On the off chance someone asks me to sum up today’s email in eight words, here’s what I’d tell them:

💰 Connor Rolain explains how HexClad added $2.3M revenue

😎 Sean Frank shares 7 steps to build a $100M+ per year brand

🤖 Matt Parkin gives you 20 tips to protect against cyberattacks

🤔 Matt Bertulli answers the question, “To bootstrap or raise?”

Plus, this week’s top-five headlines.

Connor Rolain Head of Growth, HexClad

How HexClad Added $2.3M in Incremental Post-Purchase Revenue

We won’t hit our 2026 goals by spending more on Meta.

CAC is up 40–60% in two years. Attribution is messier than ever. And the paid acquisition math doesn’t improve just by scaling spend.

At HexClad we asked ourselves:

The answer was post-purchase.

We deployed Rokt Aftersell, ran 50+ A/B tests across post-purchase offers, and optimized for the best margins.

Our results the last 12 months:

• $2.3M+ post-purchase
• $4.91+ per transaction
• With 27 active offers

Most importantly, zero impact on overall CVR.

There’s a reason the best DTC brands — Ridge, Jones Road, Grüns, True Classic, Kitsch — use Rokt Aftersell.

Because it’s a low-lift way to improve your margins.

Want to see how much more money your brand could make? Rokt Aftersell just launched a new benchmark tool.

It tells you how much brands just like yours leave on the table when they don’t use post-purchase upsells.

Select your category, monthly order volume, and market. The math surprised me. It will probably surprise you, too.

Sean Frank CEO, Ridge

7 steps to build a $100m+/yr brand

Ridge does $200M/yr. We will hit a quarter of a bill by eoy

It took a decade to get here.
I have learned a lot.

If you want $100M+/yr and buckets of money (like me)-

Here are the steps:

1- Large TAM

I do calls with young people starting in ecom.

One time a kid told me he is selling tiny toy violins. Then he asks how he can get to 5k a day.

I thought he was messing with me.

He couldn’t do 5k a day if he was the Thanos of ecom.

Huge TAM is the first battle.

Sell water bottles … not hamster water bottles.

2- Find Your Edge

Gruns is AG1, but tastier.
Comfrt is Gap, but online.

Simple Modern is water bottles
- on Amazon first
- in mass retail.
- better value than Yeti

For Ridge, our wallet was different AND Facebook ads were new at the time.

Your edge might be …

- new channel
- different product
- lower price
- new audience
- better distribution

You do not need a new idea.
You need a new angle on an existing product.

3- Do Not Suck at Marketing

Marketing will eat at least 30% of your revenue.

It needs to be a core competency of your business.

Even if your product is incredible-
A bad ad buyer will tank your business.

Learn the basics, hire an expert, keep your hands dirty.

Attention is everything.

Start the organic flywheel now.

- Shoot videos
- Build an audience
- Hustle to $1M on TikTok

Organic is your best friend.

Or be like Zach Stuck. Hollow Socks, Mars Men. Single products with lots and lots of ad angles.

4- CAC + LTV Can Kill You

You cannot buy your way out of bad unit economics.

CAC and LTV will make or break you.

When you are starting out, try to get first-purchase profitable-

EVEN if you are in supplements or beverage. Do not bet everything on retention.

The math of ecom is brutally simple. It always has been.

- MSRP > COGS = Profit.
- Offer + Attention = Sales

You need at least 65 gross points to survive. If you do not have that, you're on borrowed time.

Renegotiate with suppliers, find better packaging, streamline your operations - do whatever it takes.

5- Meta is The King

Meta’s algorithm is the best customer finder on earth.

Get good

- Better creative
- More angles
- UGC and yappers
- Some AI

Test. Deploy cash to scale winners.

Go up funnel as soon as you can prove it is incremental with a holdout. Do that before new channels.

Spend as many good dollars as you can.

After Meta, we went Youtube. It is still very good for new customers. Applovin cooks in Q4. People I know have made it evergreen (Connor is trying!)

6- Do Not Overcomplicate It

Ridge did too much when we started.

I was buying NPR display ads and Snapchat instead of just leaning into Meta.

That cost us time and money.

Keep it simple:

- Shopify
- Amazon
- 1 wholesale acct

Do not do international out of the gate.

1 warehouse, maybe 2.
Use a 3PL.

Do not apply $100M tactics on a $10M brand.

7- Be Patient

You will not get there in 2 years or 3 years.

Expect 5+ years to get to 100M.
It took Ridge a decade.

But start now because you are only getting older.

Here is my quick version:

Good product.
Big TAM.
Organic video.
Paid ads on Meta.
Keep it simple.
Know your numbers.
Enjoy the journey.

:)

Matt Parkin Chief of Staff, Fulfil

20 Easy Ways To Protect Against Cyberattacks

Scaled DTC brands are prime targets for phishing.
​
A single breach gives attackers a customer email list they can weaponize with your brand’s imagery (which AI tools now make trivial to clone).
​
Plus, under GDPR and CCPA, your liability scales with the number of affected identities.

1. Adopt a password manager (e.g. 1Password) across your team.

2. Audit browser extensions, kill anything unused or unvetted.

3. Enable 2FA on every tool you use + passcodes (biometrics)

4. Upgrade any SMS-based 2FA to an authentication app.

5. Set up Single Sign-On (SSO) through Google or Microsoft.

6. Audit team permissions so access aligns with role.

7. Run quarterly reviews to remove unnecessary permissions.

8. Document and assign ownership of your offboarding process.

9. Ensure employees have their own unique logins.

10. Rotate all API keys and tokens on a quarterly cadence.

11. Rotate any key or token when someone with access leaves.

12. Audit scope of existing API keys and downgrade to read-only.

13. Remove API keys and tokens from all shared documents.

14. Store all credentials in a dedicated secrets manager or vault.

15. Confirm signature verification is active for all webhooks.

16. Establish policy on internal data and external AI tools.

17. Vet “developer access” before connecting any plugin.

18. Confirm hosting + security behind AI-built applications.

19. Be aware of prompt injection risks if building AI features.

20. Confirm third-party developers’ security before access.

​Fulfil is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant.

That means our security controls have been independently audited — including how we protect access to the order, inventory, fulfillment, financial, and customer data that flows through your backend.

When you connect Shopify, 3PLs, warehouses, accounting, APIs, and even AI tools into Fulfil, you’re doing it through a platform built with enterprise-grade security practices in place.

Matt Bertulli CEO, Pela + Lomi

Bootstrap or Raise? I’ve Done Both. Here’s My Answer

I’m 44.

I’ve bootstrapped a company, raised $50M+, sold to private equity, and now own manufacturing facilities across North America.

If you’re wondering whether you should take funds to build your brand, here’s my answer …

Bootstrap 99% of the time

Don’t raise money.

You can kill a product, make a big bet, say no to a retailer, slow down, speed up, or make a U-turn ... all without permission.

The only downside is your cash/working capital sucks.

Even if your business is profitable, a lot of your growth gets financed from cash flows.

You don’t make much money personally because so much gets cycled back into inventory and overhead.

That said, most of my pain over the last eight years running this business has been because I have investors.

I would never do that again knowing what I know now.

Only raise 1% of the time

The only time raising makes sense is when you need serious capital to build factories, fund deep R&D; the kind of spend that cash flows can’t cover.

That’s why we did it. But understand that your investor’s job is not to build your dream. They have a fund timeline, a return target, and LPs to answer to.

Day one, you will think you’re aligned.

But businesses change, markets shift, and what’s right for them stops being what’s right for you.

If that sounds like too much headache, it is.

I’ve lived both sides. The bootstrapped years were hard and slow. The funded years were faster and more painful. Given the choice again, I’d take hard and slow every time.

Build lean. Stay in control. Go for positive cash flows over everything else.

THE FEED

​How Tim Doyle Built Eucalyptus to $450M in ARR & Sold It for $1.15B​

​How to Hire the 5 Ecommerce Roles That Will Make or Break Your Brand​

​What AI Looks Like Inside Rent the Runway and Stand+​

​Does Raw Beat Polished Content? Ecommerce Yapper Strategy​

The Trends

Curated by the editor of CPG Wire, the five top stories in commerce and DTC.

1. True Beauty Ventures Backs Sleep or Die: LinkedIn

Sleep or Die secured a $1M investment from True Beauty Ventures. Founded by PepsiCo alum Lauren Sudeyko in 2025, Sleep or Die is a modern wellness brand that produces sleep tape and sleep aids.

The company’s newest product, Sleep Strips, is a sleep aid in the form of a dissolvable oral strip (à la Listerine Breath Strips). True Beauty Ventures has assembled an impressive beauty & wellness portfolio since launching in 2020.

2. Equip Foods Goes Omnichannel: Twitter

Real food supplement brand Equip Foods made its retail debut by launching nationwide at Sprouts Farmers Market. Since launching in 2016, Equip has focused entirely on DTC channels and built a high 8-figure business.

Now the company is taking its Prime Protein range into retail with four SKUs hitting shelves at Sprouts. HighPost Capital acquired a significant stake in Equip last summer.

3. Banagua Bags $5.5M: BevNET

Organic banana water brand Banagua raised $5.5M from Hingham Growth Partners, a relatively new growth equity firm. Banagua has quickly created a loyal following by focusing on something simple: great-tasting hydration built around the world’s most popular fruit.

The company launched earlier this year and is already in more than 3,500 stores, including Sprouts, Kroger, and Albertsons. Several strategic angel investors and celebrities joined the round.

4. OLIPOP Unveils New Look: Parade

OLIPOP, the modern soda valued at $1.85B last year, recently unveiled a bold new look. Instead of focusing on functionality and gut health, the latest iteration of OLIPOP focuses on everything soda should be: fun, flavorful, and nostalgic.

They brightened the colors, made the flavor imagery bolder, and created a can that will pop on the shelf. OLIPOP nailed it.

5. Brami Secures $33M: PR Newswire

Brami, a high-protein pasta and snack brand, closed a $33M funding round led by VMG Partners. Though originally launched as a snack brand in 2016, Brami pivoted to high-protein pasta in 2021 and has experienced explosive growth since then.

Brami’s pasta range is available in 4,000 stores across the U.S. and posted a 58% year-over-year increase in velocity. Wayne Wu of VMG Partners will join Brami’s board.

 Small Group; Big Lessons 

Interested in learning more about how HexClad and Pela Case optimize PDPs, carts, and post-purchase?

We’re running a small (online) group next week. Connor Rolain and Matt Bertulli will be there; so will I.

Limited to 20 people — that way, we can do it with mics on and make it super conversational.

With thanks and anticipation,
Aaron Orendorff
🤓 Chief Executive Officer

P.S. (Disclaimer): Special thanks to Rokt Aftersell and Fulfil for sponsoring today’s newsletter.

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