One of the reasons I enjoy hosting the podcast is that every now and then, a conversation forces me to stop and think.

A few weeks ago, I sat down with a founder who has been building his business for more than a decade. What I expected was a conversation about growth, acquisition, and scaling.

What I got instead was a completely different perspective on what actually matters when building a brand.

In today's newsletter, I share five lessons that stood out from our conversation (watch the episode here).

Plus, a look at Instagram's latest Reels ad update and why advertisers should be paying attention.

Let's dive in.

Topics we'll cover today:
💠 5 Lessons From A Founder Playing The Long Game
💠 Instagram Just Created A New Ad Placement
💠 The Profit-First Approach to E-Commerce Growth
💠 Latest news in the DTC space

A few weeks ago, I sat down with Arshad Bahl, founder of Amrita Foods.

What I expected was a conversation about growth, acquisition, and scaling a CPG brand.

What I got instead was a masterclass in fundamentals.

While many founders spend their time chasing the latest tactics, channels, and AI tools, Arshad has spent more than a decade building his business around something much less exciting, but far more durable:

Great products.
Happy customers.
Strong margins.

Here are five lessons from our conversation that every brand owner should hear.

One of the most interesting ideas Arshad shared is that he spends far more time thinking about the journey from the first purchase to the third than about acquiring new customers.

Why?

Because he found that once a customer purchases three times, the likelihood they'll continue buying increases dramatically.

Most brands obsess over CAC, creative testing, and scaling budgets, but very few have a clear plan for helping customers build trust after that first order.

If retention is one of your goals this year, it might be worth asking a simple question:

What are we doing today to get customers to purchase #2?

Instead of relying exclusively on Meta and Google, Arshad actively encourages existing customers to introduce friends to the brand.

Sometimes that means sending a free box of products with a handwritten note and a personal message.

The tactic itself isn't what stood out to me.

It's the reminder that word-of-mouth is still one of the most powerful acquisition channels available.

Most brands are trying to buy more customers.

Very few are creating systems that encourage customers to bring the next one.

Founders tend to think in channels:

Meta.
Email.
SMS.

Customers don't.

They experience one journey.

 The ad they clicked.
The product page they visited.
The package they received.
The email that followed. 

To them, it's all one experience.

That's why many growth problems don't live inside a channel. They live in the gaps between them.

At one point, Arshad explained how he intentionally removed products that customers genuinely liked because they distracted the business from higher-margin opportunities.

That's a lesson many founders struggle with.

Growth doesn't always come from adding another product, another channel, or another initiative.

Sometimes the biggest unlock comes from focusing harder on what is already working.

If there was one theme that kept showing up throughout the interview, it was this one.

Arshad believes too many founders have been conditioned to chase growth without asking whether that growth is actually improving the business.

His perspective is simple:

If you can improve margins, retention, and efficiency, you may not need to double revenue to create significantly more value.

In an industry obsessed with top-line growth, that's a useful reminder.

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Over the past few months, we've audited more than 50 7- and 8-figure brands.

Most weren't struggling to grow.
They were struggling to grow efficiently.

Revenue was there.
Profit wasn't.

And the same patterns kept showing up:

The problem?

Many brands enter Q3 thinking they need more traffic, more campaigns, or more creative.

What they actually need is a stronger foundation.

Because once Q4 arrives, there's very little time to fix what's broken.

The brands that perform best during the second half of the year typically start preparing months before BFCM.

They identify the bottlenecks.

They fix the leaks.

And they build a clear plan for growth.

At BSR, we help brands uncover where revenue and profit are leaking across ads, email, offers, and the customer journey, then build a practical roadmap for the next 90 days.

If you're planning to make a strong push in Q3 and Q4, now is the time to get the foundation right.

Instagram recently expanded Reels Post-Loop Ads to all advertisers.

How does it work?

When someone finishes watching a Reel, Instagram can insert a short ad before the Reel starts playing again.

Users see a countdown timer and can skip the ad after a few seconds, creating an experience that feels somewhat similar to YouTube.

Not every Reel is eligible, though.

According to Meta, Post-Loop Ads will only appear on Reels that are longer than 60 seconds. The placement is designed to monetize longer-form content, giving Meta another opportunity to serve ads once a viewer has completed a video.

This placement was first tested with a limited group of advertisers last year. Meta is now making it broadly available through Ads Manager.

Should brands care?

I think so.

Not because this is a revolutionary new format, but because it gives advertisers access to more inventory inside one of Instagram's most important surfaces.

According to Meta, users share more than 4.5 billion Reels every day across Instagram and Facebook, and Reels already account for more than half of the time people spend on Instagram.

That's a massive amount of attention!

This new placement gives Meta another opportunity to monetize that attention, while giving advertisers another way to reach users who are actively consuming video content.

For now, I wouldn't rush to restructure campaigns around it.

I'd simply make sure your video creative is built for Reels and let Meta's algorithm decide when this placement makes sense.

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Follow me on LinkedIn for more growth marketing content in the e-commerce space.

Growth at all costs.

It became the mantra of an entire generation of startups.

But what if it's the wrong goal?

According to Arshad Bahl, the influx of venture capital into CPG fundamentally changed the incentives for many founders.

Instead of focusing on building great products and sustainable businesses, the focus shifted toward rapid growth and eventual exits.

His view is simple:

Profitability should come first.

In this episode of The DTC Insider, Brian Roisentul talks with Arshad Bahl about how venture funding reshaped the consumer products industry.

🎙 Tune in

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Brian Roisentul is the founder & CEO of BSR, a growth marketing agency he started in 2013 to help e-commerce brands unlock hidden revenue by identifying misalignments between their marketing and customer behavior. He is also the host of The DTC Insider podcast, where he interviews thought leaders, founders, and directors in the e-commerce space.

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