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The TL;DR:

• Let’s Chat D2C: The Power of Owner and Employee-Generated Content in E-Commerce

• Building in Public with SCALIS: Shifting our Sales Outreach to SMBs

• What I’m Thinking about this Week: Takeaways from the Animo VC Summit in Miami 🔥

• The D2Z Podcast: In this week’s episode, I sat down with an Amazon growth expert, Daniela Bolzmann, to break down the intricacies of scaling on the platform

• App Highlight: Triple Whale - a must-have analytics and attribution tool for scaling Shopify Plus brands.

• Upcoming Events: I’m in Miami all week for once - let me know if you’re in the area and want to connect!

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Let’s Chat D2C: The Power of Owner and Employee-Generated Content in E-Commerce

One of the most successful strategies in e-commerce today is leveraging owner and employee-generated content. Consumers connect with people more than they do with brands, and the companies that tap into this human element are winning. Instead of overly polished corporate messaging, customers resonate with authentic stories from founders, employees, and brand ambassadors.

Owner-generated content is especially powerful because it brings a face to the brand. When founders share their journey, behind-the-scenes processes, and personal insights, it creates trust and relatability. This kind of content fosters stronger connections with audiences who want to support businesses they can relate to. Similarly, employee-generated content showcases company culture and expertise, helping brands build credibility and community engagement.

Beyond social proof, this type of content also drives conversions. Studies show that brands with strong employee advocacy programs see significantly higher engagement rates. Whether it’s a product demonstration, a day-in-the-life post, or employees highlighting the company’s values, these pieces of content feel more genuine than traditional marketing. And in an era where consumers are bombarded with ads, authenticity is the differentiator.

Brands like Immi Eats (immieats.com) and Sanzo (drinksanzo.com) are perfect examples of companies leveraging owner and employee-generated content to drive engagement. Immi Eats regularly shares the journey of its founders, their product development process, and behind-the-scenes glimpses into running a food brand. Meanwhile, Sanzo incorporates its employees into storytelling, showcasing their passion for Asian-inspired sparkling water and making their brand feel more relatable to customers.

The brands that excel in 2025 will be the ones that prioritize storytelling through the people behind the brand. Whether through video, blog posts, or live streams, integrating owner and employee-generated content into your strategy is a must. If you haven’t yet embraced this trend, now is the time to start empowering your team to share their perspectives and experiences.

Building in Public with SCALIS: Shifting our Sales Outreach to SMBs

SCALIS is officially live, and we’ve built a pipeline close to $4M ARR of mid-market and larger businesses. These companies are hiring for 10-25+ roles and have in-house talent teams, making them an ideal fit for SCALIS in the long run. However, all the businesses we’ve onboarded so far and can service immediately are SMBs who don’t currently use an ATS. Our reporting and analytics hub launches in a month which will unlock all of our current pipeline (they can’t migrate until we have this up) but for the time being to get more businesses into the system and iron out any bugs, we’re shifting our outreach strategy to focus on SMBs for the time being.

This shift means targeting businesses that need a streamlined hiring process but don’t yet have the resources for a full-scale talent team. Our $49.99/month plan is the perfect entry point for these companies, allowing them to tap into SCALIS’s AI-driven matching without the complexity of enterprise hiring software. The goal is to scale SMB adoption rapidly, so when our analytics hub is ready, we have a strong base of users already leveraging our platform.

In addition to this, we just launched our enterprise design partner program. As part of this initiative, we meet with these three 1,000+ employee companies every month for an hour to go through their pain points in hiring. These conversations are invaluable because they help us understand where hiring inefficiencies exist and how SCALIS can use AI to alleviate these challenges.

By working directly with these large enterprises, we’re not only refining our technology but also ensuring that when we scale into the enterprise space, we have a product that truly meets their needs. This program has already provided insights into how AI can better support internal talent teams by automating repetitive tasks, improving candidate sourcing, and optimizing interview scheduling. The learnings from this initiative will shape the evolution of SCALIS, making it an even more powerful hiring tool.

We’re excited about the traction we’ve gained, and the response from both SMBs and enterprise companies has been overwhelmingly positive. As we continue refining our outreach and development efforts, we’re positioning SCALIS as the go-to hiring platform for businesses of all sizes. If you’re an SMB looking to streamline your hiring process or an enterprise interested in becoming a design partner, now is the perfect time to connect with us.

What I’m Thinking About This Week: Takeaways from the Animo VC Summit in Miami 🔥

Just wrapped up the Animo VC Summit in Miami this past Friday, where I joined 40 incredible startup founders to pitch our businesses and learn from experts in the VC community. The biggest takeaway? How we position, pitch, and sell our solutions MATTERS almost more than the solution itself—especially when it comes to customer acquisition.

Some of these insights were so obvious that I found myself thinking, “Yeah, how could I not already be doing that?” But when you’re moving at a million miles per hour, sometimes getting the basics reiterated is exactly what you need.

Here’s what’s changing in how I approach demos and sales materials moving forward:

✅ Hyper-Personalized Demos
No more generic product walk-throughs. Every demo will now be customized with the prospect’s logo, their live job openings, and a direct comparison of their current workflow vs. what life looks like with SCALIS. Visuals win. The goal? Show impact while keeping adoption friction low.

✅ AI That Enables, Not Replaces
One of the key discussions was around AI—framing it as a tool that makes teams more effective, not obsolete. People don’t want to be replaced; they want to be empowered.

✅ Pricing That Aligns With Value
Flat-rate pricing is on its way out. The future? Consumption-based and outcomes-based pricing—models that grow alongside customer success. A base platform fee provides a predictable revenue stream while aligning cost with value.

✅ Data as a Differentiator
Every company has competition. The question is—what data do you have that no one else does? Owning and leveraging proprietary data is the ultimate moat.

🚀 Biggest mindset shift: What would I want to see if I was being pitched this product? Keeping this question at the forefront ensures that every interaction is built around the prospect’s needs. Huge thanks to the Animo VC team for hosting an amazing event.

This Week’s The D2Z Podcast

#138 – Mastering Amazon

🎧 Listen Now 🎧

In this week’s episode, I sat down with an Amazon growth expert, Daniela Bolzmann, to break down the intricacies of scaling on the platform. Specifically, we explored the following:

💡 Key strategies for improving your Amazon rankings
📈 The importance of customer reviews and how to leverage them
🧠 Common mistakes sellers make and how to avoid them
🔑 How to optimize listings for conversions
🚀 The future of third-party selling and Amazon PPC

With Amazon accounting for a massive share of online sales, it’s crucial for brands to develop a well-rounded strategy. Whether you're a new seller or an experienced brand looking to optimize, this episode is packed with actionable insights.

App Highlight: Triple Whale

Triple Whale is a must-have analytics and attribution tool for scaling Shopify Plus brands. This all-in-one platform consolidates your e-commerce data, giving you clear insights into customer behavior, marketing attribution, and financial performance. With real-time dashboards, predictive analytics, and AI-powered recommendations, Triple Whale helps brands make data-driven decisions faster.

One of its standout features is the ability to track marketing spend across multiple platforms, ensuring you understand your ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) and LTV (Lifetime Value) at a granular level. Additionally, its AI-driven insights help brands optimize ad performance and identify the most profitable customer acquisition channels.

Triple Whale also provides automated financial tracking, making it easier for businesses to monitor profit margins, cash flow, and expenses in real time. With its easy-to-use interface and powerful integrations, it’s quickly becoming the go-to tool for e-commerce brands that want to scale intelligently. If you’re serious about growing your Shopify store and improving profitability, Triple Whale is a game-changer. Check it out and take control of your data today!

Upcoming Events

I’m in SF tomorrow and Tuesday morning, then Amsterdam for the rest of the week before heading to Paris the following week for Vinexpo. Let me know if you’re in any of these areas and want to connect!

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