Operators

“We need to think of ourselves as a media company.” 
What does it take to turn an ecommerce brand into a content engine? 
Matt Bertulli (Founder, Pela Case & Lomi), Jason Panzer (President, HexClad), Katy Mimari (CEO, Caden Lane), and Curtis Matsko (CEO, Portland Leather Goods) show why paid ads only rent attention, and how owning your content builds a brand customers line up for. 
HexClad films three times a week, and Caden Lane just turned the cameras on its own staff. Portland Leather Goods credits its fan group with $50M to $80M a year. None of it pencils out in days, but the brands that commit build what no competitor can copy. 
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“You’re going to set some money on fire before you ever get to flip these cards over.” 
How much can you spend on a customer when the first order loses money? 
Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) walks Matt Bertulli (Founder, Pela Case & Lomi), Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road Beauty) and Curtis Christopherson (Chief Growth Officer, Ammortal) through the profit model behind consumable brands, using Trevi’s retention data. He measures every customer three ways. 
1. Lifetime Value: Profit per customer over 6 months
2. Net LTV: LTV minus what you paid to acquire them
3. Nominal LTV: Net LTV times customers acquired 
Winks just pushed its CAC under $100. Mike shows why few brands earn $100 back from a customer in six months. Then the hosts split on forcing subscriptions, and Mike warns that longer paybacks have bankrupted brands. 
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Why lower AOV and a disciplined P&L saved this brand from the brink.
Steven Borrelli (Founder & CEO, Cuts), Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern), and Matt Bertulli (Founder, Pela Case & Lomi) unpack how Cuts reached $60M without outside money, then nearly went under when tariffs hit 145%. Steven walks through the layoffs, the first raise, and the comeback that followed. 
Selling 50K joggers sight unseen gave Cuts confidence it hadn’t earned. Steven explains how a lower AOV cut customer acquisition costs by 65%. Now Cuts is betting on elevated menswear priced below luxury labels, where winning products draw copycats. 
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How do you create a company culture that’s a competitive advantage?
Matt Bertulli (Founder, Pela Case & Lomi) and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) build culture through deliberate choices, while most brands leave it to chance. They work through it in five hard questions: 
1. Who should you let go? 
2. How close should you get? 
3. What won’t you tolerate? 
4. Why are values a “trade”? 
5. Where do leaders go next? 
Matt has hired and fired hundreds, and no two exits looked alike. Mike surveyed his entire team, and 80% praised the same quality in him: transparency. As AI takes over the busywork, trust becomes the real advantage. 
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“It’s very easy to scrape an ad library, pull out concepts and then literally just duplicate the ad. That’s just a race to the bottom.” 
How do you learn from other brands without copying them? 
Matt Bertulli (Founder, Pela Case & Lomi) and Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road Beauty) share their screens to walk through six consumables brands they’re learning from while building Winks. Each picked three, plus one bonus from outside DTC. 
1. Nutrition Geeks: UK single-ingredient 
2. Norse Organics: Natural acne care 
3. Elavate: UK collagen for women 
4. MarsMen: Testosterone support 
5. Spoiled Child: Oddity’s brand 
6. Boostcous: Gluten-free couscous 
(Bonus) Wispr Flow: AI voice app 
Matt and Cody trace each brand’s ads, landers and offers, including why long pages still convert. Some brands force subscriptions, others offer a choice, and a few lead with one-time bundles. Meanwhile, Winks is testing a no-subscription bundle of its own. 
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