September 17, 2026 | Los Angeles
Event Agenda
A full day of insights, strategies and networking across stage.
8:00 AM
Doors Open, Registration
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9:50 AM
Welcome + Opening Remarks. State of D2C in 2026
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- Adi Gullia, Co-Founder of Ecom North
10:05 AM
From Side Hustle to 8 Figures: How I Built Kiyoko Beauty into a $10M+ Brand
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- Gillian Liu, Co-Founder & CMO of Kiyoko Beauty
Everyone tells you the same thing: if you're serious about your business, quit your job. Gillian Liu did the opposite and built one of North America's fastest-growing beauty brands anyway.
In this session, she’ll walk you through the real story of Kiyoko Beauty: how a bootstrapped side project addressing a gap in Asian beauty access grew from $0 to eight figures in five years.
No funding, no full-time founder heroics, no growth hacks. Just a case study in what actually compounds when you're forced to be ruthless with your time and capital.
You'll learn:
- Why keeping her 9-5 made Kiyoko a better business and how constraints forced smarter decisions than more time or money ever would have
- How they grew to millions in revenue with $0 in paid ads, and what community and organic social did that paid never could
- The operating systems (team, workflows, decision guardrails) that let three co-founders run an eight-figure brand with a ~20-person team
This session will change how you think about risk, focus, and what it actually takes to build something that lasts.
10:35 AM
The AI Operating System: How to Structure Your Brand to Grow 10x Faster
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- Eric Siu, CEO of Single Grain and Host of Marketing School Podcast
The AI Operating System: How to Structure Your Brand to Grow 10x Faster
Most e-commerce founders are using AI as a tool, but the brands that are scaling fastest are using it as an operating system.
In this session, Eric Siu, founder and CEO of Single Grain, shares how his team is restructuring their company around AI to drive more output, faster execution, and measurable growth.
You’ll learn:
- Why most brands stall when they treat AI as a tool instead of a system
- How to build AI fluency across your team (from basic usage to AI-native roles)
- How to restructure workflows, roles, and processes to unlock speed and leverage
- Real examples of how AI is driving more reach, more meetings, and faster hiring
- What a $1–5M brand can implement immediately to start operating like a $10M+ company
This session is designed for founders and operators who want to move beyond experimentation and start using AI as a true growth lever across their business.
11:05 AM
Social Is the New Currency: The Storytelling Playbook That Actually Builds Brands
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- Michelle Razavi, Founder & CEO of Elavi
The algorithm doesn't care about your ad budget. It cares about your story. The brands winning on social in 2026 aren't the ones posting the most or spending the most. They're the ones that figured out how to make people feel something, stop scrolling, and actually remember them.
In this keynote, Michelle Razavi, Founder & CEO of Elavi, breaks down how she used storytelling and social media to take her brand from DTC launch to Costco, Whole Foods, and Wegmans shelves, without a massive marketing budget. No fluff, no "just be authentic" platitudes. Just the real framework behind what makes content convert, build community, and drive retail velocity.
You'll learn:
- Why social media is now the most valuable currency a brand can build, and how it directly impacts retail, fundraising, and partnerships
- The content frameworks that actually drive saves, shares, and sales, not just likes
- How to tell your founder story without oversharing or turning your feed into a diary
- What's working right now in organic social and what's a complete waste of time
- How to turn social proof into leverage with buyers, investors, and retail partners
Whether you're a founder building in public or a brand team trying to cut through the noise, this session gives you a repeatable playbook for making social media your most powerful growth lever heading into 2027.
11:35 AM
The AI-Powered Retention Marketer
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- Evaldas Mockus, VP of Growth at Omnisend
Most AI pitches follow the same script: connect more tools, write better prompts, and automate more of the work. But AI can only do so much when it can’t access the marketing data needed to answer the question.
In this session, Evaldas Mockus, VP of Growth at Omnisend, will show what changes when AI connects directly to a live Omnisend account through MCP. Instead of opening dashboards, changing filters, and exporting reports, marketers can ask questions in ChatGPT or Claude and let AI pull the relevant data.
Evaldas will walk through three practical examples: generating a weekly retention briefing, identifying and creating an upsell segment, and drafting an email campaign based on patterns from previous top performers.
You’ll learn:
- How AI can compare campaign, automation, revenue, and engagement performance from a single prompt
- How a request like “Find customers worth targeting with an upsell campaign” can become a live segment in minutes
- How AI can use patterns from your top-performing campaigns to create a new campaign draft
- Why the practical approach is to begin with read-only analysis, move on to recommendations, and only allow actions once they’ve been reviewed and approved
This session offers a practical look at what AI can do for retention marketing when it has access to the right data, and where human judgment still matters.
12:05 PM
Lunch - 1hr and 45 mins
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1:50 PM
Brand as the Last Moat: Building Trust in the Age of AI
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- Bill Hudak, Former VP of eCommerce at Dollar Shave Club
- Karen Lopez, Senior Product Manager at Windsor Fashions
- Harilaos Skourtis, Creative Director at HexClad
Moderator: Jamil Bhuya, Co-Founder & Head of Growth at Otherhalf Studio
AI has collapsed the cost of producing decent creative, decent copy, and decent storefronts. That sounds like a win until you realize your competitors have the same tools and the median output is starting to look identical across the category.
We've seen this movie before. The dropship era proved that when storefronts become copy-paste, customers stop trusting any of them. The brands that survived built something AI couldn't replicate: a point of view, a relationship, and a reason to believe.
Join operators from Hexclad, Dollar Shave Club, and Windsor Fashion for a candid conversation on what brand-building actually looks like when production is cheap, attention is expensive, and authenticity is the only thing that scales.
You'll learn:
- How leading DTC and retail brands are protecting brand equity as AI floods the category
- Where AI genuinely accelerates brand work and where it quietly erodes it
- What separates brands that feel human from brands that feel generated
- The creative and operational decisions that compound into long-term trust
2:25 PM
TikTok Shop & The Halo Effect: Creator Acquisition & Retention for Hyper Omni-Channel Growth
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- Norman Chu, VP of Marketing & Partnerships at KAHI Cosmetics
- Cassandra Bankson, Ecommerce Influencer / Creator with 2.34M Subscribers on YouTube
In this session, you will learn how to grow and scale on TikTok Shop. TikTok Shop is no longer just an acquisition channel–it’s a necessity for brand growth, given the Halo Effect that it has on other channels like Retail, DTC, Amazon, etc.
Join Norman Chu and Cassandra Bankson, a leading Content Creator on Meta, YouTube, and TikTok Shop, on how to build your brand’s Creator Program and how to properly recruit and retain content creators into your content pipeline for TikTok Shop and Brand Growth.
You’ll learn how to:
- Create an enticing Creator Program from the perspective of a top Creator
- Scale your creator acquisition & creator retention system for cross-channel pollination
- Capitalize on the ‘Halo Effect’ for actual brand growth, and not just a buzzword
- Activate TikTok Shop through authentic creator partnerships
3:00 PM
Data-maxxing for the Algorithm and AI
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- Yiqi Wu, Founder & CEO of Aimerce
As AI evolves, accurate data that feeds into AI models is becoming increasingly important, from data optimization in Meta and the Google Pixel to structured, AI-readable catalog metadata. They power user acquisition and product discovery.
In this session, Yiqi Wu, founder & CEO of Aimerce, a first-party data intelligence app for Shopify brands, designed to address today’s data tracking challenges in performance ads, email, and AI channels.
You’ll learn:
- What is structured data for eCommerce brands?
- Which part of the data matters most to Meta or Google’s algorithm?
- How to optimize the dataset to maximize user acquisition for Meta?
- Real examples of data driving better marketing performance.
- How to surface and optimize data for AI agents?
- This session is designed for founders and operators who want to build a competitive data edge in marketing channels in the upcoming years.
3:35 PM
AI Workflow (aka Vibe Coding) for Modern Creative Teams
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- Thomas Ma, Founder of Sapphire Ventures
In this session, you’ll see how to use transcription and MagicBrief to spot which hooks, angles, and formats are carrying your best-performing videos and then drop your top 5 winners into a simple Excel sheet with their Hook, Body, and Call to Action.
From there, you’ll feed that mini “winner library” into Claude Cowork to spin out your next batch of ad ideas and scripts, while ElevenLabs gives them instant, on-brand voiceovers and Opus Clip slices your long-form into ready-to-post shorts.
You’ll learn how to:
- Quickly digest and tag creative performance data so you actually understand what’s driving results.
- Take screenshots of winning ads, feed them to AI, and turn that into an Excel sheet that clearly illustrates what has worked (top 5 videos, hooks, bodies, CTAs, formats).
- Use that Excel of top-performing creatives as fuel to ideate even further and generate new angles, scripts, and concepts
- Save time by using tools like ElevenLabs, Opus Clip, MagicBrief, and a few other key apps to build a streamlined “creative stack” that scales your output
Turn AI from a boring prompt box into your favorite creative co-worker.
4:10 PM
The Trust Deficit: Why one story now outperforms seven hours of content
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- Michelle Lo Horton, Founder of The Story Arc
4:45 PM
The Story Advantage: Why the Best Brands Win Before the Click
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- Dan Benhamo, Founder & Executive Creative Director at The Beach House
Every brand has a product. The ones that build enduring businesses have something much harder to copy: a story.
In this closing keynote, Dan Benhamo, founder of The Beach House and former creative leader at 72andSunny, Chiat\Day, and BBDO, reveals why the brands that stand the test of time aren't always the ones with the best products, they're the ones that create meaning.
Dan unpacks why conventional marketing often fails to explain breakout success, and how the stories brands tell shape every click, purchase, and customer relationship.
You'll learn:
- Why the most valuable asset your brand owns is your story
- Why performance marketing alone isn't enough to create long-term competitive advantage
- How to craft a brand narrative that people remember, share, and buy into
A practical framework for evaluating the story your company is telling today
This session is designed for founders and marketers who want to build brands that customers choose not just because they perform better, but because they mean something.
5:20 PM
End
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2026 Speakers
Our 2026 LA Lineup
Our speakers have navigated the exact challenges you're facing and built something real on the other side.
Gillian Liu
Co-Founder & CMO of Kiyoko Beauty
Eric Siu
CEO of Single Grain and Host of Marketing School Podcast
Cassandra Bankson
Ecommerce Influencer / Creator with 2.34M Subscribers on YouTube
Harilaos Skourtis
Creative Director of Hexclad
Bill Hudak
Former VP of eCommerce at Dollar Shave Club
Michelle Razavi
Founder & CEO of Elavi
Dan Benhamo
Founder & Executive Creative Director at The Beach House
Thomas Ma
Co-Founder of Sapphire Studios and Co-Owner of LOVB SF Volleyball
Karen Lopez
Senior Product Manager at Windsor Fashions
Yiqi Wu
Founder & CEO of Aimerce
Norman Chu
VP of Marketing & Partnerships at KAHI Cosmetics
Michelle Lo Horton
Founder of The Story ARC™
Jamil Bhuya
Co-Founder & Head of Growth at Otherhalf Studio
Adi Gullia
Co-Founder of Ecom North
Spiro Khouri
Founder of MYLO & Senior Partnerships Manager at Ecom North
Evaldas Mockus
VP of Growth, Omnisend
2026 Partners
Presenting Partners
Founding Partner
Golden Partner
Executive Partner
LOCATION
The Venue
Ecom North US takes place at City Market Social House, one of LA's most distinctive event venues, built for the kind of energy this community brings.
Venue Gallery
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The Experience
Frequently Asked Questions
Find answers to common questions organized by category
How do I get there?
Please view this map to get directions to the venue.
If traveling by Metro, use the Little Tokyo/Arts District station on the A Line. Rideshare (Uber/Lyft) is also recommended for most attendees.
Is parking available at the venue?
Yes there is street parking as well as lots of parking lots nearby here.
Is the venue wheelchair accessible?
Yes. City Market Social House is fully wheelchair accessible. Please contact us at events@ecomnorth.com if you have specific accessibility needs and we will coordinate accordingly.
I have a specific accessibility need. Who should I contact?
Please email us at events@ecomnorth.com before the event and we will do our best to accommodate your needs.
Where do I check in?
Registration will be at the main entrance. Look for directional signage on arrival.
What do I need to bring to check in?
Your ticket confirmation/QR code (digital or printed).
What time does registration open?
Doors open at 8:00 AM. Please arrive early to avoid queues.
What if I lose or forget my ticket?
Visit the registration desk and our team will look you up by name or email.
Why does my email confirmation say “Your application is being reviewed.”?
We review and approve every Brand Pass order to ensure we are curating a high quality group of builders and operators. If you are a service or solutions provider, you must purchase a Solutions Pass.
Can I transfer my ticket?
Yes. Tickets are transferable you can change the name on your pass if needed. Please notify us in advance so we can assist with the transfer process. Email contact: hello@ecomnorth.com
What is the refund policy?
We understand that plans evolve. If you can no longer attend, reach out to us directly and we will work with you to find the best path forward. Email contact: hello@ecomnorth.com
Is food included with my ticket?
Your ticket includes coffee, water, and tea but does not include food. We will have food trucks on location that you can purchase food from.
What is the dress code?
Business casual.
I am just starting out with my brand, do you offer any discounts for newcomers?
Yes! We offer a complimentary Brand Pass for e-commerce founders who are early in their journey and meet our eligibility criteria.
To apply, visit our Brand Pass application page. You'll be asked a few short questions about yourself and your brand so we can ensure the event is the right fit. Once your application is reviewed and approved, we'll send you a code to purchase your ticket on our website.
Note: Brand Passes are limited and subject to availability. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.
Is there a VIP dinner?
Yes, for VIP ticket holders. Details will be sent separately to VIP attendees.
Is there WiFi at the venue?
Yes. WiFi details will be shared at registration.
Can I apply to volunteer?
Yes, we are looking for volunteers to help with registration, speaker support and event assistance Apply Here
