Two $100M+ Operators Get Honest About Launching New Brands

“There’s so much that I took for granted. It’s such a different playbook.” What happens when two operators who’ve helped build nine-figure brands start again at zero? Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Cody Plofker (advisor and former CEO, Jones Road) compare notes on two new launches: Ridge’s Gut Culture and Cody’s Winks. They get into six hard lessons from the early days. (1) Building with a lean team. (2) Earning credibility when nobody knows the brand. (3) Finding a message that gets clicks. (4) Testing offers before the data is conclusive. (5) Making subscription economics work. (6) Dealing with high ad costs. Cody shares what’s happening at Winks just weeks after launch; Connor explains what Ridge learned from six months of building Gut Culture. Powered By Motion https://9ops.co/motion-runneth Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops Proppel https://www.weareproppel.com/operators Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Haus https://www.haus.io/operators NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Operators Portal https://portal.9operators.com/dashboard Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/ 

Why do experienced operators still overcorrect on average order value? Varun Kundra (Co-founder, Aftersell by Rokt) joins Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road) to break down the pricing missteps that quietly cost real revenue and the metric worth watching instead. The hosts compare years of pricing tests at Ridge and Jones Road. They cover three ways to bundle for more revenue per order. Varun explains why image heavy upsells beat plain offers, plus a subscription upgrade converting at 20% to 30%. Connor and Varun wrap with a teardown of Winks, the brand behind Operators Build. Powered By Motion https://9ops.co/motion-runneth NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops Proppel https://www.weareproppel.com/operators Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Haus https://www.haus.io/operators Operators Portal https://portal.9operators.com/dashboard Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/ 

“We just had a hundred thousand people buy in the last 60 days.” What does the future of retention marketing actually look like by 2027? Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) unpack what Postscript’s AI memories mean for retention marketing’s future. They map out a 2027 playbook built on personalized experiences, even as TikTok Shop’s creator economy hits a breaking point. Postscript is building unified profiles instead of fragmented SMS data. That shift promises holdout testing and customer lifetime value tracking. RCS already shows early lift in live tests. Meanwhile TikTok Shop’s incentive structure is pushing affiliates toward burnout. Powered By Motion https://9ops.co/motion-runneth NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops Proppel https://www.weareproppel.com/operators Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Haus https://www.haus.io/operators Operators Portal https://portal.9operators.com/dashboard Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/ 

“Don’t let perfect measurement get in the way of good marketing” How do Ridge, HexClad and Jones Road each structure Black Friday, Cyber offers differently? Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) share how holiday marketing campaigns pull their ecommerce brands in completely different directions. Shark Ninja becomes the opening case study, spending big on creator activations without measuring returns. The hosts counter with their own tactics, mixing steep weekend deal drops with full brand rebuilds between sales. The riskiest move this season turns out to be a discount that costs a brand its most loyal customers. Cody dives into Winks, a fresh sleep brand he and four other 9-figure executives are building from the ground up, and introduces Operators Build, the show capturing the entire journey from scratch.Powered By Motion https://9ops.co/motion-runneth Haus https://www.haus.io/operators NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops Proppel https://www.weareproppel.com/operators Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Operators Portal https://portal.9operators.com/dashboard Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/ Operators Build https://9ops.co/ops-build-ytplaylist Winks https://getwinks.com/ 

“It is so incredibly easy to not drive incremental results the week of Black Friday.” Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) share how they are approaching Q4 planning. Before scaling Black Friday, Cyber Monday spend, both HexClad and Ridge test incrementality with real control groups. That same discipline shapes their AMER vs CAC debate, since neither wants to scale spend that isn’t truly incremental. Also, AG1’s new gummy launch steps up, and so does its cannibalization risk. Powered By Motion https://9ops.co/motion-runneth NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Haus https://www.haus.io/operators Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Proppel https://9ops.co/weareproppel Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/ 

What changes when a single marketer creates as much value as an entire department? Reza Khadjavi (Founder & CEO, Motion) joins Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road) to explain why he built Runneth, an AI agent meant to eventually replace Motion’s own product. He walks through the context engineering behind that shift and what it means for marketers. Motion scrapped its own revenue targets right after a record quarter, betting the whole company on AI agents. Reza explains how markdown files and organized repositories turn those agents into something closer to a new hire. His advice: skip the Mac Mini, move to the cloud, and put close to 10% of payroll behind AI. Powered By Motion https://9ops.co/motion-runneth Proppel https://9ops.co/weareproppel Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Haus https://www.haus.io/operators NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel Operators Portal https://portal.9operators.com/dashboard Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/

How much can filtering a collection page actually lift average order value? What about cart, checkout, and post-purchase?Varun Kundra (Co-founder, Aftersell) joins Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) to unpack how ecommerce brands raise AOV. Four levers make that possible: collection page tests, product bundles, post purchase upsells, and cross brand advertising. HexClad’s new collection page lifted revenue per user by 7% and AOV by $10. Single silhouette bundles need no extra education, but new pairings like Japanese cookware still do. Varun ties it back to Aftersell and Rokt Thanks. Together they’ve generated over $1B in upsell revenue at a take rate under 1%. Powered By Motion https://9ops.co/motion-runneth Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Haus https://www.haus.io/operators NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops Proppel https://www.weareproppel.com/operators More from Operators Operators Portal https://portal.9operators.com/dashboard Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/ 

“I just don’t hear a lot of good reasons why this can’t be automated”.  Can an algorithm allocate ad budget better than a human media buyer? Olivia Kory (CMO & Strategy Officer, Haus) joins Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) to unpack incrementality testing, marketing mix modeling, and early agentic media buying. Geo lift holdouts and attribution debiasing point toward a future of automated budget decisions. Olivia shows how A/B testing replaced ROAS benchmarks at Haus. Control groups and treatment cells now anchor every incrementality read. Connor Rolain also shares how one conversion campaign test reshaped HexClad’s Meta strategy. The team ties it all back to multi-touch attribution for faster decisions. Powered By Motion https://9ops.co/motion-runneth NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel Proppel https://9ops.co/weareproppel Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Haus https://www.haus.io/operators More from OperatorsOperators Portal https://portal.9operators.com/dashboard Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/ 

“It was the most fun role I think I’ll ever do”. How do visionary founders build teams to protect their time for big ideas? Katie Cirulli (Chief Emerging Brands Officer & fmr. President, Grüns) joins Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) and Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road). She joined Grüns as employee four and rose from Chief of Staff to her current role. Before that, she spent years at McKinsey and Meta. She explains why founders need integrators, and how AI powers Grüns. She walks through the chief of staff role she built with Chad Janis. The CPM arbitrage test was an early swing that never scaled, unlike the LTO strategy that followed. Grüns now runs five emerging brands through dedicated marketing pods. Paid media, creative, and CRO, all guided by the same paper wall mindset. Powered By Motion https://9ops.co/motion-runneth Haus https://www.haus.io/operators NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops Proppel https://9ops.co/weareproppel Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/ 

“Borrow cultural equity executed with real partnership compounds faster than anything built in-house.” What happens when a legacy brand like Lexus stops buying reach and starts buying culture? Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) trace how Lexus is using Colin and Samir to reach an audience Lexus already has.One idea drives the partnership: reach your audience better. Cody argues AI generated UGC misses the point entirely. Connor Rolain reveals the four and a half percent lift from a recent cart upsell holdout test. Retention marketing gets the final word on why so few brands measure it properly. Powered By Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026 https://9ops.co/motionapp-creativebenchmarks2026Aftersell https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops Haus https://www.haus.io/operators NeonPixel https://9ops.co/neonpixel Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops Proppel https://9ops.co/weareproppel Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/