Welcome back DTC fam,
Lots to unpack here, let’s get right into it:
Ever wonder who’s hiding in your Shopify orders?
Someone who has ordered twice, maybe even three or four times. It turns out that person has 40K+ followers on socials…
They love your product. And you already paid to acquire them.
And you never recruited them as an affiliate because you never really looked.
Most affiliate programs start the same way: cold outreach, hashtag scrolling, hoping a stranger replies. The best partnership a brand will ever have, though, is often already sitting in its own data.
Sherlock is SATHI’s new AI agent, built on this whole concept. It scans your customer list and surfaces the people who are already buying from you and already have an audience worth activating. Some brands have found 500+ influential customers sitting in their own data.
Warm invitations work well with someone who already knows your brand. Pretty elementary.
Start investigating with Sherlock and see who’s been there all along.
[ founder highlight ]
90 days from idea to 50+ doors, on zero ad spend (not joking).
Christina Zhang went looking for hydration without the sugar trade-off and landed on birch sap. Tapped from birch trees in a short spring window, drunk in Nordic communities for centuries, and almost nobody in the US had tasted it.
Know a DTC founder or operator we should highlight? Drop their name below, we would love to showcase the work they're doing.
[ in the news ]
It’s coming for Strava...
Going up against any competitor, especially in the health and fitness space and ESPECIALLY long-time standing Strava, is a bold move. Share Aura now allows athletes to build profiles, share gear and locations, and connect with other fellow athletes.
What this means for operators:
When you combine tools with community, good things happen. And as founders and operators, we need to be at the forefront of what our community members want and understand how we can best help them.
Brand refresh before BFCM
Magic Mind hit a new brand refresh with their packaging. All the same, good ingredients inside, but a fresh, clean look for this fall. And they’re hitting the mental performance category hard:
“The world’s first mental performance shots™”
Do you need to do a full brand refresh for your product? Maybe not, but it gives you, your current community, and your potential buyers something to talk about (we love to see the BFCM hype).
Medici Brands raises $250M - “fastest-growing food company in history”
Medici Brands is speedrunning this game.
They are projected to pass $300M in annual revenue with their portfolio of brands like David and HallPass, and just recently raised $250M.
Say less.
Check out the press release here
[ get connected IRL ]
The Sweat Set (LA)
Make-A-Wish is hosting their first-ever Sweat Set, combining a Barry’s Bootcamp workout with a live DJ set. 100% of ticket proceeds go directly to Make-A-Wish Los Angeles to help grant life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses.
They’re looking for brands to donate products in-kind for 60 gift bags. And as a founding product sponsor, they’re offering:
Recognition across event marketing materials and sponsor acknowledgements
The opportunity to align your brand with a meaningful community fundraiser
Recognition as a founding partner of what is intended to become an annual Make-A-Wish Los Angeles event
(For any brands with a local LA team, they’re also open to having vendors table outside during the event)
If you’re a brand wanting to get in touch, reach out to Zach on LinkedIn or zach@1800dtc.com.
UGLY TALK: THE BLACK FRIDAY AND CYBER MONDAY PRE-GAME WITH SHOPIFY (NYC)
Loaded with some prime speakers for this one. Here’s what they’re hitting during the event:
Get ahead of BFCM before the scramble. September gives founders enough runway to fix the plan before late October panic mode.
Hear what actually worked. Shopify founders break down past BFCM wins, misses, and the moves they would never repeat.
Pressure-test your prep. Offers, landing pages, inventory, email, SMS, retention, fulfillment, and the ugly operational gaps that show up when volume spikes.
See what Shopify is shipping. A Shopify Sidekick or AI team member demos new tools and features tied to the latest Editions release.
Leave with sharper decisions. Not theory. A cleaner checklist for what to build, test, and simplify before BFCM hits.
Get the rest of the details here
K:BOS VIP Brand Dinner with Orita (Boston)
Small VIP dinner for brands over in Boston on September 8th.
Check it out here.
We’re going to see more of these tight-knit groups getting together in the DTC space. The talk will be about the ones who organize and put them on.
[ operators resource ]
Here’s a sneak peek of our BFCM Operators Playbook:
The Timeline (this is just a piece of your BFCM strategy).
Because the last thing you want is to get stuck running the old 2025 plays. Now, inventory lead times are longer, creative windows are earlier, and milestones might not match the countdowns you originally planned.
Below is a snapshot of the 2026 BFCM timeline.
And we’re only on chapter 2.
Want the other 12 chapters of the playbook?
[ data behind DTC ]
Yesterday, eMarketer sent out a report on Millennials using AI in 2026. As a DTC operator, it’s important to know how our buyers are using their search and shopping power.
The key thing they highlight in the report:
“Roughly 55% of millennial AI users have used an AI tool while shopping in the last month, compared with less than half of the total population.”
AI will continue to play a big part in how brands, founders, and agencies engage with their audience.
See you Tuesday,
Zach and 1800DTC Team
1800DTC.com
P.S
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