Will Pearson

Most DTC founders are stuck playing small. They don’t realize retail isn’t just a channel. It’s a multiplier. You can grind for months in DTC… Or land one retail buyer and 10x your output in a single PO. I’ve seen it firsthand. After launching 150+ products across 7 brands, here’s what I know: → DTC is your test lab. → Retail is how you scale. If you’re serious about building something durable Get shelf-ready. Build trust with buyers. And stop treating retail like it’s Shopify 2.0. Because in retail, you’re not just another brand. You’re a partner. And partners deliver. — Save this if you’re ready to stop playing small. DM me if you want help building your retail playbook.

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Reviewing Booth Setups at Online Retailer Conference & Expo 2025 From a Billion-Dollar Flop to a Vibrant Shiperoo Display Avalara has not executed well on their booth space at Online Retailer In contrast (This IMO - is a great way to throw away $100k and actually looks bad for Online retailer) , In contrast - I highlight the impressive booth setup of Shiperoo which has a great vibe with neon lighting, video, and a mirrored background. Avalara - you might be good at O/S taxes - but you need help from Kings Of Neon Shiperoo - we got you! The takeaway - Your brand activation is a direct reflection of how much you care. Project what you want to get out of an event - more reviews to come!!

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Does growth eventually breaks the Founder Model? Many consumer and retail businesses scale successfully to $30M, $75M, even $150M largely because of the founder...Fast decisions, Strong instinct, Relentless involvement. Then growth slows....often unexpectedly. Not because demand disappears. Because decision velocity collapses. I’m seeing leadership teams where nearly every meaningful decision still routes back to one person: pricing, key hires, channel expansion, inventory bets, and technology investments What once created speed starts creating constraint. The companies that scale through this stage build three things intentionally: 👉 Clear decision guardrails 👉 Empowered functional leaders 👉 Operating rhythms that don’t depend on escalation Delegation isn’t loss of control. It’s how control scales. If growth opportunities are increasing but decisions feel heavier and slower, the organization may be waiting for permission more than direction. #Leadership #FounderLed #RetailGrowth #ScalingBusiness #OperationalExcellence #EnterpriseValue

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Ozempic is changing the grocery aisle...and now it’s coming for protein bars on Amazon. Amazon’s fastest-growing bar brand? Not RXBAR. Not Quest. It’s David, and it just exploded to $2M/month with +12.8% market share growth in the past year. (Coming from 0%!!!) In SmartScout’s latest analysis of Amazon’s top protein bar brands, David shot up with +12.8% market share growth, now tied for #2 in the entire category. As more Americans shift toward appetite suppression and portion control, the snack landscape is undergoing a quiet transformation. Instead of dense 20g protein bombs, we’re seeing a surge in lighter, fewer-ingredient, lower-calorie bars that feel more like a snack than a meal. Here’s the full leaderboard by monthly revenue: 🥇 Aloha – $3.2M (20.1%, +3.0%) 🥈 David – $2.0M (12.8%, +12.8%) 🥉 RXBAR – $2.0M (12.8%, -1.1%) 4️⃣ IQBAR – $1.9M (11.8%, +1.3%) 5️⃣ KIND – $1.0M (6.7%, -9.6%) 6️⃣ Quest Nutrition – $871K (5.6%, -1.9%) 7️⃣ think! – $733K (4.7%, -1.5%) 8️⃣ Epic – $381K (2.4%, -0.6%) 9️⃣ Mezcla – $349K (2.2%, +1.5%) 🔟 Perfect Bar – $361K (2.3%, +0.5%) 📈 Three key trends jump out: David is the breakout star – riding the Ozempic wave but with a founder that is very familiar with the protein bar space. The highest density of protein possible, this keeps nutrition inside of bodies that are losing lots of weight. It certainly helps that the founder Peter Rahal has done this before. KIND is slipping fast – a -9.6% drop shows how fragile brand equity can be without freshness or digital investment. Premium underdogs are rising – IQBAR, Mezcla, and Aloha are all gaining share with differentiated messaging and cleaner ingredient profiles. The protein bar market isn’t just crowded—it’s saturated. But the winners are proving there's still room to grow… if you get the brand, timing, and distribution just right. Many Amazon shoppers are captured from other channels. Retail, DTC, Social all come to Amazon after learning about it elsewhere. Is it possible to win and grow in this category with an Amazon only focus? How far can David go? Probably further since they just raised $75m. After eating a few myself, I think I'll go back to Built Bars.

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I spoke to a friend outside of ecom yesterday who does cold outbound. He works with 8 & 9-figure companies that somehow manage to slip through spam filters into your inbox. Mostly B2B sellers. There’s a lot to learn from this space. I see it as a canary in the coal mine. And that canary’s barely hanging on. Here’s why: While speaking to my friend he hit me with a crazy update: “I’m no longer using link & open tracking in cold campaigns.” He can't track open rates. He can't track click rates. My immediate reaction: “Wtf dude, why?” Because spam filters are cracking down hard on even the slightest hint that someone is not meant to be in your inbox. If they see suspicious tracking links in an email from a person who's never heard from you before... 💨poof💨 you're in spam. And he’s not stopping there. He’s stripping all of these out of his clients’ cold emails: - Images - Links - Click/open tracking (technically also links) - Spammy words (free, offer, credit, etc.) So what’s left of the email then? Text. Just a plain old school email. You're probably wondering... "uh, how does he optimize?" Short answer: he doesn't. Long answer: reply rates. Replies are all he can judge performance off of. And because of how few events you get with replies in tests, things like content testing & subject line testing have become VERY hard for him to do. And this is where it gets interesting for you. Since he can’t really run any meaningful micro tests to isolate variables, most of his decision making comes from... gut instincts. He’s basing all his sends and testing on past knowledge. Experience running thousands of tests in the past and knowing more or less what works. He’s merging these best practices with what his gut tells him is good copy, and hitting send on a small set of variations. Some sends will yield insights, but most won’t. Iterating and improving takes A LOT more time than it used to. Not to mention it’s much higher stakes for new people coming in. It’s funny because when most of us started with email, we thought “wow, a platform with so many variables”. But very quickly, email is resembling traditional TV campaigns in that you can only really test one or two big things at a time. As we move toward this promised AI world full of data and opportunity, what we’re actually seeing is aggressive tightening of what we can do with email, not more. And truthfully, this gets me excited. Why? Because the best creativity comes from constraints. The power in email is shifting toward folks with experience, copywriters and designers who want to put in the work to put out A+ content.

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Proud to share Acosta Group Connected Commerce’s latest strategic alliance with CommerceIQ,  helping us transform how brands grow in an increasingly AI-powered world.  By combining CommerceIQ’s cutting-edge automation software with our real-world retail expertise, we are moving faster, acting smarter, and delivering more value to the brands we serve.   By integrating CommerceIQ into our Connected Commerce services, we’re helping clients solve problems before they happen — growing their revenue in a modern cost-effective model.  This move reinforces our commitment to staying future-ready — and remaining 1 of 1 in our space.  

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Easy wins this Black Friday you can still harvest... 1. Ringless voicemail. This is free money. For the script, treat it like SMS because it gets transcribed. Be sure to spell your brand out. 2. Insert Black Friday verbiage everywhere. Collection descriptions, PDPs, cart, checkout, LPs, announcements bars... It's easy for people to miss. Also when someone navigates into a product they want to know the product they are adding is part of your sale. 3. Collection sort. Applies to email, sms, your site...EVERYTHING. This is BUTCHERED by most high SKU brands. If you're in apparel and sending people to a best sellers collection but your top product only has XXS or XXXL or some weird size in stock...you're burning $! As you lose size coverage, demote products. Have a long form blog on this, dives in deeper. But this is a HUGE % mover during BF. 4. Direct mail. Keep in mind mail is the same cost even during BFCM VS clicks getting wildly more expensive. With something like Post Pilot (disclosure - investor) it's easy to do this at scale very quickly; it outperforms during BFCM especially, even in holdouts VS SMS or SMS+email. 5. Slam SMS/email frequency. Send a lot and keep deliverability high by doing things like encouraging replies to win free stuff. Don't be afraid to be aggressive. You should be sending email daily...and even 2x - 3x on BF + CM days. Open any of your relative's email accounts (that isn't a nerd) and look at how many promo emails they receive per day. Nobody is going to care that you sent a lot of email during BFCM.

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The $20M Manual Deduction Trap Had three demos this week. Same story every time: Brand 1 ($20M revenue): "We handle all deductions manually across UNFI, KeHE, Target, and Walmart" Brand 2 (Legacy CPG): "We use a 30-year-old system and write off anything confusing" Brand 3 (Emerging brand): "We only dispute shortages. Everything else goes to 'cost of doing business'" The hidden cost? Brands are leaving 7-10% of their deduction dollars on the table. Here's what we showed them: ✅ Live dispute filing: Recovered $4,500 in early pay fees during a single 45-minute demo ✅ Cross-retailer pattern recognition: What seems random to you reveals clear patterns to AI ✅ Auto-validation against promo calendars: Stop manually checking every MCB ✅ Historical recovery: 1-year lookback window = immediate cash injection The "aha moment": When Brand 1 realized their manual process was costing them $140K+ annually in missed recoveries. For CPG finance teams: If you're manually coding 500+ deductions monthly, you're not just wasting time. You're hemorrhaging recoverable cash. DM me and I'll set up an audit to review your deduction data. Find out what you're leaving on the table. No pitch, just insights. #CPG #DeductionManagement #FinanceAutomation #RevenueRecovery

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