Operators

“People buy things to fill gaps in their life.” 

Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge) and Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi) unpack consumer behavior in ecommerce. They cover the emotional triggers behind buying, the offers that convert, and the buying journeys online shopping takes today. The real driver of your marketing strategies is the offer itself, not the checkout experience. 

People buy out of convenience, fear of loss, identity, and scarcity … long before logic enters the picture. Ridge’s expansion from wallets into rings shows how one brand layered new customer angles onto a single product. Influencer partnerships, social media, user-generated content (UGC), and paid ads each serve a different role in building trust. 

Powered By 

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/ 

“People buy things to fill gaps in their life.” 

Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge) and Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi) unpack consumer behavior in ecommerce. They cover the emotional triggers behind buying, the offers that convert, and the buying journeys online shopping takes today. The real driver of your marketing strategies is the offer itself, not the checkout experience. 

People buy out of convenience, fear of loss, identity, and scarcity … long before logic enters the picture. Ridge’s expansion from wallets into rings shows how one brand layered new customer angles onto a single product. Influencer partnerships, social media, user-generated content (UGC), and paid ads each serve a different role in building trust. 

Powered By 

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/ 

What are the five ways ecommerce owners actually get paid?

Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge), Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi), Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern), and Curtis Mastko (CEO, Portland Leather Goods) break down five real ways ecommerce operators get paid. Each path trades speed for risk, and none of them is easy money. 

Valuation sets the ceiling, and buyers lean on EBITDA multiples to get there. Distributions are where most operators get paid, if they resist reinvesting too much. Debt speeds that timeline up, though it comes loaded with risk. The episode ends on salary, pitting one founder’s restraint against another’s ambition. 

Powered By

Fulfil

https://9ops.co/fulfil 

Richpanel

https://9ops.co/richpanel

Northbeam

https://www.northbeam.io/

Saras Analytics

https://bit.ly/9OP-Ytdesc

Postscript

https://9ops.co/postscript

Aftersell

https://9ops.co/4i3bb5

Operators Newsletter

https://9operators.com/

“We ended up selling twenty-two thousand units that day.” 

How did two founders build a multi-million-dollar brush brand without outside investors?

Lisa Jauregui and Paul Jauregui, Co-Founders of BK Beauty, join Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case and Lomi) and Katy Mimiari (CEO, Caden Lane) to break down the affiliate marketing strategy that took a makeup brush brand from a living room operation to millions in sales. No outside funding. No paid influencer deals. 

Lisa built a beauty audience on YouTube for five years before BK Beauty launched. A brand focused entirely on brushes for years before expanding into new categories. That focus led the brand to handle twenty two thousand orders in a single day, all fulfilled in house. The conversation covers creator tiers inside TikTok Shop, and why margin matters more than almost anything else in ecommerce. 

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 launch your ads today with our exclusive link: https://applovin.com/9operators. 

“The scale is not going to fix your problems.” 

What separates a hundred million dollar ecommerce brand from the rest? 

Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge), Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi), Jason Panzer (President, HexClad), and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) break down the eight rules to build a hundred million dollar ecommerce brand in 2026. These are not theories: each host has built a brand at this exact scale. 

Mike breaks down why Trevi chased profitable unit economics for a year before scaling. Sean calls reorder revenue the ultimate cheat code, and explains why he built Ridge around chasing it. Jason closes on hiring rigor, where a LinkedIn check now decides every offer. 

Powered By

Fulfil

https://9ops.co/fulfil 

Richpanel

https://9ops.co/richpanel

Northbeam

https://www.northbeam.io/

Saras Analytics

https://bit.ly/9OP-Ytdesc

Postscript

https://9ops.co/postscript

Aftersell

https://9ops.co/4i3bb5

Operators Newsletter

https://9operators.com/

Help an Operator Out (HAOO) is a series where real business owners join the podcast with live questions. In this episode, Elaine Tran (Founder & CEO, Dippin’ Daisy’s) brings the hardest problem in owning a factory: keeping the lines running without drowning in inventory. 

The conversation covers owning a factory versus buying from suppliers, managing excess off-season capacity, and launching a new category without it flopping. Sean makes the case that contract manufacturing for other brands can keep the lines running without adding to her own glut. And everyone lands on the same fix nobody’s using: better ecommerce marketing + merchandising. 

Powered By 

Fulfil 

https://9ops.co/fulfil 

Richpanel 

https://9ops.co/richpanel 

Northbeam 

https://www.northbeam.io/ 

Saras Analytics 

https://bit.ly/9OP-Ytdesc 

Postscript 

https://9ops.co/postscript 

Aftersell 

https://9ops.co/4i3bb5 

Operators Newsletter 

https://9operators.com/ 

“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. 

Powered By 

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/ 

"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. 

Powered By

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/⁠

“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. 

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 launch your ads today with our exclusive link: https://applovin.com/9operators.