“You don’t have to be first to be the best.”

What does it take to scale a brand from $20M to $140M in just 12 months?

Luka Kvatchrelishvili (CMO, True Sea Moss) joins hosts Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) and Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) to break down how he took a bootstrapped, product-led superfood brand … and scaled it into a nine-figure DTC powerhouse. Luka shares his path from practicing law in Georgia to drop shipping foosball tables to leading a 33-person marketing team.

The conversation digs into how Luka diagnosed and fixed True Sea Moss’ data infrastructure before touching a single ad, and how a surge in creative volume gave way to a more methodical, outcome-driven testing system. He also gets into the halo effect between Meta spend, Amazon, and retail performance; the power of the LTV-to-CAC cohort report; and how True Sea Moss went from Telegram groups and Trello boards to a marketing-led operation scaling toward half a billion.

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Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026

https://motionapp.com/thumbstop-pulse/creative-benchmarks-2026?utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_content=creative-benchmarks-2026&utm_source=marketing-operators-podcast

Saras Analytics

https://bit.ly/9OP-Ytdesc

Haus

https://www.haus.io/operators

Richpanel

https://9ops.co/richpanel

Aftersell

https://9ops.co/4i3bb5

Operators Newsletter

https://9operators.com/

What does a content flywheel look like when it’s firing on all cylinders?

Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) and Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty) break down how their teams structure content creation end-to-end: from micro-creators and TikTok Shop affiliates to high-production studio shoots and ambassador programs. Both hosts bring their own playbooks to the table to compare notes in real time.

They cover the three core buckets of a paid ad account, why scripted UGC is losing ground to raw “yapper content, how to negotiate more deliverables without doubling creator rates, the TikTok Shop affiliate flywheel, and why building an in-house production playbook is one of the highest-leverage investments a brand can make.

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Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026

https://motionapp.com/thumbstop-pulse/creative-benchmarks-2026?utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_content=creative-benchmarks-2026&utm_source=marketing-operators-podcast

Aftersell

https://9ops.co/4i3bb5

Haus

https://www.haus.io/operators

Richpanel

https://9ops.co/richpanel

Operators Newsletter

https://9operators.com/

Are you measuring new reach on Meta the right way or just guessing?

Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) dig into the tactics + measurement frameworks driving their paid media strategies right now.

The conversation spans Meta’s incremental attribution rollout and what the data shows. They cover signal engineering with conditional pixels, the case for non-purchase optimized campaigns on YouTube, and why building a deliberate testing roadmap matters more than chasing every new ad tech feature. Plus, behind the scenes on Jones Road’s biggest creator partnership came together.

Powered By

Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026

https://motionapp.com/thumbstop-pulse/creative-benchmarks-2026?utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_content=creative-benchmarks-2026&utm_source=marketing-operators-podcast

Richpanel

https://9ops.co/richpanel

Aftersell

https://9ops.co/4i3bb5

Haus

https://www.haus.io/operators

Operators Newsletter

https://9operators.com/