Every brand that gifts product keeps a record of it. The record is usually called something like "Seeding Tracker" or "Gifting Q2," and it is not, strictly speaking, an asset. It is closer to a memorial.
It has columns. Name. Handle. Follower count, recorded once at the moment of optimism and never revisited. Product sent. Value of product sent, which someone has totaled at the bottom, and which currently reads $4,212. A column headed "Posted?" containing a long vertical run of the word "No," broken once by "Yes (tagged wrong brand)." And a column headed "Notes," which is where the hope is kept.
The notes are the part that does the damage. "Said she'd post when back from Tulum." "Following up." "Followed up." "DM'd, seen, no reply." "Will circle back after the holidays." The holidays in question were in 2024.
None of this was a contract. There was no contract. There was a warm DM exchange, a follower count that looked engaged, and a $90 serum sent to a stranger on the strength of a vibe. She accepted it, as one accepts most free things, and then owed you precisely nothing, which is exactly what was agreed. She has the serum. She has the moral high ground. You have a spreadsheet measuring the distance between what you assumed a person would do and what a person, sent something for free, reliably does instead.
The follow-ups, once a person's job, are now no one's, which has lent them a certain stability. The list grows each quarter and shrinks never. To delete a name is to formally concede that the serum is not coming back.
Here is the week.
Calendar of Events
🤖 Feel like you're falling behind on AI? Grab a free ticket (if you run a brand) to the EcomAI Summit in NYC on June 20th.
🍹 The CPG Cooldown: A Summer Fancy Food Mixer — Decompress with us after Summer Fancy Food Monday in NYC on June 29th. Wanna come? Click here.
Tweet of the Week
Ezra Firestone: Nothing Has Changed In Ecom In 20 Years
The Consumer Brand Operator's Reading List (Each Book Pays for Itself 100x)
Mehtab Bhogal has one test for whether a business book deserves your time: does it improve margin, and does it do so immediately. Academic value is dismissed in three words and a smiley. What survives the filter is a reading list compiled by a man who rates a supply chain book by how ugly its cover is, on the theory that nobody bothers to decorate a thing that already works.
A few of the selections:
The supply chain book recommended specifically for being ugly, presented without irony as the reason to trust it.
Topgrading, the hiring manual he rates highly and suspects was padded to whatever length the publisher preferred.
Profit First, for anyone who reaches December quietly unsure where the money went.
Double Your Profits, his standing answer to "improve margin without rebuilding the company."
Several turnaround books, recommended pointedly to brands not, technically, in trouble yet.
Each pays for itself a hundred times over, he says. The reading is still required.
The switch you keep filing under next quarter
There is no good time to change email platforms, which is the main reason nobody ever does. The reluctance is never about the new platform. It is about the migration: the flows, the segments, the templates, and the quiet terror of moving the one automation that earns money while you sleep, only to discover, too late, that it no longer does. It feels less like an upgrade than like rewiring the house with the lights on and the family still home.
Omnisend recorded twenty minutes for Workspace6, presented by the person who actually performs the migrations, and the central revelation is this: you do almost none of it. They take admin access to your Klaviyo, and five business days later it is finished. No downtime. You turn up afterward to inspect the work, like a client who has hired professionals and is contractually obliged to nod.
What the twenty minutes actually contains:
The entire migration, done for you, free, in five business days. You grant access, then go and spend the week on something else.
Flows, templates and segments rebuilt to match, SMS included, and left as drafts so you can examine them suspiciously before anything goes live.
A smaller monthly bill than Klaviyo, plus 24/7 live chat, which Klaviyo continues to regard as optional.
An MCP link that lets ChatGPT or Claude read your actual account data and answer questions about performance, segments and campaigns. Useful, in the presenter's exact words, if you know what you're doing.
The code is WORKSPACE6. It takes 50% off your first three months.
Omnisend built that code, in their words, specifically for Workspace6 members, by which they meant the select few inside the paid community. We have elected to interpret membership more generously. If you are reading this email, you are, as of now, a member. There was no vetting. There was no ceremony. There was simply a code that said WORKSPACE6, a mailing list that also said Workspace6, and a strong feeling that keeping them apart would be petty.
Watch the twenty minutes. Then use the code you were technically never meant to have.
Quick Shots
@Seanfrank My only thesis for the next 4 years is:
@daviefogarty I scaled my first ecom brand to $10M in our first proper year.
Dara Denney PSA: When 2 creative strategists have different opinions…
@MehtabKarta All of the best DTC brands are disgustingly profitable AND fast-growing.
Drew Sanocki Six months ago I sat down and wrote out exactly what I wanted my leadership team to look like.
Here for the Memes

Top Headlines this Week
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1 Star Reviews Make Your BEST Ads...
Nevermind UGC, founder explainers, or polished product shots, negative review ads are what get your market's attention.
Here's the mechanism, the funnel logic, and three variants we shipped recently.
Why it works (the heuristics):
1. Negativity bias
The brain processes negative information faster than positive.
A 1-star rating is a scroll stop, whereas a 5 star review gets glazed over.
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Stat Attack
That's the week. The serum is not coming back. Mark it "following up," as is tradition, and gift accordingly.
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