bet it's got a great problem and solution i bet they're great at content they're

[01:06:14] great at media buying and uh high ltv yeah spot on yeah it's like that's what does it you can see a

[01:06:21] bunch of like yeah yeah four skews four skews in total so yeah i mean that that pretty much gets you

[01:06:27] there right it's pretty wild yeah we're gonna i i actually haven't talked to dan about this but

[01:06:31] we're trying to get dan mccormick on from uh create the creatine guys very similar thing because i had

[01:06:36] the same conversation with him last week i was like dude it feels like create could get massive with

[01:06:40] like a really lean team because it has everything i just described high ov high ltv basically single

[01:06:46] skew product like uh it's just that that recipe seems uh promising i wouldn't i wouldn't i

[01:06:52] almost said undefeated i wouldn't go that far but it's like it's potent yeah for sure are these like

[01:06:57] what's the um for the offshore folks that this brand you mentioned is hiring are these like

[01:07:02] director level people are these like manager level people like what what's the level of skill that

[01:07:06] they're uh finding offshore folks at extremely impressed with them yeah i mean there's

[01:07:12] yeah director level like it's it's incredible like they brought i know that they brought one

[01:07:16] individual on as just a va and they've migrated that person to like their chief of staff now

[01:07:22] it's crazy that's badass i thought so yeah yeah we love a single skew hero product don't we we do

[01:07:29] that's the way to do it that's the way yeah yeah that's a solid up right there dude thanks for having

[01:07:33] me on guys that was fun dude thanks for coming yeah it was a good time all right that's a wrap on

[01:07:38] this episode of the marketing operators podcast thank you to zach for joining and sharing so much

[01:07:43] knowledge so much actionable stuff to do thanks again to our sponsors motion house rich panel

[01:07:48] and prescient and please make sure to subscribe if you're enjoying the show