“Borrow cultural equity executed with real partnership compounds faster than anything built in-house.”

What happens when a legacy brand like Lexus stops buying reach and starts buying culture?

Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge), Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), and Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) trace how Lexus is using Colin and Samir to reach an audience Lexus already has.

One idea drives the partnership: reach your audience better. Cody argues AI generated UGC misses the point entirely. Connor Rolain reveals the four and a half percent lift from a recent cart upsell holdout test. Retention marketing gets the final word on why so few brands measure it properly.

Powered By

Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026

https://9ops.co/motionapp-creativebenchmarks2026

Aftersell

https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops

Haus

https://www.haus.io/operators

NeonPixel

https://9ops.co/neonpixel

Richpanel

https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops

Proppel

https://9ops.co/weareproppel

Operators Newsletter

https://9operators.com/

“It was the most fun role I think I’ll ever do”.

How do visionary founders build teams to protect their time for big ideas?

Katie Cirulli (Chief Emerging Brands Officer & fmr. President, Grüns) joins Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) and Cody Plofker (Advisor & fmr. CEO, Jones Road). She joined Grüns as employee four and rose from Chief of Staff to her current role. Before that, she spent years at McKinsey and Meta. She explains why founders need integrators, and how AI powers Grüns.

She walks through the chief of staff role she built with Chad Janis. The CPM arbitrage test was an early swing that never scaled, unlike the LTO strategy that followed. Grüns now runs five emerging brands through dedicated marketing pods. Paid media, creative, and CRO, all guided by the same paper wall mindset.

Powered By

Motion

https://9ops.co/motion-runneth

Haus

https://www.haus.io/operators

NeonPixel

https://9ops.co/neonpixel

Richpanel

https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops

Proppel

https://9ops.co/weareproppel

Aftersell

https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops

Operators Newsletter

https://9operators.com/

“The new infomercial is TikTok shop.”

Why did Ridge see 88% of its GMV Max lift happen outside of TikTok?

Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad), and Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) sit down to unpack how their brands are building profitable TikTok shop affiliate programs. The conversation opens with Cody’s decision to step down as CEO of Jones Road.

Connor MacDonald breaks down how Ridge structures affiliate incentives, generating 7,000 videos in a single month. He also shares a geolift study showing 88% of GMV Max lift landed off TikTok on Amazon and Ridge.com. The trio close by reverse engineering a TikTok shop brand, from price point to visual appeal.

Powered By

Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026

https://9ops.co/motionapp-creativebenchmarks2026

Proppel

https://9ops.co/weareproppel

Aftersell

https://9ops.co/aftersell-mops

Haus

https://www.haus.io/operators

NeonPixel

https://9ops.co/neonpixel

Richpanel

https://9ops.co/richpanel-mops

Operators Newsletter

https://9operators.com/