Seven figures feels like you've made it. Then everything that got you there starts breaking.
The ad strategy that scaled you to $3M flatlines at $7M. The team that ran lean now can't keep up. The margins that looked healthy? Getting eaten alive. Ops complexity. Rising acquisition costs. A consumer who changed their mind 3 times since you started reading this. Most founders at this level aren't failing. They're stuck. Spinning their wheels on tactics that used to work. Meanwhile, AI is reshaping the playbook and the market isn't waiting.
This is the conversation nobody posts about on LinkedIn. What it actually took to break through the ceiling. What went wrong on the way up. What to stop wasting time on.
🎯 Why You Should Attend
- Hear directly from DTC founders who broke through the eight-figure ceiling. Not consultants. Not agencies. The people who actually did it.
- Learn what decisions mattered at $7M+ and what turned out to be expensive distractions.
- Get honest answers on adapting to AI, shifting consumer behavior, and the pressure of scaling ops when everything breaks at once.
- Leave knowing what to focus on. What to stop doing. And what the climb to eight figures actually costs.
🙋 Who's Getting In This Room
- DTC brand founders doing six to seven figures who are ready to punch above their weight
- Operators running brands that are performing steady but hitting a clear bottleneck
- Ecommerce leaders who know the old playbook is expiring and need to see what's next
- Founders who are done with theory and want to hear from people who actually crossed the line
🎤 Who’s Taking the Stage
Nicole Centeno - Founder and Co-CEO of Splendid Spoon
Nicole Centeno founded Splendid Spoon in 2013 with a clear conviction: eating well shouldn’t require trading your time or sanity to do it. What started as a soup operation out of a Brooklyn pizza kitchen is now one of the leading plant-forward platforms in the U.S., delivering ready-to-eat, clean-ingredient smoothies, soups, grain bowls, and noodle bowls nationwide, through two brands SplendidSpoon.com and MosaicFoods.com.
Nicole is a French Culinary Institute-trained chef, a former research biologist published in Nutrition and Metabolism, and the author of Soup Cleanse Cookbook (Rodale) — a combination that shapes how Splendid Spoon approaches product development and brand storytelling. She’s been named one of Observer’s 10 Wellness Entrepreneurs to Watch.
Ryan Beltran - Co-Founder of Original Grain
Seasoned entrepreneur with over a decade of experience in e-commerce and consumer products.
Co-Founder of Original Grain, a respected player in the watch industry. My journey into the world of consumer products began to take shape in 2011 when I ventured to Hong Kong. It was during this time that the spark for Original Grain was ignited, and has since become a well-known brand in the space, partnering with some of the world's most recognizable brands (New York Yankees, Buffalo Trace, Taylor Guitars, Toyota, Jack Daniel's, etc).
Michael Chernow - Founder of Kreatures of Habit
“I FELL IN LOVE WITH FINDING OUT WHO I WAS AND WHO I COULD BE THROUGH POSITIVE HABITS.”
Known for his reputation as both a fitness junkie and prolific foodie, personality-entrepreneur Michael Chernow devised a clever way to combine his passions into one fearlessly optimistic brand. Enter: Kreatures of Habit.
Chernow’s foray into consumer products has been a pretty natural next-step in his culinary evolution. After co-founding beloved NYC hotspots like The Meatball Shop and Seamore’s, the serial creative looked to his personal life when developing his latest venture. Always into sports and fitness as a kid, a young Chernow fell out of sports-life in his early teens and landed in the fast-paced party scene of Manhattan. After a decade of excess and bad habits, Chernow was introduced to the art of Muay Thai kickboxing by friend and mentor Marcus TK. It was a moment that would radically transform his life—mind, body and soul. Chernow swiftly began to reap the benefits and positive effects of fitness, keeping to a militant diet regime and introducing meditation and wellness practices into his everyday routine. The reward? Deep self-discovery. Before long, the struggling go-getter was a rising restaurant magnate on an uphill trajectory held together by his healthy habits.
Paying homage to that journey, Chernow’s Kreatures of Habit offers a positive platform of fitness, nutrition and wellness resources through Habitual Rituals, alongside MEAL ONE, the DAILY BAR, and KREATURE'S SLEEP. The KOH family of products is Chernow’s antidote to forging positive rituals into your everyday life.
Moderator:
Brandon Blum - Managing Partner at New Edition
Brandon is the Managing Partner of New Edition, a fractional Head of Content shop for eCommerce brands, thought-leaders and service providers looking to launch, maintain, grow and monetize their content marketing efforts.
Brandon has spent over a decade in Digital Marketing, working at companies such as Atlantic Media, Meredith Corporation and Axios before starting his own ventures.
Brandon possesses a blend of experiences spanning entrepreneurship, eCommerce, branding, digital marketing, digital media, content and storytelling.
💬 What We Do Not Sugarcoat
- The Ceiling is Real
- What actually stops working between $5M and $10M? The founders on stage will name the exact moments their seven-figure playbook fell apart.
- The AI Pressure
- Everyone says "use AI." Nobody talks about what happens when you bolt it onto a business that wasn't built for it. We will.
- Hiring, Ops, and the Stuff That Isn't Sexy
- The org chart that got you here won't get you there. What roles unlock eight figures, and which ones just burn cash?
- Consumer Whiplash
- Preferences are shifting faster than most brands can keep up. How do you stay relevant when your customer changes their mind every quarter?
- The Expensive Mistakes
- The bets that didn't pay off. The hires that set things back. The strategies that looked smart until they weren't. No sugarcoating.
🤝 Who's Backing This
Shopify New York – Powering millions of sellers around the world.
Cin7 is an inventory management software and Lite ERP built for growing brands. With 700+ integrations including accounting and shipping platforms and top marketplaces and ecommerce platforms, like Shopify, you can manage your entire supply chain in one easy-to-use platform.
Ugly Talk event attendees get 50% off 3 months of Cin7 Core.
[Click here to learn more]
Levanta is the affiliate and creator platform built for modern eCommerce brands to scale performance-driven partnerships across Amazon, Walmart, and Shopify in one unified system. Unlike legacy affiliate platforms, Levanta is purpose-built for creators and helps brands recruit, activate, and optimize partners across marketplaces and DTC.
Naturally New York is a community organization that connects Greater New York founders with retailers, investors, and industry leaders in the natural products industry. As part of the national Naturally Network, our year-round programming delivers the insights, relationships, and access needed to scale at every stage of growth.
GREY Journal – Media partner spotlighting modern entrepreneurs (Apple News + Google News)
🤝 Who's Hosting It
New Edition – A creative agency for emerging consumer brands
⭐ About Ugly Talk:
Started in 2019, Ugly Talk has been transforming business setbacks into breakthrough “aha!” moments by hosting unfiltered, no-nonsense events where battle-tested entrepreneurs share their raw lessons and insights.
With a growing presence in cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami, we’ve built a vibrant community of thousands of founders and industry leaders making a profound impact on the entrepreneurial landscape.
Official Website: UglyTalk.com
🎥 Get a taste of past Ugly Talk energy:
2025 Year Recap
Ugly Talk: What Breaks on the Way to Building an Eight-Figure Brand
Hosts
Tue, Apr 21, 06:00 PM - 08:30 PM (EDT)
131 Greene St, New York, New York 10012
100 attendees
Seven figures feels like you've made it. Then everything that got you there starts breaking.
The ad strategy that scaled you to $3M flatlines at $7M. The team that ran lean now can't keep up. The margins that looked healthy? Getting eaten alive. Ops complexity. Rising acquisition costs. A consumer who changed their mind 3 times since you started reading this. Most founders at this level aren't failing. They're stuck. Spinning their wheels on tactics that used to work. Meanwhile, AI is reshaping the playbook and the market isn't waiting.
This is the conversation nobody posts about on LinkedIn. What it actually took to break through the ceiling. What went wrong on the way up. What to stop wasting time on.
🎯 Why You Should Attend
🙋 Who's Getting In This Room
🎤 Who’s Taking the Stage
Nicole Centeno - Founder and Co-CEO of Splendid Spoon
Nicole Centeno founded Splendid Spoon in 2013 with a clear conviction: eating well shouldn’t require trading your time or sanity to do it. What started as a soup operation out of a Brooklyn pizza kitchen is now one of the leading plant-forward platforms in the U.S., delivering ready-to-eat, clean-ingredient smoothies, soups, grain bowls, and noodle bowls nationwide, through two brands SplendidSpoon.com and MosaicFoods.com.
Nicole is a French Culinary Institute-trained chef, a former research biologist published in Nutrition and Metabolism, and the author of Soup Cleanse Cookbook (Rodale) — a combination that shapes how Splendid Spoon approaches product development and brand storytelling. She’s been named one of Observer’s 10 Wellness Entrepreneurs to Watch.
Ryan Beltran - Co-Founder of Original Grain
Seasoned entrepreneur with over a decade of experience in e-commerce and consumer products.
Co-Founder of Original Grain, a respected player in the watch industry. My journey into the world of consumer products began to take shape in 2011 when I ventured to Hong Kong. It was during this time that the spark for Original Grain was ignited, and has since become a well-known brand in the space, partnering with some of the world's most recognizable brands (New York Yankees, Buffalo Trace, Taylor Guitars, Toyota, Jack Daniel's, etc).
Michael Chernow - Founder of Kreatures of Habit
“I FELL IN LOVE WITH FINDING OUT WHO I WAS AND WHO I COULD BE THROUGH POSITIVE HABITS.”
Known for his reputation as both a fitness junkie and prolific foodie, personality-entrepreneur Michael Chernow devised a clever way to combine his passions into one fearlessly optimistic brand. Enter: Kreatures of Habit.
Chernow’s foray into consumer products has been a pretty natural next-step in his culinary evolution. After co-founding beloved NYC hotspots like The Meatball Shop and Seamore’s, the serial creative looked to his personal life when developing his latest venture. Always into sports and fitness as a kid, a young Chernow fell out of sports-life in his early teens and landed in the fast-paced party scene of Manhattan. After a decade of excess and bad habits, Chernow was introduced to the art of Muay Thai kickboxing by friend and mentor Marcus TK. It was a moment that would radically transform his life—mind, body and soul. Chernow swiftly began to reap the benefits and positive effects of fitness, keeping to a militant diet regime and introducing meditation and wellness practices into his everyday routine. The reward? Deep self-discovery. Before long, the struggling go-getter was a rising restaurant magnate on an uphill trajectory held together by his healthy habits.
Paying homage to that journey, Chernow’s Kreatures of Habit offers a positive platform of fitness, nutrition and wellness resources through Habitual Rituals, alongside MEAL ONE, the DAILY BAR, and KREATURE'S SLEEP. The KOH family of products is Chernow’s antidote to forging positive rituals into your everyday life.
Moderator:
Brandon Blum - Managing Partner at New Edition
Brandon is the Managing Partner of New Edition, a fractional Head of Content shop for eCommerce brands, thought-leaders and service providers looking to launch, maintain, grow and monetize their content marketing efforts.
Brandon has spent over a decade in Digital Marketing, working at companies such as Atlantic Media, Meredith Corporation and Axios before starting his own ventures.
Brandon possesses a blend of experiences spanning entrepreneurship, eCommerce, branding, digital marketing, digital media, content and storytelling.
💬 What We Do Not Sugarcoat
🤝 Who's Backing This
Shopify New York – Powering millions of sellers around the world.
Cin7 is an inventory management software and Lite ERP built for growing brands. With 700+ integrations including accounting and shipping platforms and top marketplaces and ecommerce platforms, like Shopify, you can manage your entire supply chain in one easy-to-use platform.
Ugly Talk event attendees get 50% off 3 months of Cin7 Core.
[Click here to learn more]
Levanta is the affiliate and creator platform built for modern eCommerce brands to scale performance-driven partnerships across Amazon, Walmart, and Shopify in one unified system. Unlike legacy affiliate platforms, Levanta is purpose-built for creators and helps brands recruit, activate, and optimize partners across marketplaces and DTC.
Naturally New York is a community organization that connects Greater New York founders with retailers, investors, and industry leaders in the natural products industry. As part of the national Naturally Network, our year-round programming delivers the insights, relationships, and access needed to scale at every stage of growth.
GREY Journal – Media partner spotlighting modern entrepreneurs (Apple News + Google News)
🤝 Who's Hosting It
New Edition – A creative agency for emerging consumer brands
⭐ About Ugly Talk:
Started in 2019, Ugly Talk has been transforming business setbacks into breakthrough “aha!” moments by hosting unfiltered, no-nonsense events where battle-tested entrepreneurs share their raw lessons and insights.
With a growing presence in cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami, we’ve built a vibrant community of thousands of founders and industry leaders making a profound impact on the entrepreneurial landscape.
Official Website: UglyTalk.com
🎥 Get a taste of past Ugly Talk energy:
2025 Year Recap