Mars Men hit $100M and 400k customers in 18 months bootstrapped. L Catterton wrote them a $27.5M check. Who’s behind it? @zachmstuck NEW OPERATORS TITANS ↓ @Seanfrank @mbertulli Dropped out of college Built a top DTC agency Helped HexClad to $150M 7 brands of his own Shut down 5 of them Nearly lost everything Bet it all on socks Then … testosterone 2026, 4 deals in 60 days “I could go back to zero and I would be just fine because I love the game.”

The real heroes of @9operators in Austin this week 😍 my production crew! Tireless, locked in gorgeous

Operators just wrapped our first ever Mastermind day. 20 brands represented. 30 people. Invite only. A highly curated list of people. More than $4B in GMV in the room. This event was very private. Nothing was recorded so people could be ridiculously open with anything they wanted to talk about. We will 100% do more events like this one. Our idea for this was simple… Most events are only valuable because of the time in-between. The private dinners. The chats in the hallways. So we held an event that was just the time in-between. We had some small group breakouts, but otherwise it was time to just hang with great people. Make new friends. Go deeper with existing. I’m so damn bullish on small events like this. AppLovin was kind enough to pick-up the cost for the event. They are seriously awesome partners for us. Massive thank you to Paul & Lisa from BK Beauty for opening up their home the night before and hosting this group of misfits. Katy Mimari was very, VERY generous in letting us all spend the entire day at her lake house outside of Austin. Couldn’t ask for a better venue for something like this. She set the bar very high for anything we do in the future. Yes, we'll do another event like this in the coming months. No, you can't register or apply. For now, these are invite / referral only.

Everyone wants to get invited to the best events. The most exclusive rooms. Most don't realize it starts with showing up, participating, and creating a ton of value...frequently. We do these online events because we want the entire consumer space to get better. The people who show up and teach? They're just trying to be helpful. Attending? You'll probably learn from or connect with someone that can literally solve your biggest problem. TLDR? Sign-up. There's damn near zero excuse to not learn from a group like this.

After $4B in GMV gathered for our first IRL mastermind … I could not be more pumped to host the next operators online event. Over 20 leaders on the new DTC playbook. Executive keynotes Lightning panels Live Q&A session Full line-up below 9ops.co/6lmez1

“Obesity was the greatest scourge the past 50 years … and we’ve just cured it … but it is going to cause a bunch of losers.” That’s @Seanfrank’s take on GLP-1. Who are the losers? - Plus-size apparel - Impulse snacks - Diabetic socks - “Guilt-free” alternatives

Well north of $4 billion in GMV with just 30 people. Great first event for @9operators !!

Lake house @9operators about to kickoff … Texas to the hilt 🤠

Great night. 🥂

I'm going to do my best to be very anti-Canadian and brag a little. I think we have the most valuable media company in consumer right now. What we're doing at @9operators is insane and we're just getting started. Sooooo much cool shit coming.

Just recorded an episode with @mbertulli and @Seanfrank for @9operators Not sure when it goes live but it was fun - thanks for having me guys

Everyone and their dog wants to sell subscription products right now. Supplements. CPG. Pet. Peptides. Whatever it is, subscription is the swan song of consumer brand building. If this sounds like you, then you NEED TO LISTEN TO ZACH. Seriously, this episode is amazing.

Every drug has a therapeutic window; too little and you get no benefit, too much and the side effects outweigh the cure. That's why doctors aim for the "minimum viable dose", the smallest amount that delivers the full benefit while keeping side effects as low as possible. Incrementality testing works the exact same way. The "drug" is your holdout, the audience you withhold ads from to measure true causal lift. The benefit? Clean data on what's actually driving revenue. The side effect? Lost revenue from the customers you didn't advertise to. Most incrementality tests overdose. They withhold spend from chunks of your audience, and the "side effect" eats into your bottom line. That's not what we do at Northbeam. NB Incrementality is the minimum viable dose. We calibrate the smallest holdout that still gives you statistically valid results, so you get the full diagnostic benefit while minimizing the revenue left on the table.

I immensely enjoyed watching the Oklahoma City Thunder win the NBA Championship last year. But, I learned more by watching them lose this year. For the last two years the Oklahoma City Thunder have been the best team in the NBA. That ended on Saturday night when they lost to San Antonio in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals. I’ve decided the reason we need sports is because they teach us about success and failure. Every week we intentionally pit teams against each other in a zero sum game. One side will win and one will lose. We do this because we want to be a part of success. But we also want to learn how to fail from those we admire. We want to experience failure as a part of a community that is disappointed together. Even the most successful teams have to go through periods of failure and disappointment. The same is true of us as individuals. I do a lot of public speaking and I have come to loathe the part where I am introduced. I get it, the point is to communicate credibility so that people will actually listen to me when I speak. But when I hear my bio it isn't the full story. It is just the highlights. It is a way of telling my story that sounds like an unbroken string of success. The people who know me best know the deeper truth. For every success I’ve experienced, I can tell several stories about the setbacks that preceded it. Simple Modern has been more successful than I could have dreamed. But the startup I helped build in the years before founding Simple Modern was a failure that lost millions of dollars. Those kinds of stories don’t show up in newspaper articles. They should because they are essential. Success is like a cake and you cannot bake without the ingredients of failure, difficulty and hardship. Without these challenges, It is impossible to develop the skill and perseverance needed to achieve anything worthwhile. The Thunder failed to reach their goal this year, but as I have listened to their reactions following game 7 I have heard individuals who are: Owning the failure Avoiding excuses Taking personal responsibility Choosing to trust their teammates Looking for ways to grow and improve In my estimation, someone is a “winner” based on their mindset and not the scoreboard. Winners eventually win on the scoreboard because they have a mindset that makes it inevitable. I’ve been fortunate to have a front-row seat, both literally and figuratively, to the Thunder’s ascension. I’ve learned that the foundation of their success was built when they weren't winning basketball games. Because the foundation is their mindset and culture. Over the last two years they’ve experienced more success than a fan like me could reasonably hope for. But since their season ended, I realized something surprising. I appreciate the team in defeat even more than I have in victory. They have shown me, and many other people in this community, how winners approach failure.

In the AI era, how do you get an edge in the ad account? @codyplof (CEO, Jones Road) and @couuor (CMO, Ridge) stole the show at Meta Performance Marketing Summit. Then they debriefed to answer that question … - When low ROAS works - CPMR for new reach - $200 flat fee for creators - 1,200 TikTok posts/wk - 6 creators, 60% of revenue - Catalog beats creative?