Welcome to this issue of The DTC Insider newsletter. 👋

We strive to deliver the latest growth marketing news and trends in the DTC space straight to your inbox every Wednesday. 

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Let's dive in!

Topics we'll cover today:

💠 How to Build a Roadmap When You Have No Idea Where to Start
💠 The Goldmine Most Brands Ignore
💠 How Lion Pose Got Into Sephora Before Having a Product

When Madhu Punjabi decided to launch Lion Pose, she was stepping into an industry she knew nothing about. 

No background in chemistry.
No connections in beauty.
No clue how to even begin. 

And yet, just a couple of months later, she and her co-founder landed a contract with Sephora.

How?

She leaned on a simple, yet very effective process she learned during her time at Meta.

Here’s the breakdown:

1. Start by writing down every question.

When Madhu was tasked with launching a new product at Meta, her manager gave her advice she never forgot:

👉 “Write down all the questions you have. Then go find the people with the answers.” 

It sounds simple, but most founders skip this step. Instead of sitting in overwhelm, dump every unknown onto paper.

Examples Madhu had when starting Lion Pose:

→ How do skincare brands get into Sephora?
→ What kinds of products do they look for?
→ Who makes skincare formulas?
→ What’s the process (and timeline) for creating one?
→ How do we package it? 

By seeing the unknowns laid out, the impossible suddenly looks like a series of solvable puzzles.

2. Talk to people who can answer them.

Madhu and her co-founder filled their calendars with conversations (cold emails, coffee chats, founder intros, and industry contacts). Each conversation answered one or two questions, which reduced the fog and added clarity to the roadmap.

Her tip here: don’t just ask for “advice” (too vague). Ask specific questions.

For example: “Do you know any packaging suppliers for skincare?” gets a better response than “Can I pick your brain?” (Guilty. 😅)

3. Piece the answers together into a roadmap.

Every answer led to the next step. Within weeks, they had clarity on: 

→ Which product category made the most sense to launch with (their now hero SKU).

→ How to create a prototype (they literally 3D-printed a fake version for their first pitch).

→ What Sephora looked for in new brands.

By combining these insights, they could put together a credible presentation. And it worked! Sephora said yes before Lion Pose even had finished product on shelves. 🤯



Why this matters for founders today: 

Most of us wait until we feel “ready.” We think we need expertise, connections, or a finished product before we can approach big opportunities.

But Madhu’s story proves the opposite:
✅ You don’t need all the answers → you need the right questions.
✅ You don’t need to know everything → you need to know who to ask.
✅ You don’t need the full roadmap → you just need the next step.

When you’re facing a challenge in your business, whether it’s launching into a new channel, fixing retention, or figuring out attribution...try Madhu’s framework: 

→ Write down every single question.
→ Find people who can answer them.
→ Turn the answers into your roadmap. 

That’s how two founders in a WeWork went from “no product” to “on Sephora shelves” in 2.5 months.

--
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Everywhere I look, brands are obsessed with attribution.

Multi-touch. Last Click. MMM.

Some even run post-purchase surveys only to “prove Meta is working.”

But here’s the thing...attribution won’t tell you what your customers actually want.

That’s where zero-party data comes in.
👉 Reviews
👉 Pop-ups
👉 Post-purchase surveys
👉 Other surveys
👉 Customer calls

That’s the real goldmine!

Because unlike attribution, zero-party data gives you intentional answers straight from your customers.

And customer calls? They’re criminally underrated.

Split them into 3 groups and you’ll get totally different insights:

Non-customer email subscribers:
→ Why haven’t they bought yet? What’s holding them back?

One-time customers:
→ Did the product meet expectations? Why didn’t they buy again?

VIP customers:
→ What made them fall in love with your brand? What would make them buy even more?

Each group is sitting on insights you can’t get from an attribution report.

And that’s where the C.A.T. (Collect → Analyze → Take action) framework comes in:

Most brands are already running ads and email/SMS…
But they’re not collecting this type of data.
Or, if they are, they’re not analyzing it.

And almost nobody takes consistent action on it.

When you do, everything changes:
→ Your offers get sharper.
→ Your messaging resonates.
→ Your ads and emails convert better.
→ Even your product roadmap becomes clearer.

That’s exactly what we do inside our Revenue Gap Analysis.

We overlay your customer purchase behavior with all your marketing touchpoints (ads, email flows, offers, website) to uncover revenue you’re currently leaving on the table.

It’s not guesswork. It’s your customers literally telling you what they want.

Want us to run a complimentary analysis and show you 3 high-impact opportunities hiding in your data?

👉 Book your Revenue Gap Analysis here

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Every founder wants growth.
But few truly know their numbers.

On this week’s The DTC Insider, we interviewed Madhu Punjabi, co-founder & CEO of Lion Pose. 

If you’re building a brand right now, this episode is full of insights you can apply today.

Check it out 👇

We discussed:
👉 Madhu’s early career at Google, Pinterest, and Meta
👉 Lessons from launching products at big tech companies
👉 Why she left to become a founder before having an idea
👉 Building and selling her first company in infant formula
👉 Co-founding Lion Pose and targeting Sephora from day one
👉 The “questions framework” she learned at Meta and still uses
👉 The realities of being a founder vs. corporate life
👉 Defining passion in business and why it matters
👉 Challenges of today’s DTC environment: rising costs, tougher acquisition, thinner margins

Tune in:
📺 YouTube
🎙️ Spotify
🍏 Apple
🌎 Website

More episodes our listeners love: 

💎 From Garage to $400 Million: The Portland Leather Goods Story with Curtis Matsko
💎 How Black Rifle Coffee Hit $400M with Donny Jensen
💎 How BRĒZ is Disrupting the Beverage Industry with Aaron Nosbisch
💎 Bootstrapping a $100M E-Commerce Empire with Bear Handlon
💎 The Secret Sauce Behind BattlBox's Success with John Roman

📰 Meta Shares Tips on How To Optimize Holiday Campaigns
📰 Pinterest Shares Tips for Holiday Campaign Planning
📰 Snap Leans Into Gen AI With Open-Prompt Image Lens

If you found this interesting, please leave us a review. It’d mean the world to me.

Brian Roisentul is the founder & CEO of BSR Digital, 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.