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Hey legends! 👋
Lately, I’ve been hooked on founders who don’t just market performance; they live it in public.
Today’s issue breaks down how Ross Mackay uses a CEO‑athlete routine, a three‑part catalogue (Core / Race / Recover), and a media‑first flywheel to push Cadence from DTC loyalists into thousands of retail doors, and what you can steal for your own DTC/ecommerce brand.
-Dev
SPONSORED BY:
Roku
How Jennifer Anniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads
For its first CTV campaign, Jennifer Aniston’s DTC haircare brand LolaVie had a few non-negotiables. The campaign had to be simple. It had to demonstrate measurable impact. And it had to be full-funnel.
LolaVie used Roku Ads Manager to test and optimize creatives — reaching millions of potential customers at all stages of their purchase journeys. Roku Ads Manager helped the brand convey LolaVie’s playful voice while helping drive omnichannel sales across both ecommerce and retail touchpoints.
The campaign included an Action Ad overlay that let viewers shop directly from their TVs by clicking OK on their Roku remote. This guided them to the website to buy LolaVie products.
Discover how Roku Ads Manager helped LolaVie drive big sales and customer growth with self-serve TV ads.
The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Anniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.
THE PLAY
The founder who became the acquisition strategy
Most brands and founders are forced to compete on discounts, shallow aesthetics and ad spend.
Ross Mackay (founder of Cadence) has taken a more authentic approach by building himself as the ‘CEO-athelete-esk’ avatar by building and training in public. His content focuses on showing his training, business decisions and thinking at a high level. Cadence’s product seamlessly plugs across this ecosystem.
Candence shows how their product system fits into the everyday lifestyle. And, when you look at their numbers, there’s no doubt this playbook works. When Cadence launched the ‘Core 40 bar’, it sold out within a week. The audience was already there and understood how it fits into their day through Ross’s content. They just needed to buy it.
Here’s a three-part breakdown of their founder-led acquisition playbook 👇
THE DEEP DIVE
How Cadence turned a founder into a distribution channel
1. Making your catalogue seamlessly fit into your content
Candence sells a three-part performance system: Core, Race and Recovery - all key areas for supporting high-performing individuals to win their day. Each SKU ties to a clear use case and fits into a specific part of the day. For example, Core for morning meetings, Race for workouts and Recover for evenings to bounce back.
Ross’s content maps the system to show the full stack in his real routine, which not only builds awareness and relevance but also naturally promotes a higher AOV purchase plug without selling.
This is what an example content matrix can look like based on how he rolls:
2. Show proof through real content
You can’t fake a real transformation. People don’t have time to dissect information and make decisions. Brand trust is on a downward trajectory, but if you have that it will be your biggest asset when it comes to selling online.
Ross embodies the CEO-athlete transformation on camera. He captures dawn training sessions, strategy meetings, and family recovery with Cadence, fueling every phase.
How he does it:
Recurring vlogs show exactly when, what and why each product is used in his real routine
Long-form YouTube builds deep trust, then gets clipped into short-form to pull in new audiences with fresh hooks
The brand becomes the common thread, not the focus, but is always present.
The consistency sticks with people.
3. Build like a media company
Candence is clear on what the brand stands for. They position themselves as the performance supplement system for ambitious operators through visuals, copy and community. Ultimately, making their content distribution impactful.
With this clarity in mind, they operate like a media company, making sure the flywheel keeps compounding (often featuring recurring shows, series, and notable characters like George Heaton from Represent).
This is what their content flywheel looks like:
The flywheel doesn't just drive DTC - it's scaled their retail business too:
Attracting subscription customers who pay 3x more than regular purchases
Closing in on nearly 5,000 wholesale stores across the country
WRAP-UP
Ross's playbook is inspiring, but the real value is in the tactics:
A catalogue simple enough to map directly to your customer's day - making it relatable or aspirational.
A founder consistently showing up as the main character - building familiarity and trust.
Thinking like a TV show, not a one-off campaign - deepening relationship with the audience.
Creating a channel mix that builds authority and can be repurposed.
Do that long enough, and every new product deepens the relationship. Acquisition costs drop. Ultimately, that moves the entire business, not just marketing metrics.
Thanks for tuning in this week. Let me know how you’re finding this new, more concentrated format? Catch you on the next one!
—Dev
P.S. Something I've been quietly building on the side: I just rebranded and launched OSQA, an AI-powered ad performance creative studio for DTC brands. We work alongside your growth team and media buyers to produce and test creative at the speed your campaigns need. Recently, we took a brand from c.$300 CPA down to $135 within 2-months! We're only taking on 3 more brands right now as we collect more case studies in beta mode. Reply to this email if this is something you’re struggling with - let's talk :)