Social commerce only works when brands treat TikTok Shop as infrastructure, not a campaign. Pete D learned that inside TikTok, and now runs his own TikTok Shop agency.

He joins Mike for a candid conversation about why discovery on the feed and the sale in the store are the same journey, how to tell if TikTok Shop is even right for your brand, and what really separates affiliate creators from influencers.

Connect with Pete: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pete-dick/

Connect with Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pimsmikeryan/

After a decade as a creator. Aja Dang has thoughts on where brand-creator relationships go next: brands become the creator.

She joins Mike for a candid conversation about her own pivot era, the AI brand deals she walks away from on principle, and what changes when a brand decides to build its own creator function in-house.

Connect with Aja: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajadang/

Connect with Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pimsmikeryan/

Maria Karr says the unboxing experience is a story, not a box. After two decades across agency, in-house, bootstrap, and incubator seats, she has built brands at every scale.

She joins Mike for a candid conversation about why brand affinity comes before paid creator deals, how "cheap, fast, or quality, pick two" still drives 99% of project decisions, and what Maesa learned building AI-generated worlds for its fragrance brand Finery.

Connect with Maria: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-karr-05a80a31/

Connect with Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pimsmikeryan/

Devin Graciano took protein out of professional haircare and built Goldie Locks around what she saw from the chair.

She joins Mike for a candid conversation about going back to school for chemistry as a working stylist, how her partnership with McKenzie Turley actually works, and how a bootstrapped team thinks about influencer PR boxes when the budget isn't $50 million.

Connect with Devin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devin-graciano-04098824/

Connect with Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pimsmikeryan/

The offices Jenny Wolf's commercial clients ask for don't feel like offices. They feel like home.

Jenny, founder of Jenny Wolf Interiors and The Huntress, joins Mike to talk about why home is a feeling, not just a look, her "10% design, 90% problem solving" framing of the work, and a Hudson, NY, auction story that ends in 2026 with a piece she first spotted in a 2016 magazine.

Connect with Jenny: https://www.instagram.com/jennywolfinteriors/

Connect with Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pimsmikeryan/

Ian Michael Crumm built Boys in Beauty around a simple idea: beauty doesn't have to be gendered. In this candid conversation, Ian walks Mike through the line connecting his esthetician practice, his Times Square billboard for the Melanoma Research Foundation, and his collective to democratize beauty for men. Inside: why community beats audience size, what brands get wrong about the men's market, and how a "beauty spectrum" replaces the old grooming-vs-makeup divide.

Connect with Ian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-michael-crumm-7a28a741/

Mike Rovner has spent 30 years in New York advertising and now runs a successful independent shop. Whether he's teaching his City College grad students or the junior creatives at TiNY Ad Agency, he tells them the same thing year after year: an execution is not an idea.

A candid conversation on why most creative work fails the insight test, what AI gets right and wrong, and the open secret of influencer marketing.

Connect with Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikerovner/

Connect with Tiny: https://www.tinyadagency.com/

Conor Begley and Joe Cloyes spent $25K testing the top 20 US beers. What they found led to Fathers Brewing, a clean American lager that won gold before it hit Whole Foods.

A candid conversation on the clean beer playbook: why taste had to win before the clean story, how they ran a Super Bowl activation while selling in two counties, and why the real influencers in beer are bartenders, not Instagram.

Connect with Fathers: https://www.fathersbrewing.com/

Connect with Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pimsmikeryan/

Bryan Daniels turned brewery spent grain into a granola bar business. What's it like to run the whole thing solo?

He tells Mike how a beer hobby became All Good Craft Granola Bars, what closing his cafe taught him, and why compostable packaging is back on the roadmap.

Connect with Bryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-daniels-vb/

All Good Granola: https://www.allgoodgranolabars.com/

Connect with Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pimsmikeryan/

Nick Howard has a three-part framework for where AI actually works inside a company. Most businesses skip straight to the tools and miss the strategy entirely.

He tells Mike why the first conversation should never be about technology, what he learned building a podcast to 1.8M downloads, and why the most exciting AI isn't the public-facing stuff.

Connect with Nick:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nhow/

https://imperfectinformation.beehiiv.com/

https://ambleandco.com/

Connect with Mike:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pimsmikeryan/

https://www.pimsinc.com

[email protected]