AG1 grew from $10M to $600M in revenue over seven years, entirely customer funded with zero VC money until 2021. Jon Corne was Global CMO for most of that journey, building the podcast advertising and creator economy strategy that the entire DTC industry has spent the last five years trying to reverse engineer.

In this episode Ryan sits down with Jon, now 12 months out of the business, to unpack the full playbook for the first time. From landing Joe Rogan before anyone knew what podcast advertising was worth, to signing Huberman before his first episode aired, to cutting Amazon when it was 25% of the business, this is the most detailed breakdown of AG1's growth strategy ever recorded.

If you are a DTC founder, growth marketer or brand builder, subscribe for new episodes every two weeks.

00:00 Introduction

02:08 How Jon joined AG1 with no marketing experience

03:12 What AG1 looked like in 2017: 10 people, one product, $11M run rate

06:02 Why podcasts beat every other channel for supplements

06:08 The single product strategy and why it created a brand moat

21:04 The almond croissant analogy: focus as competitive advantage

24:09 Building the creator economy playbook before the term existed

24:19 "We will be the number one audio brand in the world"

27:02 The runners thesis: using creators as live market research

33:49 The Google Sheet that managed 8 figures and delivered 9

36:34 Why AG1 cut Amazon when it was 25% of the business

37:47 Why Meta was only 15% of AG1's ad spend

41:27 Day trading is Meta. Value investing is creators.

43:38 How AG1 structured creator deals and why they paid fairly

49:25 The COVID moment that halved their customer acquisition cost

53:00 The Joe Rogan story: almost cancelled after episode three

54:06 The Elon Musk episode and what it taught Jon about context

58:03 Why Jon paid above market rate for Joe Rogan impressions

1:00:48 Signing Huberman before his first episode aired

1:13:09 How AG1 thought about retention and why it starts with acquisition

1:17:44 The data infrastructure problem that held them back

1:22:56 Gummies, competitors and the future of the category

1:28:22 What Jon would tell his younger self

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Grüns went from zero to $300M ARR in 2.5 years. They ship 4 million gummies per day, just raised a $35M Series B at a $500M valuation, and have 10 new products launching in 2026.

This isn't luck. It's an intelligently architected DTC model - and in this solo breakdown episode, Ryan Walton tears it apart piece by piece.

This episode is a different format to our usual guest interviews. Ryan runs through the full Gruns growth funnel - product strategy, pricing mechanics, landing pages, creative strategy and unit economics - to show exactly why this model is scaling so fast and what DTC operators can learn from it.

00:00 — Intro: Why Gruns is the holy grail of DTC growth right now

01:00 — What Gruns actually is and who built it

03:00 — The AG1 problem: taste and value as the two biggest objections in the category

06:00 — How Gruns solved both problems and redesigned the category

10:00 — The wellness market opportunity: energy, gut health and immunity

12:00 — Landing page breakdown: why 80% of traffic goes to blog-style pages

16:00 — The GLP-1 angle and why it's smarter than it looks

20:00 — Creative strategy: visual diversity, conceptual diversity and the squint test

22:00 — Persona breakdown: gym bros, menopausal women, parents and GLP-1 users

28:00 — Whitelisting and why Gruns maps creator pages to target personas

32:00 — Reverse engineering the full TAM strategy

35:00 — Unit economics: AOV, LTV and why they're probably losing money on first purchase on purpose

**37:00** — Why a high LTV model lets you hammer spend and scale fast

Website: https:// dtcunboxed.com

DTC Unboxed is the growth podcast for DTC operators - unpacking the tools, tactics and principles behind the world's fastest-growing direct-to-consumer brands.

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Tushy has convinced 3 million+ Americans to ditch toilet paper, challenging bathroom habits that have gone unchanged for 170 years. In this episode, Ryan sits down with Jerel Blades, Head of Growth at Tushy, to unpack the growth playbook behind one of DTC's most recognisable brands.

0:00 Intro

01:35 - Defining Bathroom Wellness: Shifting from "The Bidet Company" to a "from gut to butt to bowl" ecosystem.

04:00 The "Blue Ocean" Challenge: Educating a market where only 6% of households use a bidet compared to 60-70% in Asia.

05:34 Three Pillars of Growth: Jerel’s fundamental framework

08:14 OOH & Awareness: Using unconventional "poop trucks"

10:00 The Consideration Cycle: Analyzing why 40% of new customers known the brand for over a year before buying.

11:11 The Power of Word-of-Mouth: How a remarkable product drives 35-40% of sales through friends and partners.

12:27 Whitelisting & Human Trust: Why creator-led content is 10x more effective than clinical brand advertising.

15:10 The "Andromeda" Era: Moving away from complex lookalikes back to the core principles of emotional, story-driven marketing.

18:58 Strategic Innovation: Using product launches like fiber gummies to re-engage customers who haven't bought since 2021.

21:38 Amazon as a Proxy: Using marketplace data to identify sub-category growth and inform the product roadmap.

25:38 The LTV Unlock: Why Tushy focuses on multi-packs and bundles.

28:01 Retention Nuance: Distinguishing between "repeat" (unpredictable upgrades) and "recurring" (predictable subscription) revenue.

30:45 Innovation vs. Market Penetration: Deciding when to double down on one product based on the Total Addressable Market (TAM).

32:55 Brand as a Performance Lever: How a strong brand presence in culture directly reduces Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).

38:36 Movement-Based Marketing: Building a sense of "cultural movement" (like Caraway) to maintain demand during economic pullbacks.

41:43 Post-Tariff Resilience: How a 140% cost increase forced the team to become more disciplined, creative entrepreneurs.

45:10 The Future of Toileting: Expanding into AI stool tracking (the Hindsight app) and 10 new product launches for 2026.

48:49 Avoiding "Shiny Tool Syndrome": Final advice on ignoring software hype to focus on the human fundamentals of persuasion.

Website: https://dtcunboxed.com

Follow Jerel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerel-blades-89407412b/

DTC Unboxed is the growth podcast for DTC operators - unpacking the tools, tactics and principles behind the world's fastest-growing direct-to-consumer brands.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.