Operators

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 founder’s restraint against another’s ambition. 
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Postscript
https://9ops.co/postscript
Aftersell
https://9ops.co/4i3bb5
Operators Newsletter
https://9operators.com/

“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 expanding into new categories. That focus led the brand to handle twenty two thousand orders in a single day, all fulfilled in house. The conversation covers creator tiers inside TikTok Shop, and why margin matters more than almost anything else in ecommerce. 
Operators Titans is brought to you by AppLovin and Fulfil. 
Fulfil: The ERP built specifically for DTC and ecommerce brands, integrated with over 400 3PLs so your inventory, purchasing, and financials never fall out of sync. Ridge runs its entire operation on it. See why here: https://9ops.co/fulfil 
AppLovin: Get access to the Operators channel expansion playbook, online masterclass, and up to $5k in ad credits here: https://www.9operators.com/paid-growth. Or launch your ads today with our exclusive link: https://applovin.com/9operators.

“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 chasing it. Jason closes on hiring rigor, where a LinkedIn check now decides every offer. 
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Fulfil
https://9ops.co/fulfil 
Richpanel
https://9ops.co/richpanel
Northbeam
https://www.northbeam.io/
Saras Analytics
https://bit.ly/9OP-Ytdesc
Postscript
https://9ops.co/postscript
Aftersell
https://9ops.co/4i3bb5
Operators Newsletter
https://9operators.com/

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 using: better ecommerce marketing + merchandising. 
Powered By 
Fulfil 
https://9ops.co/fulfil 
Richpanel 
https://9ops.co/richpanel 
Northbeam 
https://www.northbeam.io/ 
Saras Analytics 
https://bit.ly/9OP-Ytdesc 
Postscript 
https://9ops.co/postscript 
Aftersell 
https://9ops.co/4i3bb5 
Operators Newsletter 
https://9operators.com/

“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 new products every day. His top customers generate $20,000 in lifetime value. He fired his robots when the ROI math didn’t hold. He moved four brands to Shopify in five months because AI did most of the coding. And he still measures the business not in dollars but in meals delivered. 
Operators Titans is brought to you by AppLovin and Fulfil. 
Fulfil: The ERP built specifically for DTC and ecommerce brands, integrated with over 400 3PLs so your inventory, purchasing, and financials never fall out of sync. Ridge runs its entire operation on it. See why here: https://9ops.co/fulfil 
AppLovin: Get access to the Operators channel expansion playbook, online masterclass, and up to $5k in ad credits here: https://www.9operators.com/paid-growth. Or skip the waitlist and launch your ads today with our Operators-exclusive link: http://applovin.com/9operators.