GiddyUp turned 13 over the weekend... pretty wild. When we started, the four of us put in $750 each. That was the funding round lol. No debt or outside capital... we've profitable from day 1 and still bootstrapped 13 years later. The first few years were kind of ridiculous. $3M, then $5.4M, then $25M, $55M, $67M, $75M… For a while it felt like every year was just “how much bigger can this get?” Then eventually the answer became… not much, unless we figured out a bunch of new shit. And honestly that phase probably taught us more than the crazy growth did. We plateaued a bit and things that used to work stopped working as well. We had to build new capabilities, change parts of the model, make some big bets, got some wrong and kept moving. One of those bets was buying @TheGrommet in a fire sale from Ace Hardware. At the time it probably looked a little random, but today it’s one of the biggest strategic assets and profit centers in the company, with nearly 4M US shoppers who love finding and buying new products. We also built our own tech, tracking and payment infrastructure because we wanted control over two things that felt way too important to outsource… performance and money. That ended up being massively high leverage. Along the way we’ve generated more than $2B in sales for DTC brands, many of which had almost no sales when we first met them. More than 5 have gone on to meaningful exits. And one of my favorite things we ever did was make sure affiliates who helped create that value could participate in it too. One partner got a 7 figure check years after he stopped running the campaign because he owned a piece of the upside when the brand sold. To me that’s how it should work. If somebody helps create the value, let them share in it. We’ve also paid nearly $500M in commissions to affiliate partners and unlike other shady networks, we've never not paid a partner because a brand didn’t pay us. We’ve eaten that loss ourselves. A few years ago we found a tracking issue about 4 months after the fact. The affiliate had no idea anything was wrong and was still happily scaling the campaign. We went back through everything, figured out what they were owed and sent them a 6 figure payment. They never asked for it because they didn’t know it existed. That story has always stuck with me. Trust is one of those things that feels expensive in the moment and insanely cheap in hindsight. Your word either means something or it doesn’t. But probably the craziest stat after 13 years is still 4. The same four founders are still here. Three of us were single when we started. Now everyone has wives, multiple kids, more gray hair and dramatically less sleep. There have been hard years for the business and hard moments between us too. We’ve disagreed, gotten frustrated, been exhausted… but stayed aligned, kept our egos mostly in check, didn’t spend like idiots when things were going well, kept a strong reserve in the business and kept showing up. I think that’s probably my biggest takeaway from all of it. People underestimate how powerful it is to just stay in the game. Keep your word. Keep good people around you. Keep reinvesting. Don’t think you’re a genius when things are ripping and don’t think you’re dead when they aren’t. Just keep figuring out how to be more useful. And funny enough, 13 years in it kind of feels like we’re back at the beginning again. We’re investing aggressively, starting new arms of the business, making acquisitions and putting pieces in place that I think can make the next chapter much bigger than the last one. This year will already be one of the biggest and most profitable we’ve ever had. I’m even more excited about what we’re setting up behind it. We definitely didn’t have a 13 year master plan. We had $3,000, partners who saw the vision and created strong alignment... and enough stubbornness to keep going. Turns out that can get you pretty far.

If you’re an affiliate, I encourage you to buy what you’re selling at least once. Go through the whole checkout and post-purchase experience. Was the price what you thought it was? Did you somehow end up on a rebill? Did “2 week shipping” turn into 4 months? Does what arrived even look like what was on the LP? Try getting ahold of their support. If there’s a legitimate reason for a refund, see if someone helps or you spend weeks chasing your money. As affiliates, we naturally focus on getting the sale because that’s how we get paid. It’s easy to ignore what happens after. But when you think about your own mom or grandma buying through one of these funnels, you start looking at it a little differently. I care about making money. I also care about knowing I’m not helping scam people, and a quick look at a funnel won’t always tell you that. Not every product is going to be incredible, and plenty of us sell the benefits aggressively. But that’s different from hiding the real price, trapping someone in a rebill or refusing to honor a legitimate refund. If that matters to you too, buy the thing before sending thousands more people through it. Maybe everything’s great and you feel even better scaling. Maybe you find some shit you wish you’d known sooner. Either way, you can decide if it’s worth your time and whether you feel good about selling it. Do what you feel is right for you. Just know what you’re putting your money behind.

Everything is pointing to this being one of the biggest Q4s in a long time. Don’t be the one sitting on the sidelines.

One of our biggest affiliates at GiddyUp generated $3.2M in commissions on one offer. Before that, he’d never cracked anything in his life. He tested 6 with us before finding his winner. Affiliate marketing doesn’t give a shit about your resume, your background or how many followers you have. You get paid when you figure out how to sell. Work with people you trust, pay attention to what your tests are teaching you and put in the reps. Nobody looking at his first few tests would’ve predicted millions in commissions. Remember that when you’re judging your own potential off a few campaigns that didn’t work.

Completely agree. We're watching it happen in real time at GiddyUp. More affiliates are cracking offers right now than at any point I can remember. They're scaling harder, staying profitable longer, and moving into new markets and channels faster than before. You used to have great ideas sitting around because you didn't have the time, team or budget to build them. Now one person can build and test almost anything. Which means the bottleneck moved. It's not "can you make it" anymore. It's "do you know what to test, and what to do with what it tells you." Everyone can make more ads and funnels, but understanding why someone bought and using that to make the next test smarter... that's still where the money is. That part was never about the tools. I've always been bullish about affiliate marketing being one of the best careers out there. With where the world is going right now, it's hard to argue otherwise.

Don’t overcomplicate testing offers, especially in the beginning. Some of our biggest affiliates on Meta right now are doing hundreds to 1,000+ orders a day running just 1-3 long form ad copy variations, usually a personal story from an avatar page, paired with dozens of natural, everyday photos that look like something a real person would post in your feed. There’s no secret campaign structure here. They’re good at testing, figuring out what gets people to click and buy, and knowing what deserves more budget versus what to cut. Start with a proven product, a massive TAM and a payout that gives you room to acquire customers. Then put your effort into figuring out how to best sell it. Too many affiliates go looking for a more complicated strategy before they’ve gotten good at a simple one.

Dozens of DMs already from affiliates wanting to crack white hat ecomm. Some incredible stories in there and people I’d love to see win. I’ll be picking up to 3 for the $3k loss pools soon. If you want a shot, comment below or DM me a little about yourself and what you’re working on. Let’s see if we can get something profitable and scaling for you before the biggest buying season of the year.

Some of you have already tested an offer you could’ve made a lot of money with. You just stopped before you figured it out. I see it all the time... one affiliate walks away from an offer while another is doing huge numbers on that same product. Maybe you didn’t know what to change, or you saw signs of life but couldn’t justify losing more money to keep testing. I get it. Not every campaign deserves more budget, but sometimes a few more tests and optimizations are what gets it to pop. With Q4 almost here, I want to help a few of you find something you can scale into the biggest buying season of the year. I’m offering up to 3 affiliates a $3,000 loss pool each to test GiddyUp offers (i.e. I’ll cover up to $3k in testing losses per person.) If you’re interested, comment or DM me a little about your experience, where you’re getting stuck and why you think you’d be a good fit. You don’t need to be a massive affiliate, although you’re welcome too. Maybe you’ve been running black hat offers and want to try something different. Mostly looking for people who are serious about this and ready to put the work in. I’ll give up to 3 people a shot. Hit me up.

Had this happen early in my career. A few of us left and the founder started suing and threatening people. Most of that group went on to do massive things. We kept working together and creating value for each other… everyone just stayed far away from him. Grateful I learned that lesson early. When someone leaves our companies, I wish them well and stay in touch. I want them to win whether they work with me or not. Never know what you might do together down the road. Keep the door open.

She’s right. If you want the biggest affiliates in the world, or really any serious affiliate, you gotta do the work before asking them to put their money behind your offer. Test it yourself first. The goal isn’t to become your own biggest media buyer… it’s to find smoke. Which angles get people clicking AND buying? Give affiliates something to work with. Get your AOV to where you can support an aggressive payout. We aim for a commission roughly equal to what the customer pays for one unit. That takes having the economics behind it dialed in. Build a few advertorials around the winning angles, plus a bunch of static ads and videos. AI has made producing those assets easier than ever. Then put up a loss pool to help de-risk those first tests. If you believe in the offer, put some of your own money behind getting partners started. Affiliates have way too many choices for “hey we have a new offer” to earn you their time and budget. You’re competing with offers already making them money. Do this consistently and you build a reputation for launching fire offers. That’s when people start wanting to be first, willing to invest their own time and money because they’ve seen what happens when you bring something out. You earn that over time.

Everyone’s a great partner when there’s money being made. You find out who you’re actually working with when keeping their word means taking a big loss. If you’re an affiliate and you find a network like this, keep them close. A few extra dollars on a payout won’t make up for being left holding the bag when things go sideways.

When you’re first getting into affiliate marketing, the goal is pretty simple… figure out how to make money. Then figure out how to do it consistently. Being proud of what you promote might not be something you think much about. Everyone comes into this with different priorities. But you’d be surprised how often I hear from experienced affiliates who are putting up huge numbers, and what they want to tell me is how good it feels to show their wife what they’re working on. Or recommend a product to their parents. There’s something motivating about being able to share the details of your work with people you care about. You spend so many hours doing this, it feels good when that part of your life can be something they understand and get excited about too. You might care about that from day one. You might only start caring after you’ve made money for a few years. For some people it won’t be a deciding factor, and I get that too. My advice to someone coming up is to at least include it in what you’re looking for. Once you know how to acquire customers profitably, you have a skill that gives you options. Think about where you want to put it to work. A big part of why we built GiddyUp was to make this combination possible… serious earning potential with products you’d happily recommend to your own family. Comments like this mean a lot because that was always part of the goal.

100%. Exactly why GiddyUp only launches direct, exclusive offers. Otherwise there’s zero meaningful value being added. We control the money flow... meaning we collect our commissions immediately, so affiliates don’t have to worry about getting stiffed. We build the funnels, creatives, offers… everything. That’s how a network actually adds real value. Honestly, I don’t understand why an affiliate would ever work with a network that’s just brokering someone else’s offer. You’re adding another layer between yourself and the brand, which usually means more risk. You get no direct feedback, surprise caps, delayed or unpaid commissions, slower decisions, less control… with very little actual upside. Unfortunately 99% of networks are just bottom feeders doing exactly that.

There’s a whale in our industry with an outdated model and a lot of partners who are being underserved and undervalued. And I can’t stop thinking about how big of an opportunity that creates. They have the scale, relationships, market share… all the things that should make them incredibly hard to compete with. But scale can hide a lot of dissatisfaction. Especially when people have historically felt like they didn’t have a better option. We can move faster, align incentives better, listen harder and build around what partners actually want now instead of protecting a model that worked years ago. And once people realize there IS a better option, things can move really fucking fast. We’re going after this one hard. One thing I’ve learned in business… never confuse people staying with you with people being loyal to you. Sometimes they just haven’t had a better place to go yet.

So many B2B SaaS founders I talk to are obsessed with the product and underestimate how much of the “product” is actually the experience of working with you. You can build something 10x better and still lose to an inferior competitor that’s easier or more enjoyable to work with. Especially in a crowded market, service and communication aren’t secondary. They’re part of the moat.

I grew up in a Jewish private school where I was taught the answers long before I was encouraged to ask the questions. Every day I recited prayers in Hebrew I didn’t really understand. I studied the Bible, but there wasn’t much room to question it or explore other paths. I was never taught anything bad about Christianity or Jesus... just that he wasn’t the Messiah - end of conversation. And it weirdly created something deep inside me. Whenever I went to church with a friend, I would physically feel like I was doing something wrong. Like I was crossing a line I wasn’t supposed to cross. I still have that feeling to this day... but there’s another part of this that makes it more complicated. Over the years I got very deep into meditation, brain and heart coherence, and spending long periods in silence. And through that, I felt G-d more deeply than I ever had through religion. At times my entire body would fill with so much love it felt like my heart was exploding open. There was one experience in particular I’ll save for another post... Anyways... it created almost the opposite question for me. Do we even need religion to know G-d? If you can experience that connection directly, what role do scripture and religion play? I’ve wondered whether religion is partly a structure for accessing something that can also be found through deep inner work and silence. But then I look at what religion can give a family like shared values, tradition, community and something bigger than ourselves... and I deeply value that too. Now I’m married to a Catholic woman and raising kids of my own, so these questions feel much more important. What did Jesus actually teach? Why was I never encouraged to seriously explore it? How do I give my kids a strong spiritual foundation while also giving them the freedom to question, explore, and develop a relationship with G-d that is actually theirs? I don’t have the answers, which is probably why I’m more interested in the questions than ever. So I’m excited to check out @jordanmenard's Bible study tonight. Not because I’m looking for someone to tell me what to believe, but because I want to explore something I was never really encouraged to.

Something I’ve been reflecting on lately as a founder… I’ve always been someone that just puts my head down and works. I never really needed praise or recognition to stay motivated. Honestly, too much recognition almost makes me uncomfortable sometimes. In my head it’s always been: “Just do the work. Keep going.” But over the last few months I’ve been pushing at another level and my cofounders have been very vocal about recognizing it. And if I’m being honest… it’s been a little hard for me to fully receive. Not because I don’t appreciate it. I do. I think a lot of founders subconsciously convince themselves recognition doesn’t matter because we’re wired to focus on the next problem, the next fire, the next goal. But I think there actually is something deeper to it. When the people in the trenches with you acknowledge the weight you’re carrying and the effort you’re putting in… it feels different. Especially from people that truly understand what it takes behind the scenes. I’ve realized recognition isn’t really about ego the way I used to think about it. Sometimes it’s fuel or reassurance. And sometimes it’s just a reminder that the sacrifices are actually being seen. I also think a lot of high performing founders are way worse at receiving acknowledgment than giving it.

🚨 RARE OPENING: Performance Marketing Manager at GiddyUp 🚨 We don’t hire PMMs often, because honestly… very few people can actually do this role at a high level. This isn’t a “run some tests and report on lift” type of job. This is one of the highest leverage seats inside GiddyUp. You are directly influencing the economics, scalability, and survivability of offers spending millions of dollars across paid media. At GiddyUp, Performance Marketing Managers are the strategic architects behind the offer. You’re responsible for figuring out: – How to increase AOV without hurting conversion – How to unlock higher CPA payouts affiliates can scale profitably – How to improve margin while increasing perceived value – How to structure bundles, pricing, upsells, discounts, and promotional mechanics that materially change performance – How to identify what’s actually causing scale ceilings and remove them You’re not guessing, you’re designing statistically rigorous experimentation frameworks and making high-stakes decisions using behavioral psychology, conversion data, media economics, and direct-response instincts. The best PMMs know: – Consumer psychology – Direct response marketing – Offer positioning – Conversion mechanics – Pricing psychology – Unit economics – Statistical experimentation – How paid media buyers think – How to balance short-term CVR with long-term profitability And most importantly... they know how to find hidden leverage. At GiddyUp, this role sits at the intersection of strategy, experimentation, creative, analytics, and revenue. You’ll work directly with Campaign Success Managers, Creative Strategists, Media Buyers, Analysts, and Leadership to identify opportunities, launch experiments fast, and scale winners aggressively. This is not a maintenance role, a corporate marketing role, or a “manage agency vendors” role. This is for someone who wants to play at the absolute highest level of direct-response eCommerce. What you get if you’re in: – Access to some of the largest DTC offers and affiliates in the world – Millions in real spend and data to learn from – Full funnel control across pricing, bundles, upsells, landing pages, checkout flows, and post-purchase – Elite operators who move fast and care deeply about performance – Proprietary technology built specifically for high-converting direct response – The ability to materially impact scale, margin, and profitability across major brands What we’re looking for: – Deep direct-response and eCommerce instincts – Strong understanding of pricing psychology and promotional strategy – Proven experimentation and CRO experience – Ability to think strategically while executing quickly – Strong analytical experience and comfort interpreting messy real-world data – Someone highly competitive who genuinely loves figuring out why people buy This role is high-trust, high-autonomy, and high-accountability. If you’re elite at this craft, it’s one of the most exciting seats in the industry. We’re only hiring one and when it’s filled, it’s filled. DM me if you or someone you know is interested.

So many affiliates get scammed by this. A network flaunts a massive payout to make the offer look like a no-brainer to run… then quietly scrubs 20%+ of conversions on the backend. To make matters worse, platforms like Everflow actually make this incredibly easy for networks to do. We do the exact opposite. Every single week, we manually credit affiliates for legitimate sales that didn’t track due to normal pixel/tracking issues. We go directly into the brand’s CRM, identify attributable sales, and make sure affiliates get paid what they actually earned. We’ve literally been laughed at by sketchy black-hat networks for doing this. Their response was “That’s where all the pure profit is.” What can I say… scammers gonna scam. Meanwhile, we’ll keep playing the long game and doing right by our partners. We’ll see who’s still here and still thriving a decade from now.

I’ll never understand this… A brand will spend $500K/month+ on ads, obsess over CAC, and test hundreds of creatives a week …and then their abandon flow is 3 basic emails with little to no thought. How does that make any sense? Their optimizing the top of the funnel and LP like crazy… and then completely ignoring the people who already showed intent and left. This the most expensive blind spot and revenue leak in DTC.