#291 - Meghana Dhar - Social, Creators, & Future of Digital Commerce

DTC POD: How The Best Brands Are Built

Meghana Dhar is a tech advisor and investor passionate about creators, brands, social media, and commerce. With a background in big tech, she worked at Ebay where she discovered her love for e-commerce, marketplaces, and direct-to-consumer (DTC) business models. Meghana's strategic expertise led her to become an advisor to the CEO during the spin-off of PayPal. She later served as the head of shopping partnerships at Instagram, witnessing its growth from inception. Recently, she held the position of global head of partnerships at Snap, accumulating valuable experiences in social commerce.

On this episode of DTC pod we cover:

• "Jobs to be done" & social media platforms
• Instagram's shift from shopping
• The importance of starting from scratch for new platforms.
• eBay's lasting impact on ecommerce & marketplaces.
• The need for better support of communities on current platforms.
• The potential of social commerce and monetizing creators.

Episode Timestamps:
3:39 eBay: Original, disruptive e-commerce, evolving.

5:42 PayPal, creators define eBay's community culture.

10:46 eBay market share loss: PayPal’s impact.

13:10 Supply-first platforms incentivize content creators, audiences.

18:06 Instagram shopping confuses user expectations, needs.

22:16 Focus on niche communities, supply monitoring.

26:20 Bullish on bread, frictionless onboarding, growth hacking.

30:54 Snap user inquiries about partnerships, media.

32:00 iOS 14 impacts Snap: revenue loss, AR strategy.

36:34 Commerce trends: website traffic, pop-ups.

39:39 Creators prioritize community, authentic content.

44:11 TikTok shopping potential: noteworthy.

46:36 DTC Pod event, LA, October 5.

Episode brought to you by Trend & Finaloop.

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Shownotes powered by Castmagic

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Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more.

Check out our guide to all the best brands here.

Additional episodes you might like:

• #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth

• #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content

• #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views

• #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands

• #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook

• ​​​​#243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands

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Meghana Dhar - Tech advisor and investor passionate about creators, brands, social media, and commerce.
Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io
Blaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Castmagic