DTC Podcast

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Katie Sturino built Megababe with 60,000 followers, two co-founders who'd never had chafe, and an MOQ of 20,000 units stacked in her parents' garage. Eight years later it's profitable, in Target, Walmart, CVS, Nordstrom, Anthropologie, and on Amazon. Never raised a dollar. Never grew less than 33% year over year.

In this episode Katie walks through how she built a category that didn't exist. Manufacturers didn't know what chafe was. Press didn't know what chafe was. The Today Show hit on June 30, 2017 and they sold out every unit by July 1. Then the real work started.

Inside: why retail is when the grind begins (not when you've made it), why she still ranks "people just dealing with it" as her biggest competitor, the husband-given marketing fix that solved deodorant aisle confusion in one sticker, the accidental Amazon Super Bowl ad placement, why their hemorrhoid product is a top seller on Amazon, and the moment her sister convinced her soap was worth doing.

Plus the new "I'm Not Fine Index" campaign, why NYC taxi ads outperform every digital channel they run, and the one piece of advice Katie has for anyone shipping a product in 2026.

Catch the DTC and Pilothouse crew at The Whalies May 19 in LA.

Timestamps:
0:00 Building a brand around chafe
2:58 How Megababe started
11:00 Selling out after the Today Show
14:10 Retail growth at Target and Walmart
20:05 Why Megababe started advertising
27:10 Building a real brand voice

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Abby and Taylor from Pilothouse settle the loudest debate in media buying right now: does velocity equal strategy?

Short answer: no. Long answer: this whole episode.

Inside, Abby (art) and Taylor (science) break down what a real creative system looks like under Andromeda, how to spot AI slop in an ad library at a glance, and why the squint test is still the fastest way to audit your output. They get into the frequency spike that hit when one apparel brand over-segmented celebrity drops, why Taylor still runs legacy Advantage+ Shopping campaigns three years later, and how a Nick DiGiovanni partnership ran at 0.5 ROAS on platform but pulled a 6 ROAS once Northbeam's 60-day window kicked in.

Plus: why gifting ads should still target women, three exercises to run on your ad account before Q4, and the difference between feeding the algorithm and spamming the button.

If you're making 50 ads a week and not sure any of them are doing a job, this one's for you.

Catch the Pilothouse and DTC crew at The Whalies May 19 in LA, and our DTC operator dinner May 20.

Timestamps:
0:00 Why velocity isn’t strategy
2:38 The problem with endless ad variations
5:12 Best Meta account structures today
8:07 How to audit creative quality
14:08 Building a real creative system

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Full Glass Wine Co.

Neha Kumar joins the podcast to break down how Full Glass Wine Co. acquired 7 DTC wine companies, integrated them under one operating system, and scaled to a $200M platform in under two years.

This wasn’t a “buy brands and hope” strategy. Neha explains how COVID-era DTC brands overbought inventory, ignored unit economics, and optimized for growth over profitability — creating one of the biggest acquisition opportunities in modern ecommerce.

For DTC founders scaling from $5M–$50M who want to improve retention, fix unit economics, and build operational leverage across brands.

Inside the episode:
Why subscription models quietly broke a lot of DTC wine businesses
The exact operational changes Full Glass uses to make acquisitions profitable in 60–120 days
How they centralized shipping, finance, SMS, and retention while preserving each brand’s identity
Why retention, not acquisition, became the core growth engine
The hidden downside of emailing subscription customers too often
How Wink’s 7M-email quiz funnel became a massive acquisition asset
Why customer segmentation matters more than product assortment in brand acquisitions
The “three legs of the tripod” framework for building durable DTC companies: marketing, finance, and operations
Neha’s “Year of Yes” mindset shift inspired by Willy Wonka that changed how she built companies

Who this is for:
Operators, retention marketers, DTC founders, PE-backed ecommerce brands, acquisition entrepreneurs, and anyone trying to scale profitably after the cheap-CAC era ended.

What to steal:
Move from monthly shipments to higher-AOV quarterly bundles to fix shipping economics
Centralize infrastructure, not brand voice
Treat retention like the business engine, not an afterthought

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro to Full Glass Wine Co
2:18 Why DTC wine brands struggled after COVID
6:12 How Winc collapsed from inventory overload
8:05 The 3-part formula for profitable DTC brands
10:05 What Full Glass looks for in acquisitions
13:05 Centralizing customer service across wine brands
15:02 Building brands around customer identity
17:42 The Willy Wonka “year of yes” mindset
21:58 What happens after acquiring a company
24:45 Why subscription models don’t work for wine
29:12 Storytelling vs transactional retention emails
32:18 How Full Glass approaches retention marketing
35:05 Managing inventory and cash flow in wine
37:15 Trusting intuition as an operator
40:18 How Full Glass is using AI internally
42:05 Are the next generation of entrepreneurs ready?
45:00 What’s next for Full Glass Wine Co

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Meta attribution has changed, and most brands are still reading performance the same way they were a year ago.

Jacob, Head of Socials at Pilothouse, walks through what’s different now. Click-only attribution, incremental measurement, and how those shifts affect the way conversions show up in your dashboard.

If you’ve noticed numbers feeling off lately, this will help you understand why and what to actually pay attention to.

For DTC founders and marketers spending $50K–$500K/month on Meta who want to understand what’s actually driving conversions.
What click-only attribution removes from reporting
How incremental attribution works in practice (without the fluff)
Why conversion numbers feel different even when performance hasn’t changed much
Where Meta data and third-party tools start to diverge
How Pilothouse is thinking about reporting and decision-making now

Who this is for:
DTC operators, performance marketers, founders scaling paid social

What to steal:
Check incremental conversions alongside total before making changes
Look at channel performance in context of total revenue, not in isolation
Use Meta data as one input, not the final answer

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:28 Meta’s New Attribution Shift
05:03 How Incremental Attribution Works
08:11 Conversion Windows and Optimization
10:15 Why Better Signals Improve Meta Performance
13:02 Agentic Ads Explained
16:02 AI Business Agents and Customer Conversations
18:05 Setting Up Meta’s AI Agents
19:28 AI Ad Automation and Testing Strategies
21:14 Q2 Meta Performance Trends
23:02 Why Meta Reduced Over-Attribution

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We surveyed 540+ DTC operators on how they plan and forecast. This episode, we break down the data and see why most brands are stuck reacting. We’re joined by Laura Thompson, co-founder of Three Ships Beauty, one of the few who's figured out how to run a tight, fast, 8-figure brand without drifting into chaos, and Mike Chiasson, Senior Solutions Engineer from Keen Decision Systems, to pressure-test the Three Ships Beauty playbook against the data.

Grab your free copy of the report here: https://www.directtoconsumer.co/thereactiveloopreport

In this episode:
The biggest gaps in how DTC brands plan
Why "revenue is a lagging indicator"
The bottom-up forecasting Three Ships uses
The KPI ownership system across the whole team
When scenario planning is worth the time, and when it's just noise

If you’re a DTC operator past $5M who wants to stop reacting and start running a solid plan, this episode is a must listen.

Timestamps
0:00 Planning vs reacting in ecommerce
2:03 Why most brands only plan 1–6 months ahead
4:02 Bottom-up forecasting vs top-down forecasting
6:06 Scenario planning and external market risks
9:02 When media spend actually works harder
11:01 The reactive loop hurting DTC brands
14:03 Why brands over-invest in bottom funnel
15:06 Weekly KPI reviews and forecasting systems
18:02 The danger of reacting to noisy data
20:04 Leading vs lagging indicators in ecommerce
23:02 How talent impacts business performance
24:58 Product launch delays and forecasting pivots
26:53 Scenario planning for tariffs and supply chain risk
31:55 Should brands worry about oil shocks?
35:34 The biggest gap between planning and execution
38:02 KPI systems that drive accountability
42:16 The right way to plan for growth
44:02 Why reactive brands fall behind

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