# Grand Slam Venture Studio > Grand Slam is an AI-native venture studio that builds and scales direct-to-consumer eCommerce brands through creative and paid media. Grand Slam works with consumer brands in two ways: it builds new direct-to-consumer brands from the ground up, and it acquires or partners with established brands that are ready for their next stage, including Amazon-native brands building their own DTC channel. Its edge is creative production and paid media (Meta, Google, TikTok and later-stage channels such as AppLovin and native ads), with AI built into research, briefing, creative production and reporting. ## Key pages - [Home](https://grandslamvs.com/): what the studio does, how it works (Discover, Validate, Build, Scale), capabilities and categories - [Partner with us](https://grandslamvs.com/#pitch): contact form for founders, operators and partners - [Field notes](https://grandslamvs.com/notes): articles on creative, paid media, AI and growth - [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/grand-slam-venture-studio): company page ## Capabilities - Creative at scale: AI-assisted production alongside creators and influencers - Paid media and scaling: paid social and search, budgets driven by data - AI across the studio: research, briefs, creative operations and reporting - Brand and product: products and identities shaped by customer response ## FAQ ### What is Grand Slam Venture Studio? Grand Slam is an AI-native venture studio that builds and scales direct-to-consumer eCommerce brands. We bring creative production, paid media and AI together in one team that works across several brands, and we share in the results we help create. ### Who do you work with? Founders, operators and partners. That includes brands with a great product that are ready for their next stage, people with an idea for something customers need, experts who know a category inside out, and Amazon-native brands ready to build their own direct-to-consumer channel. ### How is a venture studio different from an agency? An agency sells time or deliverables. A studio has a stake in the outcome: we do the work and share in the upside. Every brand also benefits from a shared senior team and from what we learn across all the brands we build and back. ### Do you acquire brands? Yes. Depending on the brand, we acquire it or partner with it. Some founders are ready to sell; others want to keep ownership and bring in a team to help them scale. We shape every arrangement around the brand and the people behind it. ### Which advertising channels do you run? Meta, Google and TikTok form the core. As brands scale, we add channels such as AppLovin, native ads, Pinterest, YouTube and creator programs, each with a clear job and judged on what it adds to the whole business, not just its own dashboard. ### How do you use AI? Throughout the studio: researching customers and markets, drafting briefs, producing and varying creative alongside real creators, and reporting on results. People approve everything that goes live, and we never use AI to invent customers, testimonials or results. ### Can you help an Amazon-only brand sell direct-to-consumer? Yes. We build a Shopify store designed to convert, a creative engine and paid media across Meta, TikTok and Google, and the email and SMS flows that bring customers back, while Amazon stays a core channel. ### Which categories do you work in? We follow the customer rather than the category. We know health and wellness, home and living, pet, baby and family, fashion and accessories, beauty and personal care, tech accessories, and food and drink. ### How do we get started? Fill in the Partner with us form below with a few details about your brand or idea. We read every submission and get back to you when there’s a fit. ## Field notes - [What makes a brand worth coming back to](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/worth-coming-back-to) (2026-09-13, Retention): Paid media can buy a first order. It can’t buy a second one. What we focus on after the checkout, and why it decides how far a brand can scale. - [Beyond Meta, Google and TikTok: AppLovin, native ads and what comes next](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/beyond-the-big-three) (2026-08-18, Paid media): Once the core channels are working, growth eventually needs new audiences. When we add AppLovin, native ads and other channels, and how we judge whether they’re genuinely adding sales. - [An always-on agent: what we’re learning from Hermes](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/hermes-agent) (2026-07-14, AI): Most AI tools wait for you to ask. We’ve been testing Hermes, the open-source agent from Nous Research, as a persistent assistant for the growth team. What works, and where we keep it on a short leash. - [Meta, Google and TikTok each have a different job](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/meta-google-tiktok-jobs) (2026-06-09, Paid media): Judging every channel by the same last-click number is how good channels get cut. How we assign each platform a role, and measure it accordingly. - [The MCP servers we actually use](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/our-mcp-stack) (2026-05-26, AI): A year and a half into the Model Context Protocol, here’s the set of connections that earn their place in our day-to-day work, and the security rules that come with them. - [Using Higgsfield for AI video in paid social](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/higgsfield-ai-video) (2026-04-21, AI): AI video has become good enough to use in real ads, with the right workflow. Where Higgsfield fits in our production, what it’s good at, and where we still use real footage. - [Claude Code for creative ops: automating the unglamorous parts](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/claude-code-for-creative-ops) (2026-03-17, AI): Practical examples of how we use Claude Code to handle asset admin, copy variants, QA checks and reporting, and how we keep a human in charge of everything that matters. - [Paying creators for performance: how we run creator programs on Trybe](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/trybe-creator-programs) (2026-02-17, Creative): Flat-fee UGC buys content. Performance-based creator programs buy outcomes and a steady supply of ads. How the model works, where Trybe fits, and what to watch out for. - [Growing a brand beyond a single channel](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/beyond-a-single-channel) (2026-01-13, DTC): Many great brands were built on Amazon. Here’s what changes when an Amazon-native brand builds its own store and its own paid growth engine. - [AI creative that doesn’t look like AI](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/ai-creatives-that-dont-look-like-ai) (2025-10-21, AI): Audiences are getting very good at spotting generated content, and scrolling past it. The principles we follow so AI makes our ads better rather than more artificial. - [Building a creative team with Claude Code and MCP](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/claude-code-mcp-creative-team) (2025-08-26, AI): How we use Claude Code and the Model Context Protocol to give a small creative team the research, briefing and reporting capacity of a much larger one. - [Creative at the speed of paid media](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/creative-at-the-speed-of-paid-media) (2025-07-15, Creative): Paid growth runs on fresh creative. How we build a content system that keeps up with the algorithm instead of falling behind it. - [Tariffs, landed cost and pricing when the rules keep changing](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/tariffs-and-landed-cost) (2025-05-27, Operations): This spring’s tariff changes reset the economics of many imported products overnight. How we think about landed cost, pricing and supply chain decisions in a less predictable trade environment. - [How AI changed the creative testing loop](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/ai-creative-testing-loop) (2025-04-29, AI): When making an ad takes hours instead of weeks, the bottleneck moves. Here’s how we rebuilt our testing rhythm around that. - [How we structure Meta ad campaigns](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/structuring-meta-campaigns) (2025-03-11, Paid media): Fewer campaigns, broader targeting, more creative. The account structure we use for consumer brands on Meta, and the reasoning behind it. - [MER over ROAS: the number we actually manage to](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/mer-over-roas) (2025-01-21, Measurement): Every ad platform claims credit for the same sale. Why we run brands on blended efficiency, and use platform numbers for direction rather than decisions. - [The brief is the bottleneck](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/the-brief-is-the-bottleneck) (2024-11-12, Creative): Creators and AI can now produce almost anything quickly. What they can’t do is decide what’s worth making. That job belongs to the brief. - [What we look for in a manufacturing partner](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/choosing-a-manufacturing-partner) (2024-09-24, Sourcing): The cheapest quote is rarely the best partner. The questions we ask, the checks we run and the habits that keep product quality consistent as a brand grows. - [Test the offer before you test the ad](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/test-the-offer-first) (2024-08-06, Strategy): Many “creative problems” are really offer problems in disguise. How we check that the thing we’re selling is worth buying before we scale anything. - [Why founder-led content still sells](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/founder-led-content) (2024-06-25, Brand): In a feed full of polished ads, the person who built the product is one of a brand’s most persuasive assets. How we help founders show up without it becoming a second job. - [Your product page is your best salesperson](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/the-product-page) (2024-05-07, DTC): Ads bring people to the door. The product page decides whether they buy. A walk through what we put on a page, and in what order. - [UGC is a format, not a strategy](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/ugc-is-a-format) (2024-03-26, Creative): Creator content works because it feels real, not because it’s cheap or trendy. How we brief, source and use UGC so it actually sells. - [What a venture studio actually does](https://grandslamvs.com/notes/what-a-venture-studio-does) (2024-02-13, Studio): Not an agency, not a fund, not an aggregator. A plain explanation of the studio model, and why we think it fits consumer brands.