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Hey Fastlane Insiders! 👋

Welcome to the first issue of 2026—and season two of the Fastlane newsletter.

Last year was incredible. We grew from zero to more than 30,000 founders and marketers, and the feedback has been phenomenal. You've trusted me to help navigate the real challenges of scaling a DTC brand, and that means everything to me.

A lot happened in the last twelve months. You launched products. Solved problems. Put out fires. The daily grind has a way of burying the original mission under a pile of urgent tasks. Momentum takes over. You keep moving because stopping feels dangerous.

But here's the thing: ambition is both fuel and trap. It pushes you forward while simultaneously creating a gap between where you are and where you think you "should" be. That gap breeds frustration. It causes drift. It makes you chase competitor moves and vanity metrics instead of doubling down on what actually works for your business.

So before you sprint into another year of building, take a step back. Not to lose momentum—but to make sure you're actually solving the right problems. The ones that matter for your business.

The brands thriving in 2026 aren't working harder—they're working smarter. And "smarter" breaks down into two specific moves:

🤖 One: Strategic automation. Not AI hype, but real autonomous agents handling the high-frequency, low-complexity work that's stealing your team's time. When you reclaim 200+ hours monthly, you get to move from task execution to process design—where your expertise actually compounds.

💰 Two: Ruthless cost discipline. Rising shipping rates, supplier increases, and margin pressure are real. But they're not equal across all brands. The ones gaining ground aren't absorbing costs—they're using them as forcing functions to build competitive moats that are harder to replicate than just "running ads cheaper."

This week's edition is about building leverage on both fronts—reclaiming time and protecting margin so you can stay focused on what actually moves the needle.

Here's what's inside:

🎧 This Week's Podcast — Ibby Syed from Cotera breaks down how DTC brands are deploying AI agents to save 200+ hours monthly without hiring engineers. We get into the three-part framework for identifying which tasks to automate first, plus real ROI examples that show the difference between chatbots and true autonomous agents.

💡 Knowledge Drops — Two playbooks that address the friction points I'm hearing most:

🔥 Tool of the Week — Trustoo helps fast-growing Shopify brands collect and display reviews that actually convert. 40% off your first month for readers.

📡 Industry Pulse — Holiday ecommerce hit $258B with AI assistants driving 693% more traffic. TikTok Shop is eyeing $20B in 2026 sales. And Crypto.com just made it possible to spend crypto directly at millions of Stripe-powered stores.

The pattern is consistent: brands winning right now aren't chasing every new thing. They're isolating high-leverage opportunities, executing them systematically, and reinvesting the time and margin they save into what actually compounds.

That's what I believe 2026 looks like in practice…

Let's dive in. 👇

You've seen the AI hype. The tools promising to "transform your business." Most deliver glorified chatbots that can't make decisions, can't handle nuance, and definitely can't replace the work eating up your team's time.

But some brands are already using AI differently—deploying true autonomous agents that handle complex workflows without babysitting.

This week, I sat down with Ibby Syed, Co-Founder of Cotera and former data scientist at Peloton during their hypergrowth years. We got into what separates real AI agents from chatbots—and how DTC brands are using them right now to reclaim hundreds of hours every month.

Here's what we covered:

The brands winning with AI aren't chasing hype. They're isolating high-frequency, low-complexity tasks, giving agents proper access, and reinvesting saved time into strategic work that compounds.

AI has changed how consumers shop, but people still drive decisions. Levanta’s research shows affiliate and creator content continues to influence conversions, plus it now shapes the product recommendations AI delivers. Affiliate marketing isn’t being replaced by AI, it’s being amplified.

Download the full report

Passive link earning is a lottery ticket. You publish content, cross your fingers, and hope someone with authority decides to link to you. Meanwhile, AI Overviews and answer engines are reshaping how authority gets measured—and they only cite sources validated by the wider web through relevant, contextual links.

The numbers tell the story: Google is sending roughly 16% less traffic to websites year-over-year, with ~60% of searches ending without a click. If you're not actively building links, you're going invisible in AI search.

The brands that are winning aren't waiting to be discovered. They're running link building like a real channel—with clear targeting, stage-appropriate effort, and linkable assets that editors actually want to reference.

Here's what's working across different revenue stages:

The mistake most brands make? Sending 300 generic emails and wondering why nobody responds. The fix? Deep research on 25-50 truly relevant targets, 10-15 minutes per site, and personalized pitches explaining why their readers benefit from citing you.

Shipping rates just jumped again. FedEx increased 5.9% effective January 5, USPS Priority Mail climbed 6.6% on January 18, and USPS Ground Advantage rose 7.8%. But those headline numbers are misleading—the real impact for most brands is 8-12% once you factor in dimensional weight penalties, zone pricing shifts, and additional handling fees that can hit $30-40 per package.

The math is brutal: if you're shipping 500 orders monthly and your per-order cost increases by just $1.25, that's $7,500 annually. At 5,000 orders per month, that same increase would cost you $75,000 per year. Most brands are absorbing this silently while their margins evaporate.

The problem isn't the rate increase—it's that carriers price space, and most brands are shipping air.

Here's what winners are doing differently:

One founder we interviewed found that moving a 2 lb product from a 12 × 10 × 6 box to a 10 × 8 × 3 box dropped billable weight from 4 lbs to 2 lbs—cutting per-order shipping costs by nearly 40% overnight. At 500 monthly shipments, that change alone saved over $6K annually.

Trustoo is the ultimate review platform built for fast-growing Shopify brands to build social proof and boost sales.

Higher response rates with fully customizable review requests. Display reviews in a way that’s fully customizable to your brand. Boost retention with smart discounts and referral tools Increase store visits by displaying star ratings on Google Search. Photo & video review, google seo, 24/7 support and more.

Enjoy 40% off for your first month and 15-day free trial 

Holiday E-Commerce Hit $257.8 Billion as AI Assistants Drove 693% More Traffic to Retail Sites. US online holiday spending (November 1 - December 31) jumped 6.8% year-over-year according to Adobe Analytics, with buy now, pay later contributing $20 billion (up 9.8%). Electronics, apparel, and furniture captured 54% of total spend, while the real story is how discovery is shifting—shoppers are starting product research in ChatGPT and Perplexity before hitting Google. Meanwhile, BNPL reaching $20B signals customer financing expectations are now standard, though experts warn default rates could spike 50% in Q1 2026. If you're not optimized for AI search and don't offer flexible payment options, you're missing a fast-growing segment.

TikTok Shop Sales Are Forecast to Hit $20 Billion in 2026, Surpassing eBay. After stabilizing US ownership concerns, TikTok Shop is expanding fast with major CPG brands like Mars, Coca-Cola, and Clorox launching after successful pilots. The platform's affiliate system lets qualified creators earn commissions promoting products, incentivizing organic reach, while Shopify integration makes catalog setup seamless with automatic product push. Intentwise is adding TikTok Shop as a data source this month alongside TikTok Ads, letting brands analyze complete TikTok performance alongside Amazon and Walmart in a single dashboard. If your products are visual (apparel, beauty, home) and appeal to younger demographics, TikTok Shop deserves serious testing in Q1.

Crypto.com Partnered with Stripe to Let Users Spend Crypto at Millions of Stores Starting January 2026. Shoppers can now spend crypto holdings directly at Stripe-powered merchants without fiat conversion—just scan a QR code, confirm in the Crypto.com app, and complete purchase using crypto balance. For merchants, integration is seamless with fiat settlement depositing funds directly into Stripe balance alongside traditional payments, launching in US first with plans for quick global expansion. This makes crypto acceptance genuinely frictionless—you don't need to understand blockchain or manage wallets. Watch adoption in Q1—if conversion rates match traditional payments, crypto could become a standard checkout option by mid-year.

Here's what keeps hitting me as I work on this edition:

The brands thriving right now aren't trying to do everything themselves.

They're systematically identifying where automation delivers real ROI, where strategic cost management creates sustainable advantage, and where human expertise should focus.

Whether you're deploying AI agents to reclaim 200+ hours monthly, actively building domain authority for AI search, or turning shipping cost increases into a competitive moat through smart packaging—the pattern is the same: strategic leverage compounds.

We're nine days into 2026. The operators who treat this year as "more of the same" will struggle. The ones building systematic advantages right now will pull further ahead.

If something in today's edition resonated—or you're already implementing one of these strategies—hit reply and let me know. I read every response, and honestly, your insights shape what I explore next.

Keep building. Keep testing. And most importantly—keep finding leverage.

Cheers!
— Steve

P.S. Forward this to a founder stressing about their 2026 planning. Ownership spreads one conversation at a time.

Follow along: LinkedIn for unfiltered takes and daily conversations that don't make the newsletter.

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