From Homicide Detective to $5M E-Commerce Growth: The Retention Strategy Most Brands Miss | Dan Nikas

In this episode, host Reed Hansen, Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge, sits down with Dan Nikas, Founder of Elite Brands and the strategist behind the explosive growth of GearBunch, an e-commerce brand that scaled from zero to over $5 million in its first year.

Dan’s journey is anything but typical. Before entering e-commerce, he spent 17 years as a homicide detective in Australia. That background shaped his unique approach to marketing, audience research, and customer psychology. Today, Dan is a Meta-certified lead trainer, Klaviyo partner, and a trusted voice in retention-driven growth for DTC brands.

This episode dives deep into what most brands overlook and how to unlock profit that’s already hiding inside your existing customer base.

What you’ll learn in this episode:
How Dan used investigative thinking to find buyers before building products
How GearBunch scaled to $5M in its first year
Why retention marketing beats acquisition in the long run
How to use unit economics to scale with confidence
Why most brands overspend on ads and how to fix it
How repeat customers create a lasting competitive advantage

Key takeaways:
Build audiences first, then products
Retention is where real profitability comes from
Knowing your numbers removes stress and guesswork
Better systems outperform more traffic

About our guest:
Dan Nikas is the Founder of Elite Brands, a growth and retention consultancy helping DTC brands build predictable, scalable revenue through data-driven marketing, full-funnel retention strategies, and customer experience optimization.

After scaling his own brand and working with multiple agencies, Dan built the agency he wished existed, focused on clarity, consistency, and results.

Learn more about Dan and Elite Brands:
https://www.elitebrands.org/

About the show:
Inside Marketing with MarketSurge breaks down what’s actually working in marketing today, without the fluff. Each episode delivers real-world strategies and honest conversations for founders, marketers, and growth-focused operators.

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https://marketsurge.io
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