Jessie chats with Ruben Posthuma, Head of Sales & Marketing at Dr. Bugs Popcorn, a New Zealand-based brand shaking up the snack aisle with indulgent popcorn made for adults. Ruben shares how the business went from a lifestyle venture to a DTC powerhouse—scaling 10x in revenue—thanks to inventive flavors, smart ad strategies, and clever product development.

We dive into the brand’s monthly flavour drop strategy, UGC playbook, balancing DTC vs. retail, optimizing subscription boxes, and how Dr. Bugs manages to keep CACs low while fuelling consistent growth. This one is packed with gold for food brand operators and marketers alike. 

What we cover in this episode:

• How Ruben helped grow the brand 10x in 7 years
• The strategy behind monthly limited-edition flavour drops
• The UGC-first paid ad engine that fuels Meta success
• How they manage SKU creep without killing margin
• Balancing grocery pricing with DTC offers and bundles
• Subscription product design: why less is sometimes more
• The difference between creators vs. influencers and how they use each
• How content energy > polish for ad performance
• Using product innovation to unlock new consumer “wallet buckets”
• Ruben’s playbook for launching new products & driving retention
• CRO strategies that actually moved the needle
• If Ruben had to double revenue in 12 months, here’s exactly what he’d do

Links & Resources:

• Dr. Bugs Popcorn
• Ruben on Twitter

Want to boost revenue without increasing ad spend? Jesse Kay from VYBER Media breaks down the most effective email and SMS automation strategies for eCommerce brands. 

Learn how to:

•  Keep customers engaged with personalized content
•  Increase conversions with smart segmentation
•  Use SMS strategically without annoying your audience
•  Build automations that generate revenue while you sleep

If you're still sending one-size-fits-all emails, this episode will change the way you think about retention marketing.

Timestamps:
[00:00] Intro to Jesse K and VYBER Media
[03:20] Why segmentation is the key to higher email revenue
[08:15] How to create engaging content beyond product promos
[12:30] The right way to scale email frequency without increasing unsubscribes
[18:45] SMS best practices: When and how to use it effectively
[24:10] The most profitable automation flows every brand should have
[30:00] Loyalty programs and micro-influencers: Unlocking hidden revenue
[36:40] The role of founders in email marketing—should they be the face of the brand?

Resources & Links:
Connect with Jesse Kay: VYBER Media
Email Jesse: [email protected]
Follow Jesse K on social media

John Horn has worked on over 1000 Google Ad accounts and is here to give us the low down. 

Here's what we cover: 

• Why Performance Max is king - but only with guardrails. 
• How Standard shopping still has a place. 
• What Google Demand Gen Campaigns are, and why they are the new frontier.

Plus we discuss how 3rd Party Attribution can sometimes be more of a hindrance than a help.

This week we are diving into a cool new tool that allows you to finally get those elusive social followers to take action, join your email or SMS list and start buying from you - all with automated DMs that are totally free of friction (and admin).

Jesse is the New York based co-founder of HiTide, the social SMS & Email list growth platform for Shopify brands. Before HiTide, Jesse scaled teams at two industry transforming martech startups with $800M cumulative exits. Other career highlights include time at Google as part of the early ad exchange team, and Meta where he helped build out Meta's multi $B ad network API business.

Check out GoHiTide.com now or drop the team a note at [email protected]

Understanding the effectiveness of your marketing efforts’ is crucial, but figuring out how feels impossible.

One way to do this is through attribution—the process of figuring out which touchpoints or platforms get credit for driving sales.

Phoenix Ha, long-time Meta media buyer and marketer, now CEO and co-founder of the attribution platform AdBeacon is here to demystify the murky world of attribution for you.

Omer Hazer from Atlas Ventures is here to break down the exact strategy he uses for his clients to successfully double their email revenue.

Omer breaks it down step-by-step so you can cut and paste it directly into your business.

Want the full strategy breakdown?

Email Omer at [email protected] or connect through LinkedIn.

Mike Rhodes recently exited his Google Ads Agency and now spends his time playing with AI - he's here to chat you through some super fun and easy ways you can start thinking about using AI, without it feeling overwhelming and scary.

After this chat I have already started doing new things with AI that I never thought possible. Prepare to be inspired!

https://mikerhodes.circle.so/home 

Benjamin Gold is a serial eComm entrepreneur, investor and agency-owner and he is here to tell us why SEO could be the secret to unlocking growth in your eComm at a fraction of the cost of paid ads

He drops some huge nuggets on the call that you can implement right away on your Shopify Store.

- Why SEO is one of the biggest leverage points to bring down cost per acquisition of eCom/Shopify businesses

- Shopify SEO Quick-Wins anyone can apply today to increase their organic traffic and revenue

- How to leverage SEO/keyword data to be more strategic about business/product line expansion and increase your AOV & LTV

- Lessons from generating $29.6M with organic traffic in Shopify sales

-Which three places to include the target keyword and how to include it in your description.

-How to use Chat GPT to help optimise your descriptions.

If you sell your products in retail and have been wondering how to connect better with those customers - you are in luck. This week we have Kait Stephens here to talk to us about a new technology that allows you to get those mysteries retail shoppers onto your Klaviyo list, and even better you can also create promos that they can redeem in store, and track - without having to involve and negotiate with retailers.

For the first time ever - a solo episode from me - here to tell you my story of how I got here! 
From random grad jobs, to lots of travel, and then being forced into entrepreneurship at 7 months pregnant - here is my no-holds-barred story! 
Want to connect - find all my socials and my newsletter at www.jessiehealy.com