#333 - Investing in Organic Growth: Why, When & How with SEO Expert Josh Piepmeier

Vlad Vukicevic is a seasoned entrepreneur who knows his way around the startup scene. He previously founded Meural (acq. by Netgear) and RocketHub (acq. by EFactor). His latest venture is Better & Better, a better-for-you vitamin infused toothpaste.

Endur, an athletic-wear brand that makes performance socks, was founded by Rob Fraser (former professional mountain biker) in 2016. Endur is a proud, boot-strapped brand that has grown into $10M brand.

David Gaylord has had a multifaceted career in ecommerce. He started at Shopify in 2015 as a customer success agent, became an Ops Lead in the Office of the COO in 2020, and a Permanent Merchant in Residence in 2021 where he uses his knowledge & experience founding Bushbalm - a natural skincare brand focused solely on the bikini line - to inspire and advise aspiring entrepreneurs. David joins Blaine Bolus and Ramon Berrios at the DTC Pod and tells us what it’s like navigating the world of ecommerce.

Shaun Brandt, co-founder of Oddit, is a designer and brand builder who is an expert at perfecting the customer journey and reducing friction points. His extensive agency experience (Shaun co-founded a product design agency that grew to 80 employees) helping brands grow enabled him to create Oddit. This first-of-its-kind CRO platform helps DTC brands boost conversion & strengthen loyalty.

Huron was co-founded by Matt Mullenax and Matt Terry. Both Matt’s have their own relationship with skincare. When Mullenax was growing up, he had bad skin and the only product that worked for him was extraordinarily overpriced. Matt Terry spent 25 years developing product for Estee Lauder leading corporate innovation & product development.

Kal Freese, co-founder of Taika chats with Blaine & Ramon about launching the functional coffee brand & how Taika leverages opportunities in Web3 to power brand, community, & product growth.

Ariel Vaisbort, Influencer Coordinator at OLIPOP, has plenty of firsthand knowledge on using influencers to grow a brand. In this episode of DTC POD, Ariel explains the best ways to collaborate with influencers and how influencers can pitch their services to a brand.

Colton Macaulay jumped on the TikTok bandwagon in 2018 and has since grown his audience to 10 Million+ fans. Today, he creates content for a number of brand partnerships—but it’s always the act of creating that comes first, and the monetary side second.

The concept for NooWave was brewing in Greg Frontiero’s head for six years before he was inspired to launch his nootropic coffee brand. 100% bootstrapped, Greg has succeeded by going into constant learning mode and learning from DTC founders who are several years ahead of him.

In this episode, CEO Sean Frank explains how Ridge purchased his boutique agency in order to jumpstart its growth. By diversifying in ad strategies and prioritizing content creation, their team is now poised to exceed 80 employees by the end of 2022.

Starday Foods may produce CPG products, but at heart, it’s an exciting new parent company platform that thrives off of a powerful data engine. After exposing gaps and interest in the F&B market, Starday is stepping up to fill those needs. Co-Founder Caroline McCarthy has lent her impressive background in tech to the endeavor, with acclaimed Michelin-starred chef Lena Kwak at her side as co-founder.

DTC cookware brand Made In was launched in 2017 as a resource for premium kitchen tools at a fraction of the price. In 2020, while most of the world shut down, their business grew by an astonishing 7x.

Brands are undervaluing one of the best organic channels out there: community. A community can act as the nucleus of your brand because it holds the instructions for your growth.

Co-Founder and Head of Product Matt Lanter joined us on DTC POD to explain how OpenStore works, and what inspired them to build it.

Olive oil is a saturated market, but Andrew Benin heard a siren song calling him to start his own CPG brand. An alum of DTC brands like Warby Parker and Magic Spoon, Andrew struck gold when he did two things: put the olive oil into a squeeze bottle, and decided to target middle America versus going boutique.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle was playing in the CRO space 6+ years ago, before it had even taken root in the headspace of most ecommerce brands. As the CEO of SplitBase, today Raphael is an advocate for a far more nuanced version of optimization.

When Michael Martocci dropped out of college, he had a new direction: entrepreneurship. Obsessed with learning and building things, Michael founded SwagUp in 2017, which has since grown to dominate the market for corporate and promotional swag.

It turns out that most traditional vitamins aren’t all that nourishing. Sara Cullen used her own health issues as a diving board to rethink the vitamin category entirely.

When makeup legend Bobbi Brown’s contract at her original company was up, she wasn’t ready to retire. Instead, she followed her clean beauty passion to bootstrap the DTC brand Jones Road Beauty.

Jarod Steffes co-founded Muddy Bites while he was a college student studying business management at Iowa State University. The irresistible snack is a treat that looks like the bottom of a sundae cone, and was a runaway success when they ran a crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter in 2019.

A conversion rate is the percentage of people who take action using your website. This can be a form submission, purchase, or anything else.

Daniel Snow was studying to become a dentist when his college experience took an unexpected turn: he became an entrepreneur making millions in revenue before graduating.

Branding can take a lot of time and effort, but the payoff is huge. Designing your brand to match the current market trends, keeping up with what people are saying about your brand, and keeping an eye on your customers will help you increase your brand performance.

New brands are always popping out of the woodwork. But Chris Meade took a different approach when he founded CROSSNET, which created an entirely new sport

Your company’s customer service, support, and experience are important indicators of your brand’s success.