🥳 Bryan Porter with 30 lessons on Simple Modern’s 10 years

📊 Connor Rolain shares his daily holiday revenue pacing Sheet

🥶 Cody Plofker reveals a surprising ad that stopped him cold

📅 Mike Manheimer gives you the ultimate planner + calendar

Plus, this week’s top-five headlines in consumer news along with a special announcement at the end.

Cody Plofker CEO, Jones Road Beauty

This Ad Stopped Me Cold

We all talk about building better funnels.

But, most brands are still missing one of the cleanest + highest-intent ad placements available … post-checkout.

It was native, frictionless, and clearly effective.

This type of channel used to be reserved for enterprise.

Now, with Rokt Ads, brands like Quince, Honeylove, and DRMTLGY are proving how scalable it can be:

• 1.9k+ conversions in week one
• 70% purchases within 24 hours
• 3x AOV versus other platforms

I should know, we’ve been using it at Jones Road. Hits different when you see it in the wild, though.

The best part? Every click is net-new.

No retargeting. No overlap. Just intent-rich growth.

If your Q4 plan hinges on Meta or Google alone, it might be time to rethink your stack.

Bryan Porter Simple Modern, Co-Founder

Lessons from 10 Years and 60M Units Sold

Last week, Simple Modern turned ten.

We’ve sold 60,000,000 units over the last decade. As Mike jokingly posted, that’s somewhere between $2B–$1T in lifetime retail sales across Amazon, retail, and DTC.

Along the way, we’ve learned a lot.

So rather than revel in our accomplishment, I wanted to share …

I hope they are helpful wherever you are on your journey.

1. Transparency is the most desired quality in leaders.

2. The strategy and skills fueling a start-up will likely be a limitation at bigger scale.

3. Hire missionaries, not mercenaries; employees passionate about your company’s mission.

4. Brand is your biggest asset. You must value your brand first before others see its value.

5. Customer trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets.

6. “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know that just ain’t so.” — Mark Twain

7. Culture isn’t catchy phrases or happy hours.

8. Many brands start by imitating. Only the unique are remembered.

9. Disrupt yourself. It’s better than being disrupted by a competitor.

10. View mistakes as tuition. They might be expensive, but they can provide invaluable learning.

11. Bootstrapped companies handle cash better. When cash is precious, it’s invested well.

12. Everyone will leave the company. We want the company to be remembered as an agent of growth, relationship, and purpose.

13. The best products are rarely new inventions. They’re usually improved versions of an existing product.

14. When investing, fire bullets before launching cannonballs. Bullets are a cheap way to know you’re aiming in the right direction, like taking shots on goal.

15. The world revolves around relationships.

16. Bias toward action is vital early on. However, it can hurt when there’s more to lose.

17. Understand incrementality. It’s easy to double down on what’s working, but it is often cannibalistic.

18. Solve for complexity with talent density, not just more people.

19. Outstanding culture is like a garden.

20. Privately-owned brands with no exit plan are best set up to win long term.

21. Know your unfair advantages and use them.

22. Prioritize the 3 Cs in hiring …

• Culture
• Chemistry
• Competence

23. To reach national brand awareness, units sold + impressions must be at scale.

24. Compounding is real. Focus on what propels the flywheel. The results over time can be amazing.

25. Optimize for the second purchase.

26. Incredible content and packaging impact a customer’s view of your product’s quality.

27. Great businesses are built on delayed gratification.

28. The best marketing is creative and different.

29. Generosity is reciprocated. It earns favor and loyalty.

30. At 70 years old, we won’t remember our 2025 revenue.

Bryan Porter is a co-founder and the Chief Ecommerce Officer at Simple Modern. You should follow him on Twitter (X) and LinkedIn. He’s been on a tear recently. Be sure to wish Mike Beckham a happy 10-year anniversary as well.

Mike Manheimer CCO, Postscript

If I Were Running SMS at a Brand Right Now, This is the Playbook I’d Want

I’ve been through a lot of Black Fridays + Cyber Mondays at this point. Every year, one thing becomes clearer …

Brands that plan their SMS early crush it.

The ones who wing it? They’re scrambling, discounting too deep, and leaving money on the table.

It’s the same step-by-step process I’d want my own team using if I were running SMS at a brand today.

Inside, we’ve mapped out your …

• Send calendars
• Key automations
• Real examples

Zero fluff. Only what drives revenue.

Don’t let November sneak up on you. Start now, and turn SMS into your biggest revenue driver this holiday season.

Connor Rolain HexClad, Head of Growth

The Science and Art of (Daily) Pacing During the Holidays + One Sheet to Rule Them All

If you run an ecommerce business, you already know Q4 isn’t like any other quarter. For brands like HexClad, the final 45 days of the year aren’t just busy.

They’re make-or-break.

We generate a huge portion of our revenue during that window. How we manage budget, revenue pacing, and efficiency determines whether we hit our targets …

Or get caught flat-footed.

It’s not glamorous. But it’s the single best way to align your team, calm down your CFO, and make every dollar of spend work as hard as possible.

​Here’s a “make a copy” link of the Sheet.​

Why Pace in the First Place?

Without pacing, you’re flying blind.

Take November as an example. The first half of the month is quiet. No big offers running, but a lot of demand is being generated. The second half explodes with promotions leading into Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

If you don’t set expectations, the numbers look scary.

Imagine being halfway through November, having only booked 10% of the month’s revenue target, and being well below the total monthly efficiency target.

Then getting the inevitable call from finance …

Without context, it looks like a disaster. But with a pacing plan, you can calmly reply, “Don’t worry, this is exactly where we should be!” And send over the daily pacer sheet.

How We Build the Pacer

It starts with historical data.

We’ve been running with a fairly consistent offer stack for the last two to three years, which means we have reliable benchmarks on how revenue, ad spend, and efficiency distributes day by day.

1. Assign daily percentages.

Let’s say last November we did $30M in revenue. We look at each day, calculate what percent of the total it contributed, and assign that percentage to this year’s target.

In the Sheet I made for you to use, we’ll start with $5.5M in October revenue on $1.75M in spend at a 3.17 MER.

November and December’s tabs are replications with the days and days of the week updated.

All the blue numbers are meant to be entered manually. Starting with your 2024 historicals and then reallocating % of mix by channel beneath your 2025 monthly goals.

None of this data comes from HexClad itself nor our channels. It is there as a starting point to guide you.

2. Layer in this year’s nuances.

Launching a new product earlier than last year? Extend a sale by two extra days? Shift daily percentages accordingly.

The point isn’t perfection. It’s creating a realistic baseline that tells you whether you’re below, at, or above expectations.

3. Mirror the process for media spend.

We do the same exercise with ad budgets. Break last year’s spend into daily percentages and apply them to this year’s total.

Then we adjust. Did we hit targets last year? Should we front-load more spend into prospecting? Did we feel frequency was too low during live sales?

All of those decisions layer onto the pacing model and how we decide to spend our large Q4 media budgets.

At the end of this exercise, you have a daily forecast for both revenue and spend.

It’s the most powerful diagnostic tool in Q4.

From Macro to Micro

The pacing Sheet becomes even more valuable when you push it down a level into channel budgets.

Here’s how we do it …

Start with our media mix model (we use Northbeam). We plug in the total budget, and Northbeam spits out the most efficient allocation across channels to maximize that budget.

Adjust for reality.

Maybe we have ad credits locked in on a platform, or we’re running a two-month holdout test. We tweak the model until we hit a channel mix we feel good about.

Translate to daily.

If Meta is 45% of the total, we multiply that by the daily spend line item and end up with a daily Meta budget.

Repeat for YouTube, AppLovin, TikTok, etc.

Without it, media managers end up playing whack-a-mole with budgets. With it, everyone (including external vendors) has a single source of truth for how much to spend each day.

Flexibility Is the Point

One important caveat …

Pacing is not static. It’s a plan, not a prison.

If Meta is outperforming with unusually high net-new visit rates and a ROAS 35% higher than last year, we’ll happily dial up spend there.

But when we do, the math has to stay balanced.

If we add $100k to Meta over the back half of the month, that money needs to come from somewhere else. The pacing sheet makes those tradeoffs crystal clear.

That adaptability is the real power of the tool. It gives you the confidence to react to what’s happening in-market without losing sight of the bigger budget picture.

The One Resource to Rule Them All

By the time Q4 hits full swing, our pacing Sheet has become the heartbeat of the business.

It sets expectations with leadership, empowers the marketing team to move quickly, and provides a real-time diagnostic when things don’t go as planned.

Most importantly, it prevents panic.

Replacing those “what the heck is going on?” calls with clear, confident answers backed by data.

In the chaos of Q4, that clarity is priceless.

THE FEED

​Operators Titans E001: Caden Lane With Katy Mimari​

​Time to Go Back to the Office?​

​Cozy Earth’s Viral Social Challenge With CMO George Davis​

The Trends

Curated by the editor of CPG Wire, this week’s five biggest consumer-news headlines.

1. Ben Stiller Launches Soda Line: Food Dive

Ben Stiller partnered with beverage entrepreneur Alexander Doman to launch Stiller’s Soda, a new entrant in the better-for-you soda category. Instead of focusing on functional ingredients like probiotics or adaptogens, Stiller’s Soda is simply a lower sugar soda option without artificial ingredients.

The brand will debut at Walmart in the coming months and is backed by savvy investors like Lerer Hippeau and Max Ventures.

2. Seven Sundays Bets on Itself: LinkedIn

Seven Sundays, a fast-growing player in the better-for-you cereal category, has acquired Chippewa Packaging, one of its longtime manufacturing partners. The move to vertically integrate offers Seven Sundays greater control over its supply chain, enabling it to innovate more quickly. Seven Sundays got its start at a Minneapolis farmers market in 2011 but now the brand retails at Costco, Target, Walmart, and Kroger.

3. Tito’s Acquires LALO Tequila: PR Newswire

Tito’s Handmade Vodka, one of the largest independent vodka brands in the United States, just made its first acquisition by purchasing a majority stake in LALO Tequila, one of the fastest-growing spirits brands in the U.S. In 2024, LALO Tequila doubled in size and shipped over 150,000 cases.

For context, when Diageo acquired Casamigos for $1B in 2017, the brand was on pace to ship 170,000 cases by end of year. Given its global distribution network and sales resources, Tito’s will be able to scale LALO to new heights relatively quickly.

4. Ketone-IQ Scores Funding: Traded

Performance beverage brand Ketone-IQ recently closed a 7-figure funding round. Participants in the round include Flight Fund, Seaside Ventures, UFC legend Jon Jones, and a number of strategic angel investors. Ketone-IQ will use the funding to support retail launches at Target, Circle K, and ExtraMile.

The energy shot category has long been dominated by 5-Hour Energy, but newcomers like Ketone-IQ and Magic Mind are stealing market share.

5. Habitat Partners Backs Elm Biosciences: LinkedIn

Consumer venture firm Habitat Partners invested in Elm Biosciences, the new anti-aging skincare brand co-founded by Martha Stewart and Dr. Dhaval Bhanusali.

Martha Stewart obviously needs no introduction, but Dr. Bhanusali was a key contributor to Rhode, which was recently acquired for $1B. According to Habitat Partners, the anti-aging market is expected to hit $110B by 2033, up from $60B today.

 Masterclass Starts Soon 

You might have noticed a new thumbnail there in the feed.

Alongside Operators Titans, we’ve also put together the ultimate expansion pack to help you grow during Q4.

1. Online event on October 29th
2. Step-by-step channel playbook
3. 100 AppLovin invites available
4. Spend $5k, get $5k ad credits
5. Plus more than a few surprises

We’ll send out the codes this Wednesday, Oct 1st. If you want one + everything else, here’s where to get started with the Operators Masterclass on Expansion.

With thanks and anticipation,
Aaron Orendorff 🤓
Chief Content Officer

Disclaimer: Special thanks to Aftersell and Postscript for sponsoring the newsletter.

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