In this episode of The Orita Podcast, Aaron Schwartz sits down with Ian MacGregor, CEO at Skratch Labs. Pro cyclists kept complaining about their sponsored drink mix, so Ian and his partner Alan started making something better in secret. Fifteen years later they still haven't raised a dollar of outside money, and Ian thinks that's exactly why the brand still means something.

• How a career-ending injury led Ian from the peloton to a company built around a water bottle with a sponsor logo on the outside and a homemade formula on the inside

• Why Skratch has said no to major grocery distribution deals and what the cost of that discipline actually looks like in practice

• The open book management philosophy Ian uses so every person on the team understands the P&L, not just their own KPIs

• Why Ian is pushing his team to use AI as a tool to think better, not a shortcut to skip the thinking, and what he worries gets lost when the learning loops disappear

• How Skratch thinks about building capabilities in-house versus partnering, and why the long-term view only works because they never took outside money

• What Ian believes is coming for authentic brands as consumers get better at filtering out bullshit product innovation

👥 Meet the guest

Ian MacGregor, CEO at Skratch Labs

🎙 Hosted by

Aaron Schwartz, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Orita.ai

🎧 Chapters

[00:00] Secret Drink Mix: How Skratch Started in the Peloton

[05:52] Staying Athlete-First When the Market Pulls You Wider

[08:48] The Booster Problem: When Your Best Product Isn't Your Top Seller

[10:43] Channel Strategy: Being Where Your Customer Buys

[12:29] Going International Too Early and What It Cost

[14:12] Food vs. Supplements: Why Transparency Has a Price

[17:38] R&D as a Separate Line Item: How Skratch Protects Long-Term Bets

[20:25] How Consumer Expectations Have Shifted Over 15 Years

[26:27] Open Book Management: Why Every Person Sees the P&L

[29:53] Using AI Without Outsourcing Your Thinking

[33:38] The Rendering Problem: How Finished Output Narrows Thinking

[36:22] Build In-House or Partner: How Skratch Decides

[38:25] Why Authentic Brands Win as Consumers Get Smarter

[43:40] Aaron and Ian Flip the Mic: Empathy, Compass, and What Enough Looks Like

🌐 Check out Orita.ai for more episodes of The Orita Podcast, where we sit down with the most interesting operators, marketers, and founders in e-commerce to talk about what’s working right now. Hosted by the Orita team. Orita uses machine learning to help brands send smarter, more profitable marketing, by figuring out who actually wants to hear from you and when.

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