In this episode Ryan sits down with Paddy to unpack three growth levers most DTC operators underinvest in: Employee Generated Content, podcast advertising and the full-funnel persona approach that holds up in the Andromeda era. Plus what a career performance marketer discovers when they try to build a brand brand for the first time.

If you work in DTC, run growth for an ecommerce brand, or are building your own product business, this one is worth your time.

(00:00) Introduction 

(00:53) Who is Paddy Kennedy 

(01:41) Selling snapbacks at school 

(03:26) The Melbourne watch brand 

(04:41) How Paddy landed at Oodie 

(05:23) COVID and Oodie: perfect timing 

(05:48) Brand manager to head of marketing 

(07:48) What is Füm 

(08:47) Meta is still the meta 

(09:04) Employee Generated Content 

(09:15) The Oodie Girl 

(09:51) Why EGC builds brand trust 

(10:20) Represent 247 and Minted New York 

(12:22) Authentic vs AI-generated creative 

(13:07) Meta Andromeda explained 

(13:56) Persona-matched creative at Füm 

(14:51) Whitelisting: still underutilised 

(15:16) Founder account vs brand account 

(16:04) Groons: full-funnel persona targeting 

(17:03) Why brands are not doing EGC 

(18:07) How to hire for an EGC role 

(19:34) Podcast advertising at Füm 

(20:01) Getting banned on Meta 

(21:07) Podcast strategy: CPM and show selection 

(22:16) Why crime podcasts outsold everything 

(23:24) Podcast ad creative approach 

(23:52) Measuring podcast ROI 

(24:32) Discount codes, Fairing and Podscribe 

(25:14) Podscribe: multi-touch attribution 

(25:38) Podcast as digital billboards 

(26:59) Podcast as a long-tail channel 

(27:36) The clipping economy 

(28:56) The moment that validated podcasts 

(29:55) Media mix: 60/40 

(30:14) YouTube creator partnerships 

(31:40) YouTube as passive income 

(32:56) Organic vs paid YouTube 

(33:53) Creator selection: category fit 

(34:08) Ridge Wallet and MKBHD 

(35:49) YouTube Shorts 

(37:02) Google Demand Gen 

(37:40) YouTube in the DTC funnel 

(38:52) TikTok Shop: here to stay?

(39:35) TikTok Shop AOV: $30 to $50 

(39:56) The TikTok affiliate flywheel 

(41:33) Live shopping: China vs the West 

(42:41) Menina: DTC eyewear brand 

(42:56) The story behind the name 

(44:04) June 26th launch and scarcity model 

(45:21) Performance marketer builds a fashion brand 

(46:48) Direct response vs brand marketing 

(47:38) Menina product details 

(49:04) Leveraging a creator's audience 

(49:35) Why it is not merch 

(50:05) Product quality as the foundation

Follow DTC Unboxed: https://linktr.ee/dtcunboxed 

Follow Paddy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paddytkennedy/ 

Follow Ryan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aurary/

DTC Unboxed is the growth podcast for modern direct-to-consumer brands. New episodes every two weeks.

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In this episode Ryan sits down with Will to unpack the full Smalls growth playbook. How they are closing a 77-point brand awareness gap on Fancy Feast. Why brand is treated as a company department rather than a marketing function. And the "pink and shrink" analogy that explains why the entire pet food industry has been failing cats for a hundred years.

If you are a DTC founder, growth marketer or brand builder operating in a category dominated by legacy incumbents, subscribe for new episodes every two weeks.

00:00 Introduction

00:54 What Smalls actually is: fresh food you would recognise as a human

01:34 The founding story: cats, humans, and 10,000 years of symbiosis

02:47 What "Big Pet" really means and why Smalls is built to dismantle it

04:56 The three growth levers: brand, product diversification, customer-led growth

05:51 When to diversify product, and the risk of doing it too early

08:00 The marginal CAC trap most DTC brands fall into

09:12 Increasing TAM through new SKUs vs deepening existing cohorts

09:55 Why brand building is the strongest LTV lever

11:51 Why podcast and affiliate channels lead Smalls' top of funnel

13:01 The contrarian view on TV: go big or go home

14:26 Brand isn't a marketing function, it's a company department

16:26 Why AI slop is killing DTC creative and Smalls' response

17:58 Adapting strategy for Andromeda and the new Meta era

18:59 Field research and the customer-led growth pillar

19:54 Neophobic vs neophilic cats: insights only the quiz funnel reveals

22:09 How retail is becoming a credibility play, not just a sales channel

24:59 Why pet food brands are leaning so hard into brand differentiation

26:24 The biggest challenge: changing pet owner beliefs and habits

29:53 How Smalls justifies a premium price in a price-sensitive category

30:57 The one growth lever Will would keep if he had to pick one

31:22 Why people don't buy with logic, they buy with emotion

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Ryan sits down with Jon, now 12 months out of the business, to unpack the full playbook for the first time. From landing Joe Rogan before anyone knew what podcast advertising was worth, to signing Huberman before his first episode aired, to cutting Amazon when it was 25% of the business, this is the most detailed breakdown of AG1's growth strategy ever recorded.

If you are a DTC founder, growth marketer or brand builder, subscribe for new episodes every two weeks.

00:00 Introduction

02:08 How Jon joined AG1 with no marketing experience

03:12 What AG1 looked like in 2017: 10 people, one product, $11M run rate

06:02 Why podcasts beat every other channel for supplements

06:08 The single product strategy and why it created a brand moat

21:04 The almond croissant analogy: focus as competitive advantage

24:09 Building the creator economy playbook before the term existed

24:19 "We will be the number one audio brand in the world"

27:02 The runners thesis: using creators as live market research

33:49 The Google Sheet that managed 8 figures and delivered 9

36:34 Why AG1 cut Amazon when it was 25% of the business

37:47 Why Meta was only 15% of AG1's ad spend

41:27 Day trading is Meta. Value investing is creators.

43:38 How AG1 structured creator deals and why they paid fairly

49:25 The COVID moment that halved their customer acquisition cost

53:00 The Joe Rogan story: almost cancelled after episode three

54:06 The Elon Musk episode and what it taught Jon about context

58:03 Why Jon paid above market rate for Joe Rogan impressions

1:00:48 Signing Huberman before his first episode aired

1:13:09 How AG1 thought about retention and why it starts with acquisition

1:17:44 The data infrastructure problem that held them back

1:22:56 Gummies, competitors and the future of the category

1:28:22 What Jon would tell his younger self

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This isn't luck. It's an intelligently architected DTC model - and in this solo breakdown episode, Ryan Walton tears it apart piece by piece.

This episode is a different format to our usual guest interviews. Ryan runs through the full Gruns growth funnel - product strategy, pricing mechanics, landing pages, creative strategy and unit economics - to show exactly why this model is scaling so fast and what DTC operators can learn from it.

00:00 — Intro: Why Gruns is the holy grail of DTC growth right now

01:00 — What Gruns actually is and who built it

03:00 — The AG1 problem: taste and value as the two biggest objections in the category

06:00 — How Gruns solved both problems and redesigned the category

10:00 — The wellness market opportunity: energy, gut health and immunity

12:00 — Landing page breakdown: why 80% of traffic goes to blog-style pages

16:00 — The GLP-1 angle and why it's smarter than it looks

20:00 — Creative strategy: visual diversity, conceptual diversity and the squint test

22:00 — Persona breakdown: gym bros, menopausal women, parents and GLP-1 users

28:00 — Whitelisting and why Gruns maps creator pages to target personas

32:00 — Reverse engineering the full TAM strategy

35:00 — Unit economics: AOV, LTV and why they're probably losing money on first purchase on purpose

**37:00** — Why a high LTV model lets you hammer spend and scale fast

Website: https:// dtcunboxed.com

DTC Unboxed is the growth podcast for DTC operators - unpacking the tools, tactics and principles behind the world's fastest-growing direct-to-consumer brands.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

0:00 Intro

01:35 - Defining Bathroom Wellness: Shifting from "The Bidet Company" to a "from gut to butt to bowl" ecosystem.

04:00 The "Blue Ocean" Challenge: Educating a market where only 6% of households use a bidet compared to 60-70% in Asia.

05:34 Three Pillars of Growth: Jerel’s fundamental framework

08:14 OOH & Awareness: Using unconventional "poop trucks" 

10:00 The Consideration Cycle: Analyzing why 40% of new customers known the brand for over a year before buying.

11:11 The Power of Word-of-Mouth: How a remarkable product drives 35-40% of sales through friends and partners.

12:27 Whitelisting & Human Trust: Why creator-led content is 10x more effective than clinical brand advertising.

15:10 The "Andromeda" Era: Moving away from complex lookalikes back to the core principles of emotional, story-driven marketing.

18:58 Strategic Innovation: Using product launches like fiber gummies to re-engage customers who haven't bought since 2021.

21:38 Amazon as a Proxy: Using marketplace data to identify sub-category growth and inform the product roadmap.

25:38 The LTV Unlock: Why Tushy focuses on multi-packs and bundles.

28:01 Retention Nuance: Distinguishing between "repeat" (unpredictable upgrades) and "recurring" (predictable subscription) revenue.

30:45 Innovation vs. Market Penetration: Deciding when to double down on one product based on the Total Addressable Market (TAM).

32:55 Brand as a Performance Lever: How a strong brand presence in culture directly reduces Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).

38:36 Movement-Based Marketing: Building a sense of "cultural movement" (like Caraway) to maintain demand during economic pullbacks.

41:43 Post-Tariff Resilience: How a 140% cost increase forced the team to become more disciplined, creative entrepreneurs.

45:10 The Future of Toileting: Expanding into AI stool tracking (the Hindsight app) and 10 new product launches for 2026.

48:49 Avoiding "Shiny Tool Syndrome": Final advice on ignoring software hype to focus on the human fundamentals of persuasion.

Website: https://dtcunboxed.com

Follow Jerel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerel-blades-89407412b/

DTC Unboxed is the growth podcast for DTC operators - unpacking the tools, tactics and principles behind the world's fastest-growing direct-to-consumer brands.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.