How Jolie's Co-Founder Built $50M Betting Against Meta

How Jolie's Co-Founder Built $50M Betting Against Meta

Ryan Babenzien sold Greats, the first D2C footwear brand, to Steve Madden. Then he built Jolie into the #1 filtering shower brand in the world. $50M in revenue, profitable for 15 of 17 quarters, with Meta at just 25% of the total marketing budget. This is the full anti-paid playbook. Everything from this episode, structured into a free playbook: https://www.elevatorgoods.com/talks/ryan-babenzien In this episode: - How to set a hard cap on Meta spend before it owns your margin, and what to put in the rest of the mix instead - Why Ryan's North Star is first purchase profitability, not ROAS, and how that one decision changed every other number in the business - The pre-launch brand playbook: how Jolie seeded brand in New York before the product existed, using curated events, oysters, and zero paid media - The question every founder must answer before launch: what do you actually want out of this business, and what does the exit look like? --- Follow Elevator: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elevatorgoods X: https://x.com/elevatorgoods Website: https://www.elevatorgoods.com Follow Monish Sabnani (Host): Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/msabnani93 X: https://x.com/msabnani93 Follow Ryan Babenzien: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanbbabenzien LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanbabenzien/ Follow Jolie: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jolieskinco Website: https://jolieskinco.com/

How Nick Shackelford Picks Products After $200M on Meta Ads

Nick Shackelford has spent over $200M on Meta ads and runs paid for 7 DTC brands that all share one thing: a subscription engine underneath them. His agency, Structured, spends north of $15M a month. He flew to Hong Kong and sat down with us to break down how he actually picks products and runs brands in 2026. We’ve consolidated everything from this episode, into one playbook. Download it for free: https://www.elevatorgoods.com/talks/nick-shackelford In this episode you will learn: - How to know if a product is worth backing before you spend a dollar, and the five traits that make scaling easy - Why the best products sell themselves on repeat, and the simple math that tells you if your business will ever flow - How to run ad tests that teach you something even when they fail, and why patience is what most founders run out of first - Why anyone can copy your entire brand overnight now, and the only two things that still protect you - How to decide what to keep and what to walk away from, using the framework Nick runs across 7 brands - Why equity is usually the wrong trade early in your career, and what actually keeps great people around Follow Elevator: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elevatorgoods X: https://x.com/elevatorgoods Website: https://www.elevatorgoods.com Follow Monish Sabnani (Host): Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/msabnani93/ X: https://x.com/msabnani93 Follow Nick Shackelford: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamnickshackelford X: https://x.com/iamshackelford LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickshackelford Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:00 From soccer coach to $100M on Facebook ads 04:00 Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and getting close to the manufacturer 08:30 The state of e-commerce in 2026 13:00 Smoke testing and the bath bomb that flipped overnight 23:00 The Easy-Win product filter 24:00 The seasons of subscription 30:00 The real moat in e-commerce 40:00 Reasons, seasons, lifetimes 44:00 Hire the young gun, Batman and Robin teams 52:00 Why equity is a trap 58:00 Telehealth, GLP-1, and the next wave 1:18:00 Recession-proof DTC #ecommerce #dtc #paidmedia #subscription #shackelford

Bob Verlaat's Guide to Building a Brand

Most e-commerce brands are boring. They copy each other, lead with product specs, and wonder why nothing sticks. Bob Verlaat, co-founder of Hears and Dore & Rose (OOAK Brands), has spent two years doing the opposite, building brands that people talk about without being paid to. Everything from this episode, structured into a free playbook: https://www.elevatorgoods.com/talks/bob-verlaat In this episode: - How to define your brand's reason for existence and use it as a filter for every event, partnership, and content decision you make - Why Bob argues that 5K on an offline event returns faster than 5K on a Meta awareness campaign, and the logic behind it - Why most brands are boring, and the specific mistake Bob says operators make when they try to stand out - The one signal Bob looks for to know his brand is working, and why it has nothing to do with followers, ROAS, or engagement Follow Elevator: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elevatorgoods X: https://x.com/elevatorgoods Website: https://www.elevatorgoods.com Follow Monish Sabnani (Host): Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/msabnani93/ X: https://x.com/msabnani93 Follow Bob Verlaat: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bobverlaat X: https://x.com/bobverlaat Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 02:00 What brand actually means, and what it is not 06:00 Product first or vision first: how Bob thinks about launching 10:00 Why a worryless life became Hears' north star 14:00 Events vs. Meta ads: which one returns more 20:00 How to know when your brand is working 26:00 Most brands are boring. Here is why. 30:00 LTV, post-purchase surveys, and the retention play most operators ignore 34:00 Rebrands: when they are worth it, when they are not 38:00 Rapid fire: Pinterest, new project, micromanaging, and freedom Mentioned in this episode: - Hears - https://hears.com/ - Dore & Rose - https://doreandrose.com/ - OOAK Brands - https://ooakbrands.com/ #ecommerce #dtc #brandbuilding #dtcmarketing #elevatortalks #operatormindset #ecommercebrand

Sam Posthuma's Guide to Growing a Brand from Zero

HiStrips launched in summer 2024 with one product and no creator budget. Eighteen months later, their affiliate channel is bigger than paid media. 1,500+ creators. $0 upfront spend. One person whose only job is managing the army. Sam Posthuma breaks down the full system: how they built it, how it feeds the ad account with 100-200 pieces of creative per week, and how it unlocked a partnership with Juan LeBron, the #1 padel player in the world, without a pitch deck or a budget. Get the free playbook for this episode here: https://www.elevatorgoods.com/talks/sam-posthuma In this episode: - How HiStrips recruited 1,500 creators without paying anyone upfront - The three-bucket system: proactive seeding, inbound interest, direct outreach - Why they never script their creators and what happens when you do - How organic UGC becomes paid ad creative and how the weekly feedback loop works - Why their AI creative performed well on every metric and sold nothing - How social proof at scale brought Juan LeBron's team to them Follow Elevator: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elevatorgoods X: https://x.com/elevatorgoods Website: https://www.elevatorgoods.com Follow Monish (Host): Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/[MonishHandle] X: https://x.com/[MonishHandle] Follow Sam Posthuma: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samposthuma/ X: https://x.com/samposthuma Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 01:00 - What HiStrips is today and where it's going 03:00 - Why creative sits above media buying 05:30 - Keeping creative inside the founding team 08:00 - How the creator army was built from day one 09:40 - The army structure and how it actually runs 13:00 - The three-bucket creator outreach system 17:00 - Why HiStrips never pays creators upfront 21:00 - From organic UGC to paid ad creative 24:00 - The weekly feedback loop between media buying and creative 27:00 - AI UGC: what the data said vs. what the comments showed 30:00 - What the creator army has unlocked beyond paid ads 34:00 - The two moats in e-commerce in 2026 38:00 - Rapid fire #ecommerce #dtc #contentmarketing #creatoreconomy #histrips #brandbuilding

Vince Nijhof's $100M+ Ecom Playbook

Vince Nijhof co-founded OOAK Brands. In this episode he sits down with Monish at Elevator Talks and breaks down every system behind it. If you sell online - whether you're just starting out or already scaling - this is the most practical conversation on ecom we've ever recorded. Download the free Vince Nijhof operator playbook here: https://links.elevatorgoods.com/episodes/vince-nijhof Connect with Vince: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vincevn/ X: https://x.com/VinceNijhof Monish Sabnani (Host): Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/msabnani93/ X: https://x.com/msabnani93 Elevator Talks: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elevatorgoods/ X: https://x.com/elevatorgoods !  Work with the founders of OOAK Brands: https://ooakbrands.com/advisory Subscribe for bi-weekly conversations with operators building real brands. What we cover: 00:02:52 - Intro 00:03:32 - Who is Vince Nijhof and OOAK Brands 00:07:59 - The $20M/month reveal 00:11:01 - How to pick a product 00:14:48 - The 9-figure product filter 00:16:00 - Unit economics and ROAS targets 00:23:45 - Creative strategy and awareness stages 00:28:54 - The 7-pod creative team and leaderboard 00:32:37 - Intent over volume: the one-shot-kill doctrine 00:35:04 - Ad channel breakdown: Meta, Google/YouTube, TikTok 00:37:21 - The Amazon effect: how channels feed each other 00:41:13 - Funnel strategy: pre-landers and listicles 00:47:00 - Upsells and AOV 00:50:36 - Brand building vs performance marketing 00:54:07 - Long-term brand building and R&D 00:55:59 - Cash flow and scaling infrastructure 00:59:07 - Where ecom is heading 01:01:00 - Emotional marketing: angles as emotions 01:04:45 - The AI stack 01:10:57 - Omnichannel strategy 01:17:33 - Building a brand holding: the long-term vision 01:23:49 - The real moat in ecom 01:28:34 - The foundation for scale