OPERATORS
OPERATORS
In the world of eCommerce, a legendary WhatsApp group is rumoured to hold the secrets to unimaginable success. The catch? You must have nine figures in revenue to gain entry. The worlds biggest brands have denied its existence for years, until now. Three titans known as "Operators" are leaking the secret contents in an effort to share its wealth of knowledge with people like you.
- 1 hour 6 minutesHow Ecommerce Brands Can Fund Growth: Winning DTC Math
What happens when your bank promises you $20 million, strings you along for a year, and then rips it all away the same week you need it most?
Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge) and Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi) sit down with Curtis Matsko (CEO, Portland Leather Goods) for a raw conversation about how ecommerce brands fund growth.
Curtis shares one of the most gut-punch founder stories in Operators history. Wells Fargo promised him a $20–25M line of credit, demanded $2M back overnight, and nearly killed Portland Leather Goods at the exact moment he had ~$14M tied up in a brand expansion. He survived a year of not paying suppliers, negotiating week-to-week, and somehow came out more profitable than before.
The three dig into the real math of affording growth without investors. Why it’s “impossible, but you have to do it anyway,” how supplier relationships are the single best source of working capital leverage, and why the cash conversion cycle will break your business if your margins aren’t right.
They close with one of the most important warnings for early operators — stop counting revenue, start counting what’s left.
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22 April 2026, 12:30 pm - 1 hour 12 minutesMike’s Story, From Yeti Knockoff to Building New Brands
What do you do when you’ve already won, and still can’t stop building?
Sean Frank and Matthew Bertulli sit down with Mike Beckham, (CEO of Simple Modern and Simple Ventures), to unpack what happens after you climb the mountain. Mike shares how Simple Modern grew from a bootstrapped “Yeti knockoff” to nearly $200M in annual revenue, paid off all its debt, and suddenly found itself generating more cash than it could reinvest — and what he decided to do about it.
The conversation covers Mike’s framework for capital allocation when the obvious moves run out, including why he launched electrolyte brand Trevi (and what the $2–3M learning curve actually bought him), how Simple Ventures is building a portfolio of lean, AI-powered businesses with single-threaded leaders, and why Mike believes now is the single best moment in history to be a builder.
From the counterintuitive case for being 13th in a massive market, to rewiring your brain around what AI makes possible, to why physical goods aren’t going anywhere — this one goes deep.
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15 April 2026, 1:00 pm - 1 hour 7 minutesBillions in Ecommerce Deals & How to Build a Brand Worth Buying
Special episode on what billions in recent ecommerce exits, raises, and M&A mean for your brand.
Curtis Matsko (CEO, Portland Leather Goods) joins hosts Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi) and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) to dig into the wave of consumer deals. They debate whether strategic buyers and PE firms are truly back, why physical consumer brands are suddenly looking like the safest asset class, and what it takes to build something worth acquiring.
The conversation covers LTV math behind consumables to TikTok shop’s role in driving $200K days at Portland Leather Goods. It explores how to build a durable brand using first principles in a chaotic macro environment defined by tariffs and AI disruption. The speakers also dive into why omnichannel presence is now essential for a premium exit, and reveal the single most important question every founder must answer before taking their first step.
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13 April 2026, 1:00 pm - 1 hour 7 minutesMarketer to President: Posh Peanuts’ Jenna Habayeb on Growth & Data
“If you become really good at harnessing that data, AI can let you not only predict the future, but create it.”
Jenna Habayeb (President of Posh Peanut) sits down with Jason Panzer (President of HexClad) and honorary Operator’s co-host Cherene Aubert. Together, they unpack what modern ecommerce leadership looks like at every stage. Jenna brings a rare arc — from Ogilvy to Chief Brand Officer at Ipsy, where she helped grow the business from $300M to $1B, through a CRO role at Ruggable, and now her first president role at Posh Peanut.
Discover the “forgotten community flywheel” and how a 250,000-person Facebook group drives real revenue. The conversation moves on to why most companies are further behind on data infrastructure than they’d like to admit — and why AI, layered on top of a clean data warehouse, is changing what’s possible.
They also get into the evolution of the CMO role, managing teams up a mountain without losing your humanity, and the mental shift required when you go from marketer to president.
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8 April 2026, 1:00 pm - 1 hour 15 minutes“It Was So Hard”: Operationalizing Scale With Spot & Tango’s Founder
“We had no cash, no supply chain, high product market fit, and low CAC. There was this giant button flashing: hyper growth.”What does it take to build a profitable pet brand from a studio apartment to a nine-figure business with its own factory?
Russell Breuer (Co-Founder and CEO, Spot & Tango) joins hosts Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge) and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) to trace the full arc of building one of DTC’s most quietly dominant pet brands. Russell shares how Spot & Tango launched Unkibble days into COVID with nearly no cash, sold out in three days, and then had to resist pressing the hyper-growth button without inventory to back it up.
The conversation gets deep into the math of subscription growth — payback windows, LTV by channel, contribution margin, and why Russell’s kids know what a CAC is. They cover the contrarian decision to build a dedicated factory, how vertical integration added 30-plus margin points and created a competitive moat, the trade-offs of going omnichannel when you’re profitable DTC, and why discipline is what separates brands that last.
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1 April 2026, 12:00 pm - 1 hour 27 minutesHow The Woobles Built a Cult Brand: Product, Not Marketing
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, skip the waitlist and launch your AppLovin ads today with our Operators-exclusive link: https://axon.ai/en/9operators
Can you build a beloved consumer brand around the joy of making something with your hands?
Matt Bertulli and Mike Beckham sit down with Justine Tiu and Adrian Zhang, Co-Founders of The Woobles — a crochet kit brand born from a personal journey through burnout, self-discovery, and a Brooklyn apartment full of hand-stamped packaging. What started as a side hobby became a business with Super Bowl airtime, a McDonald’s Monopoly partnership, and a spot on Shark Tank … where they walked away from every deal.
The conversation covers the concept of “fiero” — the feeling of doing something you once thought was impossible — and why that idea sits at the core of everything The Woobles makes. Justine and Adrian discuss the brutal lessons of being listed as Joann Fabrics’ largest unsecured creditor, how iOS 14 forced them to rethink channel strategy, why product obsession beats marketing strategy, and what it’s like to build a company, a marriage, and a family all at the same time.
26 March 2026, 1:00 pm - 1 hour 10 minutesWhy This CEO Is Building His Own SaaS Killer: Amit RG (RichPanel)
What happens when the founder of a software company admits his own product is a sinking ship — and doubles down anyway?
Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge) and Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi) sit down with Amit RG (CEO, RichPanel) for a conversation about AI agents, the death of traditional SaaS, and what it means for ecommerce operators building teams right now.
Amit doesn’t sugarcoat it. He’s walked through the five stages of grief about his own business, come out the other side, and is now betting that moving faster than the disruption is the only play.
The three dig into Dario’s AI phases and what they mean for your tech stack, why customer service reps will be the first wave of AI-driven displacement, and how Sean frames every job — from Philippines call centers to legal firms — as a token problem waiting to be solved cheaper. They debate token-based pricing versus per-ticket models, explore what happens to platforms like Klaviyo in an agent-to-agent economy, and make the case that consumer brands may be the last ones standing while SaaS and services absorb the first hit.
Amit closes with RichPanel’s new returns portal, already live with 31 brands, and Sean puts $10,000 on the line in a charity bet.
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25 March 2026, 1:00 pm - 1 hour 6 minutesHow Matt Orlić Lost It All, Built a Skincare Empire & Found Meaning
“The difference between authentic money and inauthentic money is that it has some kind of inherent meaning to it.”
Sean Frank (CEO of Ridge) and Matt Bertulli (CEO of Pela Case and Lomi) sit down with Matt Orlić — Co-Founder of Qure Skincare and founder of Ecomm Architects. Together, they trace one of the most unconventional paths in ecommerce. From losing 80% of his net worth at 25 to reverse-engineering the habits of successful founders, Orlić’s story is a masterclass in resilience and reinvention.
The conversation covers how Qure scaled toward nine figures by building distinctly designed, clinically inspired products and pairing them with a sophisticated influencer strategy. They dig into the “spherical scaling system” Orlić developed for creative angles and awareness-level ad spend, why building on someone else’s land is a risk worth managing rather than avoiding, and how coaching 150 ecommerce brands gave him something money never could.
Orlić also unpacks the messy realities of TikTok Shop, bootstrapping globally without access to institutional capital, and why focus — ruthless, unglamorous focus on one thing — was the single biggest unlock in his career.
Connect with Matt Orlić
https://youtu.be/rX-bqR3deNk?si=bZQXYRYsqvYP8uci
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18 March 2026, 1:00 pm - 1 hour 1 minuteYour $175B Tariff Refund Checklist With Ryan Petersen, Flexport CEO
Ryan Petersen, CEO of Flexport, joins Mike Beckham and Sean Frank for an emergency briefing on the tariff landscape after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling. Specifically, what ecommerce owners need to do right now.
They break down how to file for tariff refunds before entries hit liquidation, including the secondary market where brands are selling claims for cents on the dollar. Then the conversation shifts to the Iran conflict and what a closed Strait of Hormuz means for container shipping, airfreight capacity, and oil prices.
They close out with a candid look at the AI age of wonder — from cutting customs error rates to writing a children’s book with Claude Code and Midjourney in an afternoon.
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13 March 2026, 1:00 pm - 1 hour 16 minutesHow Hudson Leogrande Is Building Comfrt Into a $1B Brand
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, skip the waitlist and launch your AppLovin ads today with our Operators-exclusive link:
What does it take to create a billion-dollar brand from scratch — homeless at 16, no investors, no safety net?
Hudson Leogrande, founder of Comfrt, joins Sean Frank (CEO of Ridge) and Matt Bertulli (CEO of Pela & Lomi), to trace the story behind one of the fastest-growing ecommerce brands ever built. Hudson started with $1,000 in his mom’s basement, spent five years grinding through an oral care brand, and bootstrapped Comfrt to what will soon be a billion dollars in annual revenue.
The conversation covers how Hudson cracked the creator economy, why Comfrt runs 500 commission-based content creators as mini-CMOs, and how the brand survived going broke seven times. Hudson also pulls back the curtain on dynamic pricing, the pre-order strategy that saved the business, and the product innovations that he believes will make everything the brand has done so far look small.
12 March 2026, 1:00 pm - 1 hour 59 secondsFrom Spreadsheets to AI Agents: The Ecommerce Data Playbook
Are you running your ecommerce brand on gut instinct while your competitors build AI-powered data machines?
Sean Frank (CEO of Ridge) and Jason Panzer (President of HexClad) sit down with Krishna Poda, the CEO of Saras Analytics, to unpack why a clean data foundation isn’t optional. And what you can build on top of it with AI right now.
They cover the rise of agentic workflows and what it means to replace repetitive human tasks with agents that work around the clock, why every stakeholder in a business should be able to query their own data without waiting on an analyst, how Saras IQ is built as a vertically specialized layer on top of Claude to deliver consistent and governed answers, and what the near future looks like when your brand’s central agent is negotiating with Meta’s agent, Northbeam’s agent, and every other platform fighting for your budget.
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