In this episode of The Orita Podcast, Aaron Schwartz sits down with Max Starkman, Founder of DTConnect and Beanstalk co-founder, to talk about the commerce ecosystem from a perspective very few people have: agency roots, brand-side operator experience, and now a front-row seat to the best founders and executives in the space. Max shares how he (reluctantly) found his way back into commerce, what he learned helping build and support brands at scale, and why the next era of ecommerce belongs to the teams who can create trust, cut through noise, and build real relationships online and offline.

Together, they dive into:

• Growing up “born into” the Shopify world and trying to run away from it

• What Max learned building with Agora Brands and working with elite operators

• Why the best brands aren’t just good at marketing, they’re good at building trust • The origin story of Commerce Summit, Beanstalk, and why curation beats content overload

• The idea behind DTConnect: fixing the broken “vendor ↔ brand” relationship

• What’s changing in acquisition, retention, and community and where brands are finding leverage

• The hidden superpower of great operators: speed, clarity, and ruthless focus

• Why moving past transactional networking is the real unlock for the ecosystem

👥 Meet the guest Max Starkman, Co-Founder at DTConnect & Beanstalk

🎙 Hosted by Aaron Schwartz, Co-Founder & Co-CEO at Orita.ai

🎧 Chapters [00:00] Meet Max: The Shopify Kid Who Tried to Escape Commerce [02:45] Agora Brands: The DTC Aggregator Play (Without the Financial Engineering) [05:39] What the Best Brands Have That Everyone Else Fakes [08:30] “Value First” Isn’t a Slogan, It’s a Growth Strategy [11:12] How Commerce Summit Became Beanstalk (and Why It Works) [14:12] DT Connect: Fixing the Broken Brand ↔ Tech Relationship [23:46] Why Focus Wins: One Clear Problem vs Ten Vague Features [26:43] Partnerships That Matter (and 95% That Don’t) [28:22] Events, Dinners, Experiments: Finding the Real ROI [38:31] CAC is Brutal: What Smart Brands Do When Ads Stop Printing Money [43:51] Brands Want SaaS. SaaS Wants Brands. Who’s Right?

🌐 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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