A crowded category can still leave room for a brand with a clear promise. For Truvani, that promise started with ingredient transparency and became the foundation for a business spanning DTC, Amazon and major retail shelves.

On this episode of Verified: The Social Commerce Podcast, Devin and Melanie Duncan trace Truvani's journey from an early turmeric presale that exceeded its goal by more than tenfold to a protein business with a footprint in 12,000 retail stores. They explain why their clean-ingredient standards made manufacturing harder, how protein became their hero product and what finally unlocked demand in a competitive market.

They also unpack the channel decisions behind Truvani's next stage of growth: rebuilding a Meta advertising engine, seeing online awareness lift retail sales and choosing to pause TikTok Shop while the team focused on what was working.

Jeff Durham is the Founder & CEO of Durham Brands, the family company behind Gimme Beauty. In this episode of Verified, Jeff joins David Vanderveen and Peter Griscom to break down how Gimme Beauty differentiated a familiar category, built credibility through creators and expanded to 36,000 stores nationwide.

Jeff explains the "science of hair type," Gimme Beauty's approach to creating products specifically for fine, medium and thick hair. He shares why the company spent years engineering its thick-hair tie, how visual product proof made creator marketing a natural fit and why the brand has worked with thousands of creators across macro, micro and nano levels.

The conversation then moves from social discovery to retail execution. Jeff explains why ecommerce-only brands should think seriously about diversification, what founders need to understand before entering major retail and why packaging, buyer relationships, pricing and channel strategy can determine whether a product stays on the shelf.

Agentic commerce has moved through a full hype cycle in less than a year. The opportunity is real, but the numbers, adoption and consumer behavior tell a more complicated story than the headlines suggest.

On this episode of Verified: The Social Commerce Podcast, David Vanderveen and Peter Griscom revisit agentic commerce with a sharper operating thesis: discover in AI, buy on site. They break down why massive growth percentages can be misleading without a meaningful base, where AI is actually influencing commerce today and why retailer agents like Amazon Rufus and Walmart Sparky may matter more to many brands than standalone AI assistants.

The conversation moves from hype to execution, including machine-readable product data, GEO, reviews, schema, AI-referred traffic, retail-agent visibility and the weekly testing operators can start without a major technology investment.