About
I operate and invest in ecommerce brands — and I build the AI systems that run them.
I'm the Managing Partner of Freedom Brands, where I acquire and run lean DTC health, beauty, and supplement brands. The short version of what makes that work: I've worn every hat in ecommerce, so I'm not a specialist who hands off the parts I don't understand.
The path
I started as a software engineer in Austin. The Wi-Fi at Starbucks and McDonald's ran on networks I helped build and operate. At my next stop I scaled a startup's infrastructure from 300 users to 3 million, learning to shard production databases and build cloud tooling before that tooling existed off the shelf. All three companies I worked for were acquired.
From there I moved into direct-response marketing and built a Facebook ad agency, which was acquired by Tier 11. As VP of Operations I grew revenue from $1.1M to $5M and the team from 8 to 50 over four years, managed more than $50M a year in client ad spend, and we earned a spot on the Inc. 5000.
After agency life I spent a few years as a fractional COO inside other people's ecommerce brands: running operations, hiring teams, and rebuilding the books for a portfolio of pet-supplement companies. One of them earned its Inc. 5000 while I was there. Then I started buying my own. I acquired Dr. Barry's Remedies, ran it for two years, documented the full buy-operate-sell cycle in public, and sold it. I'm also a partner in The Ladies Edge.
Today, through Freedom Brands, my partner Travis Zigler and I are building a portfolio of DTC health, beauty, and supplement brands. We recently acquired our platform: Earth's Daughter and Professor Killamoth, two brands in one deal. And I build the data infrastructure that runs across all of it — contribution-margin reporting, sales-pattern analysis, and inventory forecasting on BigQuery.
How I operate
Understanding first
I don't run anything I don't understand. I learn how the machine actually works, then use experts and AI as accelerants on top of that understanding — never as substitutes for it.
Lean by design
My businesses run with me, a CEO partner, and a minimal team. AI and automation replace headcount where they can, so the operation scales without the org chart ballooning.
Data first
From weekly P&L to inventory, decisions are grounded in real numbers — not gut feel. Building the visibility to do that is core to how I work.
Builder, not advisor
I don't consult. I own and operate — so I have skin in the game on everything I write about.
Why AI, and why now
Most people are using AI in ecommerce for captions and chatbots. I think the real value is operational: AI as the systems layer that keeps a lean team competitive.
Because I can evaluate and build these tools at a technical level — not just use them as products — that's the intersection I care about, and what I write about: ecommerce operations, AI systems, and financial rigor.
And I hold one rule in all of it: AI is a fast implementer to supervise, not an oracle to obey. I direct the build, and I verify the work.
I share what's actually working.
The real wins and misses from buying and running ecommerce brands with AI — operator to operator.
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