People to follow.

Taylor is a must follow.

Full stop. Period.

If you need more convincing, Taylor delivers strong, thoughtful opinions and is never afraid of controversy, sparking a squabble or calling someone out. He produces of a s*** ton of high quality content across socials and video with a focus on the intersection of marketing and finance. An early advocate and proponent of the importance of bringing these two functions together, he does a terrific job of helping marketing people understand finance and finance people to understand marketing.

Taylor is CEO of Common Thread Collective, which is a well-known and respected agency in the space. Like a mini McKinsey, alumni of CTC seem to all over the DTC and eComm world. He also runs a DTC brand so he lives both sides of the agency and brand coin.

How to follow

@TaylorHoliday is the place to start.

The CTC podcast steadily produces top notch content focused on single topics.

Preston writes about brand and performance marketing better than anyone. Drawing on his deep experience leading marketing at Chubbies, he delivers his insights in the form of entertaining stories and anecdotes.

A powerful voice arguing against a narrow focus on performance and driving today’s sales, Preston reminds us about the importance of building brand and gives plenty of ammo for marketers to make the arguments inside their own companies.

His new company, Marathon Data, looks to be the platform for marketers to show the data to support this argument alongside the theory.

How to follow

A terrific follow in all formats, but I follow him most through X (@PrestonRuther10) and LinkedIn.

Drew is co-founder & CEO of Iris Finance which is a FP&A and data warehouse platform for consumer brands. Prior to Iris, Drew was CFO of Mad Rabbit, a rapidly growing tattoo skincare where he led finance and successfully raised an A and B round. And before that, Drew was doing equity research at Baird in Chicago.

Drew loves finance and brands and that’s clear from what he posts about. Where he shines is deep dive financials on companies both public and private. While interesting in themselves, these mini research reports are excellent teachings for founders on the importance of getting finance right and the perils of getting it wrong.

How to follow

You can keep up with Drew in lots of places, but follow him on X (@drewfallon12) and you won’t miss anything.

Mehtab’s content and insights come from hard-earned operator experience. His insane focus on the numbers is glorious. But best of all he seems to like hard mode. You aren’t getting the advice of a founder who mistakes their insane good luck for wisdom. Instead Mehtab seems to gravitate to the messy and hard. As a result, you learn so much more because let’s face it, few of us are getting rich by being in the right place at the exact right time.

How to follow

@MehtabKarta on X is the place to start

Eric is a prolific content creator. If you have wondered about how to do something in ecomm finance, he probably has a YouTube video for it. An excellent source for Do it Yourselfers, Eric also runs courses and offers other ways to help.

His specialty is growth and finance, but he covers a super wide range of finance and start up subjects.

How to follow

His YouTube channel is excellent as are his X posts (@eric__andrews).

The Operators are:

Jason Panzer, President of HexClad

Sean Frank, CEO of Ridge

Matthew Bertulli, CEO of Lomi & Pela Case

Mike Beckham, CEO of Simple Modern

Weekly podcasts are a terrific read on the state of the state in DTC and eComm for larger (9 figure) brands. Episodes combine reactions to the hot topics of the day with tips and suggestions for how to build your business and run your business from CEO’s who have been through the journey and built success.

I listen to every episode and to stay up to date with the latest, you should too.

How to follow

Operators Network

Operators Podcast

OPERATORS

Individual Follows

All the Operators are good individual follows.

@SeanEcom (Sean Frank) is most prolific on X.

@mbertulli, @mikebeckhamsm and @JasonPanzer post less, but some good gems. Jason is an ex Skadden attorney and investment banker, so some great insights from him.

Corporate Turnaround Artistry will change how you think about and run your business.

Capital and cash intensive brands face far more financial complexity than your average tech start up. Yet founders will outsource finance and relegate it to a low position on their To Do lists and their day to day. Disaster often follows. The stories and examples Jeff relays from his years of helping turn companies around are interesting, but what makes this book so compelling and essential reading for founders and leaders is to understand what they can be doing now to avoid these distressed situations and how they can properly assess their risks so they know when they are in more trouble than it may seem.

How to follow

I would read the book, Corporate Turnaround Artistry.

You can also follow Jeff on X (@Turnaroundartst) where he seems to post more as well as on LinkedIn, where he seems to post less.

“Manage to cash. Report to GAAP.”

“Almost any organization can be turned around, but you’ve got to start early. You have to watch for and recognize the early warning signals.”

Like Jeff Sands, James Shein is a titan in the turnaround industry. And his book “Reversing the Slide” is a terrific read for not only the practical to do’s but more importantly learning to see and recognize the signs of pending disaster.

James is elusive online and hard to follow. But his book, “Reversing the Slide” is a classic.