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The TL;DR:

• Let’s Chat D2C: The Amazon Private Label Effect

• Building in Public with SCALIS: Training our AI Sales Strategist!

• What I’m Thinking about this Week: Navigating Enterprise Contract Cycles.

• Upcoming Events: I’m back in Arkansas until mid-May. Let me know if you’re in the area and want to connect!

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Let’s Chat D2C: The Amazon Private Label Effect

Amazon’s private label brands are reshaping the competitive landscape for DTC brands.

For years, Amazon has quietly expanded its in-house portfolio including Amazon Basics, Solimo, Mama Bear, and over 100 others, spanning from tech accessories to pantry staples. Leveraging unmatched access to third-party seller data, Amazon identifies top-performing products, undercuts pricing, and then gives its private label products top billing in search results. In short, they watch what works, replicate it, and promote it over the original.

That’s a massive challenge for DTC brands, especially those using Amazon as a key sales channel. You’re essentially growing your competition.

Take Peak Design, for example. They famously called Amazon out after the retail giant launched a near-identical knockoff of their top-selling camera bag under the Amazon Basics brand. The bag was nearly the same design, but half the price, and Amazon pushed it higher in search. Instead of backing down, Peak Design turned the moment into a viral marketing win with a tongue-in-cheek video highlighting the copycat move. It worked. Their story earned massive media attention and rallied brand loyalists. But not every DTC brand has that luxury or leverage.

So what’s the play for Shopify brands?

1. Double Down on Brand – You can’t out-Amazon Amazon on price, but you can win on story, community, and ethos. Your brand is the moat.

2. Own the Relationship – Shopify lets you control customer experience. Focus on building first-party data across email, SMS, and loyalty. Every order through your store is a long-term asset.

3. Go Niche, Go Deep – Find the micro-market Amazon can’t or won’t serve. Specialized SKUs and experiences build loyalty where generic plays fall short.

4. Deliver on Experience – Fast customer service, personalized offers, real human interaction. These are your unfair advantages.

Amazon’s scale is here to stay. But for brands that can tell a better story, build deeper relationships, and own their customer journey, the future still looks very bright.

Building in Public with SCALIS: Training our AI Sales Strategist

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been quietly training what I’m now calling the “SCALIS Sales Strategist” GPT. Think of it like an AI-powered BDR that doesn’t sleep and doesn’t miss context. I’ve been feeding it everything from our high-converting sales copy to our full sales deck, allowing it to understand our voice, positioning, and most compelling value props.

The real kicker? After conducting hundreds of demos on Fathom, I took all the summaries from calls with prospects using a major competitor ATS—over 1,000 minutes of talk time—and dropped them into the GPT to distill two critical insights:

1. The most common pain points with their current provider

2. The most resonant selling points of SCALIS

With that intel, I prompted GPT to build a 4-email outreach sequence + a LinkedIn connection message, writing two tone variations (one formal, one casual) so we can A/B test what lands best. I then generated a lead list of 500 top talent acquisition leaders actively using the competitor platform in Instantly.ai and plugged them into this automated campaign.

The results? 🚨 Just since Thursday, we’ve already booked 6 demos—and replies are still coming in. It’s an exciting real-world validation of what happens when you combine qualitative demo insights with AI and outbound precision.

We’re learning fast, iterating even faster, and continuing to refine the process with every new datapoint. SCALIS is not just an AI hiring platform—we’re also using AI to power our growth strategy. More updates soon. 👀

What I’m Thinking About This Week: Navigating Enterprise Contract Cycles

One of the biggest challenges we’re navigating at SCALIS right now is the complexity of enterprise contract cycles. These deals often come with 2–3 year terms, and that means timing is everything. Some prospects we talk to are 3–6 months away from renewal—perfect timing for us to slot right into their RFP process and move fast. But others? They just signed with a competitor last month. For those, the conversation turns into more of a long-term nurture opportunity.

And that’s where consistent, value-driven marketing becomes critical.

Every newsletter, product update, and case study we send serves a dual purpose: it keeps us top of mind and gives prospects a way to provide feedback, even if they’re not ready to move today. It’s all about staying in their orbit so that when the timing is right, we’re already the obvious choice.

To balance the longer enterprise cycles, we’re simultaneously building an SMB pipeline that allows us to move quickly and bring new customers onto the platform immediately. SMBs are nimble and typically ready to go—though they might only represent 5–10% of the contract value of an enterprise deal, they add momentum and volume to our marketplace.

We’re also getting creative with enterprise deals. If a company loves SCALIS but still has 8 months left on a competitor contract, we don’t let that slow us down. Instead, we structure a phased onboarding: we pick a date—say 5 months before their contract expires—and allow them to start using SCALIS at no or reduced cost, as long as they commit to a 12-month agreement at our standard fees once their current deal ends.

We don’t want legacy contracts to get in the way of our growth, especially when every new partner not only fuels revenue, but also enriches our vetted and verified candidate marketplace. The sooner companies are up and running, the faster the flywheel spins.

Upcoming Events

I’ll be in Arkansas until mid-May. Let me know if you’re in the area and want to connect!