Darkroom

Wishing you a great holiday.

Fellow brings together design and craft to elevate the daily coffee experience. Every product reflects a focus on quality, clarity, and the joy of slowing down. Our work supports the brand’s expansion across performance media and marketplace channels, building a foundation that helps Fellow grow while staying true to its design-first philosophy. Full case study coming soon.

We just made a key hire at Darkroom, and I want to share why it matters. Meet Peter Gao, our new SVP of Growth. For years, despite our growing revenue team, I’ve been one of the main growth drivers at Darkroom. Given our size, our sales function is ready for more dedicated leadership, and this is a step in that direction. So for us to keep progressing, we need people who bring strengths that complement mine. Peter comes from Rokt with tremendous experience and he’s a professional through and through. He’s here to lead two critical things: 1. Grow with our clients to help them understand the full scope of what Darkroom can do across all their major sales channels. 2. Win the brands that are going to take us to the next level. We’ve spent the last 18 months doing the unglamorous work, growing sustainably and building our product to be best in class. Now, we’re reinvesting all of that into people. Peter’s hire is our first move in the next era of Darkroom. Welcome!

Online shopping began slowly and buying anything took forever. “Add to Cart” button changed the pace. A simple click that mirrored how people buy things in the physical world, holding intention without forcing a decision. Not long after, speed reshaped the habit and “Buy Now” appeared with a straight path from wanting to getting something. An entire system of inventory, delivery and data compressed into a small rectangle on a screen. Design shortened the gap between interest and action with a tiny interaction that moves modern commerce.

AI becomes useful when it sits inside a real creative system. The brief captures the offer, the objections, the proof and the voice, which keeps creative from drifting. A controlled variation model expands that base into families of headlines, angles and visuals that move quickly while staying aligned to brand. Fast feedback loops bring customer signals into the flow, so weak ideas stop early and strong ones advance. This approach reduces waste and scales the ads that drives revenue through an that compounds learnings over time.

Brand identity needs to be flexible in a world where people shop everywhere. Commerce no longer lives in a single channel. Consumers discover products in social feeds, inside marketplaces, in creator ecosystems and in the small cultural moments that drive intent. Most of these moments never look like shopping but they influence every purchase. Brands should know how their identity shows up for these important moments, and understand that each channel will look and feel different. Tatum Brandt spoke all about this on IG: https://lnkd.in/dUn4cQsU

PAPER CLIP: THE PERFECT LINE Before the world ran on screens, it ran on paper. Stacks of notes, copies, and carbon sheets that needed to stay in order. A single piece of wire solved the problem. Three simple loops that used tension to keep pages together without tearing them. The Gem paper clip appeared in London in the 1890s. It was never patented, which helped it spread quickly and quietly. More than a hundred years later, it still does the same job with the same shape.

BERO is a modern craft beer label that treats marketplaces like a true home, not just another shelf. We partner with the team to shape how BERO shows up on Amazon and TikTok Shop, from product presence to storytelling that actually feels like them. The same growth practice that supports celebrity led brands helps Bero turn curiosity into discovery and repeat customers, while keeping the heart of the brewery intact. Full case study soon.

The best brands do not treat Amazon as a marketplace to manage. They treat it as an extension of their brand. Their storefronts look like DTC sites. Their organic strategy drives visibility and conversion. Their media mix connects Sponsored, DSP, and AMC into one system of growth. This is how we build brands that do not just sell on Amazon. They grow through it.

95% of people are not a good fit to work at Darkroom for what we’re trying to do. When we first started the organization, I wanted to paint this picture of this really fun, beautiful, global place with unlimited vacation, all this stuff. But that's not really conducive to building a big business. We hit a growth plateau at one point, and that’s when I decided that if you want to move faster and actually hit your goals, you need to make changes. And a lot of that comes down to culture. Our marketing team is a good example... we’ve had that team for three years, and we’ve seen a lot of turnover, not because of bad talent, but because we didn’t hire right, and people’s expectations were wrong. And it's just been really important being honest with people about that. You need to be super critical about asking the right questions, being diligent, and making sure you're setting expectations right from the start. Because you attract what you put out. Our culture is not for everyone and that’s okay. There’s a pace here. If you have a growth mindset, you adapt to it. If you don’t, you won’t last. And that’s true of any high-performance environment.