Zak:  
Welcome to the D2C Revenue Rocket podcast. Today we're joined by Louis Monoyudis, a seasoned D2C growth leader and operator with a track record of scaling some of the most exciting consumer brands in e‑commerce. Across leadership roles at brands like Fable, Bokksu, and Levo, to name a few—and now as Chief Marketing Officer at Artware—Louis has built and optimized full‑funnel growth systems across acquisition, conversion, retention, and team leadership.
Today's episode moves beyond any one brand story. We're turning this into a growth masterclass—unpacking the frameworks, channel strategies, and operator insights that separate brands that plateau from brands that rocket‑ship. Louis, welcome to the show.

Louis (00:50):  
Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Zak (00:52):  
You have a super interesting background. I had the pleasure of spending a few days with you at a conference in Austin a couple of weeks ago. I really enjoyed talking with you and hearing about your background. Before we jump into all the questions, could you give a little bit of background? You can start as early as Harvard, to being a clothing designer at Calvin Klein, to fractional CMO—just to name a few. Why don't you give us a little background?

Louis (01:22):  
Absolutely. The entire arc of my career in branding and marketing has really been centered around narrative and storytelling. That first came into focus when I was concentrating in the highly marketable degree of folklore and mythology at Harvard. That laid the groundwork for understanding how cultures make sense of the world around them and the people around them. At the end of the day, branding and storytelling are really one and the same.
From there, I went on to Leo Burnett, a big agency in Chicago, doing brand strategy for Morgan Stanley, Motorola, Showtime—lots of different brands. Then I moved to New York and spent about a decade in corporate fashion at Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, and John Varvatos, helping those companies launch new divisions and price points. After that, I moved into the earlier‑stage D2C ecosystem, primarily focusing on premium and luxury CPG.

Zak (02:36):  
As far as storytelling goes, are there any big differences you noticed between working at really big established brands and newer D2C e‑commerce startup brands?

Louis (02:51):  
Absolutely. When you're an earlier‑stage company, it's all about figuring out product‑market fit—understanding what you're tapping into emotionally with your customers. What's the tactical problem you're solving, and what's the community you're building that customers want to be part of?
When you're a bigger brand—Coca‑Cola, Calvin Klein—you've already figured that out. Now it's about reinforcing it across all channels, continuing to build out the world of the brand, and doing it with increasing efficiency.

Zak (03:37):  
Why did you choose e‑commerce to concentrate in? What excites you about it?

Louis (03:44):  
Like all of us, I think we're masochists. It's a hard world, and it's never been harder than it is today. I love the opportunity to have a direct relationship with the customer. I always champion being the voice of the customer internally—not just in marketing, but in operations, IT, product development, and infrastructure. Everything should ladder up to giving the customer the best experience possible.

Zak (04:30):  
One of the things I love about D2C e‑commerce is that you can see the impact of what you do a lot quicker. You tweak a website, launch a new Klaviyo automation—you see it immediately. I assume that in big corporate brands, nothing happens quickly.
I also love what you said about studying folklore and mythology and how that shaped your view of storytelling and branding. Are there other things you learned early on that shaped how you think as a growth leader today?

Louis (05:33):  
One core tenet is making sure you're not just focusing on features and benefits. I talked about this in my keynote in Austin. A lot of brands talk about features—like in bedding, thread count and cotton type. Everyone says the same thing.
The better brands connect the dots: Why should you care? Softer sheets. That's the benefit—but it's not defensible. It's not exciting. And in marketplaces like Amazon, where dupes are everywhere, you need something else.
The best brands—Rolex, Coca‑Cola, Disney—tap into imagination and emotional connection. When you open a Coca‑Cola, you're not just having a beverage; you're tapping into the brand identity. Disney has built an immersive world across parks, hotels, cruises—hospitality taken to the next level.
For earlier‑stage companies, you don't have theme parks or heritage. So you have to understand the emotional layer. Instead of just "thread count," say: You deserve the very best when you go to sleep. You have a stressful life. Treat yourself to the best. Then justify the price with features.

Zak (07:54):  
If you were giving advice to D2C brands doing $5–20M in revenue on how to talk about benefits instead of features, what would you tell them?

Louis (08:15):  
At that stage, founders often are the audience—until around $10M. After that, you may no longer be your core customer. That's hard for founder‑led brands because it requires dropping your ego and doing what's best for the brand.
You need data infrastructure and a clear listening strategy. Constantly ingest customer feedback—weekly if not daily. Incorporate it with an open mind.
Performance marketing is a great example. Sometimes the best‑performing ads are "ugly ads"—handwritten Post‑its, raw UGC. You don't always need highly produced creative. At scale—Calvin Klein, Coca‑Cola—you need tighter control. But early on, experiment and have fun.

Zak (10:32):  
We try to do that with clients, but founders often push back because they want everything elevated and perfect. Any suggestions for how we communicate the benefits of testing "ugly ads"?

Louis (11:14):  
It's a bit controversial, especially coming from premium/luxury CPG. I'm not saying abandon brand identity. But don't strangle it. Just because you paid a prestigious agency $100K for a brand identity doesn't mean you can't deviate.
Maybe top‑of‑funnel stays tight and polished, but lower‑funnel can be more flexible. People already bought into the brand; now they need different persuasion.

Zak (12:12):  
When you join a new brand, what are the top three things you audit first in their D2C marketing strategy?

Louis (12:28):  
Three C's: Cash, Customers, Creative.
Cash: Every brand must watch cash flow and aim for EBITDA positivity. As a marketing leader, you have a fiduciary responsibility—not just a sales responsibility.
Customers: When was the last time anyone besides customer service talked to a customer? Call VIPs. Call angry customers. Learn what keeps them coming back—or what disappointed them.
Creative: What's working? What's not? Meta and Google rely heavily on algorithms now. You need tons of creative for them to slot in.

Zak (14:51):  
You mentioned ingesting data. Do you have a preferred place to store and analyze it?

Louis (15:06):  
At this level, I love using Claude. Train it on your brand voice, history, competitive set, cash flow, team structure, goals. Then feed it customer reviews, acquisition channel data, influencer traffic, press traffic—ask what's changing.
It can surface insights that used to require a full data team.
"Now, luckily, you don't need to necessarily have… a data team… you can really leverage the AI."

Zak (16:11):  
It's amazing how it can analyze all that data and create automations—pulling from Klaviyo, Meta, Google Ads, reviews, help desk, etc.

Louis (16:35):  
Exactly. Before AI, the bottleneck wasn't data—it was analyzing it. Now you can function like a $100M+ team in terms of decision‑making.

Zak (17:23):  
You've built and led teams across many brands. What separates a high‑performing marketing team from an average one?

Louis (17:39):  
Three more C's: Communication, Clarity, Compassion.
Clarity: Everyone should know what they're doing monthly, weekly, daily, hourly.
Communication: Free, open communication. Flat structure. No fear of talking to leadership.
Compassion: People want to do a good job. If they aren't, what's blocking them? Remove roadblocks. Create safety.

Zak (18:58):  
Top three most important software tools for a D2C company?

Louis (19:14):
Shopify — I won't work at a company that isn't on Shopify.
Klaviyo — Best ESP for D2C.
Gorgias — Great for customer service.
Bonus: PostPilot—often overlooked but incredibly effective for reactivation and retention.
"You should absolutely be having some very basic postcards going out…"

Zak (21:16):  
We love PostPilot too. Nine out of ten times brands aren't using it.

Louis (21:43):  
Absolutely.

Zak (21:43):  
You said you'll only work with a company if they're on Shopify. We relate—we stopped doing WordPress/WooCommerce entirely.

Louis (22:13):  
Congrats.

Zak (22:13):  
As brands grow, teams split into performance, brand, lifecycle, creative, etc. How do you build alignment across channels?

Louis (22:45):  
It's hard—especially in distributed teams. Leadership must create clarity and transparency. Share cash flow concerns, margin concerns, upcoming board expectations.
Early on, you hire jack‑of‑all‑trades. As you scale, you hire specialists. You must help early employees transition into narrower roles and understand new boundaries.

Zak (24:38):  
So true. Early on you need generalists; later you need specialists.

Louis (25:05):  
Exactly. If someone is starting a brand:
Get a co‑founder. Don't do it alone.
Hire 1–2 great generalists.
Use agencies and freelancers before W‑2 hires.
You owe W‑2 employees career development. If you can't provide that yet, they'll leave.

Zak (26:53):  
All good advice—except letting ECD go.

Louis (26:58):  
Keep them on retainer.

Zak (27:00):  
How do you see AI changing the skill sets brands need to hire for?

Louis (27:20):  
AI frees up mental bandwidth. Teams can focus more on customer understanding, brand, storytelling, and positioning—not just execution.
It also changes roles. For example, the creative strategist role merges media buying and creative planning. AI enables that hybridization.

Zak (28:22):  
So AI lets teams analyze more and strategize more.

Louis (28:46):  
Exactly. Creative strategists take data + creative inputs and guide both media buyers and creative teams. AI accelerates that evolution.

Zak (30:05):  
What advice do you have for people in execution‑heavy roles who want to upskill so they still have a job in 6–12 months?

Louis (30:35):  
It's not just them—CMOs, COOs, CFOs are worried too.
Become an AI operator. Learn the tools deeply. Stay current. Go to conferences. Experiment. AI is a hammer—it still needs someone to swing it.
"AI is still a hammer. It needs someone to move the hammer."
So if you can become the person who moves the hammer—and not be replaced by the hammer itself—that's very important. Become an AI operator. Really understand the tools, understand how to use them, understand the advancements. Go to conferences, stay up to date. I personally feel overwhelmed, and I'm doing my best to keep up because there's so much new happening.
The other thing I encourage people to do at every stage—because it's so easy now—is set up your own Shopify store. It doesn't have to be a real business. Set up a dropshipping Shopify store with an integration to a dropshipping provider and really understand what goes into it: building the pages, creating an SEO/AEO‑focused blog post, setting up a customer service widget, running some low‑level Meta campaigns. You can do all this for a couple hundred bucks a month. You'll even start to get some money coming in.
But more importantly, it puts you in the mindset of an operator. You'll see holistically how the entire business works. So even if you're sitting in customer service, operations, or media buying, it helps you understand how one decision impacts everything else.
"You'll start to get some money coming in… but it will put you in the framework of an operator…"

Zak (32:21):  
I heard you give that advice before—maybe in your keynote or in a conversation. I think it's great advice because nothing helps you understand the overall strategy like being personally responsible for all the pieces and seeing how each one affects the others. One thing I've been saying a lot to my team is…

Louis:  
Totally.

Zak (32:52):  
Companies aren't going to be paying agencies much longer for execution. Historically they've paid for execution plus strategy, but that's changing. Maybe another month, maybe six months—but two years from now, definitely not. So I'm pushing everyone on my team, and anyone listening to this, to upskill. Focus on strategy. Use the tools—like you said, Louis—be the person who controls the hammer so you can free up time for bigger strategic thinking.

Louis (33:29):  
Yeah. And the funny thing is everyone wants to do strategy. No one wants to piece together an email, do crazy segmentation, or God forbid, run a VLOOKUP. AI gives us the freedom to move past that. Agencies should be paid for their judgment, not just execution, because execution will become increasingly automated.
Get smart, build a network, and keep having the harder conversations about what customers are really looking for when they come to a brand, website, or service.

Zak (34:17):  
Ultimately, I think it's great. It allows people to automate the tasks they've always complained about—tedious but important things like adding products, updating alt text, adding metafields, creating promo codes. All that low‑impact but time‑consuming work can now be automated. That frees people up to think: What cool strategic things can we do to drive more revenue?

Louis (35:05):  
Absolutely.

Zak (35:08):  
What do you see separating DTC brands that stall in the $10–20M range from those that break through?

Louis (35:21):  
A lot of it comes down to control. Too much control over testing stalls brands. Too much founder ego stalls brands. Cash‑flow issues stall brands. Some brands plateau simply because they've reached market saturation for their price point at that moment in time.
And honestly, there's nothing wrong with having a cash‑flow‑positive lifestyle business that throws off capital for you and your employees. If you have venture or PE investors, they may not love that—but self‑funded brands can do very well without the pressure of intense board expectations.
Another reason brands stall: they rely too heavily on discounting to get from $5M to $10M. Discounting is like sugar—you get the spike, then the crash. Those customers aren't loyal. Of course you need to participate in Prime Day, Black Friday/Cyber Monday, etc., but running promotions every other week positions you as a discount brand.
"Discounting… is like eating sugar all the time… you're going to get the spike, but you can get the crash after."

Zak (37:21):  
Cash flow ties back to what you said earlier—always make sure you're EBITDA‑positive. And founders can be great at getting a brand to $10–20M, but if they don't get out of the way, the brand won't grow beyond that.

Louis (37:50):  
Yes—and it's not always ego. Sometimes it's fatigue. Some founders have been grinding for a decade. They finally get the brand to a stable place, but you can only run at 100 for so long before burnout hits. I see that a lot.

Zak (38:22):  
For founders starting a business, one piece of advice I've heard is: figure out how much you want before you start. Otherwise the goalpost keeps moving—more, more, more—and that creates stress later.

Louis (38:50):  
Totally. But that's human nature. We always move the goalpost. And in the founder community, there's a lot of showmanship—people presenting success that doesn't match their P&L or cash runway. Benchmarking yourself against that can be dangerous.

Zak (39:41):  
If you could give yourself one piece of advice from 10 years ago, knowing what you know now, what would it be?

Louis (39:55):  
Don't get caught up in growth hacking. Don't jump on every fad. Trust your gut and speak truth to power—kindly, respectfully, but confidently. I always ask my team to do that, but many people are shy or unsure. Those conversations build character.

Zak (40:36):  
That ties back to one of your three C's—communication. Don't be scared to communicate. Well, it's been great having you on. Where can people find you, and is there anything you'd like to plug?

Louis (40:54):  
A couple things. In addition to my marketing work, I've been doing keynote speaking—that's how Zak and I met. In January, I spoke to about 700 marketing professionals in the wine industry. If anyone is looking for a speaker for a sales kickoff, agency retreat, or conference, let me know.
And as a fun side business, I launched a luxury travel company a couple years ago, which—no pun intended—has really taken off. We do everything from quick weekend getaways to once‑in‑a‑lifetime safaris or trips to Machu Picchu.

Zak (41:45):  
I love it. I was at your keynote in Austin and you did an awesome job. I heard multiple people say it was the best talk of the week.

Louis (42:00):  
Amazing! That's great to hear.

Zak (42:04):  
Thanks for coming out, Louis.

Louis (42:06):  
Good to see you. Thanks for having me.

Zak (42:09):  
Before we wrap up—if you're serious about growing your e‑commerce brand, grab a free revenue audit. We'll analyze your store, marketing, and retention channels to show you exactly where the biggest revenue opportunities are. It's completely free, and you'll walk away with a clear growth plan. Just go to klaviyo.com/ecd and book your audit today.