Bobbie went from a basement in San Francisco to a 9-figure baby formula brand. They 10x'd revenue in 5 years. They're #1 at Whole Foods. They turned DOWN $300M in revenue during a crisis. Here's every brand-building lesson ecommerce founders can steal from their Chief Brand Officer 🧵

1/ BRAND ≠ PERFORMANCE — AND THAT'S THE POINT Bobbie's CBO Kim Chappell says performance marketers want every bet to be a winner. Brand marketers know some bets lose — and that's how you build something memorable. "Pull them out of their spreadsheets and say: trust the possibility. Let the data cook." The data may take 6-9 months to show up. That terrifies CFOs. But it's how category-defining brands get built.

2/ YOUR #1 KPI MIGHT NOT BE REVENUE Bobbie's top metric? Trust. Not ROAS. Not CAC. Trust. "If you don't trust a baby formula company, you're not going to purchase their product to feed your baby." They measure it obsessively — benchmarking against competitors and the industry. When trust is high, you earn PERMISSION to do bold campaigns, wild partnerships, and playful brand moments. Without it, you're wasting your money.

3/ CODIFY YOUR BRAND INTO 3 PILLARS (NOT 30) Bobbie's entire brand personality sits on 3 pillars: → Fierce Empathy: Listen first. Guide, don't lecture. → Unshakable Confidence: Clear, not cute. If a sentence works without an extra word, cut it. → Sally Forth Spirit: Be bold. Fail fast. Pick yourself up and keep going. "If Bobby were a person, she would look you directly in the eyes and tell you exactly what she thinks." Lesson: If your team can't name your brand pillars by heart, you don't have any.

4/ DON'T CHASE CELEBRITIES — MAKE THEM COME TO YOU Cardi B didn't get a cold email from Bobbie. She was already feeding Bobbie formula to her baby 6-7 times a day. She reached out to THEM. "When you're genuinely doing the work — not performatively — and you have a product they're obsessed with, there is a two-way street." How Bobbie attracts A-listers (Tan France, Ashley Graham, Cardi B) on a startup budget: → Be purpose-driven (advocacy for paid leave, maternal mortality) → Have a product worth talking about → Celebrities take less money when they believe in the mission

5/ MOVE AT THE SPEED OF CULTURE Molly Baz's breastfeeding billboard got pulled from Times Square — deemed "inappropriate" next to Calvin Klein underwear ads. Months later, Bobbie learned Molly was using their formula. Kim's newsroom instinct kicked in: "BREAKING NEWS. We have Molly Baz. Sprint. Go." They had a 2-week window. They: - Flew to her kitchen in LA - Shot the campaign in-house - Turned around creative in 24 HOURS - Directed the shoot via Zoom (their creative director was heavily pregnant) Result: The first breastfeeding billboard in Times Square history. Lesson: The cultural window doesn't wait for your Q3 planning cycle.

6/ FIND PARTNERS WITH YOUR SAME "HUTZPAH" The Molly Baz campaign worked because she matched Bobbie's energy. "She was so down the clown. She was like, 'Let's do it. Let's go.' She was ready to put her elbows out." When evaluating partnerships, don't just look at follower count. Ask: Does this person have the SAME ENERGY as our brand? The wrong partner with millions of followers will always underperform the right partner who's genuinely all-in.

7/ CELEBRATE WHEN CUSTOMERS LEAVE This might be Bobbie's most genius move. When customers cancel (baby turns 1, no more formula needed), Bobbie doesn't beg them to stay. They CELEBRATE them: → A "graduation" ceremony → Spotify Wrapped-style stats: bottles made, diapers changed → Live Zoom calls with the CEO → A graduation certificate → A "Bonvoyage Box" — 2 cans to gift a friend Customers literally write love letters when they cancel. "Name another subscription you go to cancel and you're CRYING about it." Lesson: Your offboarding experience IS your referral program.

8/ DO THE UNSCALABLE THINGS (FOREVER) Early Bobbie: A customer's package was stolen off their porch. The team found an employee nearby and Ubered $250 worth of formula through Atlanta traffic. Not for an influencer. Not for a celebrity. For a regular parent. "Building trust in the earliest days was doing the unscalable things — things that don't make sense but feel right and mean something to that one person." They STILL do these things at 9 figures.

9/ TURN A CRISIS INTO YOUR DEFINING MOMENT During the 2022 national formula shortage, Bobbie made a decision that changed everything. They STOPPED acquiring new customers. They put prospects on a waitlist. They prioritized existing subscribers. They deliberately walked away from $300M+ in potential revenue. "People called our CX team in tears. They felt so looked after." When they reopened: → Word of mouth was on fire → Waitlist customers became the most loyal cohort → They barely needed performance marketing Lesson: How you treat people during a crisis defines your brand for a decade.

10/ MASTER YOUR CORE BEFORE YOU EXPAND Bobbie spent 5 years perfecting infant formula ONLY. "It's shortsighted to get SKU-hungry and AOV-hungry before you've earned the trust and awareness." They resisted launching toddler products, accessories, and adjacent categories. Now that they OWN their category (4 infant formula SKUs, first organic whole milk formula in the US), they have PERMISSION to expand. "We didn't want to confuse people. Are you here for the toddler? The mom? The accessories? WHO ARE YOU?" Lesson: Category ownership > product sprawl.

11/ THE SCREENSHOT TEST Kim's simple litmus test for every brand marketing email: "I look at it on my phone and ask: Would I screenshot this and share it in my stories?" They watch for customers doing exactly that — screenshotting and sharing brand emails organically. "Are you giving them something to REACT to? To SHARE? Are you starting a conversation they're PROUD to be part of?" If your emails only drive clicks, you're leaving brand equity on the table.

12/ BUILD A PARTNERSHIP FUNNEL (NOT JUST ONE-OFFS) Bobbie structures partnerships into 3 tiers: Top of funnel: → Unexpected, buzzy, culturally relevant → Example: Jones Road Beauty x Bobbie "Sleepless Nights" kit Mid-funnel: → Loyalty perks for subscribers → Graduation gifts for cancelling customers Bottom of funnel: → Gift with purchase → Starter bundle add-ons → Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals "Leaving space and budget for ALL THREE — not just the bottom ones — is really important."

13/ TRANSPARENCY IS THE NEW MARKETING When trust in baby formula cratered industry-wide (recalls, contamination scares), Bobbie went ALL IN on transparency: → Built a quality & safety page (NOT a sales page) → Launched a Transparency Tracker: scan your can's lot code → see every safety test it passed → Brought cameras into their manufacturing facility for the first time → Put their COO on camera explaining quality decisions → Ran SMS + ad flights driving to the safety page — zero product pitch "Proof. Receipts. Timeline. Screenshots. Let's give it to them." Lesson: When your industry has a trust problem, the brand that shows receipts wins.

14/ FOLLOW THE ENTHUSIASM When a campaign idea lands and the team's Slack is popping off with energy and excitement? FOLLOW THAT. "If your team is excited and the ideas are coming and you can make the business case — scrap the original thing and move to the thing driving enthusiasm." "If we're excited about it, the customer will most likely be excited about it." Don't get trapped in bad ideas. Kill them fast. Sally forth.

15/ HIRE FOR MINDSET, NOT JUST SKILLS "Some people come in with great hard skills and you're sold by the skills — but they don't have the mindset." At a fast-paced ecommerce company: → Skills change every year → What worked 3 years ago is obsolete → Growth mindset > polished resume Also: Holding onto an underperformer hurts the whole team. "Having the courage and actually the RESPECT for that person to let them go at the right time is the right thing to do." Clear is kind.

16/ GIVE YOUR TEAM 5 DAYS, NOT 6 MONTHS "If you give a team two weeks, they'll take two weeks. If you give them 5 days, they'll get it done in 5 days." "If you give them 6 months, they'll over-pontificate, do too many revisions, and get too many opinions." Bobbie runs 8 cross-functional workstreams with 465+ subtasks per quarter. But they also protect capacity: "If we want to add something to the roadmap, something must come out." Speed + constraints = flow state.

17/ YOUR NON-TRADITIONAL BACKGROUND IS YOUR SUPERPOWER Kim was an Emmy-winning TV anchor for 10 years before she ever touched marketing. What carried over: → Unfazed in chaos (she covered hurricanes and reported from disaster zones) → Storytelling muscle (crafting stories on deadline, daily) → Speed of execution ("Every deadline can be met. It's in your bones.") → Belief that everyone has a story worth telling "I had to Google what CAC was in meetings. I was pretending I knew the whole time." Lesson: Don't hire from the same talent pool as everyone else.

18/ BOBBIE'S RAPID-FIRE CONTRARIAN TAKES: → Not everything needs a data point. "Let it rip sometimes." → Stop over-testing. "Not everything needs to be A/B tested. If you know, you know. Ship it." → Most underrated growth tactic: "Unleashing your no-name customers as UGC content creators at scale." → Most important word in leadership: Empathy. → Most important word in business: Leadership.

TL;DR — Bobbie's playbook for ecommerce brands: ✅ Trust > ROAS as your north star ✅ 3 brand pillars, not 30 ✅ Attract talent & partners with purpose ✅ Move at the speed of culture ✅ Celebrate customers leaving ✅ Do unscalable things at any size ✅ Master your core before expanding ✅ Transparency IS marketing ✅ Follow the team's enthusiasm ✅ Hire mindset over skills ✅ Ship fast, protect capacity From a basement in San Francisco to a 9-figure brand. 🎙️ Full episode: Marketing Operators — "Building a 9-Figure Baby Brand" with Kim Chappell @MarketingOperators" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">youtube.com/@MarketingOper… @codyplof @M__Operators @KimGChappell @couuor