Afleveringen
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Paul Gedman has been in DTC longer than almost anyone we've had on the podcast - from joining The Hut Group in 2009 with 40 employees, and over nine years scaling it to £1 billion in revenue via ten acquisitions (including Look Fantastic), to now running eComplete, where he's building a model that competes directly with private equity for e-commerce acquisitions.
Paul breaks down why every DTC era is defined by a different arbitrage opportunity, what actually happens once a founder takes on investment (his "5-a-side to 11-a-side" analogy is a good one), and the brutal real odds of a successful DTC exit - he puts it at 1 in 1,600 founders who get out with more than 50% of the value.
We also get into why 80% of exit processes fail, the prep work founders skip that kills deals months later, and how eComplete is trying to build a hybrid model that gives founders a better shot.
🚨🚀 If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0wQ_DM0This podcast is proudly sponsored by Sathi.
SATHI is the affiliate platform built for Shopify brands that want the truth about their program. Cookieless multi-touch attribution shows you which affiliates drove the sale. AI-powered fraud engine catches leaked codes and self-referrals before your payout goes out. Ambassadors climb commission tiers, earn booster rewards, and see exactly what they need to unlock next. Payouts, invoices, and tax forms happen in one click.
D2C Diaries listeners get 20% off, free migration from their current setup, and onboarding support from their team.
Book a demo: https://mysathi.io/demo?utm_source=soarwithus&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=d2c_diaries
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This podcast is proudly sponsored by Incard.
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Sign up for free and use the code SWU2K26 to unlock your cashback https://incard.co?fpr=soarwithus&fp_sid=pod
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12 months ago AI animation wasn't really a thing. Now it's a fourth creative format sitting alongside static, UGC and high production and the brands that figure it out first are going to have a significant edge.
We got Alex Cooper back on D2C Diaries this week. And a lot has changed since he was last on. We got into everything.
How we've built an AI videographer role into our production process and why you need a specialist not a generalist.
Why winning ads right now are either hyper native or elite direct response and why everything in the middle is dying.
How the pendulum has swung too far toward AI research and why the best strategists are going back to manual.
Why iterations aren't dead post-Andromeda, they just need to mean something.
And the brand that scaled from $1M to $45M off the back of one concept.
Check out Parker AI here: https://heyparker.ai/
🚨🚀 If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0wjzrY0
Follow Alex
https://x.com/alexgoughcooper
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexgoughcooper/
https://heyparker.ai/
00:00 Alex Cooper returns
02:24 Our sponsor Incard
04:01 The biggest shifts in creative strategy in the last 12 months
05:54 How we built the AI videographer role
13:25 AI animations are here to stay
16:02 Meta's persona level delivery
20:04 Gap analysis, learnings and data
26:55 Manual research vs AI automated research
30:07 Our sponsor Incard
31:45 Manual research vs AI automated research
33:39 Iterations post-Andromeda
38:26 Ugly vs high prod
48:37 Positive framing
51:22 Complexity bias in ads
55:20 How Alex is using AI
1:02:17 Parker AI
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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This podcast is proudly sponsored by Incard.
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Meta performance has been rough since March and if you're feeling it, you're not alone. Olly and Loukas are back for a solo episode breaking down exactly what's gone wrong on the platform and, more importantly, what's actually working across the 40+ audits they ran in Q2.
They cover the five most common account errors they're seeing right now (most of which are quick fixes), why creative diversity has become the single biggest unlock for scaling spend, and how to run a proper gap analysis across persona, messaging, valence zones, emotional drivers, and vehicle type before you produce another asset.
Krishna Rao, CFO of Anthropic, on Invest Like the Best https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEEZPpx8qow
Brian Chesky on Invest Like the Best - AI Founder mode https://youtu.be/eURcW5_uS60
Creative Forecasting resource: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0wjPt20
00:00 Intro: news and what we've been watching
17:32 State of Meta: why Q2 has been tough across the board
20:18 5 common account errors (attribution, audiences, funnel coverage, concentration, landing pages)
28:09 What's working: The Hudson Method and creator flywheels
36:36 Creative volume, gap analysis and diversifying across personas, valence & vehicle
48:42 Hit rate case study: micro personas and psychological messaging in action
50:58 Iterations, borrowing frameworks from non-competing brands
55:24 Landing pages, quiz funnels and AOV engineering
🚨🚀 If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0wjzrY0
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D2C Diaries is proudly sponsored by Commercive.
If you're a ecommerce business owner doing a minimum of 10+ orders per day and looking for a smarter and cost-effective way to source and fulfill from china, go to https://www.commercive.co for a free quote and fulfillment audit today.
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Sunna van Kampen built 1.7M followers, generated half a billion views in 2025, and turned Tonic Health into one of the UK's fastest growing supplement brands. Without a single paid ad.
What started as a Covid panic, a Boots listing that fell through and no DTC experience, forced Sunna to figure out how to reach customers from scratch. So he walked into a supermarket with a phone and started exposing what was actually in the products people were buying every week.
That decision changed everything.
In this episode we get into the full story. How Sunna built an organic content engine that runs on two days of filming a month, why he talks about bread more than vitamins, and how a single viral video gave him the insight behind Tonic's best selling product.
We also get into the vitamin industry itself. Why the products on the shelves are underdosed by design, what Sunna found when he went into kids and baby nutrition, and why most supplement brands are built around margin rather than health.
Plus the content philosophy that underpins all of it. Why Sunna's board kept pushing him to sell more, why he kept saying no, and why that decision is the reason Tonic is where it is today.
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🚨🚀 If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0w6mMv0
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This podcast is proudly sponsored by SARAL.
Find influencers, reach out, manage every relationship, all in one place, without any chaos. 200+ brands including Grüns, Solawave, Spacegoods are running their influencer programs on SARAL.
If that sounds like what you've been looking for, go to https://tinyurl.com/3t4d4myx and book a demo with their team. Tell them we sent you to claim your $500 discount and whiteglove onboarding.----
Chris joined Hambi Media as a creative strategist with no agency experience. One year later, he's been promoted to Senior Creative Strategist working across 7-9 figure DTC brands.
In this episode, the guys break down exactly what separates good creative strategists from great ones - the research process, micro personas, messaging psychology, and how Chris 8x'd hit rate in 30 days by changing just two things.
This episode is for you if:
- You're a founder trying to understand what great creative strategy actually looks like inside an agency
- You're a creative strategist who wants to know what top 1% performance really requires
- You're trying to break into creative strategy and want the most honest breakdown of what the role demands
What we cover:
- Why manual research is the highest leverage activity in creative strategy
- How micro personas unlock incremental reach without changing your frameworks
- The messaging psychology shift that 8x'd hit rate in 30 days
- Why AI creates the biggest opportunity in history to become a creative strategist
- The deep work principle behind every great insight
- What creative strategy looks like in 2 years
Chris's Substack: https://substack.com/@christopherstavropoulos
Chris's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisstav1/
🚨🚀 If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0v-BVd0
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D2C Diaries is proudly sponsored by Commercive.
If you're a ecommerce business owner doing a minimum of 10+ orders per day and looking for a smarter and cost-effective way to source and fulfill from china, go to https://www.commercive.co for a free quote and fulfillment audit today.
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Most brands have a creative volume problem and don't know it.
In this masterclass, Olly breaks down the Creative Forecasting model Soar Group uses across its client base (brands spending anywhere from £100K to £5M a month on Meta) to answer the one question that unlocks scale: how many new creatives do I need to produce each month to hit my spend target?
You'll learn how to pull and classify your ad inventory, run cohort survival analysis to get your real churn rate, calculate your win rate and half-life, and plug those numbers into a demand equation that tells you exactly how many ads to launch each month, whether you're holding spend or scaling to a new target.
Olly also covers why volume without diversity stalls accounts, how to map creative gaps across personas and angles, and the negative spiral most brands sleepwalk into when creative becomes a cost centre instead of a growth lever.
By the end of this episode you'll have a repeatable forecasting process you can run on your own account today.
The cheat sheet resource: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0vzzg60
🚨🚀 If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0vzzJ60
00:00 Intro
01:00 Our sponsor: Commercive
02:20 The same trends we're seeing
04:06 The challenges brands are facing
05:20 Creative is the new targeting
06:50 What we're seeing in audits
08:45 How many creatives do we need each month?
19:18 Factors that may impact the data
21:33 What we're trying to avoid
22:33 Personas
25:57 How we help brands
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This podcast is proudly sponsored by Incard.
Most founders building high-growth digital companies are stuck doing the same thing: toggling between apps, wrestling with spreadsheets, and manually reconciling expenses - all while trying to actually grow their business.
There's a better way.
Incard is the financial platform built for the way modern digital businesses actually operate. Multi-currency accounts, corporate cards with real rewards, and a fully connected banking experience - all in one place.
This dedicated offer gets you:
- 1 month free trial Incard Plus
- All Incard Plus plan features included
- 2% cashback on Ad Spend, Saas, Travel for year one
This time-limited offer is only valid until end of May. Take control of your finances with Incard today. T&Cs apply: https://incard.co?fpr=soarwithus&fp_sid=pod
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Loukas breaks down the full AI infrastructure he has built on top of Claude, from context engineering fundamentals through to a self-learning creative OS that compounds over time.
In this mastermind he covers why context is the entire game right now and why your prompts matter less than you think, how Claude Skills work under the hood and how to build ones that actually compress your team's best thinking into repeatable systems, the exact 8-phase scriptwriting skill Hambi runs in production, the recursive script grader that scores every script against 10 criteria and rewrites until it ships, and the reasoning trace system that turns Claude from a tool into something that gets smarter the more you use it.
Whether you're just getting started with Claude or you think you're advanced, this is the end-to-end session.
Comment "Claude" below to get the reference files, CSOS template and PDFs referenced in this episode.
Sarah Levinger's article on Valence Zones https://x.com/SarahLevinger/status/2021281038895546761?s=20
D2C Diaries Scriptwriting Masterclass https://youtu.be/dlH4acLpd_g
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🚨🚀 If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0vgMDy0
00:00 Intro
03:27 Incard sponsor
04:20 Why context is the entire game
08:08 Brand context vs domain context explained
10:16 How to build a context library database
14:14 Claude Skills vs Claude Code vs Claude Cowork
20:38 Claude skills
23:23 The CSOS - single source of truth setup on Notion
26:33 Framework database
29:50 Skill building workflow
31:00 Scriptwriting Skill
35:35 Incard sponsor
36:28 8 phases of scripting writing skill
50:22 Reporting skill
53:27 Script Grader
58:28 Building operating infrastructure
Follow Olly: https://linktr.ee/ollyhudson
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This podcast is proudly sponsored by SARAL.
Find influencers, reach out, manage every relationship, all in one place, without any chaos. 200+ brands including Grüns, Solawave, Spacegoods are running their influencer programs on SARAL.
If that sounds like what you've been looking for, go to https://tinyurl.com/3t4d4myx and book a demo with their team. Tell them we sent you to claim your $500 discount and whiteglove onboarding.
---
In this episode, Olly and Loukas go deep on the AI systems they've spent the last few months building inside Soar Group - the personal operating systems, the creative production infrastructure, and the internal tooling that's changing how the business runs.
This isn't a conversation about AI tools. It's about the architecture underneath them.They cover:
How Olly built a personal operating system based on Andrej Karpathy's LLM wiki pattern — using Obsidian connected to Claude Code. Call transcripts categorised automatically every day, Slack piped in, reasoning traces stored against every decision made in the business.
How Loukas built his own version in VS Code connected to Claude Code with in-depth context on every brand, every direct report, and every specialism, plus a reinforcement learning loop built into the content pipeline.
The Club Neuro AI operating system - a full web app built as a test case before rolling into the Control Room. Best performing frameworks dashboard, hooks database, one-click reporting, weekly Reddit scrape, and a UI designed to capture operator intuition at the moment it happens.
The four learning loops: performance into hypothesis, hypothesis into correction, correction into rule, decision into outcome.
How they hired an AI videographer targeting 60 unique concepts a month — the equivalent of 15 shoot days replaced by one person.
A mass static generation system with 40-60 framework prompts, brand DNA and personas pre-loaded, ready to generate at scale.
The principle that ties it all together: context compounds. Models don't.
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00:00 Intro
02:05 Our sponsor: SARAL
03:00 Our personal operating systems we've built
21:00 AI as a feedback loop
24:14 Our sponsor: SARAL
25:10 Our foundational context and data engine
30:20 Club Neuro: creative intelligence operating system
35:00 Best in class forecasting process
39:50 Our internal creative processes
47:28 Business intelligence platform
Follow Olly: https://linktr.ee/ollyhudson
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This podcast is proudly sponsored by Incard.
1 month free trial Incard Plus
Most founders building high-growth digital companies are stuck doing the same thing: toggling between apps, wrestling with spreadsheets, and manually reconciling expenses - all while trying to actually grow their business.
There's a better way.
Incard is the financial platform built for the way modern digital businesses actually operate. Multi-currency accounts, corporate cards with real rewards, and a fully connected banking experience - all in one place.
This dedicated offer gets you:
All Incard Plus plan features included
2% cashback on Ad Spend, Saas, Travel for year one
This is a time-limited offer valid till the end of this month, April 2026.
Take control of your finances with Incard today: https://incard.co?fpr=soarwithus&fp_sid=pod
---
Most people think growing a DTC brand is complicated. It doesn't have to be.
In this episode, Olly and Sam break down the Growth Compass™ — Soar Group's trademarked framework for diagnosing the #1 constraint holding any ecommerce brand back from profitable growth.
4 pillars. 20 sub-factors. One binding constraint. Fix that one first. Everything else is noise.
As promised in the episode — the full Growth Compass™ cheat sheet covering every sub-factor across all four pillars https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0tQ3_v0
If you want us to run the full Growth Compass™ audit for your brand - scored across all 20 sub-factors with a prioritised roadmap - book a call with the team 👉 Book a call https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0tQ4SL0
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We're back. After a month off, a new office, two London events, and somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 ads launched... there's a lot to catch up on.
In this episode, Olly and Loukas do a full Q1 2026 debrief across creative strategy, Meta attribution, offer positioning, and the frameworks they've been running across 250+ brands.
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This episode is sponsored by Foreplay. Start your free trial here: https://tinyurl.com/3caahj4w
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🚨🚀 If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0tvkYy0
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Resources mentioned in this episode:
Brad Jacobs: How to Make a Few Billion Dollars: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Make-Few-Billion-Dollars/dp/B0CHTQP25T
Rick Rubin: The Creative Act: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Creative-Act-Way-Being/dp/1838858636
Jason Cohen: A Smart Bear: https://longform.asmartbear.com/jason-cohen/
Oren Johnson (organic content & creator trends): https://www.youtube.com/@orenmeetsworld
The GLP-1 $1.8B four-person business: https://x.com/jonoringer/status/2039759594461839599?s=20
Creative Testing Playbook: comment TESTING below and we'll send it to you
---
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🚨🚀 Your creative strategy was built for an algorithm that doesn't exist. In 4 weeks, we'll identify exactly where your creative is leaking money and hand you a roadmap on how to fix it using a persona-driven strategy that reduces CAC, beats creative fatigue, and scales spend profitably.
4 week sprint. 3 hours of your time. No retainer commitment: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0sDQ-p0
Most brands respond to reach problems by producing more creative. More hooks, more formats, more volume. But if you're speaking to the same emotional states in the same way, more output isn't going to move the needle.
The real unlock is persona diversity — and not just at a demographic level.
In this episode of D2C Diaries, Loukas breaks down the exact micro persona framework Hambi use across seven and eight figure DTC brands to drive incremental reach at scale on Meta. This is the internal process — from macro persona to micro persona mapping, through to how psychological diversity in your creative signals to Andromeda who to put your ads in front of.
If you're managing serious Meta spend and incremental reach is a constraint, this is the framework to fix it.
Download our persona breakdown board here: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0sDQTw0
Loukas published an article on micro personas, you can read that here: https://x.com/LoukasHambi/status/2028854922209374604
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🚨🚀 If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0slb_f0
Most DTC founders have a number in their head. A valuation. An exit. A moment where the work pays off.
What nobody tells you is that the decisions killing that outcome are being made right now, long before you ever sit across from an acquirer.
In this episode, Olly and Loukas sit down with Paul Hanley from the Fortia Group, one of the UK's leading e-commerce M&A advisors, to pull back the curtain on what the exit process actually looks like from the other side of the table.
Paul and his team have seen hundreds of DTC businesses come through their doors — from £400K startups to £50M+ brands — and the same mistakes keep showing up. Paul breaks these down.
Plus Paul launches Beauty Value Labs — a new network built specifically for beauty founders who want to understand where their valuation stands today and what it could be.
About Beauty Value Lab: For beauty brands doing $10M+ in revenue, the most important exit decisions are already being made, without you realising it. Years before a banker gets hired, through operating choices and reporting discipline.
Beauty Value Lab is a pre-exit value engineering platform built by career investment bankers at the Fortia Group, working with founders 12 to 36 months ahead of a transaction. Membership includes quarterly Buyer-Grade Valuation Memos, ongoing decision support grounded in buyer logic, and direct access to active beauty acquirers through closed-door sessions.
This is not a founder community. It sits upstream of advisors and bankers, engineering the conditions under which future transactions succeed.
If you're a beauty founder building toward an exit in the next 1 to 3 years, find out more at the link below: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DfEGtuaRTYMsFYeVoK3CBQf8GH0GJ1dV/viewhttps://thefortiagroup.com/
Follow Paul: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-hanley-4ab64592/
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🚨🚀 If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0s7Jtp0
AI UGC has come on leaps and bounds. In this episode Loukas breaks down the exact workflow he's using right now to generate hyper-realistic UGC style ads, without booking a creator, running a shoot, or spending a fortune on production.
We cover the full tech stack: Claude for prompt writing, Sora 2 for hook footage, ElevenLabs for voice cloning, ChatGPT for subject consistency, Nano Banana for B-roll generation and Kling for bringing static images to life.
Then Olly and Loukas go deep on Claude skills, recursive self-improvement loops, and how they're using AI to grade scripts, review landing page congruency and build self-improving creative workflows across the agency.
Comment PROMPT below and we'll send you the Claude template we use to generate Sora 2 prompts.
Read Sarah's article here: https://x.com/SarahLevinger/status/2021281038895546761
Recursive self improvement loop: https://x.com/vibemarketer_/status/2019435524532904205?s=46
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🚨🚀 If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0rNf_N0
For this episode, we’re joined by a Meta Creative Strategist working directly with some of the most disruptive brands on the platform. This is someone inside the system, helping fast-scaling brands rethink how they approach creative, performance, and growth.
We unpack how the algorithm actually works in 2026 and why so many brands are still optimising for an outdated version of Meta. From the shift away from interrupting attention toward earning it, to Andromeda acting like a “super intelligent librarian” that reads the entire book rather than judging the cover, this conversation reframes how creative is interpreted at scale.
We dive into why small iterative tweaks stop unlocking growth, how creative diversity fuels learning, and what really separates the top 1% of brands from everyone else. We also explore the real role of partnership ads, why identity changes how the algorithm understands your message, and where brands are over-relying on AI instead of strengthening creative judgment.
If you run Meta ads, lead a DTC brand, or oversee creative strategy, this episode will likely challenge a few assumptions you didn’t realise you were making.
You can download our 2026 Partnership Ads Guide here: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0rNfZb0
Read our Meta campaign study here: https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/creative-customers/1942172
This episode is sponsored by Foreplay. Start your free trial here: https://tinyurl.com/msm5ak8c
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🚨🚀 If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0rw0Jc0
From the team behind Soar With Us and Hambi Media: http://www.soarwithus.co/
In this episode, we break down Meta’s latest algorithm updates — including UTIs and the next phase of Andromeda and what they actually mean for reach, creative strategy, and performance.
We explore why Meta is moving away from engagement-led optimisation toward interest alignment, how organic content is increasingly training paid delivery, and why generic, broad hooks are losing effectiveness. The conversation digs into creative diversity, persona depth, and how brands should rethink both organic and paid as part of the same system.
We also share how we’re experimenting with Claude Skills, Co-worker, and Claude Code inside our creative strategy team, moving from prompt engineering to codified inputs, context-driven workflows, and structured delegation.
This is a practical, operator-level discussion on how platforms are changing, how strategy needs to evolve, and where AI genuinely creates leverage without the hype.
Read Olly's Meta GEM article here: https://x.com/oliverwhudson/status/2016142894504047008
You can download Olly's Partnership ads guide here: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0rw5St0Follow Olly: https://linktr.ee/ollyhudson
Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joe_marston
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Follow Liam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liam-dean-a11a43152/
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In this episode, we break down what’s actually driving Meta performance right now and why the brands scaling in 2026 aren’t chasing more creative, but building smarter systems around personas and AI.
We go deep into how top-performing accounts are reusing existing assets, structuring creative by persona, and using AI to unlock speed, diversity, and incremental reach... without burning teams out or inflating creative costs.
We also cover what’s next for high-production creative, why emotional authenticity still beats AI in key moments, and how founders and teams should be thinking about context, not prompts, as AI becomes embedded in everyday work.
If you’re a founder, head of growth, or creative leader trying to scale Meta in a world where targeting is gone and AI is everywhere, this episode will reset how you think about creative strategy.
Deep research AI guide here: https://kylepoyar.substack.com/p/deep-research-for-gtm?r=10j51v&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true
From the team behind Soar With Us and Hambi Media: http://www.soarwithus.co/
🚨🚀 If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0rls0q0
00:00 Intro
01:15 Creative formats we're using right now
11:20 Next evolution of AI generated content
15:30 Creative testing strategy (ABO vs. CBO vs. ASC)
17:40 Criteria for deeming a scalable ad
19:40 ASC by persona scaling campaigns
22:40 The "Bidcap Graveyard" hack
24:20 Exclusions in ad setup
25:50 Intentional persona mapping
30:50 Post-purchase surveys for purchase triggers
34:10 AI-powered customer interviews
35:20 Do not turn off winning ads
36:50 Importance of AI experimentation
39:00 Claude Skills and Co-worker
42:15 Context engineering over prompt engineering
44:20 Building a Claude Skill for script writing
51:45 The rise of vibe coding
Follow Olly: https://linktr.ee/ollyhudson
Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joe_marston
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Follow Liam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liam-dean-a11a43152/
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How we’re solving the biggest hiring bottleneck in DTC (and why Meta’s backing it). There’s a shortage of world-class creative strategists and it’s slowing down growth for agencies and brands alike.
You can apply for the incubator here: Apply here: https://apply.workable.com/soar-with-us/j/F587A37B6F/
You can find more information on the opportunity here: https://www.notion.so/soarwithus/Are-you-ready-to-launch-your-career-in-performance-marketing-2e611884e3c980589a44cb0d73c6bfb8
In this episode, Olly and Loukas break down how Soar/Hambi are solving the problem from the inside out… by launching the UK’s first Creative Strategist Incubator.
Whether you're hiring for this role or trying to be the hire, this episode covers:
— Why great creative strategists are so hard to find (and even harder to train)
— The exact soft skills to screen for if you're hiring
— How we built a system to turn generalists into high-performance strategists fast
— What Meta told us about upcoming creative similarity changes and why they're backing this programme
— Who this is for, how to apply, and what’s actually included
Applications for the first 5-person cohort are now open.This is not a junior marketing role.
This is the MBA for creative strategy.
Apply here: https://apply.workable.com/soar-with-us/j/F587A37B6F/
Chris’s newsletter (featured in the episode): https://copychris.substack.com/
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:16 The shortage of great creative strategists
03:50 What makes a great CS: baseline traits + transferable skills
07:53 Incubator announcement
12:01 9–12 month pathway to Creative Strategist role
14:51 Why CS is hard to train
15:56 Training method + modules
21:48 Scriptwriting focus: train hardest first
27:58 Gold Standard scorecard
34:18 Why people leave companies: managers, progression, culture
45:24 What’s next: course content + apply link
From the team behind Soar With Us and Hambi Media: www.soarwithus.co
Follow Loukas on socials:
LinkedIn: https://shorturl.at/TRI8B
Twitter: https://x.com/LoukasHambi
Follow Olly on socials:
LinkedIn: https://shorturl.at/kPrqO
Twitter: https://x.com/oliverwhudson
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IM8 went from $0 to a $120M run rate in just 11 months and they’re targeting $300M by the end of 2026.
In this episode of D2C Diaries, Olly sits down with Danny Yeung, CEO and co-founder of IM8 Health, to unpack how he built one of the fastest-growing supplement brands in the world.
From bringing on David Beckham as co-founder, to replacing 16 supplements with one clinically-backed daily drink, to assembling a scientific board with experts from NASA, UFC and Mayo Clinic, Danny shares the full playbook behind IM8’s explosive growth.
You can watch our IM8 breakdown here: https://youtu.be/FSO_kiGOVu8
Download the IM8 funnel resource here: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0q_2-h0
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What does it take to scale a wellness brand to £25M+ after your first startup crashes, your health collapses, and you’re told sleeping pills are the only way out?
In this episode, Dan Murray-Serter, co-founder of Heights, breaks down the unfiltered journey of building one of the UK’s fastest-growing brain health brands. From startup failure and burnout-induced insomnia to founding a category-defining company used by real celebrity customers, Dan shares the mindset shifts, health breakdowns, and bold brand decisions that fuelled Heights’ rise.
We talk:
How burnout and gut issues led to a £25M brandWhy Heights rejected nootropics hype and built around boring fundamentalsHow they landed celebrity endorsements Why real customer obsession beats clever marketingThis one’s part growth playbook, part founder therapy. Raw, honest, and genuinely useful for any DTC operator or founder building through the pain.
Follow Dan on socials:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danmurrays/
X: https://x.com/danmurraysFollow Olly on socials:
LinkedIn: https://shorturl.at/kPrqO
X: https://x.com/oliverwhudson
Follow Loukas on socials:
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X: https://x.com/LoukasHambi
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If you're a brand spending £100K/month, we'll run your ads. Apply for your growth roadmap: https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0qBQFh0
In this episode of D2C Diaries, Olly and Loukas break down the biggest lessons from 2025 and what they believe will be the single biggest changes shaping e-commerce in 2026.
They recap a huge Black Friday (nearly $40M spent on Meta in November), explain why Q5 (Boxing Day → early January) is the most underutilised growth window of the year, and share a clear creative framework for capturing short-lived New Year motivation without defaulting to lazy discounting.
The conversation also goes deep on leadership and operating lessons from scaling Soar - feedback loops, urgency, prioritisation, process mistakes - before closing with the D2C Diaries Awards, standout brands and campaigns, and predictions for where channels, creative, and acquisitions are heading next.
If you’re a founder, operator, or marketer planning for January and beyond, this episode is essential listening.
00:00 Intro
01:48 Black Friday recap: $40M spend & what actually worked
04:18 Why brands forget to analyse BFCM cohorts
06:17 What this episode covers
07:15 What is Q5 (and why it matters)?
08:10 Why CPMs drop after Christmas
09:17 The “flash in the pan” New Year motivation window
10:25 Q5 creative framework: TOF vs BOF mistakes
13:05 Why brands go too bottom-of-funnel
14:00 Creative mix for Q5 (TOF / MOF / BOF)
16:03 Outcome-led offers that outperform discounts
17:14 What was happening in Jan 2025
19:12 Biggest leadership lessons from 2025
23:42 Prioritisation, planning & time-blocking
27:45 Process rollouts & buy-in mistakes
29:41 Why urgency compounds growth
32:01 D2C Diaries Awards
40:11 New brand of the year: IM8
41:24 DTC dominator of the year
48:31 Most viral campaign of 2025
56:11 Predictions for e-commerce in 2026
1:02:47 Brands to watch in 2026
1:04:03 OutroFollow Olly on socials:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olly-hudson/
Twitter: https://x.com/oliverwhudson
Follow Loukas on socials:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loukas-hambi-388067152/
Twitter: https://x.com/LoukasHambi
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