The Margin Room

Andrea Wissing financed law school in Brazil by waxing, moved to the United States at 35, sat in an American classroom to requalify as a lawyer, and walked out. Eighteen years later Depil Brazil Waxing Studio is eight studios across Texas and Florida serving more than forty thousand clients a year, with a skincare line on top of it.

This is a service business with DTC mechanics, and Andrea runs it like one. She breaks down the rebooking math out loud: 52 weeks divided by a three, four or five week cycle, times clients per month, times average ticket. Her KPI is 70 percent rebooking. Her line is that a technician who books a client at four weeks when the cycle is three has left a lot of money on the table, just like a car mileage.

She is also mid pivot, and says so on tape. After fifteen years known for waxing, she is repositioning the whole business into intimate care, because the hair was never the product. Her words: it is not about the hair, the hair just needs to get out of the way so I can treat the skin that delivers the confidence. The product line moves from single products to protocols to support it.

The back half is the operator detail. Three marketing agencies, some of them in Brazil at a one to five exchange rate, because the ads became an auction. Meevo, a custom app with GPS reminders, Shopify and a partial Amazon listing. Why she outsources marketing even when she could staff it. Her most expensive mistake, which was not capital. And the 1 percent rule she learned the hard way at seven years old: if you are the visionary and the hands on, keep 1 percent more, so you stay the decision maker.

CHAPTERS

00:00 She sat in the classroom and knew she was not going back to law

00:54 Intro: 18 years, eight studios, forty thousand clients a year

05:33 Repositioning the whole business into intimate care

07:44 It is not about the hair, it is about the skin and the confidence

09:26 What caused the waxing boom, and what is causing the squeeze

13:10 If you are in a group, you are in the mediocrity

14:06 Why she built a waxing business instead of practicing law

16:16 Her father died when she was seven, and what it cost the family

18:53 The 1 percent rule: stay the decision maker

20:13 Rebooking, retention, and a 70 percent KPI

20:47 The math: 52 weeks divided by the cycle, times clients, times ticket

22:25 Forty thousand clients a year, and how many buy skincare

23:31 Selling protocols, not single products

24:30 She could not afford the $500 minimum. Now she orders $25,000 a product

28:43 Tab's Chocolate, zero to eight figures in twenty four months

29:44 Email, SMS, and what happens between visits

33:59 The stack: Meevo, a custom app, GPS reminders, Shopify and Amazon

34:13 Three agencies, some in Brazil, to stretch the budget

35:06 The ads nowadays became an auction

39:25 Hire internally or outsource: how she decides

42:17 Why three specialists and never one generalist

48:08 The most expensive mistake, and it was not money

51:19 Eighteen years in, why she is still doing this

53:54 Where to find Andrea

GUEST: ANDREA WISSING

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amissdallas/

Depil Brazil Waxing Studio: https://depilbrazilwaxing.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/depilbrazilwaxing

HOST: MOSOPE (SHOPÉ) ADEYEMI

Website: https://allofshope.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mosope-adeyemi-b5418a14b/

Instagram: http://instagram.com/allofshope

Agency: https://buildingblockdigital.com

ABOUT THE SHOW

The Margin Room is an ecommerce podcast for early-stage DTC founders building from zero to seven figures, presented by Building Block Digital, a world-class retention agency for 6-8 figure brands.

Make your first $100,000 from your Shopify Store. Join my FREE Skool community, Email/SMS Foundation; https://www.skool.com/emailsms-marketing-mastery-6619/about?ref=3095ac343f15469fb691fa62857d2f5e

#shopify #dtc #ecom #emailmarketing

Josh Sprague has been building direct to consumer since 2012, before DTC was a category anyone used in a sentence. Orange Mud started as a gun holster he tore apart in his garage and turned into a hydration pack. It now sells in over 500 stores across 40 countries. Seven Clay, the manufacturing business he started in 2019 out of frustration with his own suppliers, is now bigger than Orange Mud.

This is the part of DTC that rarely makes it into a post. Josh walks through the February he had to wire off 1.26 million dollars he did not have, what six months of factory shutdown did to his cashflow, and why containers went from 4,000 dollars to 38,000 dollars overnight. He explains where margin actually goes when tariffs, shipping increases and China direct sellers on Amazon all move at once.

He is also honest about the metrics. A 56 percent reorder rate inside 12 months, and he still refuses to build a long term strategy around LTV. Meta reporting 5 to 10 times ROAS while his server side attribution says something very different. Eight hours a week spent studying attribution, because the alternative is money down a drain he cannot see.

The back half is about getting out of your own way: putting EOS into three businesses, hiring a full time web developer and an executive assistant, and taking himself out of importance through system definition. His one takeaway for early stage founders is to map the full pipeline, acquisition to conversion to post purchase, before spending another dollar on ads.

CHAPTERS00:00 The 1.26 million dollar wire he did not have00:17 Intro: 14 years of DTC, behind the scenes02:17 Why Orange Mud is still standing past year three04:15 Why he kept his day job for the first two years06:58 The ambassador community, and stepping back from it08:44 Years three to five, and the cashflow learning curve10:37 Inventory replenishment, and the wire that scared him12:25 What COVID permanently changed14:55 Relentless price increases across USPS, Meta, Google and Amazon16:29 Tariffs, China direct on Amazon, and margin erosion18:09 The number one product sold on Amazon21:33 Why brand is the only real moat left23:06 Meta is a blessing and a curse24:15 Postcards, email, and why he resists SMS25:38 A 56 percent reorder rate, and what he does with it29:14 What Meta reports versus what server side attribution says30:22 Why he refuses to plan around LTV35:16 EOS, and taking himself out of importance38:58 The one expense founders treat as optional41:07 Conversion tracking, and money down the attribution drain44:12 Map the whole customer journey, acquisition to conversion47:04 Why Seven Clay started out of spite49:29 One thing for an early stage founder50:14 Where to find Josh

GUEST: JOSH SPRAGUEOrange Mud: https://orangemud.comSeven Clay: https://sevenclay.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshsprague/Instagram: @orangemud and @sevenclay

HOST: MOSOPE (SHOPÉ) ADEYEMIWebsite: https://allofshope.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mosope-adeyemi-b5418a14b/Instagram: @allofshopeAgency: https://buildingblockdigital.com

ABOUT THE SHOWThe Margin Room is an ecommerce podcast for early-stage DTC founders building from zero to seven figures, presented by Building Block Digital, a world-class retention agency for 6-8 figure brands.

💰 Make your first $100,000 from your Shopify Store. Join my FREE Skool community, Email/SMS Foundation; https://www.skool.com/emailsms-marketing-mastery-6619/about?ref=3095ac343f15469fb691fa62857d2f5e

#shopify #dtc #ecom #emailmarketing

Kim Rogers did not plan to start a business. In 2019 she was seriously ill, bankrupt from medical bills and living in a trailer while her husband built their log home. By 2021 she had gone viral on TikTok talking about parasite cleansing, and the audience wanted a product she could stand behind.

So she built one. With $6,210 and a friend she met on TikTok, Kim launched RogersHood Apothecary out of 175 square feet in a backyard. The first 250 ParaFy kits sold in about a minute. Four and a half years later RogersHood is a multi-million dollar brand with 45 employees, its own custom-built manufacturing facility, around 3,500 affiliates and an email list of more than 450,000 subscribers. It has never taken on debt, and its first paid ad ran three days before this conversation.

This episode is the operator's view of how that happened. Kim breaks down why an in-house affiliate program was her first and only plan (10% commission, 10% off, and a free kit for every affiliate), what her margins actually look like (10-30%, with nearly everything reinvested), and why she keeps manufacturing, fulfilment and marketing under one roof in a category where platforms regularly remove her.

She is candid about the hard parts too. Losing 26 social accounts. Being told by Stripe that it was removing her, and switching payment processors in five days. Letting go of a high-performing email marketer who did not fit the team, and watching sales drop. Waiting years to hire a marketing right hand, and what she would do differently.

CHAPTERS

00:00 The Worm Queen goes viral

00:16 From 20 years in healthcare to founder

01:48 Building nine things at once

03:10 Organic only: the first paid ad was three days ago

05:40 Profitable in the first hour on a $6,210 launch

07:02 From 175 square feet to a custom-built facility

09:08 "Zero to a million in a couple of months"

11:31 How 250 kits sold in a minute

13:34 Why affiliates were the first and only plan

16:24 The website, the FDA and free education

18:52 The health crisis behind the brand

23:43 Why share the journey publicly

30:23 Is virality engineered? The green screen cheat code

33:03 Kim's view on prevention

40:40 Margins: 10-30%, almost all of it reinvested

43:24 45 employees and full vertical integration

44:23 Why everything stays in-house

49:44 Running 3,500 affiliates in-house

52:31 The tech stack for a regulated-adjacent brand

54:18 Dropped by Stripe, new processor in five days

57:50 Why an in-house affiliate manager beats a firm

1:00:30 Why email is the one thing she outsources

1:01:45 Cutting a top performer who didn't fit

1:03:07 The first-purchase journey

1:04:16 Subscriptions and nurture flows

1:06:14 A 450,000-subscriber email list

1:07:04 The cheat code: make it on TikTok, post it everywhere

1:09:14 Creator or operator?

1:10:46 Who watches the metrics

1:13:24 Hire your right hand before you scale

1:15:40 What keeps her going, and the fear underneath

1:16:08 Next: retail

1:21:07 Going into retail without sacrificing DTC

1:22:41 From food stamps to multi-millions

1:23:49 Holding prices to protect the community

1:25:01 Where to find Kim

CONNECT WITH KIM ROGERS

RogersHood: https://rogershood.com

Instagram: @mrsrogers.hood

TikTok: @mrsrogershood

Podcast: What's Eating U?! (YouTube and all podcast platforms)

CONNECT WITH SHOPE

Instagram: @allofshope

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mosope-adeyemi-b5418a14b/

The Margin Room is an ecommerce podcast for early-stage DTC founders building from zero to seven figures, presented by Building Block Digital, a world-class retention agency for 6-8 figure brands.

[MONEYBAG] Make your first $100,000 from your Shopify Store. Join my FREE Skool community, Email/SMS Foundation; https://www.skool.com/emailsms-marketing-mastery-6619/about?ref=3095ac343f15469fb691fa62857d2f5e

#shopify #dtc #ecom #emailmarketing

Jason Scott did not set out to build a company. He set out to understand mushrooms, and the market decided it wanted what he was making.

Nine years later Feral Fungi is a low to mid seven figure medicinal mushroom brand that does almost everything in house: sourcing, extracting, bottling, shipping. In a category full of marketing companies that outsource production, Jason built the opposite, and he has held that line for nine years. The complexity of that choice shows up in his week, every week, and he takes it on willingly.

This episode is the operational reality behind that decision, and Jason is unusually open about all of it. Jason breaks down what his margins actually look like when you own the manufacturing (around 10% net, after heavy reinvestment), why B2B pays worse per unit but keeps the lights on, and why his own branded DTC side is still only 10 to 20% of revenue despite being the part he most wants to grow.

He is also generous with the parts most founders leave out. Outgrowing the people you can afford. The year he tried growing his own mushrooms and made the call to stop. The inventory software that waited months before mentioning it could not process his payments. The marketing agency that forgot to manage the Google account he was paying them for.

If you are building a quality first brand in a category full of people chasing the fad, Jason is proof it can be done, and honest about what it takes.

CHAPTERS

00:00 The industry shows that made him question all of it

00:18 Building a DTC brand: the reality

03:24 Growing pains when you fund everything out of pocket

06:07 When the business grows faster than the people

08:21 Why marketing is the hardest thing to hand off

12:24 Looking for the right operator

13:13 What actually drove the last four years of growth

15:41 The hidden costs behind a product's price

17:11 B2B vs DTC: margins against cash flow

19:34 Closing the gap on the branded side

24:32 The channels he is testing now

26:23 Email, SMS and the attribution black hole

30:50 Two costly calls, and what he took from them

34:21 Integrity in a fad driven category

38:10 Mushrooms, modern medicine and the active ingredient problem

44:49 What he would do with an extra 30K a month

========================

CONNECT WITH JASON SCOTT

Feral Fungi: https://feralfungi.com

Instagram: @feralfungi

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-scott-43137358/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FeralFungi/

========================

CONNECT WITH SHOPE

Instagram: @allofshope

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mosope-adeyemi-b5418a14b/

The Margin Room is an ecommerce podcast for early-stage DTC founders building from zero to seven figures, presented by Building Block Digital, a world-class retention agency for 7-8 figure brands.

💰 Make your first $100,000 from your Shopify Store. Join the FREE Skool community, Email/SMS Foundation; https://www.skool.com/emailsms-marketing-mastery-6619/about?ref=3095ac343f15469fb691fa62857d2f5e

Other titles for the algo:

How a 7 figure mushroom brand actually makes its money

The margin math behind making your own product

B2B vs DTC: which one actually pays the bills

Why 10% net margin is a good number when you manufacture

The real cost of refusing to cut corners in a fad category

Music licensed through Soundstripe.

Code: GUUXCIVBOMGA4PKC

#shopify #dtc #ecom #emailmarketing

Matthias De Potter is the founder of Aspilon Cosmetics, a Belgian beauty brand built for people with skin differences: port wine stains, vitiligo, rosacea, burn scars. He was born with a port wine stain and spent over a decade looking for makeup that would cover it without wrecking his skin. It didn't exist, so he built it with Dr. Barbara Geusens, a bio-engineer with a PhD in dermatology.

Three months in, the brand is tracking towards $200K in annual revenue off 20-30 million TikTok views in a single 30-day window. It is also, in his own words, not profitable yet.

This is an unusually candid conversation about what that stage really looks like. Matthias walks through the 15,000-20,000 person email list he built before launch using surveys that doubled as market validation, why email and SMS still drive only 5-10% of revenue, the in-house shade matcher and face scan built to convert cold traffic, and the manufacturing lead times that had customers waiting months. He also explains the mistake that cost him: skipping pre-production samples and ordering more than 10,000 units in the wrong colour.

The middle of the episode goes somewhere else. Matthias talks about being stared at every day, about going to bed hoping he'd wake up and it would be gone. One in four people with a facial skin difference suffers clinical anxiety or depression. That's the market he serves, and he's a member of it.

If you're building a brand where you are the proof of concept, this one is worth your time.

⏱️ Timestamps

00:00 Cold open

00:09 Intro: The Margin Room

01:32 Meet Matthias De Potter, founder of Aspilon Cosmetics

03:06 30M TikTok views vs bootstrapped cash flow

04:42 What feels earned, what feels fragile

07:13 Personal account vs brand account

10:05 "What if TikTok stops working tomorrow?"

11:56 Off-platform community: associations and hospitals

13:31 Traffic that doesn't buy the first time

15:56 The email and SMS infrastructure, flow by flow

17:43 The email list: 15,000-20,000 people

18:05 Building the list before launch

19:31 Email and SMS: 5-10% of revenue

21:22 "Are you profitable?" "Not yet."

22:09 Answering the "he's just covering it up" comments

26:20 How he found his scientific co-founder

28:19 The crash that ended cycling

29:45 "What are you good at versus what do you love?"

32:01 The bullying, and what it costs

34:20 The mirror, in full

37:09 Fear as fuel

41:49 The two real bottlenecks

43:54 Where an extra $10K a month would go

45:04 10,000 units in the wrong colour

46:20 Where to find Matthias

🔗 Connect with Matthias: Website: aspiloncosmetics.com | Instagram: @aspiloncosmetics | TikTok: @aspiloncosmetics

🔗 Connect with Shopé: Instagram: @allofshope | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mosope-adeyemi-b5418a14b/

The Margin Room is an ecommerce podcast for early-stage DTC founders building from zero to seven figures, presented by Building Block Digital, a world-class retention agency for 6-8 figure brands.

💰 Make your first $100,000 from your Shopify Store. Join my FREE Skool community, Email/SMS Foundation; https://www.skool.com/emailsms-marketing-mastery-6619/about?ref=3095ac343f15469fb691fa62857d2f5e

#shopify #dtc #ecom #emailmarketing

Harri Magaldi is the founder of My Neighbors, a regenerative skincare brand built on beef tallow, seven ingredients or fewer, and single-origin sourcing from Hudson Valley farms. She was a derivatives trader at Morgan Stanley and UBS — the only woman on a desk of 13 men — until she left after maternity leave. Her daughter's eczema is the reason the company exists.

She started in her kitchen, launched at the Hudson farmers market as "the cancellation girl," and made $4,000 on her first morning. An Anthropologie buyer found her there. Two and a half years later she's in roughly 500 stores and forecasting over a thousand.

This one is unusually open about the numbers: margins in the nineties, a 28–32% six-week reorder rate against a beauty average of 20, $13–22 CAC, $109 AOV, and why she's deliberately unprofitable. We get into why she still manufactures in-house, the by-product loop that pays her local farmers twice, the $45,000 Oprah box that got a no, the 534-door deal that vanished, and the six-figure Black Friday that let her write herself a paycheck for the first time.

⏱️ Timestamps

00:00 — Cold open

00:12 — Intro: The Margin Room

01:33 — Meet Harri Magaldi, founder of My Neighbors

02:31 — Why beef tallow, and why the timing worked

03:41 — What's quietly stressing her out

05:54 — Why manufacturing stays in-house

06:48 — The by-product loop that pays farmers twice

09:13 — Her daughter's eczema and leaving Wall Street

12:34 — Business plan or desperate mom?

14:17 — "The cancellation girl": $4,000 on day one

16:26 — The dark horse: getting hired at Morgan Stanley

19:56 — How a derivatives brain runs a skincare brand

21:48 — Metrics-driven growth vs a community-led brand

24:55 — Margins in the nineties

26:59 — Price accessibility and "girl math"

31:38 — Building their own subscriptions instead of paying $24k a year

33:17 — The numbers: reorder rate, CAC, AOV, LTV

34:41 — Three full-timers, equity, and a fractional C-suite

35:45 — $2M this year, forecasting $15M in 2027

37:19 — The 534-door deal that vanished

39:58 — Where she's still the bottleneck

47:25 — Snail mail at a 98% open rate

50:12 — The $45,000 Oprah box

53:26 — Showing up in person: the Texas road trip

58:00 — The fear underneath it all

1:00:43 — What she'd do differently

1:01:54 — Where to find Harri

🔗 Connect with Harri: Website: myneighbors.co | Instagram: @myneighbors.co | TikTok: @myneighbors.co

🔗 Connect with Shopé: Instagram: @allofshope | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mosope-adeyemi-b5418a14b/

The Margin Room is an ecommerce podcast for early-stage DTC founders building from zero to seven figures, presented by Building Block Digital, a world-class retention agency for 6-8 figure brands.

💰 Make your first $100,000 from your Shopify Store. Join my FREE Skool community, Email/SMS Foundation; https://www.skool.com/emailsms-marketing-mastery-6619/about?ref=3095ac343f15469fb691fa62857d2f5e

#shopify #dtc #ecom #emailmarketing

Scott Schwab is the founder of Met Naturals and Met Wellness — CBD, functional nutrition, and data-driven health. His path into entrepreneurship started with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a serious neurological illness that led him to discover the endocannabinoid system and the real science behind CBD.

In this episode, Scott shares the mechanics behind a brand doing 83% YTD repeat purchase rate, 70.96% all-time, and a 64% email open rate on 16,000 engaged subscribers. We get into: education as the primary marketing engine, why he pulled fulfillment back in-house after 3PL costs climbed 30–35% a year, the sampling strategy converting 70% to full-price buyers, and his vision for a future where genetic data and blood panels tell you exactly what your body needs.

If you're building in wellness, health, or any category where trust is the product — this is the playbook.

⏱️ Timestamps

• 00:00 — Cold open
• 01:00 — Intro: The Margin Room
• 02:02 — Meet Scott Schwab, founder of Met Naturals & Met Wellness
• 03:50 — The health crisis that started it all: Guillain-Barré & CBD
• 06:32 — How CBD works: the endocannabinoid system explained
• 09:35 — Using your personal story as a marketing engine
• 11:11 — CBD vs. marijuana: dispelling the myths
• 14:04 — Product lineup: gels, gummies, tinctures, hemp protein & reds
• 17:40 — The perfect amino: why whey + hemp is the formula
• 22:26 — Building trust in a skeptical category
• 25:00 — Where margins get squeezed in wellness
• 27:55 — 64% open rate, 16,000 engaged subscribers
• 29:44 — 70% of samples convert to full-price buyers
• 32:40 — Team of 12: hiring for autonomy
• 33:17 — Why they left their 3PL and brought fulfillment in-house
• 37:38 — Met Naturals vs. Met Wellness: two stores explained
• 41:19 — The future: genetic testing + blood panels = personalized supplements
• 46:38 — Why Scott is really building this
• 47:28 — Where to find Scott & Met

🔗 Connect with Scott: Website: metnaturals.com | metwellness.com Social: @metnaturals | @metwellness

🔗 Connect with Shopé: Instagram: @allofshope LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mosope-adeyemi-b5418a14b/

The Margin Room is an ecommerce podcast for early-stage DTC founders building from zero to seven figures, presented by Building Block Digital, a world-class retention agency for 6-8 figure brands.

💰 Make your first $100,000 from your Shopify Store. Join my FREE Skool community, Email/SMS Foundation; https://www.skool.com/emailsms-marketing-mastery-6619/about?ref=3095ac343f15469fb691fa62857d2f5e

#shopify #dtc #ecom #emailmarketing

Terrance Diggs is the founder of D17, a sports lifestyle brand built around running culture and community. From brand ambassador work with ASICS and New Balance to driving 700 miles to sell two things at a pop-up — Terrance shares the real cost of building community-first.

We get into: how a TikTok with 3.5M likes moved almost no product, the 200-hoodie order placed before losing a Complex contest, why email and SMS are the real retention engine for DTC brands, and what Terrance would do with an extra $30K tomorrow.

Honest, tactical, and genuinely inspiring. This one's for any founder building something with culture at the centre.

⏱️ Timestamps

• 00:00 — Cold open
• 01:19 — Intro: The Margin Room
• 02:00 — Meet Terrance Diggs, founder of D17
• 05:52 — Brand partnerships: New Balance, ASICS & Smartwater
• 10:08 — Removing the founder as the brand's bottleneck
• 15:41 — What's working vs. what's stressing him out
• 19:21 — The soccer sponsorship reality check
• 26:30 — Community first or clothing first?
• 32:38 — Identity, culture & why people wear the gear
• 35:22 — 700 miles, 2 sales & why it was still the right move
• 41:04 — DTC vs. retail: the 80/20 plan
• 42:46 — Email, SMS, Strava & community communication
• 48:42 — Is D17 profitable? Honest answer
• 51:17 — The biggest mistake: Complex, 200 hoodies & a 3.5M TikTok
• 01:03:42 — Why Terrance is really building D17
• 01:14:18 — Where $30K would go tomorrow
• 01:17:30 — Where to find Terrance & D17

🔗 Connect with Terrance: Instagram / LinkedIn / TikTok / Substack / Twitch: @d17terrance

🔗 Connect with Shopé: Instagram: @allofshope LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mosope-adeyemi-b5418a14b/

The Margin Room is an ecommerce podcast for early-stage DTC founders building from zero to seven figures, presented by Building Block Digital, a world-class retention agency for 6-8 figure brands.

💰 Make your first $100,000 from your Shopify Store. Join my FREE Skool community, Email/SMS Foundation; https://www.skool.com/emailsms-marketing-mastery-6619/about?ref=3095ac343f15469fb691fa62857d2f5e

#shopify #dtc #ecom #emailmarketing

Most founders say they want growth. But a lot of them are reading the wrong numbers, chasing the wrong targets, and building ceilings into the business without realizing it.

In this episode of The Margin Room, Shopé sits down with Sebastian Valiente, founder of Growth Pod, to break down what actually matters when you’re trying to scale a DTC brand profitably.

They unpack contribution margin, MER, AMER, profit per new customer, and the difference between profit, EBITDA, and cash flow. Sebastian explains why many founders rely too heavily on relative metrics, how to think more clearly about paid media, and why product is still the biggest lever in scaling.

They also get into when Meta ads are the wrong move, how AI is changing agency operations, and why founders need to understand their real bottleneck before trying to grow.

If you’re building a Shopify brand and trying to go from six figures to seven, this episode will sharpen how you think.

⏱️ Timestamps

• 00:00 — Cold open: the scoreboard is profit
• 00:32 — Intro to The Margin Room
• 01:22 — Meet Sebastian Valiente
• 02:46 — What’s working across brands right now
• 04:16 — Plateaued ad spend and new angles
• 06:02 — Why growth needs ops visibility
• 07:18 — From media buyer to growth strategist
• 10:58 — The profitability mistake founders make
• 12:20 — Relative vs absolute metrics
• 15:13 — Contribution margin dollars vs %
• 17:08 — Challenging arbitrary business rules
• 19:31 — Thinking about growth stages
• 21:10 — Why content and paid are merging
• 23:08 — Sebastian’s North Star metrics
• 25:04 — Why profit per new customer matters
• 26:30 — When brands start modeling with LTV
• 28:00 — Profit today vs room to grow tomorrow
• 29:11 — Tools and dashboards he uses
• 30:56 — Mistakes that cost founders money
• 32:20 — Profit vs cash flow
• 34:15 — What Sebastian changed his mind about
• 35:41 — Why product matters more than marketing
• 37:08 — Hard founder conversations
• 38:54 — Why some brands shouldn’t start with Meta
• 41:57 — Why goals should shape strategy
• 43:15 — How Sebastian uses AI
• 46:42 — Building internal tools with AI
• 50:33 — One actionable piece of advice
• 51:44 — Final takeaway: verify your bottleneck
• 52:31 — Where to find Sebastian

🔗 Connect with Sebastian:
LinkedIn: Sebstian Valiente
X / Twitter: @sebastian_dtc
Website: growthpod.ca 

🔗 Connect with Shopé:
Instagram: @allofshope
LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mosope-adeyemi-b5418a14b/

The Margin Room is an ecommerce podcast for early-stage DTC founders building from zero to seven figures, presented by Building Block Digital, a world-class retention agency for 6-8 figure brands.

💰 Make your first $100,000 from your Shopify Store. Join my FREE Skool community, Email/SMS Foundation; https://www.skool.com/emailsms-marketing-mastery-6619/about?ref=3095ac343f15469fb691fa62857d2f5e

#shopify #dtc #ecom #emailmarketing

Ryan Carter is a CMO, creative director, and multi-brand builder operating at the intersection of creativity and ecommerce. In this episode, we go deep on what it actually takes to scale a bootstrapped DTC brand - the wins, the pressure, and the hard lessons nobody talks about.

Ryan pulls back the curtain on PurePlank, his flagship fitness brand, and gets honest about COGS pressure, trade war impacts, why he's saying no to investors, and what two metrics he looks at every single week to run a seven-figure operation.

If you're an early-stage founder trying to cut through the noise, this one's for you.

⏱️ Timestamps

- 00:00 — Cold open: Torn Achilles & why Ryan's building now

- 04:09 — Intro: What is The Margin Room?

- 05:37 — Meet Ryan Carter: CMO & multi-brand builder

- 06:52 — What's going well & what's quietly stressing him out

- 09:18 — The COGS problem threatening scale

- 11:35 — Did you have a cushion for tariffs?

- 12:22 — Is PurePlank actually profitable right now?

- 13:32 — What is PurePlank? The one-sentence pitch

- 14:02 — Acquisition vs. retention for a one-time purchase product

- 18:51 — What Ryan measures every week (and what he ignores)

- 20:39 — Why simplicity wins: cash & MER as North Star metrics

- 24:05 — The lean tech stack behind a 7-figure brand

- 27:56 — How to get a sub-1% return rate (hint: it starts with the product)

- 29:43 — Version 2 decisions & protecting the customer experience

- 31:52 — Why Ryan builds: creativity, purpose & the kid from a third world country

- 36:28 — One actionable piece of advice for early-stage DTC founders

- 39:24 — Where to find Ryan & PurePlank

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🔗 Connect with Ryan:

Instagram: @cartеrlikejimmy

Website: gopureplank.com

🔗 Connect with Shopé:

Instagram: @allofshope

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mosope-adeyemi-b5418a14b/

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The Margin Room is an ecommerce podcast for early-stage DTC founders building from zero to seven figures, presented by Building Block Digital, a world-class retention agency for 6-8 figure brands.

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