full

Building a DTC Brand in a Category Nobody Knows Exists | Gene Oh, Day—Guard

Published on: 26th May, 2026

6 months into your launch, the data shows you're targeting the wrong customer. Do you pivot the entire brand, or push through with what you've got?

In this episode of Ecom Growth Insider, Gene Oh, co-founder of day-guard, walks through how he and his best friend Felix Lee brought Korea's jelly-stick alcohol-aid category to the United States. Day Guard was featured in Forbes in February (the article went viral and drove their first NYC distribution deal across a few hundred convenience stores and bodegas). Their cap table includes Magic Spoon's Gabi Lewis and Rip Van's Marco De Leon as investors.

Gene turned down a guaranteed med school spot in Brown's PLME, an 8-year combined BA/MD program, to build day-guard with Felix.

Gene's category creation playbook:

Anchor cultural credibility through the country of origin.

Make the novel form factor the selling point.

Build retention loops because the pain isn't felt at point of purchase.

Pivot the entire brand the moment customer data demands it.

In this episode:

- How Gene tested 3 flavors with 500 sticks across Brown bars to lock down his ICP before manufacturing

- Why "insurance for when you drink" outperformed every other positioning for a product he can't legally call a hangover cure

- The customer data that flipped his real ICP from college students to 29-44 year old urban millennials

- Why he killed the original brand and reformulated the product 6 months into launch

- How one Forbes feature drove a few hundred thousand views and turned into Day Guard's first retail distribution deal

- The channel mix that's actually moving the needle (Meta, Amazon, DTC) and where TikTok Shop fits next

- The creative volume target: 20 ads per week minimum, around 100 active in testing at scale

- Why founder-led marketing on Instagram made Meta ad performance better

- Why Gene treats ROAS as a vanity metric and what he tracks instead (CAC, retention, LTV)

- The 10-year vision: become America's joystick company across sleep, creatine, energy, and skin

Chapters:

00:00 PLME dropout selling jelly sticks at 3am

02:27 The instinct to build something, not just consume it

04:29 How medical training shaped the formulation

06:03 ICP research at Brown bars: 500 sticks, 3 flavors, 2 months

09:38 Will the jelly-stick category translate outside Korea?

12:17 Creating demand for a category nobody knows exists

13:34 The no-pain-yet problem: retention plus retail unlock

18:07 Writing copy when you can't legally say "hangover"

19:43 Why they rebranded AND reformulated 6 months in

24:04 The daily liver play: expanding beyond hangover

25:47 What's actually moving the needle right now

28:35 Should every e-com founder build a personal brand?

30:38 Why they still do offline despite Meta scale

32:10 How to ignore every shiny object

35:38 The creative volume target: 20 ads per week

36:28 The 10-year vision for the alcohol-aid market

38:29 Lightning round

43:48 Where to find Gene

Connect with Gene:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geneo.h/

Day Guard on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/takedayguard/

Text Gene directly: (781) 467-9870

Day Guard: https://www.dayguard.com/

Ecom Growth Insider is the podcast for e-commerce founders who want to scale profitably. New episodes weekly on paid media, CRO, offer strategy, and operating systems that actually move the needle.

More episodes and newsletter: https://ecomgrowthinsider.com

Work with HoloGrowth: https://hologrowth.com

All Episodes Previous Episode

Listen for free

Show artwork for Ecom Growth Insider

About the Podcast

Ecom Growth Insider
Real behind-the-scenes strategies from the trenches of scaling DTC brands. With founders, marketers, and growth experts.
If you're a DTC brand founder, CMO, growth marketer, or operator trying to scale your e-commerce business profitably, this podcast is for you.

Hosted by Andrej Tumachowitsch — founder of the growth agency HoloGrowth — this show goes deep on what actually works to grow online brands in today’s ultra-competitive landscape.

We go way beyond generic advice.

Every episode gives you practical, battle-tested insights directly from 7-, 8-, and 9-figure brand founders, top-tier marketers, and agency operators actively working in the trenches.

You’ll learn:
- What separates breakout ecom brands from the ones that plateau
- Paid media strategies that scale on Meta, Google & beyond
- How to use UGC, email, landing pages, and CRO to increase LTV & AOV
- Creative testing frameworks & campaign breakdowns that actually perform
- Smart ways to grow without sacrificing profit margins
- Founder mindsets, systems, and hiring practices that lead to longevity
- And the biggest mistakes brands are making right now (and how to avoid them)

Expect a mix of founder interviews, expert roundtables, solo lessons, and deep dives into what’s working right now in paid acquisition, conversion, and retention.

No fluff. No recycled advice. Just proven strategies to grow your ecommerce brand.

If you're tired of surface-level podcasts and want unfiltered access to the tactics and lessons real brands are using to scale — hit subscribe and join us inside the Ecom Growth Insider.

About your host

Profile picture for Andrej Tumachowitsch

Andrej Tumachowitsch

I'm the founder of HoloGrowth, a performance-driven growth agency helping e-commerce brands scale profitably to 7- and 8-figures through paid ads.

With years of experience in the trenches of DTC growth, I have worked with over 30 brands worldwide – building, optimizing, and scaling their marketing systems.

As the host of the Ecom Growth Insider podcast, I dive deep with top founders, marketers, and growth experts to unpack what’s really working behind the scenes in the DTC space.

My mission? To bring raw, actionable insights that help brand owners scale smarter.