Hands-On Zero-to-One DTC Growth Mentor

THIS IS NOT A MEDIA BUYING ROLE I'm looking for an experienced DTC operator to work directly with me and build a repeatable paid acquisition engine together for my Print-On-Demand (POD) brand. Not someone to take over Ads Manager and tell me to let Meta optimise. Taking a brand from $500k a month to $1M a month is a different problem, not relevant from now. Somone who can take an ecommerce (POD) brand from 0 to 5-6 figures per month on a repeatable base is way more valuable to me at this stage. -- FOUNDER BACKGROUND I've run businesses before, but never an ecommerce one. My other companies are in the consultancy and car industry - no ads, no funnels, no CAC. I started this brand in July: US-only print-on-demand graphic apparel. I built all of it myself - headless storefront with Shopify handling checkout, Printify fulfilment, Klaviyo, the tracking stack, roughly 24 designs, the ad account. Six weeks later I have three sales and I've spent $1,601 getting them. I can see the funnel is broken and I can pull every number out of every system. What I can't do is fix it, because I've never built a paid acquisition engine, and reading about it is not the same as having done it. The brand is active in the fitness/humor niche. -- MY NUMBERS (18 August 2026) From Meta, Shopify, Printify, Klaviyo and my storefront event log. All-time, five campaigns since July: - $1,601 spend, 69,313 impressions, 3,438 clicks, 1,834 landing page views - 3 orders, $119.97 revenue, $0.87 per landing page view The round that produced all three sales (12-16 Aug, $35 price point): - $565 spend, CTR 5.35% (2.89% outbound), CPC $0.34, CPM $18.23 - 737 landing page views, 15 add-to-cart (2.0%), 5 checkouts, 3 orders - Landing-to-order 0.41%, CAC $188 - One design took 91.7% of the budget. Five designs never got a fair test. Unit economics: - AOV $39.99 ($35 tee plus $4.99 shipping). Every order so far is a single item. - Printify cost incl. shipping $13.71 to $16.10, average $14.66 - Contribution $25.33 before payment fees and overhead - Break-even needs roughly 3.0% landing-to-order. I am at 0.41%. Storefront since launch: 3,083 sessions, 2,848 product views, 84 add-to-cart, 45 checkouts Email: 82 subscribers, six live flows, $0 revenue from email Growth capital: roughly $5,000 - $7,500. Every test has to teach me something. Larger budgets are available once a proven system has been developed. Tell me if you read these differently than I do. -- WHAT I NEED YOU TO ANSWER - Where and how can we improve conversion? - How do we structure tests so Meta doesn't starve most of them? - What budget per test, and what kills, iterates or scales an ad? - What CAC can I actually afford at $25.33 contribution? - Is the bottleneck creative, product, Meta delivery, offer, product page or checkout? - How do we scale once acquisition is repeatable? We execute fast - products, mockups, photos, copy, website changes. I need someone who knows what to execute, why, and what the data then means. -- REQUIRED - Proven zero-to-one. You've personally taken an early-stage DTC brand from little or no paid acquisition to consistent daily sales, on small budgets with thin data. - Meta: campaign architecture, ABO, CBO, Advantage+, delivery behaviour, budget allocation, creative and product testing, kill and scale frameworks, attribution. - Creative direction: concepts, hooks, static vs video, UGC-style, product presentation, copy angles. You direct, I produce. - Analytics: Shopify, GA4, Pixel and CAPI, CAC, AOV, CVR, MER, contribution margin, break-even CAC. Whole funnel, not just CTR and ROAS. - CRO judgement: enough to say that Meta isn't the problem and the product page is, and to prioritise what to fix. - US market: substantial experience acquiring US DTC customers through Meta. US-based preferred, but proven US experience matters more. - Apparel, graphic tees or POD is a plus. -- HEADLESS SETUP My storefront is headless: Meta, then a custom (Lovable) frontend, then Shopify backend, then Shopify checkout and Printify for fulfilment. You don't need to be my developer, but you should understand how events and attribution flow across separate systems: Pixel, CAPI, fbclid, event deduplication, checkout attribution, and why Meta, GA4 and Shopify disagree. Strongly preferred, not a dealbreaker. -- HOW WE WOULD WORK One or two calls a week where we assess and decide, async in between, regular data reviews. I do not need a one-off audit with a slide deck or an agency where a junior ends up on the account. -- THE GOAL Phase 1: repeatable daily sales at a sustainable CAC, on proven products and creative combinations. Phase 2: $10k a month, then $20k, then $50k or more, at roughly 15% true net margin. Same person for both. Phase 1 is the audition. -- ENGAGEMENT A 4 to 6 week growth sprint, continuing if it works. Not an agency retainer at this stage. -- PLEASE DON'T Send a generic agency proposal. "Guaranteed 5X ROAS." "Just use Advantage+." "You need more budget." "I scaled an 8-figure brand" with no answer on how you did zero-to-one. Please don't apply if you're not US/Europe based.