Operators

Operators Titans is brought to you by AppLovin. Get access to the Operators channel expansion playbook, online masterclass, and up to $5k in ad credits here: https://www.9operators.com/paid-growth 
Or, skip the waitlist and launch your AppLovin ads today with our Operators-exclusive link: https://axon.ai/en/9operators 
“We built our iPhone before we built our Apple.”  
How do you scale a hardware brand from $7M to $1.5B without chasing cheap CPMs?  
Jacob Zuppke (CEO, Whisker) joins Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi) and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) to break down how a self-cleaning litter box company became a $1.5B brand through US manufacturing, big creative swings, and a deliberate omnichannel strategy.
Jacob breaks down the marketing that fueled a decade of growth, including how TV outperformed Meta for years, and why Whisker held off Amazon until branded search volume made the case impossible to ignore. He also gets into the Whisker app, which logs 4.7 million cat weigh-ins per day, and why that software layer is where the brand’s omnichannel strategy gets its deepest competitive teeth.

What does Ridge’s annual revenue growth 2025–2026 look like when you launch three new categories at once? 
Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge) joins Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi) and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) to get into what it looks like when a founder goes all-in on ecommerce product expansion while navigating new fatherhood, a tough M&A market, and a company that had to reinvent its growth story. 
Sean breaks down the Shark Ninja model. Ship fast, cut losers, never wait on a five-year roadmap. He walks through what made the Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) partnership succeed where a $4 million celebrity deal would have failed. Finally, he gets candid about fatherhood and the DTC acquisition market, where over 70% of deals since 2022 drew zero bids. 
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Is owning your own warehouse worth the headache? Or is it a siren song that will slow your growth? 
Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case and Lomi), Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern), and Curtis Matsko (CEO, Portland Leather Goods) dig into two of the most expensive decisions in ecommerce. Should you own your warehouse or outsource fulfillment to a 3PL? Can a founder ever truly step back from the company they built? 
They break down the owned warehouse versus 3PL debate, covering when flexibility beats cost savings, and why high-growth brands get burned by leases. From there, the conversation shifts to founder identity and succession, what Tim Cook’s Apple exit and Doug McMillon’s Walmart departure reveal about leadership transitions, and why the skills that built your company can quietly become the thing holding it back. 
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Operators Newsletter
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Operators Titans is brought to you by AppLovin. Get access to the Operators channel expansion playbook, online masterclass, and up to $5k in ad credits here: https://www.9operators.com/paid-growth
Or, skip the waitlist and launch your AppLovin ads today with our Operators-exclusive link: https://axon.ai/en/9operators 
“We’ve never had anyone do four deals in 60 days.”
How do you build two nine-figure brands with no outside investors and a Facebook ads background as your only real edge? 
Zach Stuck, founder of Easy Street Brands and co-founder of Hollow and Mars Men, joins Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi) and Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge) to break down how he turned an agency into an eight-figure exit and cold-started two nine-figure brands in opposite categories.  
Closing four deals in 60 days and an L Catterton round, Zach’s brand building decisions are laid on the table. He walks through nearly losing Homestead keeping Hollow alive, and lays out the ecommerce strategy for building from zero. He closes on what the holdco model requires to work and why most operators get it wrong.

Is your incrementality testing giving you accurate data or are you burning budget on a broken signal?
Austin Harrison (CEO, Northbeam) joins Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge) and Katy Mimari (CEO, Caden Lane) to challenge the most repeated advice in ecommerce measurement: that longer tests are always better, holdouts are interchangeable, and incrementality alone is enough to make media decisions. They break down when a growing brand needs incrementality versus MTA, and how running tests inside a noisy environment can produce weeks of data worth nothing.
Sean pulls from Ridge’s own results to show how layering incrementality on top of MTA unlocked YouTube spend that in-platform data never would have justified, while Katy’s botched first test proves clean test conditions matter as much as the tool itself. They also dig into why moving up funnel on Meta is outperforming conversion campaigns at scale, and what separates the fastest-growing ecommerce brands in 2026 on creative.  
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Operators Newsletter
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