Losing is inevitable. Winning can be, too.

🤨 Mike Beckham with five lessons to turn failing into winning

💰 Cody Plofker on adding 6-figures to your thank-you page

📊 20+ leaders live on how to master the new “DTC playbook”​

Plus, the top-five headlines from this week’s consumer news with executive summaries.

Cody Plofker CEO, Jones Road Beauty

How We Added 6 Figures in Incremental Profit

CAC is up 40% in two years. Which means thinner margins and longer payback windows.

You don’t fix that by spending more on Meta.

At Jones Road, we turned on Rokt Thanks.

These are one-click offers from vetted brands that appear only after checkout.

I’ll be honest, I was hesitant.

Putting anything on our confirmation page felt like a risk to the customer experience.

But I kept coming back to one number: gross profit per session.

So we ran a 100+ day holdout. I can’t argue with the results …

• $0.40 in profit per order
• $56k in incremental profit
• 0% hit to retention

At real order volume, that’s six figures a year or 1-2 people of extra headcount.

Want to see how much incremental profit your brand can make by using Rokt Thanks?

Click below, enter your monthly order volume, and get your incremental-profit
forecast.

Mike Beckham CEO, Simple Modern

5 Lessons on Losing, or How to Fail Like a Winner

I enjoyed watching Oklahoma City Thunder win the NBA Championship last year.

But I learned more by watching them lose this year.

Sports, like business, teaches us about success and failure. Every week we’re pit against each other in a zero sum game. One side wins, the other loses.

Even the most successful teams will go through periods of failure and disappointment. The same is true of us as individuals.

The important thing is how we respond to it. Here are five reminders for failing forward.

1. Success is Sanitized

Whenever I am slotted to step on stage and deliver a speech, I loathe the part where they introduce me.

I get it, the point is to communicate credibility.

But listening to my bio backstage, I know it isn’t the full story. It is the highlight reel, an unbroken string of success.

My friends and family know the deeper truth.

Simple Modern has been more successful than I could have dreamed. But the startup I helped build right before that lost millions of dollars.

The lessons I learned from that failure are a big reason Simple Modern is what it is today.

Those parts of the story don’t show up in articles. Ironically, they are the very thing that make the headline-worthy success possible.

2. Winners Fail

For the last two years Oklahoma City Thunder have been the best team in the NBA. That ended on a Saturday night when they lost to San Antonio in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals.

The Thunder failed to reach their goal, but as I listened to their reactions following Game 7 I have heard individuals who are …

• Owning their failure
• Avoiding excuses
• Taking responsibility
• Trusting teammates
• Looking for ways to grow

Over the last two years they’ve experienced more success than a fan like me could reasonably hope for.

I’ve been fortunate to have a front-row seat, both literally and figuratively, to the Thunder’s ascension. The foundation of their success was built when they weren’t winning basketball games.

In my estimation, someone is a “winner” based on their mindset and not the scoreboard.

Since their season ended, I realized something surprising. I appreciate the team in defeat even more than in victory.

They have shown me, and many other people in this community, how winners approach failure.

3. Missionaries > Mercenaries

Jeff Bezos has a saying: missionaries beat mercenaries. What’s the difference? Mercenaries perform when conditions are favorable.

They show up when the margin is comfortable, the wind is at their back, and the scoreboard looks good.

But when things get hard, when the startup is bleeding money, when the season ends in a Game 7 loss, when the market turns … mercenaries find the exit.

Missionaries are different.

Their motivation isn’t the outcome, it’s the mission. That intrinsic drive is precisely what allows them to push through hardship.

I’ve seen this play out at Simple Modern.

In our earliest years, when we had no margin and no guarantee we’d survive, the people who stayed were the ones who genuinely believed in what we were doing.

The Thunder are missionaries.

You don’t respond to a Game 7 loss with accountability and hunger if you’re just there for the contract. That kind of response comes from people who are building toward something bigger.

4. Incompetence is the Frontier

Every leader starts as a player.

You’re executing, performing, getting results. If you’re good enough, you become a player-coach, still doing the work but now helping others do it, too.

Eventually you become a coach, then a general manager, then something closer to a commissioner. You set vision, build culture, make decisions several layers removed from the game itself.

The skills that made you an exceptional player are not the skills that make you an exceptional coach. The instincts that served you as a coach will actually work against you as a GM. At every new level, you are a beginner.

You are living at the frontier of your own incompetence.

That’s why leaders stall out. Because incompetence is uncomfortable. It’s disorienting. If you’ve built your identity around being good at what you do, it feels very similar to failure.

But it’s not.

Acknowledging your incompetence is an opportunity for growth.

Leaders keep climbing, and become comfortable with their own inadequacy. They seek to improve and, sometimes, they win.

5. Ownership is Key

Everything we’ve talked about — the missionary mindset, the sanitized highlight reel, the willingness to fail, the frontier of incompetence — we can collapse it all into a single word: ownership.

When you own your failure, you own your path forward. When you make excuses, you hand your future to someone else. I try to teach this to my kids. I try to build it into Simple Modern’s culture.

The good. The bad. The ugly.

The Thunder players standing at that podium after Game 7 were practicing ownership in its most meaningful form.

They didn’t deflect. They didn’t point fingers. They said we fell short, and we’ll be better.

That’s exactly what a winner says when they lose.

Failure is the best teacher. Our only job is to be a good student.

THE FEED

​1 Agency Sale. 2 Brand Raises. 1 Warehouse. All in 60 Days​

​How Ridge Uses Incrementality to Cut Waste and Scale What Works​

​Meta Ads Catalog, TikTok Shops + GMV Max, and the Future of Creative​

The Trends

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

1. Prenetics Adds Leogrande To BoD: LinkedIn​

Prenetics, the parent company of fast-growing longevity brand IM8, just added Hudson Leogrande to its Board of Directors. Leogrande is best known as the Founder & CEO of Comfrt, an apparel brand projected to surpass $1B in annual revenue just four years after launching.

With Leogrande, Prenetics adds a skilled operator behind one of the decade’s most remarkable DTC growth stories. Prenetics is projected to exceed $250M in ARR by the end of 2026.

2. Nestle Makes Meal Replacement Bet: Reuters​

Nestle agreed to acquire the remainder of yfood, a German meal replacement company with distribution in 30+ European countries. Founded in 2017 by Benjamin Kremer and Noel Bollmann, yfood offers RTD meal replacement shakes along with nutrition bars and powders.

The company generated nearly €150M in revenue in 2025. This is the second major meal replacement deal of 2026 as Danone shelled out $1.15B for Huel in March.

3. Smash Kitchen Approaches Milestone: Inc.​

Smash Kitchen, the clean condiments brand co-founded by Glen Powell, is on pace to surpass $100M in annual revenue by the end of 2026. The brand debuted exclusively at Walmart last April and has since expanded into several other categories and nearly 15,000 retail doors.

Powell co-founded Smash Kitchen with Sameer Mehta and Sean Kane, two veterans of CPG industry. The company is backed by Collaborative Fund and Aurum Partners.

4. Salt & Straw Hires Bankers: Axios​

Portland-based ice cream maker Salt & Straw hired Piper Sandler to explore a possible $200M exit. Since launching in 2011, Salt & Straw has opened 50 scoop shops across the U.S. and recently made its grocery debut at New Seasons Market.

Annual revenue is north of $100M and the company is backed by KarpReilly, Enlightened Hospitality Investments, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

5. Ryl Tea Secures $20M: Business Wire​

The Ryl Company, the parent company of fast-growing iced tea brand Ryl Tea, secured $20M in Series C funding. Purchase Capital led the round.

Beverage exec Blodin Ukella launched Ryl Tea in 2022 and the company has grown 157% year-over-year in the 52-week period ending on May 17th. Purchase Capital is best known for backing OWYN which exited for $280M in 2024.

 The New DTC Playbook 

Low OpEx, high margin, the TikTokification of advertising. Layer on a heavy fog of AI this + AI that …

The opportunities for growth have never been greater. Neither has the confusion and competition. More than theory, you need practical guidance from brands at the forefront.

Join us June 25 from 1–4pm EST for the only online event by operators, for operators.

Over 20 heavyweights. 3 keynotes. Hands-on training with Q&A. Plus, 10 lightning panelists.

With thanks and anticipation,
Aaron Orendorff
🤓 Chief Executive Officer

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

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