Retail War Games

Recorded live at the Retail Collective Summit, this panel of elite industry leaders and marketing executives dismantles a massive industry fallacy: consumers aren't obsessed with your brand, they are obsessed with themselves. To drive real loyalty, speakers explain why companies must tap into the "identity layer," ritualizing products so that using them says something bold about the consumer's own lifestyle. The discussion delivers an honest reality check on the current oversaturated creator landscape, outlining why transactional brand deals fail and why true marketing conversion requires co-creating authentic content alongside target communities.

The panelists also tackle the operational friction of investment strategy, mapping out how to balance short-term performance metrics with long-term brand equity campaigns that require patience to mature. By breaking down the essential connection between product design timelines and upstream marketing teams, this session offers an integrated playbook on how to build a unified brand engine that successfully captures consumer attention and drives sustainable growth.

Moderators: Matt Behrend & Daniel Lemaire - Agility Ads

Panelists: Kristin Harrer (FMR. VANS, Samsung, T-Mobile, Nike) - Jacob Zuppke (Whisker) - Larry D. Hall Jr. (LHSC Inc) - Nathan Wigglesworth (Wigz)

In this second installment, Spretail CEO Joshua Ketter shares why he left early retirement after his time at Amazon to lead a multi-billion dollar e-commerce turnaround through the post-COVID supply chain crisis. Joshua delivers a profound lesson on the hardest balancing act in executive leadership: maintaining hyper-efficient business outcomes while extending true human grace and mentorship to struggling employees. Finally, he breaks down Spretail's unique "corporate athlete" culture, explaining how tracking and prioritizing employee sleep cut corporate healthcare costs in half and drastically reduced emergency room visits.

In this episode, serial entrepreneur Nate Alder shares how he built the global outdoor brand Klymit and launched his new venture, Skavengerz. Nate breaks down how he created his first Klymit prototypes for just $150 by hacking together Gore-Tex jackets, wine preservation valves, and Reebok Pump shoes—proving how extreme capital constraints force the creativity needed to scale a brand to a successful acquisition. He also introduces Skavengerz, a geofencing platform designed to pull families off digital screens and reward them for gathering life experiences in nature. Throughout the conversation, Nate delivers a masterclass on modern startup execution, explaining why rapid iteration velocity is the ultimate predictor of business success today.

Recorded live at the summit, this panel featuring sports industry experts and elite athletes from the NCAA, NFL, NBA, and MLB addresses a massive missed opportunity for modern retail brands: the fact that while almost all companies spend heavily on advertising, very few tap into the high-conversion power of strategic athlete alignments. Featuring rare insights from sports icons like Greg Oden and Jonathan Lucroy alongside current college standouts, the panelists pull back the curtain on how they define their identities off the field and navigate short career windows. The discussion delivers a reality check on the absolute death of the "forced endorsement," explaining why genuine product alignment and long-term equity models consistently outperform large, one-time checks. The group also tackles the complex mechanics of navigating the current middle-class market of NIL, handling the transfer portal, and managing brand safety through legal moral clauses, serving as the ultimate playbook for modern sports marketing.

Moderators: Russell White (Athlete Advantage) & Ethan Zakarin (Excel Sports)

Panelists: Greg Oden (Former NBA) Jonathan Lucroy (Former MLB All-Star) Austin Collie (Former NFL/BYU Wide Receiver) Eric Mika (Former BYU/Pro Basketball Player) Tiger Bachmeier & Bear Bachmeier (NCAA Football Players)

In this episode, I sit down with Don Alexander, owner of the nearly 100-year-old family business behind the premium firewood storage brand, Woodhaven. Operating out of Parsons, Kansas, since 1927, this company has achieved what few family enterprises ever do: reaching four generations of continuous family ownership and operation. Don pulls back the curtain on their incredible evolutionary journey, tracing how they started as a raw woodworking and aluminum casting foundry, transitioned into machine tool and equipment design, and ultimately vertically integrated into a massive, consumer-focused manufacturing power house.

Throughout our conversation, Don drops incredible operational insights on managing an absolute 100% American-made manufacturing setup. He explains how they navigate volatile steel markets and raw international supply chain pressures—such as how tariffs directly squeezed his bottom line on imported rack covers—and his strategic pivot to bring all textiles back to domestic production. Don also breaks down a fascinating shift in e-commerce behaviors, revealing why consumers buy lower-priced items on Amazon but leave the marketplace to buy higher-ticket items directly from the brand's own website. Finally, he shares the unvarnished realities of running a multi-generational business, outlining his approach to passing an asset down to his sons without forcing a passion, and the ironic secret to surviving for an entire century.

In this keynote session from the Retail Collective Summit on May 4–5, 2026, Stanley 1913 President and CEO Matt Navarro outlines the strategic playbook used to turn a viral, 113-year-old historic icon into a sustainable global lifestyle powerhouse. Matt pulls back the curtain on how the brand shifted its focus from standard hot-beverage vessels to a female-centric "color revolution" that treats hydration as a fashion accessory. He explains that while strategic decisions and early influencer adopters like The Buy Guide sparked their viral growth, long-term brand equity relies entirely on executing an aggressive diversification strategy across products, consumers, and geography.

Matt details how Stanley built a massive international footprint—with 40% of its business now outside North America—by stage-gating expansion into structured retail networks across Europe, Asia, and Latin America. He shares how Stanley is systematically expanding into new product categories like mobility, storage, and soft goods. Finally, Matt covers the evolution of high-impact global celebrity collaborations like Karol G and sports icon Lionel Messi, while highlighting the critical integration of chief technology and brand marketing teams to capture the next wave of AI-driven, highly specific consumer search behaviors.

In this episode of Retail War Games, I sit down with Natalie Roberts, the Director of Business Development at Easy Healthcare Corporation. Natalie transitioned from a corporate background at 3M to join a startup that completely disrupted and dominated the highly competitive fertility landscape with their flagship brand, Premom.

We pull back the curtain on how Easy Healthcare achieved rare-air status in consumer goods, delivering over 680 million tests across 150 countries. Natalie explains their ultimate competitive differentiator: a physical-digital flywheel that combines high-quality physical testing products with an incredibly powerful tracking app under one roof. We also dive into the brutal realities of scaling into major retail chains like CVS, how to navigate aggressive payment terms, and why building a bulletproof foundation with smaller retailers is the ultimate way to de-risk your supply chain.

Recorded live at the Retail Collective Summit on May 4–5, 2026, moderators Sean Reyes and Robert Axon host a powerhouse panel featuring Nate Checketts (Rhone), Matt Navarro (Stanley), Brian Garofalow (Skullcandy), and Nate Alder (Klymit). This session bypasses retail buzzwords to expose how iconic consumer goods brands build fierce emotional connection and community loyalty. The executives open up about their biggest operational hurdles, from Matt Navarro fixing Stanley's crumbling infrastructure during a period of explosive, viral growth to Nate Checketts buying back Rhone from private equity to protect a 50-year brand-first vision over short-term fund cycles.

Brian Garofalow reveals how Skullcandy completely flipped a negative brand perception by launching a low-cost, high-impact product partnership with Bose, while Nate Alder details how Klymit used rapid CNC beta testing to give users a sense of product ownership. Together, they deliver a blunt masterclass on navigating Shopify scale, data analytics, and embracing the patient, multi-year journey required to build an authentic legacy brand.

Moderators: Sean Reyes & Robert Axon

Panelists: Brian Garofalow, Nate Checketts, Matt Navarro, Nate Alder

In this episode of Retail War Games, I sat down with Gary Mac Herring, owner of Mary Mack's Inc., for a conversation rooted in pure entrepreneurial grit. Starting with a 19-year-old's payphone-operated snow cone stand, Gary explains how the lawless freedom of a 1980s childhood shaped his business philosophy: giving teams the room to make mistakes, get messy, and hustle is the only way to build resilience. Gary pulls back the curtain on cutting out middlemen, sharing the wild story of flying blind to the 2008 Canton Fair to secure direct, handshake-driven relationships with suppliers that established their 20-year manufacturing moat.

We also break down a massive retail achievement: how Mary Mack's vertically integrated team successfully launched two entirely separate CPG brands into Target nationwide and a third of Walmart within a single two-week window. From the stark logistical realities of managing national 3PL fulfillment to the humbling "crickets" that often follow a seemingly perfect major industry trade show, Gary drops a phenomenal, low-key masterclass on what it truly takes to sell fun in a box and build an indestructible commercial brand.

In this episode of Retail War Games, recorded live at the Retail Collective Summit on May 4–5, 2026, Skullcandy CEO Brian Garofalow breaks down the high-stakes reality of global retail expansion. Moving past lifestyle hype, Brian introduces his "home remodel rule," giving founders a blunt reality check on why international scaling routinely takes twice as long and costs three times as much as projected. He walks us through how Skullcandy uses real-time point-of-sale data to evaluate market size to the penny, while warning executives about the massive internal opportunity costs of dividing focus away from their core domestic market.

We explore the hidden tactical barriers of global trade, from strict international battery compliance to navigating protectionist protocols like India's manufacturing mandates and MercadoLibre's platform dominance in Latin America. Brian also outlines the unique culture-building investments that keep Skullcandy authentic—such as paying for employee lift passes and reimbursing live concert tickets—ensuring his team genuinely lives the brand. Finally, he shares his personal transition from CMO to CEO, delivering a powerful lesson on learning to conduct the entire orchestra rather than trying to be the best violin player in the room.