Operators

“I feel this is bigger than dot com.” 
How does a $450 million publicly traded jewelry brand build a live shopping empire that predates TikTok by nearly two decades? 
Sunil Agrawal (Founder, ShopLC & VGL Group) sits down with Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case and Lomi) and Katy Mimari (CEO, Caden Lane) to pull back the curtain on 46 years of building one of the most vertically integrated businesses in the world. He started as a gemstone lapidary and grew six retail brands without ever once considering an exit. 
Sunil runs a live shopping operation most DTC operators have never seen. He launches 100 new products every day. His top customers generate $20,000 in lifetime value. He fired his robots when the ROI math didn’t hold. He moved four brands to Shopify in five months because AI did most of the coding. And he still measures the business not in dollars but in meals delivered. 
Operators Titans is brought to you by AppLovin and Fulfil. 
Fulfil: The ERP built specifically for DTC and ecommerce brands, integrated with over 400 3PLs so your inventory, purchasing, and financials never fall out of sync. Ridge runs its entire operation on it. See why here: https://9ops.co/fulfil 
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 ads today with our Operators-exclusive link: http://applovin.com/9operators.

“If someone can do the same revenue in 12 hours, basically out of nowhere, it does lower the value of brands.” 
What does the collapse of traditional brand equity mean for founders still building toward an exit? 
Roman Khan (Co-Founder & President, Peak21) joins Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge) and Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case and Lomi) to make one uncomfortable argument: the playbook for building and buying ecommerce brands is broken, and most founders haven’t figured that out yet. After three years acquiring DTC businesses, Roman stopped. The reason cuts to the heart of where dropshipping, ecommerce logistics, and brand valuation are all heading. 
His Hong Kong summit surfaced the shift in real time: Meta partnership ads back at the top of the stack, Applovin minting operators spending six figures a day, and TikTok-first brands doing $12M months on skeleton crews. The conversation covers why dropshipping from China is nowhere near dead, how Quince is building the AWS of ecommerce logistics, and the one thing Roman tells every founder under $100M in revenue: take out dividends, stop waiting for a buyer, and get honest about what your company is worth. 
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Postscript 
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Operators Newsletter 
https://9operators.com/

"You will not be happier at nine figures. I’ll just tell you that right now." 
What does an operator do after building an 8-figure brand entirely on one dog breed? 
Help an Operator Out (HAOO) is a new series where real business owners join the podcast with live questions. In this episode, Garrett Yamasaki (Founder & CEO, We Love Doodles) brings his crossroads: a bootstrapped, Amazon-heavy pet brand that crossed eight figures and needs to decide whether to go deeper in its niche or wider into new dog breeds. The answer is less obvious than it sounds.
The conversation covers capital allocation, the difference between product-channel fit versus product-market fit, and why consumables change the LTV math entirely. Mike makes the case that moated niche distribution builds more durable enterprise value than any paid channel. And everyone lands on the same uncomfortable truth. The business you already built is the one most worth protecting. 
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Fulfil
⁠https://9ops.co/fulfil⁠ 
Aftersell
⁠https://9ops.co/4i3bb5⁠
Richpanel
⁠https://9ops.co/richpanel⁠
Northbeam
⁠https://www.northbeam.io/⁠
Saras Analytics
⁠https://bit.ly/4a3gzVv⁠
Postscript
⁠https://9ops.co/postscript⁠
Operators Newsletter
⁠https://9operators.com/⁠

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://9ops.co/applovin-referral
“You are not trying if you’re not getting sued.” 
How did IQBAR go from a $90k Kickstarter to a nine-figure retail, DTC, and Amazon giant? 
Will Nitze (Founder & CEO) and Jessica Greenwood (CMO) join Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi) and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern). This is the product launch strategy and CPG marketing playbook they wish existed when they started. 
Will and Jessica detail their early tactics and walk through every funding round: from $625K at a $4M valuation to $5.5M at $50M. They doubled revenue every year for eight years, kept the team at 15 people, and never dropped below 50% ownership. Mike and Matt close on what killed dozens of competing bar brands in 2022 and why IQ BAR survived.

Should you open your own stores, or let the big retailers do the heavy lifting? 
Curtis Matsko (CEO, Portland Leather Goods), Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi), and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) go head to head on one of the biggest channel decisions a consumer brand will face. 
Curtis went from a spite-signed lease to 16 owned stores, while Mike turned a $9 million Sam’s Club bet into 10,000 wholesale doors. This episode breaks down these two different paths and what each model actually costs you in competency, capital, and control, why the wrong channel for your product category is almost impossible to recover from, and what private equity is really looking for when they come knocking on an omnichannel brand. 
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Fulfil 
https://9ops.co/fulfil 
Saras Analytics 
https://bit.ly/9OP-Ytdesc 
Postscript 
https://9ops.co/postscript 
Richpanel 
https://9ops.co/richpanel 
Northbeam 
https://www.northbeam.io/ 
Aftersell 
https://9ops.co/4i3bb5 
Operators Newsletter 
https://9operators.com/