The DTC Growth Summit 7/23/25 NYC a billion in sales? maybe not but it was fun.

inside the dtc growth summit: 

july 23, 2025, nyc.

~80 founders, marketers, and operators in one room. we kept it small on purpose so people could actually talk, trade notes, and leave with next-week moves.

why we did it

i was sick of 10 hours of saas pitches from fat 9 figure founders at every conference.

simple goal: gather practitioners who are spending real dollars and solving real problems. teach what’s working right now for brands doing roughly $500k to $150m a year. no theory. just tactics you can ship.

the room

it felt like a few old friends dropping how to get hockey stick growth, not a show. coffee and bagels, people rolling up sleeves, laptops open, side huddles between talks, slack groups spun up on the spot.

speaker highlights

    •    Brett Curry (OMG Commerce) — google ads growth levers. budgeting, structure, and creative that actually moves PMAX and search.

    •    Jarrod Mehr (Pura Vida Bracelets) — how the team scaled the brand to the $500m mark. offer sequencing, channel mix, and the moments that mattered.

    •    Nate Lagos (Original Grain) — nine-figure watch sales playbook over the last few years. positioning, bundles, and why product velocity beats vanity metrics.

    •    Kamal Razzak (MHI Scale) — making ads that can profitably spend millions. concept systems, iteration cadence, and when to call something a control.

    •    Paddy McLarnon (PM Digital) — CRO that compounds. turning PDPs and carts into revenue machines without fighting the brand.

    •    Ray Johnston (Wright Hook Digital) — paid social + lifecycle sync. how creative, targeting, and retention talk to each other.

    •    Trayan Hristov (Thrivelia)— practical frameworks for iterating offers and creative, then pressure-testing them in-channel.

    •    Johnny Hickey (Perfectwhitetee) — from $50k/mo to $2m+/mo. product discipline, ops, and protecting margin while you grow.

    •    Jacques Spitzer (Raindrop) — creative testing at scale. find, prove, then refactor winners without losing the soul of the brand.

what people took home

    •    how to spot leaks fast, not six weeks later

    •    ad testing frameworks for high-volume variation without chaos

    •    a CRO checklist for PDPs, carts, post-purchase

    •    retention quick wins that add 10–15% without increasing spend

    •    a stack of real tactics, plus a DM pod that’s still buzzing

a few moments that stuck

    •    founders comparing “profit-on-ad” instead of arguing ROAS in the abstract

    •    a live teardown of offer math that flipped a weak bundle into a winner

    •    side-table chats on returns windows, SLAs, and how to judge incrementality

what’s next

we broke even by design. the point was to prove the format and invest in the community. next stop: miami 2026. bigger room, same operator energy, even more tactical.