“We had no cash, no supply chain, high product market fit, and low CAC. There was this giant button flashing: hyper growth.”

What does it take to build a profitable pet brand from a studio apartment to a nine-figure business with its own factory?

Russell Breuer (Co-Founder and CEO, Spot & Tango) joins hosts Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge) and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) to trace the full arc of building one of DTC’s most quietly dominant pet brands. Russell shares how Spot & Tango launched Unkibble days into COVID with nearly no cash, sold out in three days, and then had to resist pressing the hyper-growth button without inventory to back it up.

The conversation gets deep into the math of subscription growth — payback windows, LTV by channel, contribution margin, and why Russell’s kids know what a CAC is. They cover the contrarian decision to build a dedicated factory, how vertical integration added 30-plus margin points and created a competitive moat, the trade-offs of going omnichannel when you’re profitable DTC, and why discipline is what separates brands that last.

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Can you build a beloved consumer brand around the joy of making something with your hands?

Matt Bertulli and Mike Beckham sit down with Justine Tiu and Adrian Zhang, Co-Founders of The Woobles — a crochet kit brand born from a personal journey through burnout, self-discovery, and a Brooklyn apartment full of hand-stamped packaging. What started as a side hobby became a business with Super Bowl airtime, a McDonald’s Monopoly partnership, and a spot on Shark Tank … where they walked away from every deal.

The conversation covers the concept of “fiero” — the feeling of doing something you once thought was impossible — and why that idea sits at the core of everything The Woobles makes. Justine and Adrian discuss the brutal lessons of being listed as Joann Fabrics’ largest unsecured creditor, how iOS 14 forced them to rethink channel strategy, why product obsession beats marketing strategy, and what it’s like to build a company, a marriage, and a family all at the same time.

What happens when the founder of a software company admits his own product is a sinking ship — and doubles down anyway?

Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge) and Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi) sit down with Amit RG (CEO, RichPanel) for a conversation about AI agents, the death of traditional SaaS, and what it means for ecommerce operators building teams right now.

Amit doesn’t sugarcoat it. He’s walked through the five stages of grief about his own business, come out the other side, and is now betting that moving faster than the disruption is the only play.

The three dig into Dario’s AI phases and what they mean for your tech stack, why customer service reps will be the first wave of AI-driven displacement, and how Sean frames every job — from Philippines call centers to legal firms — as a token problem waiting to be solved cheaper. They debate token-based pricing versus per-ticket models, explore what happens to platforms like Klaviyo in an agent-to-agent economy, and make the case that consumer brands may be the last ones standing while SaaS and services absorb the first hit.

Amit closes with RichPanel’s new returns portal, already live with 31 brands, and Sean puts $10,000 on the line in a charity bet.

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“The difference between authentic money and inauthentic money is that it has some kind of inherent meaning to it.”

Sean Frank (CEO of Ridge) and Matt Bertulli (CEO of Pela Case and Lomi) sit down with Matt Orlić — Co-Founder of Qure Skincare and founder of Ecomm Architects. Together, they trace one of the most unconventional paths in ecommerce. From losing 80% of his net worth at 25 to reverse-engineering the habits of successful founders, Orlić’s story is a masterclass in resilience and reinvention.

The conversation covers how Qure scaled toward nine figures by building distinctly designed, clinically inspired products and pairing them with a sophisticated influencer strategy. They dig into the “spherical scaling system” Orlić developed for creative angles and awareness-level ad spend, why building on someone else’s land is a risk worth managing rather than avoiding, and how coaching 150 ecommerce brands gave him something money never could.

Orlić also unpacks the messy realities of TikTok Shop, bootstrapping globally without access to institutional capital, and why focus — ruthless, unglamorous focus on one thing — was the single biggest unlock in his career.

Connect with Matt Orlić

https://youtu.be/rX-bqR3deNk?si=bZQXYRYsqvYP8uci

www.ecommarchitect.com

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Ryan Petersen, CEO of Flexport, joins Mike Beckham and Sean Frank for an emergency briefing on the tariff landscape after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling. Specifically, what ecommerce owners need to do right now.

They break down how to file for tariff refunds before entries hit liquidation, including the secondary market where brands are selling claims for cents on the dollar. Then the conversation shifts to the Iran conflict and what a closed Strait of Hormuz means for container shipping, airfreight capacity, and oil prices.

They close out with a candid look at the AI age of wonder — from cutting customs error rates to writing a children’s book with Claude Code and Midjourney in an afternoon.

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What does it take to create a billion-dollar brand from scratch — homeless at 16, no investors, no safety net?

Hudson Leogrande, founder of Comfrt, joins Sean Frank (CEO of Ridge) and Matt Bertulli (CEO of Pela & Lomi), to trace the story behind one of the fastest-growing ecommerce brands ever built. Hudson started with $1,000 in his mom’s basement, spent five years grinding through an oral care brand, and bootstrapped Comfrt to what will soon be a billion dollars in annual revenue.

The conversation covers how Hudson cracked the creator economy, why Comfrt runs 500 commission-based content creators as mini-CMOs, and how the brand survived going broke seven times. Hudson also pulls back the curtain on dynamic pricing, the pre-order strategy that saved the business, and the product innovations that he believes will make everything the brand has done so far look small.

Are you running your ecommerce brand on gut instinct while your competitors build AI-powered data machines?

Sean Frank (CEO of Ridge) and Jason Panzer (President of HexClad) sit down with Krishna Poda, the CEO of Saras Analytics, to unpack why a clean data foundation isn’t optional. And what you can build on top of it with AI right now.

They cover the rise of agentic workflows and what it means to replace repetitive human tasks with agents that work around the clock, why every stakeholder in a business should be able to query their own data without waiting on an analyst, how Saras IQ is built as a vertically specialized layer on top of Claude to deliver consistent and governed answers, and what the near future looks like when your brand’s central agent is negotiating with Meta’s agent, Northbeam’s agent, and every other platform fighting for your budget.

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“95% of AI pilots fail. I lived that, full stop.” Craig Foldes (Founder of ChatWalrus, fmr. Global Head of AI at Crocs) and Matt Kruer (CIO at Bissell) join host Sean Frank to explore the state of AI within enterprise versus DTC brands.

The conversation covers how to find + celebrate the 10% of employees who are AI power users, what it looks like when adoption works, and why this is “for the rebels.”

They debate whether AI is the great equalizer or a quiet advantage, unpack which parts of the AI hype cycle are overblown, and make the case that the people who learn to master these tools now are the ones who will win, in their careers and in their companies.

Craig Foldes

https://www.chatwalrus.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-foldes-1b949b96/

Matt Kruer

https://x.com/matthew_kruer

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-kruer-9a90b716/

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