Happy Wednesday.

We’re live on X and YouTube — let’s ride!

Nestlé's Lab-Made Baby Formula - Nestlé is partnering with Helaina — a startup that spent seven years using precision fermentation to produce human-identical proteins, the bioactive nutrients found in breast milk but missing from standard formula. The deal brings those proteins into infant formula for the first time, validating a bet that the most fundamental nutrition a baby can get was being left out simply because it was too hard to make.

Bill Gates' Daughter Just Raised $35.5M - Phia, the shopping-comparison app and Chrome extension founded by Phoebe Gates, closed an oversubscribed $35.5M Series A backed by a stacked roster of celebrity investors and serious VCs like Khosla and Kleiner Perkins. In just one year, the app has hit 1.5M+ users, 9,600+ brand partners, and over 350M products scanned.

Outdoor Voices’ Quiet Comeback - Particl data shows Outdoor Voices clawed back from a February low to holiday-level revenue by May, but at near full price instead of deep discounts — a sign of a much healthier business, not just a busier one. The recovery isn't riding viral influencer content; it's being carried by dependable repeat sellers like the Polka Tee and RecTrek Pant, plus a smart push into hiking gear that gave loyal fans a fresh reason to buy. Plus, founder Ty Haney is back at the wheel.

Zero Returns: The Hallmark of Above-and-Beyond Customer Experience.

Six figures in sales. Zero returns. Ever. Not "low return rate." Zero.

That's Sam Chai, founder of Humankind Candles. Most DTC operators would kill for a 5% return rate. She's at zero, with no influencer budget and no growth hacks. So how?

She talks to her customers. Every single day.

Sam came out of B2B SaaS sales. She knows how to make the number go up. She could run the typical playbook — affiliates, UGC creators, a paid funnel that prints. Instead she does the thing every founder is told to stop doing the second they hit traction: handle the relationship herself.

She manages a group chat where her monthly subscribers can message her whenever they want. She sends voice notes — actual recorded messages — to people who buy candles. One longtime customer was coming to Toronto and couldn't justify the hotel prices, so Sam even let her crash on her couch.

That's not a marketing tactic. Her daily goal is to talk to at least one customer, and if she's done that, she's won the day.

The unscalable part — the voice note, the group chat, the couch — is her moat. Who's canceling their subscription on the candlemaker who's been leaving them voice notes?!

/////////

//////////

See you live,
Ecomm Cowboy Team