Podcast · Business

Operators

by Sean Frank, Mike Beckham, Matt Bertulli, and Jason Panzer · English · Business

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 1 hr 11 min
Latest: 7 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

7 Oct 2026 · 1 hrNew

How to Raise Capital for Your Brand: TJ Bongiorno (Founder Outgoing Co)

“You can have anything you want, but you can’t have it all at once.” Should you raise money when your only problem is working capital? Help an Operator Out (HAOO) is a series where real business owners join the podcast with live questions. In this episode, TJ Bongiorno (Founder, The Outgoing Co) brings two questions: when to raise capital and how to price the round. As a solo founder, he 4X’d the business to nearly $4M in a year. Nearly 90% of TJ’s revenue comes from powder, yet his cans perform 100X better on TikTok Shop. The hosts push him to choose which product leads his pitch. Matt…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

S3 · E7 · 5 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 1 minNew

Every AI Tool We’re Using & 4 Pillars to Guide You: Operators Build (E7)

“They’re the most capable ever, but not trained on your business.” What pillars should every AI-first brand build, and which one comes first? Matt Bertulli (Founder, Pela Case & Lomi) and Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road Beauty) open up the playbook behind Winks, a brand where AI does the grunt work and humans make the calls. Piece by piece, they break down the four components that make that split work. 1. Company brain: Context, memory, skills 2. Operating system (OS): Human interface 3. Software and tools: Existing tech, SaaS 4. Agents: Researcher, writer, analyst, etc. The era…
E185 · 30 Sep 2026 · 54 min

How to Create Buying Moments: Give People a Reason to Buy All Year

“You’re never gonna make a big impact on Black Friday.” Should you worry if frequent promotions will hurt your brand equity? Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge), Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case and Lomi), and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) break down how Ridge manufactures demand instead of waiting for it. A slow summer becomes an 8-figure-plus sales season, anchored by a Lamborghini sweepstakes with Tony Hawk. Sean walks through how the campaign evolved from a $100K MVP into a five year, celebrity backed giveaway with a grand prize built in. He explains why a 45-day window beats trying to own a single…
28 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 23 min

Ecommerce Subscription Playbook & Benchmarks: Operators Build (E6)

“You almost feel stupid buying the product as a one-time customer.” Why do some subscription brands retain customers and stack LTV while others lose them? Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela & Lomi) and Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road) sit down with Aidan Thibodeaux (CEO, Skio) and Bernard Meyer (AI Operations Manager, Omnisend) to ask the questions every subscription brand needs answered. Aidan argues that the offer matters more than anything else. He pushes quarterly plans and free gifts over discounts. Discounts train customers to wait for deals. He sets targets of 65% or higher for…
24 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 23 min

How First Day’s Founder Alice Li Built a 9-Figure Kids Vitamins Brand From One SKU

How did First Day raise $1M and then build a 9-figure brand? Alice Li (Founder & CEO, First Day) joins Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi) and Jason Panzer (President, HexClad) to unpack how she has sold over half a billion gummies and built a family wellness empire around kids’ vitamins. After years of turning down retailers, First Day launched nationwide and became the number one kids vitamin in the country. Powered By Podqi https://9ops.co/podqi AppLovin https://www.9operators.com/paid-growth https://applovin.com/9operators Shoplift https://shoplift.ai/operators Shiphero…
E184 · 23 Sep 2026 · 53 min

30+ Black Friday Tips to Win the Holidays Like a 9-Figure Ecommerce Brand

“The best Black Friday offers don’t just increase orders, they increase AOV.” Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge), Matt Bertulli (Founder, Pela Case x Lomi), Jason Panzer (President, HexClad), and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) share the Black Friday & Cyber Monday tips they rely on every year. Every tactic comes from hard-won experience over decades of combined holiday wins and losses. They break down why every Black Friday deal needs a backup, sometimes even a worse one, ready to launch. Mike explains why spotlight bias makes old creative beat anything new. Matt shares the upsell that added a…
21 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 25 min

Why the Hardest Part Starts After Launch: Operators Build (E5)

“The amount of effort that we put in to start does not have any meaningful correlation with the success at the end.” When you get delayed and deprioritized by your co-manufacturer, your timeline slips by almost a year, and you still have zero sales, what do you have to show for 18 months of work? Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela & Lomi), Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern), Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge), Curtis Christopherson (Chief Growth Officer, Ammortal), and Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road) reunite one month from launch to close the loop on everything that went wrong. Physical product is…
E183 · 16 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 4 min

Learning From Failure: 3 $100M+ Operators & Their Darkest Moments

“We were not going to make payroll next week.” How did three ecommerce CEOs turn rock bottom into their biggest lesson? Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi), Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern), and Curtis Matsko (CEO, Portland Leather Goods) each share the darkest moment of their ecommerce careers. What came after built the self-awareness that changed how they lead. Curtis walks through the week Wells Fargo pulled a $20M line of credit after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed. Matt breaks down the hubris that nearly cost him payroll one Christmas. Mike shares the night a two-year venture fell…
14 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 29 min

How to Design Packaging for Ecommerce Brands: Operators Build (E4)

“They have just shown how packaging can be so much of a differentiator.” What does a professional DTC packaging design process look like in practice? Chris Ganz (Senior Creative Director, Trevi) sits down with the Winks team to tackle one of packaging’s hardest problems: standing out on a crowded shelf. The group debates naming, mascots, and color palettes before testing real designs on real families. Chris opens with a full competitor audit, sizing up Ollie, Vicks, and Beam. Three distinct concepts turn into five packaging directions, each with its own typography and color story. The team…
E23 · 10 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 28 min

Honeylove’s Betsie Larkin & Igor Lebovic: Building a $200M Company Together

What does it take for a married couple to build a $200 million brand together? Betsie Larkin (Founder & CEO, Honeylove) and Igor Lebovic (Co-CEO, Honeylove) sit down with Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi) and Jason Panzer (President, HexClad). The conversation traces an accidental idea, the crowdfunding math, and the founder instincts that shaped every expansion. Kickstarter only entered the DTC playbook after Betsie proved product market fit on tour. The brand’s sculpting body shapers and tummy control styles kept expanding the line. Betsie explains why a Kardashian-backed competitor…
E182 · 9 Sep 2026 · 56 min

Ecommerce Therapy: 3 Nine-Figure Operators on Focus & Passion

“I’ve always hated it. This year I made the decision to shut it down.” Can three nine-figure CEOs open up about their priorities, passions, and doubts? Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge), Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi), and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) sit down for an honest conversation about the pressure of scaling ecommerce brands. They cover decision making, staying passionate, and the whiplash of growing fast. Mike explains why organizations drift toward safe tasks instead of high impact work. Sean recalls shutting down a profitable business line while questioning his passion. Matt…
E3 · 7 Sep 2026 · 58 min

Starting & Formulating a Supplement Company: Operators Build (E3)

What separates a real supplement company from just a good idea? Dr. Todd A. Born (Chief Science Officer, 4POTENTIA) pulls back the curtain on how to enter the supplement industry, showing the Winks team what product development, private label, contract manufacturers, and regulatory compliance (FDA) look like in practice. More than a deep dive into custom formulation, hosts Sean Frank, Matt Bertulli, Mike Beckham, and Curtis Christopherson show you how to apply good manufacturing practices to everything from marketing strategies in health and wellness to minimum order quantities (MOQs) to…
E181 · 2 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 1 min

12 Lessons These Ecommerce Founders Wish They’d Learned Sooner

What are the secrets to winning in ecommerce that nobody talks about? Matthew Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi), Jason Panzer (President, HexClad), and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) reveal 12 lessons for anyone building a brand from the ground up. This is what they’d tell their younger selves if they ever got one more shot. Secrets like why it takes a decade for your brand to earn its name and how walking away from weak products makes grit pay off. After that, cash gets a hard look because even strong margins can still starve your reserves. Also included are quick hits like customer…
E2 · 31 Aug 2026 · 46 min

How to Create a Product From Prototype to Launch: Operators Build (E2)

What does a real product development process look like when 9-figure operators are betting their own money? Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern), Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge), and Curtis Christopherson (Chief Growth Officer, Ammortal) sit down mid-build on Winks, a family sleep supplement, to make product decisions. Go behind the scenes on flavor count, purchase order size, pricing, sourcing, and the supply chain mistake from Trevi that cost hundreds of thousands to fix. This is an actual founder meeting. Recorded, unedited, and real money at stake. Mike breaks down the MOQ math behind every…
E22 · 27 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 36 min

eBay Resellers to 14M Pairs of Underwear: Shinesty’s Co-Founders

How did two guys flipping “junk” build a brand that’s sold 14M pairs of underwear? Jens Nicolaysen and Chris White (Co-Founders, Shinesty) join Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela & Lomi) and Katy Mimiari (CEO, Caden Lane) to unpack how their eBay account grew into Shinesty. The secret isn’t strategy. It’s personality. They trace the jump from estate sales to beloved online retailer. One midnight email changed everything overnight. Fart blocking underwear and deviled egg prints became fan favorites. It’s proof that irreverent marketing keeps ecommerce customers opening every message. Shiphero…
E180 · 26 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 6 min

10 Best AI Use Cases for Ecommerce in 2026: Ranked by CEOs

Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge), Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi), Jason Panzer (President, HexClad), and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) rank the ten highest impact ways ecommerce brands are using AI in 2026. The four disagree loudly before landing on a group ranking none of them expected going in. Sean says AI chatbots now handle nearly every routine support ticket. Mike takes it further with a model that predicts each customer’s next purchase and updates hourly.The pattern repeats in content, where generative AI now handles static images at Ridge and Pela for a fraction of the old cost.…
24 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 18 min

Every Step to Start an Ecommerce Business Revealed: Operators Build (E1)

“We’ve done it before. Can we do it again?” Five executives put half a million dollars on the line to start a new ecommerce brand. Operators Build follows every step, in public. You get the math, the disagreements, and the cost of launching an online business in 2026. This is not dropshipping. We bought inventory, formed an LLC, and registered our domain name: https://getwinks.com The plan? Shopify and paid social (Meta) with online marketplaces like Amazon and new channels like TikTok added as the numbers earn it. Powered By Skio https://9ops.co/skio-9operators Aftersell…
E179 · 19 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 14 min

Building Solo Past $1M in Only Year One: Help an Operator Out

Help an Operator Out (HAOO) is a series where real business owners join the podcast with live questions. In this episode, Christopher Francis (Founder & CEO, Home Plunge) brings the hardest problem in year one: growing without doing every job himself. He turned a personal need into a $1.4 million business in a year and a half. The conversation covers pricing and offer strategy. It also gets into Amazon, TikTok Shop affiliates, and AI support. Sean pushes for a sale structure built for a high-consideration purchase. Mike frames the manual support work as margin compression Christopher isn’t…
E21 · 13 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 42 min

How Magic Mind Turned a Spreadsheet Into National Retail Domination

“Everyone who said I was too early, they got on my investor updates.” Can product market fit be created, or can you only position yourself to catch it? William Hicks (Co-Founder & CEO, Magic Mind) joins Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) and Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi) to unpack how a Silicon Valley spreadsheet of nootropics became a national retail brand. This episode gets into the real mechanics of product market fit at scale. Raising a seed round took dozens of rejections. Hicks kept those investor relationships warm for years afterward. From there, DTC gave way to national…
E178 · 12 Aug 2026 · 50 min

Why People Buy: A Practical Guide to Consumer Behavior in Ecommerce

“People buy things to fill gaps in their life.” Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge) and Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi) unpack consumer behavior in ecommerce. They cover the emotional triggers behind buying, the offers that convert, and the buying journeys online shopping takes today. The real driver of your marketing strategies is the offer itself, not the checkout experience. People buy out of convenience, fear of loss, identity, and scarcity … long before logic enters the picture. Ridge’s expansion from wallets into rings shows how one brand layered new customer angles onto a single product.…
E177 · 5 Aug 2026 · 1 hr

How Ecommerce Founders Get Rich: Exits, Dividends, Debt & Salary

What are the five ways ecommerce owners actually get paid? Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge), Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi), Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern), and Curtis Mastko (CEO, Portland Leather Goods) break down five real ways ecommerce operators get paid. Each path trades speed for risk, and none of them is easy money. Valuation sets the ceiling, and buyers lean on EBITDA multiples to get there. Distributions are where most operators get paid, if they resist reinvesting too much. Debt speeds that timeline up, though it comes loaded with risk. The episode ends on salary, pitting one…
E20 · 30 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 22 min

Inside the Affiliate Marketing Strategy Behind BK Beauty’s Growth

“We ended up selling twenty-two thousand units that day.” How did two founders build a multi-million-dollar brush brand without outside investors? Lisa Jauregui and Paul Jauregui, Co-Founders of BK Beauty, join Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case and Lomi) and Katy Mimiari (CEO, Caden Lane) to break down the affiliate marketing strategy that took a makeup brush brand from a living room operation to millions in sales. No outside funding. No paid influencer deals. Lisa built a beauty audience on YouTube for five years before BK Beauty launched. A brand focused entirely on brushes for years before…
E176 · 29 Jul 2026 · 48 min

How to Build a $100M Brand: 8 Rules from Leaders Who Did

“The scale is not going to fix your problems.” What separates a hundred million dollar ecommerce brand from the rest? Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge), Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi), Jason Panzer (President, HexClad), and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) break down the eight rules to build a hundred million dollar ecommerce brand in 2026. These are not theories: each host has built a brand at this exact scale. Mike breaks down why Trevi chased profitable unit economics for a year before scaling. Sean calls reorder revenue the ultimate cheat code, and explains why he built Ridge around…
E175 · 22 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 11 min

Why Founders Have to Become Their Own Best Marketer

Help an Operator Out (HAOO) is a series where real business owners join the podcast with live questions. In this episode, Elaine Tran (Founder & CEO, Dippin’ Daisy’s) brings the hardest problem in owning a factory: keeping the lines running without drowning in inventory. The conversation covers owning a factory versus buying from suppliers, managing excess off-season capacity, and launching a new category without it flopping. Sean makes the case that contract manufacturing for other brands can keep the lines running without adding to her own glut. And everyone lands on the same fix nobody’s…
E19 · 16 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 11 min

$450M, 6 Brands & 4 Countries: Why Sunil Agrawal Refuses to Stop

“I feel this is bigger than dot com.” How does a $450 million publicly traded jewelry brand build a live shopping empire that predates TikTok by nearly two decades? Sunil Agrawal (Founder, ShopLC & VGL Group) sits down with Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case and Lomi) and Katy Mimari (CEO, Caden Lane) to pull back the curtain on 46 years of building one of the most vertically integrated businesses in the world. He started as a gemstone lapidary and grew six retail brands without ever once considering an exit. Sunil runs a live shopping operation most DTC operators have never seen. He launches 100…
E174 · 15 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 17 min

Roman Khan: The Ecommerce Logistics Play Worth $10 Billion

“If someone can do the same revenue in 12 hours, basically out of nowhere, it does lower the value of brands.” What does the collapse of traditional brand equity mean for founders still building toward an exit? Roman Khan (Co-Founder & President, Peak21) joins Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge) and Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case and Lomi) to make one uncomfortable argument: the playbook for building and buying ecommerce brands is broken, and most founders haven’t figured that out yet. After three years acquiring DTC businesses, Roman stopped. The reason cuts to the heart of where dropshipping, ecommerce…
E173 · 8 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 14 min

Help an Operator Out: 8-Figure Dog Brand That Needs a New Growth

"You will not be happier at nine figures. I’ll just tell you that right now." What does an operator do after building an 8-figure brand entirely on one dog breed? Help an Operator Out (HAOO) is a new series where real business owners join the podcast with live questions. In this episode, Garrett Yamasaki (Founder & CEO, We Love Doodles) brings his crossroads: a bootstrapped, Amazon-heavy pet brand that crossed eight figures and needs to decide whether to go deeper in its niche or wider into new dog breeds. The answer is less obvious than it sounds. The conversation covers capital allocation,…
E18 · 2 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 37 min

100% Growth for 8 Years: IQBAR’s Will Nitze & Jess Greenwood

“You are not trying if you’re not getting sued.” How did IQBAR go from a $90k Kickstarter to a nine-figure retail, DTC, and Amazon giant? Will Nitze (Founder & CEO) and Jessica Greenwood (CMO) join Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi) and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern). This is the product launch strategy and CPG marketing playbook they wish existed when they started. Will and Jessica detail their early tactics and walk through every funding round: from $625K at a $4M valuation to $5.5M at $50M. They doubled revenue every year for eight years, kept the team at 15 people, and never…
E172 · 1 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 16 min

Opening Retail Stores vs. Going Wholesale: What the Numbers Say

Should you open your own stores, or let the big retailers do the heavy lifting? Curtis Matsko (CEO, Portland Leather Goods), Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi), and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) go head to head on one of the biggest channel decisions a consumer brand will face. Curtis went from a spite-signed lease to 16 owned stores, while Mike turned a $9 million Sam’s Club bet into 10,000 wholesale doors. This episode breaks down these two different paths and what each model actually costs you in competency, capital, and control, why the wrong channel for your product category is…
E171 · 24 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 9 min

Our 2026 Ecommerce Audit: Wins, Mistakes, Lessons & What’s Next

“Whoever can spend the most money is going to win.” Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge), Matt Bertulli (CEO, Pela Case & Lomi), Jason Panzer (President, HexClad), and Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) audit the first half of 2026. The focus is a sound ecommerce growth strategy for Q3 and Q4. No guests, no fluff. Just what worked, what blew up, and where they’re placing their bets. Amazon leads the conversation, with Sean up over 100% year over year on full assortment parity and Mike beating Liquid IV on a $4 blended CAC. Wholesale gets a harder look, with Sean holding a big-three PO and an 18-month…

About Operators

In the world of ecommerce, a legendary text group is rumored to hold the secrets to unimaginable success. The catch? You must have nine figures in revenue to gain entry. The world’s biggest brands have denied its existence for years, until now. Four titans known as the “Operators” are leaking the secret contents in an effort to share its wealth of knowledge with people like you. Sean Frank (CEO, Ridge), Jason Panzer (President, HexClad), Mike Beckham (CEO, Simple Modern) & Matt Bertulli (Founder, Pela Case x Lomi).

Operators is a English business podcast from Sean Frank, Mike Beckham, Matt Bertulli, and Jason Panzer. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Sean Frank, Mike Beckham, Matt Bertulli, and Jason Panzer
Language: English
Category: Business
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 1 hr 11 min
Latest episode: 7 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1684446059
Rights: Sean Frank, Mike Beckham, Matt Bertulli, and Jason Panzer

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