Justin Mares is the Co-founder and CEO of Truemed, a payment tool that allows health and wellness brands and providers to harness consumer tax-free funds. He is also the Founder of Kettle & Fire, the Co-founder of Surely and Perfect Keto, and an investor at Long Journey Ventures. Justin strives to make health accessible and sustainable and create a food system that heals rather than harms.

Nearly 90% of the US population is at risk of chronic disease. While health accounts like HSAs and FSAs give consumers access to tax-free healthcare, they can only use them to cover qualified medical expenses. DTC wellness brands can offer the option to pay for products with these funds. How can these brands optimize this payment method to drive conversions and growth?

Health and wellness serial entrepreneur Justin Mares capitalized on a market need for affordable chronic disease prevention. Health, wellness, and supplement brands can integrate one-click HSA and FSA payment options into their Shopify sites. Consumer drop-off rates between add-to-cart and check-out are 30-50%, so when provided with alternative payment methods, consumers can save 30-40% a year on wellness products, increasing brands’ AOV, LTV, and conversion rates. Consumers can even make interest-free monthly payments on more expensive products.

Join William Harris in today’s episode of the Up Arrow Podcast as he interviews Justin Mares, the Co-founder and CEO of Truemed, about his tax-free solution for consumers with chronic illness. Justin also talks about his experience bootstrapping a brand, including transitioning from DTC to retail, his methods for scaling and gaining brand awareness, and how he became a serial entrepreneur in the health and wellness space.

Dr. Christine B. Whelan is an author, professor, speaker, and thought leader guiding organizations like the DeBruce Foundation and AARP’s Life Reimagined on self-improvement strategies. She is the best-selling author of the ten-lesson series Finding Your Purpose and five additional books, including The Big Picture and Generation WTF. As a Clinical Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Human Ecology, Dr. Whelan teaches classes on happiness, finance, and family and directs the MORE: Money, Relationships & Equality program.

We’re often told that money can’t buy happiness, yet companies market products to target our basic needs and desires. This consumption-driven economy teaches us that we can choose how to expend our resources to fulfill our innate purpose. How can business owners identify their purpose to allocate resources toward a meaningful outcome?

When surveyed on happiness levels, Americans often rank themselves lower than people from other countries, holding themselves to an unrealistic standard of happiness based on the false perception of others. Human ecology researcher Dr. Christine B. Whelan maintains that your journey to happiness and fulfillment should depend solely on your personal and professional core values, which determine your ultimate purpose. To identify these values, you can engage in a purpose statement exercise that involves identifying your unique strengths and leveraging them to make a positive impact personally and professionally. Accordingly, each action and decision should align with your core values and propel you toward your ultimate goal.

Tune in to this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast as William Harris chats with Dr. Christine B. Whelan about harnessing your purpose to achieve authentic happiness in a consumption-driven economy. Dr. Whelan talks about the etymology of thrifting, the benefits of purposeful living, and how to balance your personal and professional endeavors.

Eric Bandholz is the Founder and CEO of Beardbrand, a men’s beard care company. He started Beardbrand after leaving a corporate role to pursue his passion for men’s grooming and beard care. Eric is also the host of Practical Ecommerce’s podcast Ecommerce Conversations, in which he interviews startup founders and founders of brands valued at $100 million.

What does it take to be recognized by strangers on the street for your brand? You don’t have to compete with big-name brands to get widespread recognition; you just have to relate to your customers. How can you scale your brand’s reach while honing your entrepreneurial skills?

While traveling, Eric Bandholz is often recognized as the charismatic face of his brand. He attributes this acknowledgment to his natural storytelling abilities and maintains that this factor sets independent brands apart from large retailers like Amazon, which doesn’t connect with consumers authentically. Eric doesn’t invest in paid ads and instead recommends creating organic content that showcases a distinctive brand personality. Developing this personality may also involve giving your products unique and memorable names that capture consumers’ attention and entice them to purchase from you.

In the latest episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, Eric Bandholz, the Founder and CEO of Beardbrand, joins William Harris for a discussion about charismatic leadership and brand storytelling. Eric explains the importance of persevering during tough times, how to identify a work-life balance that aligns with your core values, and his presence on DTCX.

Dayne Hepner is the Founder and CEO of Candeeze, a freeze-dried candy company. He is also an Advertisement Specialist at TikTok, where he works with over 4,000 companies and produces 120 weekly ads. Dayne began as a content creator on TikTok before launching Candeeze on TikTok Shop.

TikTok is the Wild West of e-commerce, with its selling platform still underway. Many brands have found success selling their products on live streams. How can you optimize TikTok Shop to build your brand?

At just 22 years old, Dayne Hepner has become the #1 food and beverage seller on TikTok, and it all began with a broken cell phone camera lens. He discovered that the keys to engaging, high-performing live streams are energy and storytelling. You can measure performance and engagement by analyzing your enter-room rate (ERR) and sell-through rates, which can be increased through creative set designs and offers like free giveaways and discounts. Dayne suggests promoting your live streams through video content to boost viewership, build your brand, and drive sales.

Tune in to this week’s episode of the Up Arrow Podcast as William Harris invites Dayne Hepner, the Founder and CEO of Candeeze, to talk about building a brand through TikTok live-stream sales. Dayne shares the importance of consistency, how to leverage ads to promote live streams, and how to create unique content to boost sales. He also delves into his personal life, including touring with faith-based bands, growing up in Serbia, and being expelled from school.

Sabri Suby is the Founder and Head of Growth at King Kong, Australia’s fastest-growing direct-response digital marketing agency. The company has generated over $7.8 billion in sales in over 1,000 industries. As an author and thought leader, Sabri wrote the international best-selling book Sell Like Crazy and has been featured in publications, including Forbes and Entrepreneur, where he contributes articles on entrepreneurship, digital marketing, and business growth strategies. He was one of five investors on the 2023 season of Shark Tank Australia.

The secret to brand growth isn’t experimenting with various popular hacks and hoping something works. In reality, many brands focus on the wrong metrics. For instance, 80% of people spend 80% of their time reducing customer acquisition costs and 20% of their time increasing AOV and customer LTV. These numbers should be reversed, as nurturing your existing customers leads to lower acquisition costs. How can you uplevel the customer experience to scale your brand beyond $100 million in revenue?

With experience generating over $7 billion in revenue for various e-commerce brands, Sabri Suby maintains that you can’t scale sustainably without generating value for your customers and creating exceptional experiences. This requires garnering their attention and convincing them to purchase from you through compelling brand stories and messaging. However, you can’t just distribute a catchy slogan and logo across various social channels and expect to build your brand and audience. You must identify your target customer, market and develop messaging around their central problem, and determine a product differentiator to craft a brand story.

Join William Harris for another episode of the Up Arrow Podcast as he interviews Sabri Suby, the Founder and Head of Growth at King Kong, about his $7.8 billion growth strategies. Sabri shares what DTC brands can learn about luxury brands’ customer experience strategies, the worst pitch he’s ever witnessed on Shark Tank Australia, and how he built a $500 million sales machine for MrBeast.

Ross Simmonds is the Founder and CEO of Foundation Marketing, a content marketing agency that strategizes, distributes, and optimizes content. Foundation has worked with some of the most successful SaaS and publicly traded cloud companies in the world. Ross has been named one of the most influential marketers in the world by multiple marketing publications and firms like BuzzSumo and Semrush. He is also a sought-after public speaker, an angel investor, and the author of Create Once, Distribute Forever.

In today’s fast-paced and content-rich online landscape, simply sharing links to a piece of content on various platforms is not enough. This approach is outdated; instead, you must repurpose engaging content to build your brand. What content distribution strategies can you leverage, and how can you maximize value in your campaigns?

Many entrepreneurs fear judgment and don’t want to seem overly promotional, especially if they don’t recognize the value in their content. As a shy kid who spoke an average of five words a day, renowned content creator Ross Simmonds understands the fear of judgment, rejection, and public presentations. To overcome this fear, he recommends shifting your mindset to recognize how your content benefits your audience, allowing you to promote it on as many channels as possible. Widespread content distribution and amplification requires creating a pillar asset like an informative and engaging YouTube video or podcast that you can repurpose into highlights, reels, or moments.

Tune in to the latest episode of the Up Arrow Podcast as William Harris welcomes Ross Simmonds, the Founder and CEO of Foundation Marketing, to discuss content amplification and distribution strategies. Ross talks about evaluating content engagement, his book Create Once, Distribute Forever, and how to use AI to accelerate content creation.

Jay Myers is the Co-founder of Bold Commerce, which builds flexible and customizable e-commerce apps for online stores. Since its launch in 2012, over 780,000 merchants have installed Bold apps on their Shopify stores. Jay has managed online stores since 1998 and has won awards like EY Entrepreneur of the Year and Deloitte Fast 50.

Ten years ago, brands that integrated subscription apps into their online stores were considered revolutionary and far ahead of the competition. With customer acquisition costs rising rapidly, nearly every brand selling household products offers subscription models since an existing customer is five times more likely to purchase an offer. How can you optimize your in-app subscriptions to turn every customer into a loyal subscriber?

As a pioneer of in-app Shopify subscriptions, e-commerce innovator Jay Myers understands how to increase brand valuation through subscription models. With these models, members save more yearly yet spend more than non-members, making them an asset for brands. Jay maintains that every customer has the potential to become a subscriber, so positioning your product as a beneficial part of their daily routine can influence purchasing decisions. You can segment your customers into subscribers and first-time customers to personalize incentives, like offering free first-month orders for new subscribers and discounts for loyal customers.

Tune in to the latest episode of the Up Arrow Podcast as William Harris welcomes Jay Myers, Co-founder of Bold Commerce, to discuss the subscription e-commerce model. Jay talks about the brands that benefit from this model, how subscriptions influence purchasing behavior, and the benefits of partnering with other subscription platforms.

Neville Medhora is the Owner of the Copywriting Course, a community that helps businesses improve their copy and conversion rates through blogs, videos, tutorials, and copywriting sessions. As an Advisor for Sumo Group, his copywriting skills helped propel the rapid growth of AppSumo. Neville is also the best-selling author of This Book Will Teach You How to Write Better.

In a world where consumers are bombarded with content and spammed with emails and other marketing messages, brands must ensure their targeting efforts capture audiences’ attention. Compelling copywriting can make or break your messaging and secure conversions. How can you differentiate your copywriting in the market to influence purchasing decisions?

Copywriting master Neville Medhora says consumers often gloss over complex concepts or long, drawn-out topics, so your messaging should be concise and straightforward. How you leverage words in your storytelling influences each aspect of the customer journey. Neville recommends employing the AIDA formula in your copywriting, which captures consumers’ attention, interest, and desire, influencing them to take action. This involves demonstrating various use cases, educating the consumer on practical benefits, and positioning your brand as an attractive option through precise branding and design.

Tune in to a new episode of the Up Arrow Podcast as William Harris speaks with Neville Medhora, the Owner of Copywriting Course, about driving conversions through compelling copywriting. Neville shares his view on the sales process as educational, how the copywriting medium can sway consumers, and his approach to mentoring emerging copywriters.