What actually goes into building an ecommerce brand from zero?
In this episode, Smart Marketer CEO Molly Pittman takes you behind the scenes of Longer Together Pet Company, one of her favorite projects from 15 years in the industry. She shares why the Smart Marketer ownership team decided to build something new, the four things they wanted the business to have before they even knew what it would be, and how the Longer Together opportunity appeared just hours later.
Molly also breaks down the brand's first 90 days, including $130,000 in sales, its growing subscription base, Meta ad performance, conversion rates, profitability, and why the team is deliberately waiting for more subscription data before pushing harder on scale.
But this episode is about more than numbers. Molly explains why the right partners matter, how real founder stories can become powerful marketing, and why she believes great brands need a combination of story, logic, heart, and feeling.
As Molly puts it:
"If fun is not the currency of what you're doing and how your team feels, your business will eventually probably fail."
Why the Smart Marketer team chose to launch a new business instead of simply making the existing business bigger
The four things they wanted their next business to be: fun, meaningful, ecommerce, and sellable
How the idea for Longer Together came together
What the brand accomplished during its first 90 days
Why Meta ads became the primary customer acquisition engine
How subscriptions change the economics of acquiring a customer
Why complementary business partners can create a much stronger company
How Molly's experience with her dog Larry became part of the brand story
Why authority combined with contradiction can create a powerful advertising hook
How story, logic, heart, and feeling work together to build a stronger brand
Why the team is waiting for subscription churn data before scaling more aggressively
How new products can increase LTV and open new parts of the market
Longer Together Pet Company: https://longertogetherpet.com/
Smart Marketer: https://smartmarketer.com/
Free Trainings & Resources: https://smartmarketer.com/free-resources/
Smart Marketer Agency: https://smartmarketeragency.com/
Omnisend: https://omnisend.com/smart
00:17 – Anthony's introduction and a look back at Smart Marketer Live
00:54 – Omnisend sponsor message
01:13 – Molly introduces the Longer Together story
03:30 – How the idea began during Smart Marketer's 2025 planning
07:40 – Why bigger isn't always better in business
11:51 – Deciding to launch a brand from scratch
14:16 – The four things the new business needed to have
20:46 – The opportunity that became Longer Together
23:50 – The first 90 days of the brand
25:57 – Revenue, subscriptions, email, reviews, and profitability
30:21 – Meta ad performance and acquiring customers from cold traffic
32:34 – Conversion rates, Shopify, and the Amazon halo effect
34:44 – Why the people side of building a brand matters
40:54 – Choosing partners who bring different strengths
41:56 – Larry's story and finding the emotional heart of the brand
44:58 – The dentist hook and using authority without making customers feel wrong
46:59 – Story, logic, heart, and feeling
53:39 – Why subscription churn will determine the next stage of scale
54:43 – Building the next generation of Longer Together products
58:38 – Product creation as a lever for ecommerce growth
59:32 – What's next for the Longer Together series
1:00:33 – Closing CTA
Thank you for listening to the Smart Marketer Podcast!
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