Three weeks ago, four 9-figure executives + one new operator launched a brand. We’re building in public.
The product took them 12 months.
😴 Sean Frank reveals how they created a sleep supplement
🏆 Olivia Kory gives you 24 hrs to nominate your top marketer
💬 Connor Rolain shares how HexClad is testing SMS marketing
Plus, the top five headlines in consumer.
Last Chance to Nominate Your Top Marketers of 2026!
Many industry lists reward whoever has the biggest following or loudest personal brand.
We wanted to try something more objective.
In the spirit of Haus, Top Marketers of 2026 nominees get scored on their incremental impact: what they did + the result it produced.
I’ll be co-judging nominees alongside my personal picks for top marketers of 2026.
- Connor Dault (Fmr. CMO, Grüns)
- Christopher Lee (CMO, XBOX)
The prize?
Winners will be featured on a special OpenHaus episode and will be personally invited to attend Haus’ Customer Advisory Board event in Pebble Beach where they’ll spend time with marketing leaders from some of the world’s top businesses.
Plus, I hear there’s a pretty good golf course.
Nominations close tomorrow, September 15th! It’s free and only takes two minutes.
Only rules are:
- Marketing, growth, or paid media
- Company revenue: $50M+ annually
- Based in the United States
- No government employers
Both Haus and non-Haus customers are encouraged to apply.
How We Spent 12 Months Creating a New Sleep Supplement
We launched Winks three weeks ago.
Four 9-figure ecom degens and one new operator building a sleep supplement together.
From zero.
In public.
It has been all over the news (dtc twitter).
We are making good progress. Burned through $18,000 to get here. But our CPMs are coming down.
Our best campaign's results:
- 2.23 ROAS
- $30 CAC
Cody said these are our top two performing ads right now.
But +70% of our customers are men. Our messaging is supposed to target women.
Are all our customers ecom bros?
Idk, we will see.
It took us 12 months to create the product. People keep asking me, “What have you been doing the last year?”
Product
Samples
Testing
Packaging
Inventory
Maybe we could have done it faster.
Got it out the door sooner.
Probably should have.
But none of us knew anything about supplements.
I sell wallets.
Matt sells phone cases.
Mike sells water bottles.
Cody sold make-up.
Curtis has 23 years in health and wellness. But he's new to ecom. Still, he did the heavy lifting.
Here’s how we created a new sleep supplement from scratch.
Hired a Doc
We partnered with Dr. Todd Born, one of Curtis’ contacts.
He has 15 years treating patients, 13 years formulating supplements. He currently advises ten other brands.
Why did we hire him?
Because we do not know sh*t about creating a supplement.
1- He has treated patients
He knows most supplements on the market are garbage. And he knows how to formulate one that actually helps people.
2- He will keep us out of court
Part of his job is protecting the company from litigation.
Claim language.
Safe dosing.
He also brings his own people. A regulatory guy who reads ads before they run for a few hundred bucks a pop. And an FDA attorney.
3- He argues with the co-man
Our early samples had sediment sitting at the bottom of the cup.
It was not a formula problem.
It was a manufacturing problem.
Todd knows supplements. He recommended a supplier to our co-man who makes minerals that actually dissolve.
Problem solved.
Created a Brief
We gave Dr. T a brief of what we wanted. Had nothing to do with the ingredient formula, because I have no idea.
Only knew what we did not want.
- No melatonin
- Powder, not pills
- Safe for kids
- Gentle, not sedating
And it had to work on both kinds of insomnia- can’t fall asleep, can’t stay asleep.
This was all reverse engineered from our marketing.
Todd then chose the ingredients.
He said the brief made his job a lot easier.
You are welcome.
Refined the Recipe
Todd created our recipe based on real results, good marketing and what was actually possible.
Using powder instead of pills killed valerian and skullcap.
Both are good for sleep, but you can not mask their bitterness in powder form.
What made the cut (my elevator pitch):
Tart cherry
Natural melatonin instead of synthetic, and it nudges your body to make more. Also legit muscle recovery data.
Not banned in the Olympics.
Saffron
Most expensive spice in the world. Mood and memory. Heavily studied in depression and ADHD.
Magnesium bisglycinate
Evidently absorbs better than magnesium, easier on your gut, and the glycine attached to it is calming on its own.
Lithium orotate
500 micrograms. Not the lithium you’re thinking of.
Todd said the places on earth with the most naturally occurring lithium in their water have the lowest rates of Alzheimer’s.
Ashwagandha
Hot water extract of the root and leaf.
Lowers cortisol at a small dose. That is good because ashwagandha tastes bad.
L-theanine
The expensive one. The cheap version is cheap partly because low-end suppliers make it with solvents you do not want in a kid’s drink.
Phosphatidylserine
From sunflower, not soy. Soy costs you a hypoallergenic claim.
All of these at a dose that actually does something.
Todd says most sleep supplements do not work because they have good ingredients (for the label) at tiny doses (to cut costs).
Our model is subscription.
It has to work.
Trademarked Ingredients
You can not patent a natural substance.
What you can patent is a specific way of extracting it and the compound that comes out. Then you can run clinical trials on that compound and charge more for brands (like us) to use it.
That is a trademarked ingredient.
We chose three.
Sensoril® Ashwagandha
AlphaWave® L-Theanine
Affron® Saffron
Partly for purity.
Mostly for the studies.
Their research becomes our research. We can cite their trials in our ads.
This comes with strings attached.
We can say "clinically studied ingredients," but we can not say "clinically studied formula."
That would mean we studied the finished formula.
We can say "doctor formulated" or "occasional sleeplessness." But not "insomnia."
Despite how most people use that word, it is a disease.
Todd said we do not need to worry about the FDA. If we mess something up, they will send us a letter giving us 15 days to substantiate the claim or pull it.
The people who will try to take our money are plaintiff attorneys who troll ads looking for unsubstantiated claims.
That is their entire business model.
We are gonna use LabTested to publish lab results. So customers can see what was tested and how it did.
And we pay a regulatory guy a few hundred bucks to read every ad before it runs.
Waited + Tested
Once formula was approved, it took 14 weeks to manufacture. Then about three weeks of testing.
That is most of your answer right there.
It was not 12 months of work. It was a few months of work and a lot of sitting around waiting on a co-man.
Meanwhile we were doing sample rounds.
Sediment in the bottom of the cup.
Grape flavor we could barely taste.
Did We F*** It Up?
The formula decides what our ads can say.
Our marketing decided what went in the formula.
That is good for the customer.
Because this is subscription. Creating good marketing is the same as creating a good product.
We cut melatonin. We are using ingredients with studies behind them at doses that provide clinical benefit.
It took us 12 months to get to this point.
Next time I am going to buy the closest thing off the shelf, sell it, and prove somebody wants it before I spend a year building it.
But it is too late.
Now we figure out if we f****d up.
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Connor Rolain
Head of Growth, HexClad
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Agentic 1:1 Marketing is Here + We Are Testing It
At HexClad, we’re testing Postscript’s Shopper against our static SMS flows.
So far the results are really promising. We are seeing wins across our lifecycle marketing.
Shopper is an AI shopping assistant that has two-way text conversations with customers, answering questions and recommending products based on what they share.
The opportunity I’m most excited about is learning more about each customer through conversations, then using that context to send more relevant messages and improve our marketing.
Postscript’s free Fizzzy Soda’s Totally Unsolicited Guide to AI gives your team eight steps to start putting this into practice.
Fizzzy is a fictional brand. But the tactics are real.
1️⃣ Set up a Brand Center
2️⃣ Launch your signup popup
3️⃣ Write a founder welcome message
4️⃣ Activate your Shopper assistant
5️⃣ Optimize with Infinity Testing
6️⃣ Upload FAQs + product information
7️⃣ Act on customer conversations
8️⃣ Send campaigns that invite replies
There’s even a follow-up flow for subscribers who clicked a campaign but didn’t buy, plus welcome messages and campaign openers you can adapt.
It’s a useful starting point for your retention team, with setup instructions and example copy included.
How to Start a Supplement Company & Formulation
Honeylove: From Backstage Side Hustle to $200M+ Brand
Holiday Offers vs BFCM: Which Comes First?
3 Nine-Figure Operators on Focus & Passion
Curated by the editor of CPG Wire, the five top stories in commerce and DTC.
1. Peptide Platform System Raises $20M: Fitt Insider
System, a vertically integrated peptide platform connecting patients with licensed clinicians and pharmacy-grade treatments, secured $20 million to accelerate growth. Patron Fund, Will Ventures, Vine, Courtside, Daybreak, and several others participated in the round.
Founded and led by Adam Steinle, System aims to become the definitive, most trusted name in peptides. The global peptide therapeutic market is estimated to be worth $140 billion today.
2. Kendall Jenner Joins TRIP: PR Newswire
Kendall Jenner joined TRIP as a global brand ambassador and shareholder. Jenner is the latest celebrity to join the company’s cap table which already includes Joe Jonas, Alessandra Ambrosio, Paul Wesley, and Ashley Graham.
The calming beverage brand is on track to hit $200 million in revenue this year, and Jenner will front the company’s biggest global campaign to date, spanning TV, OOH, digital, and social.
3. Belle Brands Acquires Vegamour: PR Newswire
PE-backed beauty platform Belle Brands acquired biotech haircare brand Vegamour for an undisclosed sum. Founded by Daniel Hodgdon in 2016, Vegamour’s sales reached $140 million in 2022 although that figure has dipped to around $50 million in recent years.
The company secured an $80 million growth investment from General Atlantic in 2021. Belle Brands specializes in turning around brands and their portfolio includes JVN Hair, Pipette, and KVD Beauty.
4. Petit Pot Raises Series A Funding: LinkedIn
Petit Pot, an Emeryville-based producer of refrigerated desserts, secured a 7-figure Series A investment. The round was co-led by Eclair Partners and Terri and John Penshorn, with participation from existing shareholders.
Michelin-starred pastry chef Maxime Pouvreau launched Petit Pot in 2014 and the company self-manufactures at its Northern California production facility. The company’s retail partners include Whole Foods, Costco, Sprouts, Wegmans, and others.
5. JonnyPops Hits Major Milestone: WSJ
JonnyPops, a Minnesota-based producer of better-for-you popsicles and other frozen novelties, has generated more than $170 million in retail sales over the past 12 months. Erik Brust and Connor Wray met at St. Olaf College and soon thereafter the duo started producing prototypes in their dorm basement.
Today, JonnyPops is sold in nearly 30,000 stores across the United States, and the company controls its entire manufacturing process, giving it an innovation edge over competitors.
With thanks and anticipation,
Aaron Orendorff
🤓 Chief Executive Officer
P.S. (Disclaimer): Special thanks to Haus and Postscript for sponsoring today’s newsletter.