Welcome to The Weekly Starter.
Officially voted the #1 sales & marketing newsletter. -No source provided-
Every Monday, we'll help you start the week a little smarter with:
🐓 Fresh Off the Roost
The business moves worth knowing.
🎯 Prospecting List
Companies showing buying signals worth your attention.
🎥 Campaigns to Watch
Marketing worth studying.
💰 Where's the Money?
Where advertising budgets are actually moving.
We do the homework. You take the credit.
Let's get this week started.
PiiPER Lands Target + Walmart
New baking brand PiiPER launched nationwide at Target and Walmart with a seven-product lineup, with Kroger and Michaels up next.
WindBorne Raises $37M
The weather-tech startup raised a $37M Series B to scale its network of autonomous weather balloons and expand its commercial weather intelligence platform.
Rootberry Goes Nationwide
The emerging frozen-meal brand is making its biggest retail move yet, bringing four of its meals to Sprouts Farmers Market stores nationwide.
Savory Fund Backs Zao Asian Grill
The firm behind brands like Swig and Mo’ Bettahs invested in the 23-unit fast-casual chain, which plans to open 10+ new locations through 2027.
Plantible Lands $35M to Scale Up
The food-tech startup secured $35M in new funding to quintuple annual production of its Rubi Protein plant-based ingredient.
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🌮 Mike’s Red Tacos
🚨 Buying Signal: 📍 Franchise Expansion
Signed a 22-unit franchise agreement across Austin and Northern California, adding to an already massive pipeline of committed locations nationwide.
💡 Why It Matters: Rapid multi-market expansion typically creates new spend across local marketing, real estate, construction, signage, technology, and grand openings.
👤 Best Contact: Vincent Montanelli — President LinkedIn
📖 View Story
💻 RWX
🚨 Buying Signal: 💰 Series A Funding
Raised a $12M Series A to scale its developer-cloud platform as the Columbus-based startup continues building out its team and go-to-market operation.
💡 Why It Matters: Fresh Series A capital typically opens budgets for hiring, sales infrastructure, customer acquisition, marketing, and other growth tools.
👤 Best Contact: Dan Manges — Co-Founder & CEO LinkedIn
📖 View Story
🏭 Epsilon Industries
🚨 Buying Signal: 🏗️ Facility Expansion
Broke ground on a $15M+ expansion of its Tuscaloosa operation, adding 65,000 square feet of manufacturing capacity and 26 new jobs.
💡 Why It Matters: New manufacturing capacity means spending across hiring, equipment, logistics, technology, insurance, and operational services.
👤 Best Contact: Paul Kirchhoff — Chief Revenue Officer LinkedIn
📖 View Story
📊 Frazier & Deeter
🚨 Buying Signal: 🤝 Acquisition + New Market
Acquired Gray, Gray & Gray, giving the PE-backed accounting and advisory firm its first presence in New England and marking its second acquisition of 2026.
💡 Why It Matters: Entering a new market can trigger spending across regional marketing, business development, recruiting, technology integration, and office operations.
👤 Best Contact: John Hightower — Chief Growth Officer LinkedIn
📖 View Story
🏥 LiveWell Partners
🚨 Buying Signal: 🤝 Acquisition
Acquired Michigan Community VNA, its third Michigan acquisition, as the PE-backed home health and hospice platform continues building out its regional footprint.
💡 Why It Matters: An active acquisition strategy creates recurring needs around systems integration, staffing, compliance, marketing, and operational infrastructure.
👤 Best Contact: Jason Growe — Founder & Chief Development Officer LinkedIn
📖 View Story
🐱 NexGard SPECTRA — “Cat No. 9”
📝 What They Did
NexGard SPECTRA turned a simple product benefit—its cat parasite treatment is low-odour—into “Cat No. 9,” a limited-edition perfume inspired by scents cats naturally gravitate toward. The unexpected product became the centerpiece of influencer content, social media, earned media, and live experiences.
💡 Why It Worked
Instead of trying to make parasite medicine interesting, NexGard found something culturally weird enough to make people curious. The stunt earns attention first, then naturally leads consumers back to the actual product benefit.
✏️ Takeaway
Don't force people to care about a boring product category. Find the most interesting story hiding inside one product truth and build the campaign around that.
🚲 Outride — “Brain on Bikes”
August 6 2026, 5:49 am | BY Ricki Green
📝 What They Did
Cycling nonprofit Outride let participants ride a stationary bike while an EEG measured their brain activity. That live brain data was transformed into generative artwork in real time, giving each rider a personalized visual representation of what cycling was doing to their brain.
💡 Why It Worked
Outride took an abstract message—cycling benefits your brain—and made it tangible, personal, and shareable. Instead of telling people about the research, they created an experience that let people literally see it happening.
✏️ Takeaway
If your product or service delivers an invisible benefit, ask: “How could we make that benefit visible?” Sometimes the demonstration is more powerful than the advertisement.
🎸 Baybeats — “Beatsverse”
📝 What They Did
Singapore's Esplanade brought its alternative-music festival Baybeats into Roblox, creating a virtual festival world where fans can discover local artists through rhythm games, collaborative play, collectibles, and a communal “Hype Meter”—all before attending the physical event.
💡 Why It Worked
Instead of using digital channels simply to advertise an upcoming event, Baybeats made the marketing an experience of its own. Fans can interact with the artists and festival before ever stepping through the gates.
✏️ Takeaway
Stop thinking of social and digital as places to promote the experience. Ask whether they can become part of the experience themselves.
🧱 LEGO × Olivia Rodrigo — GPS Vinyl Hunt
📝 What They Did
To support its new Olivia Rodrigo collectible collection, LEGO helped turn the product drop into a real-world treasure hunt. Fans decoded GPS coordinates hidden across LEGO social posts to locate an ultra-limited Olivia Rodrigo vinyl, with only 333 copies produced globally.
💡 Why It Worked
Scarcity gave fans a reason to care, but participation made the launch memorable. Instead of simply announcing another celebrity collaboration, LEGO gave fans something to solve, search for, and share.
✏️ Takeaway
A product launch doesn't have to be an announcement. Give your audience a small challenge, mystery, or reward and you can turn passive viewers into active participants.
💰 Money Move: AFP Action just launched a $5.6 million advertising blitz across seven U.S. Senate battleground states, putting fresh money into TV and digital advertising as the 2026 midterms heat up.
💰 Why This Matters
Where brands invest usually tells you where they're headed next. Understanding ad spend trends won't just make you smarter—it might help you ask better questions on your next sales call.
💰 Prospecting Tip
If your ideal customer works in marketing, ask where they're shifting budget—not where they're spending today. Budget changes often create more opportunities than budget totals.
