What Is the Growth Caviar Podcast?

The Growth Caviar Podcast  is a go-to resource for ecommerce founders, operators, and anyone passionate about scaling digitally native brands. Hosted by Drew Glover, Co-Founder of Fiat Growth—a growth consultancy specializing in go-to-market strategy, affiliate marketing, and strategic partnerships—the show shares real stories and hard-won lessons from today’s most innovative leaders.

In a recent episode, Clearco CEO Andrew Curtis joined Drew to explore how DTC ecommerce brands are achieving outsized success with Clearco’s flagship product: Invoice Funding. The conversation covered everything from strategic pivots and capital deployment to content-driven growth and AI adoption—all geared toward helping founders build scalable, sustainable businesses.

Let’s dive into the episode’s top insights—actionable strategies any ecommerce leader can put to work today.

Key Takeaways from the Episode

Clearco’s Strategic Shift: Focused Scalability for DTC Brands

One of the most compelling insights from the episode was Clearco’s strategic pivot during the economic turbulence of 2022–2023. CEO Andrew Curtis and host Donald reflected on how this period of recapitalization and rapid growth led Clearco to refocus its business strategy around a single offering: funding for ecommerce brands.

By streamlining its product suite and doubling down on a single market—DTC ecommerce brands in the U.S.—Clearco significantly improved operational efficiency, boosted profitability, and built a more scalable, sustainable business model. This clarity of purpose not only aligned internal teams but also helped establish Clearco as a category leader in non-dilutive capital solutions.

"Chaos and emergency can distill your focus."
— Andrew Curtis, CEO of Clearco

For ecommerce founders navigating market uncertainty, this approach offers a clear blueprint. Rather than reacting to disruption with complexity, Clearco succeeded by simplifying. When faced with shifting market dynamics, organizational change, or internal restructuring, founders should step back, reframe challenges through a necessity mindset, and focus on what truly moves the needle. That’s how long-term, repeatable growth is built.

Product Evolution & Aligning Capital with Business Needs

Clearco’s shift from a traditional revenue-based financing model to a structured, invoice-based funding model marked a major milestone in the company’s evolution—and further set Clearco apart in the ecommerce funding landscape.

This transition was designed with founders in mind. By tying capital directly to business-critical expenses like inventory, marketing, and logistics, Clearco’s Funding gives ecommerce brands flexible access to funding exactly when it’s needed, with no dilution, no collateral, and no guesswork.

During the episode, Andrew and Drew emphasized how growth-stage ecommerce businesses can unlock faster, more efficient scaling by aligning capital to specific use cases. Whether it’s a Q4 inventory push or a high-return ad campaign, every dollar should be tied to impact. This capital alignment ensures that brands don’t just grow—they grow strategically, with measurable ROI.

Financial Fluency & Transparency is Key

In today’s market, DTC ecommerce founders are more financially informed than ever—asking smarter questions, evaluating capital partners more critically, and understanding how funding decisions directly impact their growth trajectory.

Whether you're a founder backed by a fractional CFO or just starting to build your finance function, Clearco’s model is built to support you. By offering transparent cost structures, clear product education, and hands-on guidance from a dedicated Founder Success Team, Clearco strengthens its role as a trusted capital partner for brands at every stage.

This shift toward financial fluency is shaping up to be a defining trait of high-growth ecommerce companies. As Andrew Curtis shared during the episode, Clearco is committed to helping founders not only access capital—but understand exactly how and when to use it for the greatest impact.

For modern ecommerce brands, understanding your numbers is no longer optional—it’s a competitive advantage. The earlier you invest in financial strategy, even with a part-time or fractional team, the better positioned you’ll be to scale with confidence.

Customer Re-Engagement Success

Soon after Clearco’s recapitalization, Andrew spoke on how the go-to-market team strategized to actively re-engage past customers to strengthen their growth period. 

Rather than focusing solely on net-new acquisition, Clearco built a more balanced growth and retention strategy—anchored by the development of a dedicated Founder Success Team. This team works directly with returning and existing customers to strengthen relationships, boost satisfaction, and ensure capital is being used effectively for long-term success.

Content-Driven Growth Strategies

Drew asked where Clearco has seen the most success across marketing channels. In response, Andrew highlighted the company’s strategic focus on organic content to drive growth and generate high-quality leads.

Rather than relying heavily on paid advertising, Clearco invests in thought leadership content that showcases their expertise in the DTC ecommerce space. A prime example is the “Let’s Talk Tariffs” webinar, which helped founders navigate rising global costs while positioning Clearco as a trusted capital partner. This kind of value-first content builds credibility and delivers measurable returns—especially when shared through owned channels.

Drew and Andrew agreed: founder- and executive-led content is especially effective in high-intent purchasing environments. When businesses position themselves as expert resources within their category, they establish trust early in the customer journey.

For scaling DTC brands, the takeaway is clear—thoughtful, expertise-driven content—whether written, visual, audio, or social—is one of the most cost-effective ways to drive growth and deepen customer relationships.

Adopt AI and Automation Early: Scale Smarter, Sooner

When asked about modern technology’s role in the organization amid its growth, Andrew assured the audience that artificial intelligence (AI) is a valuable automation tool in today’s business landscape. The capital partner specifically is actively integrating AI and machine learning (ML) models into its underwriting process and engineering workflows to drive faster, smarter decisions across teams and the business. 

Rather than waiting to adopt technology once it reached a point of perfection, the industry leader vocalized how early adoption is key to stay ahead amid the evolving technological landscape. From improving capital deployment decisions to streamlining business operations, AI automation tools are helping businesses of all kinds scale in a repeatable, consistent way as they grow.

“You can’t wait for things to be perfect, you have to start adopting the tools now…you have to adopt these technologies and you have to spend time, energy,  and resources, even if it doesn’t feel perfect on day one” - Andrew Curtis on the importance of businesses adopting AI to stay ahead of the curve.

DTC ecommerce businesses looking for actionable takeaways from the podcast can take note: don’t delay AI adoption, start small, experiment with automation and let AI do the heavy lifting to enhance the parts of your business you can’t afford to slow down. 

Listen to the full Growth Caviar podcast now to see how your ecommerce brand can capitalize on these growth strategies:

What Ecommerce Leaders Should Do Next

The podcast episode delivered a masterclass on how DTC ecommerce businesses must focus on strategic scaling for their brand to succeed. Whether it be aligning their capital with business needs, prioritizing transparency and financial fluency, investing in customer or content-led growth, the lessons are clear: intentionally scale, build with refined focus, and don’t wait for perfection to get started. 

As Clearco looks ahead, their vision is rooted in repeatable consistency for their team and customers. In the future, Clearco is eager to keep scaling with strong asset performance, introduce new products aligned with their core financial offerings, and increase operational efficiency through automation. For growth-minded ecommerce leaders interested in learning more, these lessons can provide a valuable blueprint to success.