Ecom Winner

had dinner with a 14m/mo dtc operator in shanghai last week. 2 brands, 6 years in. killer operator, super humble guy. asked him what actually moved the needle. wasn’t ads. wasn’t another dialed funnel. product. said it flipped the day he stopped emailing his supplier and started flying out. kinda hit me. cause thats where we’ve been stuck. for 14 months our product was fine. not bad, not great. just whatever showed up. last couple months i’d been ordering products from 10+ nine fig brands. just to hold them, unbox them, feel the difference. the gap was obvious once you put them next to ours. ideas started popping immediately. spent the last few days at the factory with all that in my head. found a way to make it feel more premium, better packaging, way better unboxing, without adding crazy weight or blowing up cost. brand started feeling like a brand the second i stopped treating the supplier like just a vendor. wild watching a shopify store slowly turn into something real. go meet your supplier. thank me later 🤝