Ronak Shah

CEO & Co-Founder at Obvi | EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2022 | Featured on Inc. as 1 of 22 High Achievers | Chew on This Podcast Host

As the CEO of Obvi, I lead the company's vision to offer the most obvious choice of transparent products that deliver real results without sacrificing taste. Obvi, which has been featured on Inc. as one of the 22 high achievers of 2022, has grown rapidly since its launch in 2019, thanks to our innovative and customer-centric approach to product development, marketing, and community building.

With over a decade of experience in accounting, finance, and e-commerce, I have developed strong competencies in customer relationship management, analytical skills, communication, and technology. I have successfully completed enterprise-scale projects involving technology conversions, re-branding, custom CRM development, report design, and release management. As an EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2022 and a co-host of Chew On This podcast, I am passionate about sharing my insights and expertise on DTC content and strategies with other founders and entrepreneurs. I am also a growth ambassador for Gorgias, a universal tool for CX that I endorse and use for Obvi.

Chief Executive Officer

Obvi was founded with one objective in mind: present the most obvious choice of transparent products which present real results without having to sacrifice taste. At Obvi, we believe the industry as it is currently, is facing a phenomenon which is known as the paradox of choice; that is, the more choices there are, the less satisfied the customer is starting to become. We have set out to make that choice as obvious and easy for our customers. Simple and transparent formulas with a cutting-edge flavor systems make any Obvi product, the obvious choice.

$80+ shipping is customer betrayal.
You're asking customers to leave your store.

International shoppers don’t leave because they don’t want the product.

They leave because of sticker shock.

They'll see $59,99 on the website.
Then at checkout, it's suddenly $100+.

Conversion is gone.
And the fix isn’t cheaper shipping.

Here's the solution:
Show the full price upfront.

To do this, use software that detects the user's location.

Then, bundle product + shipping + duties + taxes directly on the product page.

So:
• US customer sees $59.99
• Australian customer sees $105

Both customers can see “Free Shipping”
(because it’s already baked in).

With international ads 60–70% cheaper than US ads, even small conversion lifts compound fast.

The Takeaway:
Stop charging $30+ for international shipping.

Just show all-in pricing depending on the user's location.

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

If you want to grow your e-com business in 2026, avoid these 5 mistakes ⬇️
Mistake #1: Playing defense
No urgency = no innovation.

Markets punish complacency fast.

Mistake #2: No goal
When your team doesn't have a unified goal, your business will spiral.

Your employees won't know what to do and they won't feel motivated.

Mistake #3: Expanding too fast
At Obvi, our viral flavors made us famous.

Launching a line of unflavored greens would be a big mistake.
- That's why we made Strawberry Lychee greens.

Mistake #4: Ignoring subscriptions
Recurring revenue must be the core of the business.

Mistake #5: Mismanaging inventory & debt
Cash flow > expansion fantasies.

You can hire faster and chase growth, but if cash isn’t coming in faster than it’s going out, the business collapses.

The Takeaway:
Growth comes from urgency, focus, and doubling down on what works.

Don't make these mistakes in 2026.

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Attribution is the next Lego.
Attribution just means who you give credit to for a purchase.

And most teams are counting it wrong.

For example:
Someone hears me on a podcast during their commute.
They don’t buy.

A week later they open a newsletter that references Obvi.
Still no purchase.

Two days after that, a promo email hits their inbox.
They buy.

Last-click says the email did everything.
First-click says the podcast did everything.

Both are wrong.
Buying decisions aren’t a single moment. They’re a sequence.

Awareness without follow-up never converts.

A great closer without awareness can't close.

The fix is simple:
Lego attribution.

Instead of giving 100% of the credit to one touch, break it into blocks:
1) The awareness block gets credit
2) The conversion block gets credit

Why Lego attribution wins:
• Reflects how people actually buy
• Shows channels that create demand
• Proves what’s working together

The Takeaway:
Stop using single-click attribution.

Start tracking attribution blocks.

Common hiring mistake:
Thinking background is critical.

It’s not.
Reliability is what matters.

I’ll take a “get the job done” person with an average resume over a perfect background and shaky follow-through every single time.

Because follow-up emails close sales.

Because the CRM works only if someone updates it after the call.

Because the invoice needs to go out the same day, not three weeks later.

Because the unglamorous work keeps the lights on.

Because churn starts with “sorry for the late reply.”

Background tells you where someone’s been.

Reliability tells you what happens after you hire them.

The Takeaway:
Hiring isn’t about collecting impressive resumes.
It’s about betting on people who will execute.

Here's how I generated 1,000+ leads for AppLovin:
[steal this]

Most brands default to ads. We didn’t.

Instead, we published a starter guide for AppLovin that explained the platform from zero → launch.

This starter guide was the equivalent of a 2 hour acquired podcast on AppLovin.

Short-form video walkthroughs explained each section.

Old podcasts and clips from Chew on This were recycled inside the guide.

Real ad creatives showed what “good” actually looks like.

Here's the key to converting:
We gave an incentive for the audience.

$5,000 in free ad credits for anyone who signed up.

This was all on a landing page. Anybody can do this.

The result:
1,000 qualified leads from a single campaign without paying a dime in ads.

Takeaway:
Marketing doesn’t mean ads.
It means making something so useful people choose to opt in.

Most brands aren’t bad at marketing.
They’re bad at counting.

Specifically:
Who gets credit when someone finally buys?

Last-click attribution is the problem.
It gives 100% of the credit to the final touch.

Last click attribution is wildly misleading.

Example:
• Customer sees a random Instagram ad
• Doesn’t buy
• One day later Googles the brand
• Purchases

Last click gives Google the credit.
Instagram looks useless.

Here’s the damage:
You cut Instagram. Sales drop.

Now flip it.

First-click isn’t better either.
Now, you're ignoring what convinced the customer to buy.

Most purchases involve 6–10 touchpoints before conversion.

Which brings us to reality:
Marketing is a relay race, not a duel.

Weighted attribution fixes this:
• Awareness gets credit
• Consideration gets credit
• Conversion gets credit

The Takeaway:
Use weighted attribution to track sales.

It will make sure credit is given where credit is due.

3 things every brand must do to rank #1 in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini

(Brand operators: save this.)

Why this matters

Search behavior is changing fast.

- ~70% of discovery conversations are already moving to AI
- OpenAI has partnered with Shopify
- In 10 years, the majority of shopping decisions will start in AI search — not Google

If your brand isn’t visible inside AI answers, you’re not just behind — you’re invisible.

What we’re seeing in the wild

Sean Frank (CEO of Ridge Wallet) recently shared that ChatGPT is already driving meaningful traffic for them.

We’re seeing the same thing across brands like Obvi and others in our portfolio.

AI isn’t coming. It’s already here.

So how do you actually increase AI visibility?

Here’s the playbook we’re using.

1. Nail the boring (but critical) hygiene

AI can’t recommend what it can’t clearly understand.

That means:

- Clean Merchant Center + product feeds (titles, GTINs, variants, availability)
- Clear shipping, returns, and warranty pages (scannable, not fluffy)
- FAQs for every hero product
- Review markup + visible review counts everywhere
- One strong “About” page written in plain English that clearly says who the product is for

If AI can’t extract the facts, it won’t surface your brand.

2. Actively test your AI visibility

Stop guessing. Start querying.

Ask AI the way a real buyer would:

“I need an all-natural deodorant that works for heavy sweating, has no aluminum, and won’t stain black shirts.”

Then:

• Build 25–50 synthetic buyer queries per product line
 • Include use cases + constraints
 • Benchmark weekly across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity
 • Track who is ranking — and why

AI leaves clues. You just have to look.

3. Reverse-engineer where AI gets its opinions

AI doesn’t invent “best products.”
It synthesizes consensus.

Look at what it cites:

- “Best X” listicles (Wirecutter-style + niche blogs)
- Reddit threads
- YouTube reviews + transcripts
- Marketplaces (Amazon, etc.)
- Review platforms

Your job is simple (but not easy):

1. Get mentioned in the places AI already trusts

2. Make sure your brand positioning is consistent everywhere

AI rewards repetition and agreement.
Consensus is the ranking signal.

The reality

You can do all of this manually.

Or… you can use the same system we’re rolling out across 25+ brands.

Meridian 2.0 just launched, and it automates AI visibility tracking, benchmarking, and footprint analysis in one place.

It shows you — clearly — where your brand stands inside AI answers and what to fix next.

If you want to see what your AI visibility score actually looks like, drop a comment and I’ll share the framework.

Yes — full transparency — we’re a proud Meridian partner.

This is the future of SEO.

The first reader of your post is not a person.


It’s a model.

Email. LinkedIn. Now ChatGPT.

With SEO, page two still gets traffic.
With GEO (AI search), there is no page two.

Here’s how to optimize for GEO:

Take the example of what we did for Dr. Jen Natural, a premium toothpaste.

#1: Question the model
Ask ChatGPT and Claude what toothpaste they recommend.

Make a list of those exact articles & URLs.

#2: Copy the structure
Use the same framing. Same logic. But with a different product.

#3: Declare yourself the winner
Publish ranking-style content where Dr. Jen is the clear winner.

#4: Reinforce
Consistency trains the model. Repetition locks it in.

Now when someone asks AI for the best nano-hydroxyapatite toothpaste,

Dr. Jen appears.

The Takeaway:
If customers trust ChatGPT and ChatGPT doesn’t trust you, you have a problem.

Optimize for ChatGPT.

23 Year Old Shopify App Founder \\ Sharing my Startup Journey with the World

Creating the best popups in eCom

Trusted by Nike Strength, Hexclad, Comfrt, Milk Makeup, Hot Ones, and 3K+ others

Shaan Arora

As a Boston native, this one is rly cool. OUR POPUP IS LIVE ON BARSTOOL ❤️‍🔥

Bootstrapped to $8M ARR // Building The Next Generation of Popups

Super excited to announce that we're a Klaviyo Preferred Tech Partner 🎉

I started posting daily LinkedIn content in Jan 2024 when we had $10K ARR. We're now at $8.5M ARR👇🏽

I'm happy that I've been documenting the entire journey publicly.

Here's why you should do the same:

First - accountability
When you post your goals publicly, you get hungrier. 
You don't want to look like a fraud, so you work harder.

Second - it's a journal
In 5 or 10 years when your business is booming, you’ll be able to look back and remember exactly how you felt at the beginning. 

Third - you can't recreate this
You can always make content about what you did after you sell. 
But you can never again post while you're in the trenches building. 
This moment is gone forever if you don't capture it.

Fourth - it actually brings business. 
A lot of our clients come from LinkedIn and Twitter because they follow the journey and have seen our growth and results. 

-

People fall in love with the journey, not the highlight reel.

Due to our AE's calendar maxing out, we're hiring a second AE. Here's what we're looking for👇🏽

1. Based in NYC or willing to relocate to NYC
2. Prior experience as an AE who was selling eCommerce SaaS to Shopify brands
3. Strongly motivated by compensation and upside
4. Energized by working hard and moving fast
5. Comfortable operating in a 40% outbound, 60% inbound role

About Us:

We've bootstrapped from $0 to over $8.5M ARR in the past 16 months.

Nike Strength, Comfrt, Hot Ones, Hexclad, and Graza are a few of our 3K+ Shopify brands. 

What we offer:

Competitive compensation - strong base, strong commission, and early employee equity

Beautiful Chelsea office -  join us in our spacious, well-lit office in the heart of Manhattan

Strong benefits - healthcare, unlimited PTO (+ your birthday off), lunch and dinner covered in the office

Meaningful impact - as our second AE, your work will directly affect our product and growth

You must email your resume to shaan@alialearn.com. Only applicants who submit their resumes via email will be considered for an interview.

Popups Wrapped 2025 🥰 - we recieved 910M popup views and collected 135M emails 👇🏽

Along with that we collected:
• 81M phone numbers
• 271M poll responses
• And saw an average optin rate of 15.1% across all our brands

Pretty fun year to be the best popup company in eCom.

Woah - pretty cool to have been spotlighted in a Klaviyo newsletter 🥳

If you're doing founder led sales, I hate to say it, but you have to smile A LOT on every sales call.

When I used to take a ton of calls, I would literally look at the clock at the start of each call and force myself to smile for the first three minutes of the call.

And I get it.

Some days the calls stack up.

I’ve had days with ten back to back calls.

Then the eleventh call hits at 8:00 p.m. and I still had to smile through it.

The only way to justify it to yourself is this: at the end of the day, you get to lie down, close your eyes, and know you genuinely tried on every call.

When you smile, the prospect can see it. It tells them you care about what you're selling and that it actually matters to you.

And if you can make them believe it matters to you and that you're excited about it, it becomes exciting to them.

So smile. Whatever you have to do, force a smile every single time.

This is our AE's calendar here at Alia. All are inbound. We're now hiring another AE and a BDR.👇🏽

AE salary - $185K OTE
BDR salary - $100K OTE

AE requirements:
1. Based in NYC or willing to relocate to NYC
2. Prior experience as an AE who was selling eCommerce SaaS to Shopify brands
3. Strongly motivated by compensation and upside
4. Energized by working hard and moving fast
5. Comfortable operating in a 40% outbound, 60% inbound role

BDR requirements:
1. Based in NYC or willing to relocate to NYC
2. Hungry and motivated by upside
3. Some experience doing cold calls or cold emails before

About Us:

We've bootstrapped from $0 to over $8.5M ARR in the past 16 months.

Nike Strength, Comfrt, Hot Ones, Hexclad, and Graza are a few of our 3K+ Shopify brands. 

What we offer:

Beautiful Chelsea office - join us in our spacious, well-lit office in the heart of Manhattan

Strong benefits - healthcare, unlimited PTO (+ your birthday off), lunch and dinner covered in the office

Meaningful impact - your work will directly affect our product and growth

For the AE role, you must email your resume to shaan@alialearn.com. Only applicants who submit their resumes via email will be considered for an interview.

For the BDR role, please call our AE (his name is Sameer) and he can set up an interview with you: 516-304-9384. 

LFG

Hi yall - we're going to be at NRF next week and are co-sponsoring these events. Come say hi 👋🏽

🥂 NRF Social Soirée | Monday January 12th, 6-9pm, O’Tooles Way | [link in comments]

🥗 Bluestone Lunch | Tuesday January 13th, 11am-2pm, Bluestone Lane (Hudson Yards) | [link in comments]

☕ Ecom Coffee Collective | Wednesday January 14th, 8:30-11am, Honeybrains | [link in comments]

Along with that, I'll be at the Smarterships happy hour this Sunday 🪩

'No Dicks, No Divas' --- Our $8.5M ARR company has 3 company values 🤭 

It’s easy to write down a bunch of generic company values.

It’s much harder to commit to a very small set of values.

We believe in keeping our values few, clear, and lived.

And below are the three values👇🏽

--

1. Unreasonably Good Service

Every client interaction is an opportunity to surprise and delight.

Mediocre service is easy. We choose the harder path.

--

2. Speed is a Weapon

We move fast.

Speed builds trust, creates leverage, and allows us to beat any competitor who dares to go head-to-head with us.

--

3. No Dicks, No Divas

No egos, no drama, no assholes.

We work hard, stay humble, and win together.

Low ego. High agency. Phenomenal results.

--

Our values are memorable and short. 

I bet most people can't rattle off their current employer's values. 

Ours are impossible to forget.

The Tumbler: our newest and coolest gamified popup in Alia. It's been CRUSHING for our brands

Portland Leather Goods switched to Alia. And you should too! (yes, you)

Got the chance to contribute to the state of industry by Sean Wendt and dtcmvp. 

The full ebook has insights from brand leaders across the ecosystem. Very cool to be invited to this and worth checking out. Link below 👇🏽

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The Battle

Ronak Shah

Shaan Arora

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Ronak Shah's LinkedIn Performance

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