1800Hotline 014 // Olipop's first rebrand, Article goes physical, and a banana water brand just raised $5.5M

Hey DTC Fam,

Big send today.

Olipop just did something it has never done in eight years of building. Article, one of the cleaner DTC-to-retail stories in furniture, is opening its first two U.S. stores. And a banana water brand that launched in 2025 just raised $5.5M and is already in 3,500 doors.

We also have a brand new Unwrapped featuring Wiley Jones from DOSS, and Plant People’s Hudson Davis-Ross breaks down what the Gruns deal actually means for the category.

Let’s get into it.

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This edition is presented by Ecomswap

We talk with a lot of brands about their GTM strategy and scaling, but exiting rarely comes up in those conversations.

Our team recently connected with Ecomswap to learn more about that area. Most founders come to them after they’ve done the hard part in building a real brand, not just a store. When there’s a question: “What is this Ecom businesses I’ve built actually worth?”

Ecomswap is a sell-side M&A advisory for ecommerce brands. They connect profitable DTC founders with serious, vetted buyers who have proof of funds. Because they manage the entire process, from valuation straight through to closing, they’re able to provide some interesting insights.

Founders doing low 7 to 9 figures usually ask the same exact questions:

• “Why am I hearing anything from 2x to 10x multiples?”

• “What do buyers really care about?”

• “Is now actually a good time to sell?”

Here is how Ecomswap starts to answer those questions.

Your brand value comes down to your EBITDA multiplied by a specific multiple.

That multiple is variable, driven by things like your YoY growth, channel diversification, community, brand reputation (incredibly important), returning customers, LTV, transferability, IP, and your moat.

They’ve shared a free E-commerce valuation calculator so you can find out what your business is worth today. It gives you a realistic range, highlights exactly what is helping or hurting your valuation, and offers insight into market timing.

If you are even slightly curious about what your brand could sell for right now, or in the next 12 to 24 months, check out their calculator. Then, if you want to take things forward, their follow-up’s pretty tight.

Understand Your Business Value

For the CPG Brands selling into Target, Walmart, and other major retailers.

RetailPath, an AI-native CPG revenue recovery platform we’ve shared before, and Orderful, a modern EDI network for supply chain connectivity, announced a strategic partnership aimed at helping CPG companies protect revenue across their retail channels.

Brands that include Caraway and Ritual have already been leveraging both platforms together to combine front-end protection and back-end recovery. This was a natural fit.

Why it matters: CPG companies lose around 5% of total revenue to invalid deductions. Most of these go undisputed because the process is too manual and time-consuming.

This partnership is aimed at reducing chargebacks that get issued in the first place (Orderful) and then, for ones that do happen, identifying and disputing the invalid ones (with that 86% win rate from RetailPath). Echoing what Maysam Ardestani, the Co-founder and CEO of RetailPath, said, “...invalid chargebacks shouldn’t be part of the cost of doing business.”

Learn More About RetailPath

Brand We’re Watching: Plant People

Plant People has been building quietly in the functional wellness space for years. Co-founded by Hudson Davis-Ross, a 15-year CPG veteran who previously built RISE Brewing Co., the brand has become the number one mushroom supplement brand at Target and a top performer across Whole Foods Market, Sprouts, and Erewhon. The brand is doing what the best CPG companies do: combining genuine product quality with an experience people actually stick to.

When Unilever acquired Gruns for $1.2B, we wanted a perspective from someone actively building in the category being disrupted. We asked Hudson to break it down. His take goes deeper than the headline, covering why gummies solved an adherence problem that powders and capsules never fully could, what Unilever actually sees in a brand like Gruns, and where the category goes from here. Not an analyst take. A view from inside the category.

Read the full breakdown on 1800DTC

Unwrapped w/ Wiley Jones from DOSS

Most brands think their ERP is the problem. Wiley Jones thinks that is exactly the wrong diagnosis.

Wiley is the co-founder and CEO of DOSS, an Operations Cloud built for brands that have spent years bending their business around software that was never built for them. DOSS connects the flow of goods, dollars, and data across your value chain without ripping out your existing systems. No 18-month implementation. No consultant bill that rivals a house payment. Just operations that actually work the way your business does.

The insight came from years watching the same broken pattern show up everywhere from hardware startups in China to medical device companies in Silicon Valley. Different industries, same problem. So Wiley called his co-founder Arnav Mishra and they built something from scratch.

We sat down with Wiley to talk about the moment it clicked, what brands keep getting wrong about operations, and the Bezos principle that shapes how he thinks about building for the long term.

Catch the full interview here

Main Stories

Olipop just launched its first major rebrand since starting in 2018, repositioning as “The Feel Good Soda.”

New packaging, a new visual identity, a sonic signature, and a national ad campaign all dropped this week. For a brand that has been defined by its look since day one, this is a meaningful move. Olipop built its initial audience by leaning into nostalgia and clean ingredients, and the new platform doubles down on that emotional territory without abandoning the functional health positioning. The fibermaxxing conversation on social has been pulling consumers toward exactly what Olipop already offers, and the rebrand lands at exactly the right cultural moment. Worth paying attention to how a brand this size handles a visual identity shift without losing the audience that built it.

→ Read More

Article is opening its first two U.S. stores in San Francisco and Bellevue, Washington, this fall.

The Canadian DTC furniture brand has been selling into the U.S. since 2013 and has delivered close to three million orders stateside. The U.S. represents 80% of their revenue, with California and Washington consistently in their top five states for ecommerce performance. Their first physical store in Vancouver, which opened in August 2024, drove 47% revenue growth in that market in 2025, and in-store average order values came in more than 20% higher than online. The decision to go physical in your two strongest online markets rather than a flagship city for brand visibility is a deliberate, data-driven call. The playbook of proving ecommerce demand before committing to retail is one we have talked about a lot in this newsletter. Article is executing it almost perfectly.

→ Full story

Kettle and Fire just brought in a new CEO as the brand positions for its next phase.

Sam McBride, who previously served as executive chairman, is stepping into the CEO role. The brand raised $43M, is in over 22,000 stores nationwide, launched Beef Tallow last year, and just dropped its first bison bone broth in partnership with Force of Nature. Three new bone broths are coming in 2026. The leadership transition is a signal that the bone broth category is moving beyond its early adopter phase and into a scaled consumer business that needs commercial leadership and operational discipline at the top. The brand that turned a simple idea into a category is now focused on building the next chapter of that category.

→ Full story

Quick Hits

• Banagua raised $5.5M from Hingham Growth Partners to fuel national retail expansion. The banana water brand was founded in 2025 in Nashville and is already in 3,500 doors including Sprouts, Kroger, and Albertsons. The founders position banana water as the coconut water of the next generation, a category that barely existed and then became ubiquitous. Hingham Growth Partners has backed Nowadays, Jams, and Dry Water, so they know early-stage better-for-you bets. Early days, but the distribution ramp in year one is real.

• Healthy Extracts acquired Imarais Beauty, the ingestible wellness brand co-founded by fitness creator Sommer Ray, in a deal valued at approximately $20M. Imarais is already in Target, Ulta Beauty, Nordstrom, and Sprouts, and is set to roll into more than 4,400 CVS locations next month. The acquisition gives Healthy Extracts immediate retail momentum, a culturally relevant brand, and access to Sommer Ray’s 40 million-plus social media followers. The combined business is projecting an annualized revenue run rate of $24M by year end, with revenues projected to exceed $55M in 2027. The beauty-from-within category is getting real M&A attention right now and this deal is another data point in that direction.

• B-Sides closed a $500K seed round to scale retail expansion. The snack brand, which repurposes imperfect or overlooked ingredients into chips and snacks, is using the capital to grow its retail footprint. Small round, early stage, but the mission-driven angle and the waste-reduction positioning are resonating with the natural retail buyer community. One to keep an eye on as the better-for-you snack category continues to get crowded and differentiation becomes everything.

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Event Radar

Pre-Match Dinner | DOSS x 1800DTC x Manifest.eco — Friday, June 12 | Austin, TX

We are putting together a small group curated dinner for CPG founders and senior operators on the evening of June 12 in Austin, and we want this community in the room.

Doors open at 5:00 PM and we wrap at 7:30 PM before heading into the watch party. This one is intentionally small. The goal is real conversation with the right people in the right setting. Seats are limited and approval is required.

Apply for the Pre-Match Dinner

FIFA Watch Party | DOSS x 1800DTC x Manifest.eco — Friday, June 12 | Austin, TX

Right after dinner we are moving into a full FIFA watch party for USA vs. Paraguay, kickoff at 8:00 PM CT.

Open bar all night, big screen, and a room full of CPG founders, operators, and teams. The broader crew is welcome for this one but spots are still limited and approval is required to attend. Kicks off at 7:30 PM, match starts at 8:00 PM.

Apply for the FIFA Watch Party

That’s Field Notes for week 014.

Olipop’s rebrand, Article going physical, Kettle and Fire scaling up. What is the move this week that has your attention? Hit reply.

We read every reply.

— Zach and the 1800Hotline Team

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