The Andrew Faris Podcast

Lara Guevara, CEO of Move Supply Chain with 17 years in sourcing and freight strategy. She breaks down how the war in Iran is driving fuel surcharges, rerouted shipments, and sudden price hikes. Short, tactical moves are highlighted: audit freight invoices, map tier‑two suppliers, prioritize SKUs, and prepare negotiation data to protect DTC operations.

Cherene Aubert, founder and CEO of Growth Capital and former growth lead at Common Thread Collective and Bobby, shares DTC tactics for beauty and wellness brands. She discusses how sampling and trials revealed demand, why bundles lift first-order value, the trade-offs between conversion and AOV, and when subscription incentives help or hurt long-term growth.

Andrew Foxwell, founder of Foxwell Founders and Foxwell Digital, is a digital marketing expert who studies agency trends. He discusses surprising findings from the State of Agencies report. He digs into how agencies use AI for research, creative production challenges, client reactions, when AI helps versus creates chaos, and why only a small share see clear AI ad winners.

David Gaylord, cofounder and CEO of BushBalm, built a $30M, bootstrapped hair removal brand that started DTC and scaled via salon-first wholesale. He explains building a pro portal, low-friction wholesale signup, trade show plus digital acquisition, and community-driven loyalty. Topics include targeted product assortments, limited drops to energize pros, and reallocating spend from ads to product and service.

A deep dive into how AI will magnify both strong and weak agency methods. Discussion of why documenting repeatable processes and operationalized knowledge will decide winners. Warnings about automated landing pages and convincing but harmful outputs. Practical pointers on what brands should ask agencies and which playbook elements matter most.

Drew Marconi, founder and CEO of IntelliGems and A/B testing expert, breaks down where most experiments go wrong. He explains why premature wins mislead, why longer, replicable tests matter, and how pricing, offers, and shipping thresholds move the needle. Practical testing strategy and automation get plenty of attention.

Patrick Coddou, COO and product lead at AJF Growth who builds AI tools like AJF OS. They dig into agency revenue models and pod staffing. They debate whether clients value dedicated strategist time. They explore AI’s impact on capacity, creativity, and team wellbeing. They describe building AI tools, avoiding feature noise, and choosing sustainable growth over frantic scaling.

Gregg Carey, founder and CEO of More Staffing and former ecommerce operator, builds lean teams by pairing top Filipino talent with tight workflows. He discusses hiring higher-caliber offshore professionals, creating SOPs, dashboards and KPI triggers, and using AI to automate decision escalations. The conversation focuses on operational leverage, inventory and financial discipline, and tooling that scales a small team’s impact.

A deep dive into how AI and offshore teams can cut operating costs and lift margins in e-commerce. Benchmarks for OPEX and revenue-per-employee get discussed. Tactics for testing pricing and offers without sacrificing profit are explored. Practical hiring and team structures for scaling with AI are highlighted.

Rob Fraser, founder and CEO of Outway Socks, built a multimillion-dollar sock brand and private-label arm. He discusses using private‑label preorders to generate cash, choosing air freight to speed inventory turnover, negotiating 3PL terms to cut costs, and the reset of removing external growth targets to refocus on product and profitable fundamentals.