Katya Samotoi

Katya Samotoi Coaching

I help entrepreneurs with Bipolar and ADHD, just like you, to unlock their potential using personalised coaching and psychology without struggling with attention and focus.

ADHD Coach

In The Room

As the Growth Advisor at In The Room, I play a crucial role in driving the company's growth and success by focusing on innovative strategies that elevate our AI-driven platform, which bridges the gap between AI efficiency and human empathy in customer experiences. Reporting directly to the CEO, I'm an integral part of a team that's revolutionizing customer engagement.

Key responsibilities:

Strategic Vision: Shape the strategic direction of the company by identifying new opportunities, potential partnerships, and innovative ways to expand our market presence.

Data-Driven Decision Making: Analyze data and insights to inform growth strategies, ensuring In The Room continues to deliver exceptional value to our clients and their customers.

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborate with team members across sales, marketing, product development, and customer success to drive growth initiatives and ensure alignment on shared goals.

Mentoring & Coaching: Share expertise and knowledge with the team, fostering a culture of continuous learning, innovation, and professional growth at In The Room.

Market Awareness: Stay up-to-date with the latest industry trends, technology advancements, and competitors to keep In The Room at the cutting edge of customer engagement and AI-driven solutions.

Building a Growth Mindset: Instill a growth mindset within the company, promoting an environment of innovation, adaptability, and continuous improvement.

Friendly and approachable, I bring a unique and energizing perspective to the Growth Advisor role, making a significant impact on In The Room's journey to redefine customer experiences.

Growth Advisor

Magic

As a Growth Advisor, I play a pivotal role in driving Magic's growth strategy, fostering sustainable logistics practices, and enhancing profitability. I am committed to bridging the gap between sustainability and business success, leveraging data-driven insights to pioneer a greener future in logistics.

Key Responsibilities:]

Strategic Growth Planning: Develop and execute strategies to expand Magic's market presence, identify new business opportunities, and foster sustainable growth.
Partnership Development: Cultivate strategic partnerships with key industry players, enhancing our ecosystem and driving collective progress towards sustainability.
Data Analytics and Insights: Analyze market trends and logistics data to inform decision-making, optimize operations, and deliver tailored solutions to our clients.
Sustainability Advocacy: Champion the cause of sustainable logistics, demonstrating the tangible benefits of our solutions to the environment and our partners' bottom lines.
Client Engagement and Education: Provide expert advice and consultancy to businesses, guiding them towards more sustainable and profitable logistics practices.

Viceroy Group

As the Managing Director for a group of seven DTC brands, I played a pivotal role in driving growth and overseeing the operations across all departments. With a strong focus on teamwork and collaboration, I helped scale the company's revenue from $1,000 to a whopping $16 million – all while remaining bootstrapped.

Key responsibilities:

Operational Oversight: Ensured seamless functioning across all departments, driving efficiency and effectiveness in every aspect of the business.

Revenue Growth: Spearheaded the company's rapid growth journey, increasing revenue from $1,000 to $16 million, while maintaining a bootstrapped approach.

Team Expansion: Successfully scaled a remote team from just 4 members to a robust group of 42 professionals, fostering a collaborative and results-driven work environment.

Creator Agency Launch: Innovatively launched a creator agency focused on building brands for prominent creators and influencers, further diversifying the company's portfolio.

Cross-Functional Leadership: Led cross-functional teams to achieve shared objectives and drive business growth, establishing a strong culture of communication and collaboration.

Strategic Planning: Developed and executed strategic plans to ensure continued success and growth for the company and its brands.

As a dynamic and hands-on Managing Director, I was instrumental in the company's expansion and success, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and high performance across all departments.

Managing Director

As the Head of Growth for a group of seven brands, I successfully led the development and execution of omnichannel marketing strategies, branding, and content initiatives. My strategic vision and data-driven approach resulted in impressive revenue growth and customer retention rates.

Key responsibilities:

Omnichannel Marketing Strategy: Developed and implemented comprehensive marketing strategies across channels such as Pinterest, Meta, Quora, Native, and Google, driving brand awareness and growth.

Revenue Growth: Played a crucial role in increasing the company's revenue to $16 million through cold acquisitions across multiple channels, showcasing the effectiveness of our marketing efforts.

Branding and Content: Oversaw the branding and content creation for all seven brands, ensuring a consistent and engaging brand identity that resonated with our target audience.

Retention Initiatives: Successfully implemented retention initiatives, leading to a remarkable 40% return rate, demonstrating our commitment to building lasting customer relationships.

Performance Analysis: Continuously monitored and analyzed marketing performance metrics, optimizing campaigns and strategies to maximize ROI and drive sustainable growth.

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborated closely with other departments to align marketing efforts with broader business objectives, fostering a culture of teamwork and shared success.

As an experienced and results-driven Head of Growth, I was dedicated to optimizing our marketing strategy, branding, and content efforts, ultimately leading to impressive revenue growth and customer retention rates for the group of seven brands.

Head of Growth

BrandRanx Media

As the COO of a leading advertising and marketing agency, I played a pivotal role in managing multi-million-dollar budgets and driving exceptional results for a diverse portfolio of clients. My strategic vision and operational expertise facilitated the growth of our remote team and contributed to the success of well-known brands.

Key responsibilities:

Budget Management: Oversaw the management of advertising budgets ranging between 8 and 9 figures, ensuring the efficient allocation of resources and maximizing ROI for clients.

Client Success: Worked closely with high-profile clients such as SNOW, STRONGER, OODIE, GOODIEANDCO, and others, delivering outstanding results that fueled their growth and brand recognition.

Team Building: Successfully expanded the agency from a 2-person operation to a full-time remote team of 20 professionals, fostering a collaborative and results-driven work environment.

Operational Excellence: Streamlined agency operations, implementing best practices and optimizing processes to deliver exceptional service and results for clients.

Cross-Functional Leadership: Collaborated with various departments to align efforts and ensure seamless execution of marketing and advertising strategies for our clients.

Agency Growth: Played a key role in the growth and development of the agency, establishing it as a trusted partner for a diverse range of clients and driving business expansion.

As a highly effective COO, I took pride in guiding the agency to new heights by managing substantial budgets, delivering outstanding results for clients, and fostering a collaborative and high-performing remote team.

Hi there!

I'm Katya, a growth-focused professional with a diverse background and over seven years of experience in managing and scaling businesses.

My journey has led me to some amazing accomplishments, such as:

* Driven revenue growth for 7 DTC brands that I managed from 0 to $16 million bootstrapped.
* Founded a ecom digital marketing agency and a brand management agency for 8 figures brands
* Have raised over $150K in 2 weeks for charity, led a network of 100 volunteers in Ukraine.
* Worked with clients like SNOW, STRONGER, OODIE, managing budgets up to 7 figures.

Throughout my career, I've had the privilege of working with fantastic clients like SNOW, STRONGER, OODIE, GOODIEANDCO, and more, managing budgets up to 9 figures and building remote teams from the ground up. I'm always eager to take on new challenges and find innovative ways to help businesses grow.

But my passion doesn't stop with business growth. In response to the war in Ukraine, I co-founded DIDO, a non-profit organization aimed at reinventing and decentralizing charity systems. By leveraging my expertise in e-commerce and fundraising, I've been able to support a network of volunteers and create a new model of charity that benefits small businesses and the communities they serve.

My unique background, including finishing medical college and later transitioning to dancing, has given me a wide range of skills and experiences that I bring to my work. I believe that embracing our diverse interests and passions is what makes us truly unique and capable of driving positive change in the world.

In my spare time, I enjoy engaging in conversations about #mentalhealth, #impactdrivencommerce, #purpose, and #impact. I believe that sharing our thoughts, feelings, and emotions is crucial to fostering meaningful connections and driving positive change in the world.

#As I continue to embrace new challenges and opportunities, I remain committed to helping businesses evolve into impactful, purpose-driven organizations that make a real difference. Let's make the world a better place, together!

As the managing director my role was to oversee the operations of all departments for the 7 DTC brands.

Together with the team we grew from 1000 to 16m in revenue bootstrapped.

Scaled a team from 4 to 42 people remotely. 

I also launched the creator agency, where we build brands for large creators and influencers.

YOCTO

Founder & CEO of YOCTO — a full-service retention marketing agency trusted by Heights, BetterMe, Kilo Health, Healf, and others. We build full-funnel CRM programs that increase LTV, reduce churn, and scale subscription revenue. Invited to Klaviyo’s Partner Advisory Council and Yotpo’s Advisory Board in our first year

Founder

CEO AFTER DARK

Host of CEO AFTER DARK — a candid podcast where high-performing founders share the real stories behind their biggest wins, toughest moments, and what no one talks about in DTC and online business, full of raw lessons from the operators building what's next.

Founder & Host

Reforge

Member of Reforge’s Retention + Engagement and Growth Series programs, with a focus on scaling LTV-first brands through behavioral triggers, segmentation strategy, and monetization loops.

Member

Kilo Health

Led conversion content strategy at one of Europe’s fastest-growing healthtech companies. Owned retention messaging, monetization flows, and content-driven acquisition across multiple brands. Also built the internal onboarding and training system for Kilo’s next generation of conversion copywriters.

Conversion Content Lead

George Kapernaros

I consulted small, mid-sized, and large companies on how to improve customer life value and user monetization. Projects ranged from user onboarding and lifecycle optimization to acquisition funnels, pricing, upsells, and product-market fit clarity.

The Atomic Garden Vilnius

Delivered guest lectures on advanced conversion messaging and user behavior at Lithuania’s top advertising school, The Atomic Garden Vilnius — focused on helping young creatives learn how turn messaging into measurable performance.

Guest Lecturer

divbrands

When the company broke the 100+ employee mark (in less than 3 years), I was promoted to marketing director. During that time my responsibilities grew to include the brand strategy for every new product or store, a new CRM and email marketing department, and an ever-growing marketing team, which now also included a fully fleshed CRO arm and a market research team. 

In parallel, I was also responsible for liaising with the company's agency and other creative partners, including performance agencies and content producers, spread in 3 continents.

When I decided to leave to pursue my entrepreneurial journey, the company was at a record high financial performance and expanding aggressively.

Marketing Director

As the company started growing, I was promoted to lead copywriter and almost immediately to general marketing manager. During that time, I led the entire creative content production team, including 3 copywriters, 3 video editors, and 1 photographer. 

I also established the foundations of CRO (conversion rate optimization) in the company and developed an advertising creative framework that would become the basis of new product and store launches. 

Overall, I was involved in or directly led 200+ e-commerce product launches in European markets (often launching multiple stores per week).

Marketing Manager / Head Copywriter

Got offered a full-time position after an advertising campaign I produced as a freelancer scaled to high 6-figures in Facebook ads revenue. 

During my role, I brainstormed marketing campaign angles and produced a variety of conversion assets (sales pages, advertorials, email sequences, Facebook ads, and more) which helped generate massive growth in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Japan.

As the company's third full-time employee, I was there since the beginning and helped build the processes and systems that would later support 100+ employees and contractors.

Copywriter

Independent Consultant

I've been living and breathing direct response for many years. Here are some nice things people said about me, when I was starting:

"George is more than capable of turning even the most abstract idea into solid, highly compelling copy. Very professional, extraordinarily talented - he is definitely an asset to your team."

"I am amazed by George’s ability to turn any of our e-commerce projects into an exciting, unique and profitable story. He is highly knowledgeable in the field of marketing and sales, and besides copywriting, he is always curious, helpful and available to think together about performance, tactics, strategy, leadership or any of the creative steps of our projects in order to reach our common goals as a team."

"Amazing experience would highly recommend George anytime! He's a talented copywriter and has a great sense for persuasion and marketing."

"Thank you, George, for your professionalism and excellent writing skill. You helped rescue our project when it was needed the most. A++++ would love to work with him again!"

"George is an excellent copywriter and all-around great person. He went above and beyond the call of duty for my project to make sure it was what I was looking for. His communication was excellent and he even delivered ahead of an already tight deadline. I will certainly be working with him again soon."

"George has had a key role in the growth of our international e-commerce business. He's extremely competent, full of positive energy and a true self-starter. My team and I really enjoy working with him, because he always brings excellent knowledge about marketing and sales to the table and a great attitude! His sales copywriting helped us generate multiple six figures in sales over the past months. I highly recommend George for any leadership role involving an in-depth understanding of sales, marketing, and copywriting in your organization."

Direct-Response Copywriter & Strategist

Smarterchains

I helped refine and develop SmarterChains' communication and content marketing strategy, collaborated with the design and development team, and executed the day-to-day content production and content promotion.

I discussed marketing strategy and content tactics directly with the CEO & Co-Founders (top-ranked senior executives & P&G alumni).

Content Marketing

ReGeneration | Global Shapers Athens Hub

Out of 6000 candidates, finished as a top 100 finalist. Scored at the top percentile for both abstract reasoning and numerical reasoning. Received 56+ hours of business and softs skills training by industry experts and a placement in a Greek tech startup.

Finalist

Owner @ YOCTO | 传奇 | CXL Instructor | Reforge Member

I run YOCTO, a retention marketing agency trusted by brands like Healf, Heights, BetterMe, and Kilo Health. We help DTC teams solve complex CRM problems and break through their acquisition ceiling.

Quick Bio:
- CEO & Founder of YOCTO, the #1 retention marketing agency for health & wellness brands
- Powered CRM for 100+ clients incl. Heights, BetterMe, Kilo Health, Elo, Miracare, Healf and others
- Advisor to Klaviyo (Partner Council) & Yotpo (Email Advisory Board)
- Host of CEO AFTER DARK, a candid podcast for high-performing founders
- MBA, Reforge member, CXL instructor, guest lecturer @ The Atomic Garden

WE DO NOT PROVIDE 'AUDITS' FOR A VERY GOOD REASON

Transparently, you don’t need another teardown that says,

- “Your welcome flow is missing a text.”
- “You should A/B test your popup.”
- “Send more segments.”

You already know that. What you need is a plan. A real, outcome-driven plan that gets you closer to your retention goal - whether that’s increasing LTV, fixing drop-off between orders one and two, reducing churn, or improving CAC payback.

That’s why YOCTO doesn’t do audits. We do Strategy Activations.™

A STRATEGY ACTIVATION™ IS A GAMEPLAN

This isn’t a templated teardown or a list of flaws in your lifecycle setup. It’s a fully mapped, high-leverage strategy designed to help you hit your retention targets *this quarter.* Specific moves. Clear priorities.

You’ll walk away with:

- A diagnosis of what’s actually hurting retention (backed by cancel behavior and flow data)
-  A focused roadmap to increase LTV, improve AOV, or hit any retention KPI that matters right now
- LTV:CAC modeling that shows how the plan could pay off
- Built by people who live and breathe CRM, not best-practice blogs

If you’re serious about scaling through retention... find a time here:
https://calendly.com/george-kapernaros/socratic-interview

I didn’t plan to share this publicly, but since competitors are asking their agency coaches behind the scenes... YOCTO is closing 2025 at around €1M EBITDA. That alone tells me 2026 is going to be a knife fight. 

In the last few months: 

1. One of our top U.S. competitors just pivoted into subscriptions.

2. Friends in the UK are suddenly repositioning directly into our lane.

3. And quietly, behind the curtain, we're increasingly becoming the benchmark other agencies compare themselves to.

"Why is this Greek guy's company out-earning, out-positioning, and out-thinking us... in half the time we've been doing business... when they're not even living in our country?" 

In other words: Competition is about to go CRAZY. So let me be brutally honest about where we actually stand.

Our disadvantages: 

1. We're building the plane while flying it. A lot of this year has been rebuilding foundations that should've been set earlier. 

We grew decently well, but it was messy, stressful as hell, and expensive.

Founders love to glamorize chaos. I don't. This year wasn't fun at all.

2. We hired too late, too often. I’ve historically run the team to the absolute limit before adding headcount - which means we’ve always hired too late.

And hiring late has a cost:

- We lost opportunity.
- We burned good people out.
- We onboarded into chaos.
- Our churn increased.
- And our growth slowed when it didn’t need to.

Hiring fast is chaotic. Hiring slow is smooth. Fixing this in 2026.

3. I've been carrying too much of the weight myself. Founders don't talk about this publicly, but I will. 

In many ways, YOCTO is strong because I am strong - that is both an asset and a liability. When I see a problem, my default move is always:

"I have to fix it."

But when you don’t have a documented escalation protocol.. and your founder instinct is to take over and fix it... People learn to wait for you to take lead instead of solving things. 

I suck at this. Need to get better fast. 

Why we'll win anyway:

1. We're bringing in help. Our management team expands in January. And we've brought in Prosana to strengthen our hiring.

2. Out network is absurdly strong. We're getting tons of referrals from clients, agencies, tech partners, consultants, etc. 

It's compounding. 

3. Competitors can copy our ICP, they can copy our positioning, website, audit decks.

They can even name their agency "OKTO" instead of YOCTO (which actually happened - sorry for the callout Rammin 😂).

But they can’t copy original thinking.

Most agencies think within the limits of the platforms they use. Their “strategy” is whatever Klaviyo, Recharge, or the guru of the month told them.

We think from first principles. That’s the part you can’t steal.

In my opinion, competitors don't beat you. Your internal problems do. And 2025 forced us to confront all of ours, directly. 2026 will be brutal. This post may age poorly.

But based on everything I'm seeing...

I really like our chances. 🍻

CEO at YOCTO | Klaviyo Elite Partner + Advisory Council Member | #1 Lifecycle Agency for Health & Wellness | Clients: Kilo.health, BetterMe, Healf, Evereden, Frøya Organics, Heights, Miracare, Elo.health +100 Others

Last week I accidentally started a holy war on LinkedIn. I wrote: "Give me ONE good reason to use Omnisend instead of Klaviyo and I’ll believe you."

The replies were interesting:

- "For 99.99% of brands they do the same thing."
- "One is cheaper."
- "Omnisend has better support."
- "Klaviyo is for the big guys."

IMO, this is like saying:

"I prefer riding a donkey instead of a sports car because I save on fuel."

And this is where I’m going to be blunt:

"Tech doesn't matter" is one of the most profitable lies in ecommerce. It spreads because:

1. Most vendors NEED you to believe everything is a commodity so they can compete and sell their product. 
2. Many (not most) service providers just promote whatever gives them the biggest affiliate payout.

The software you use absolutely matters. Here are some examples: 

- Klaviyo can extend its tracking ID for 365 days, which means you can identify users for 365 days instead of 7.

- You have multi-channel cooperative attribution between email and SMS right out of the box.

- You have channels like push and Whatsapp, that other platforms simply don't have at all, far stronger segmentation, flows, analytics and many other things out of the box.

And that’s before we talk about the AI / predictive stack and Service layer Klaviyo has launched in the last 12 months.

But to be clear, this is not a "Klaviyo vs. Omnisend" issue. It's much more toxic and widespread across the entire Shopify stack.

Let's take subscriptions. 

1. There are platforms that let you A/B test your cancelation flow... and platforms that don't. 

2. There are platforms that allow you to upsell subscription in cart, checkout, and post-purchase... and platforms that don't.

If you do not understand the significance of this, then you need to educate yourself because you're likely being led in the wrong direction. 

"But we can't afford the more expensive software..."

If paying a bit more for a software that is STRICTLY BETTER breaks your business, then your core problem is not software. It's that your unit economics don't make sense. 

For context, this BFCM, we cut an SMS bill from ~$100K/month to ~$30K on one project by consolidating into Klaviyo… and kept performance the same.

So spare me the “Klaviyo is only for the big guys” story.

It’s just wrong.

The truth is that many (most?) brands are not equipped to select vendors, so they inherit whatever their agency, or friend in a Slack/Whatsapp group is pushing this quarter.

So here's my actual advice:

If the person advising you on tech can’t explain, in plain English, why they recommend the platform they do and what you’d lose by switching, they are not qualified to advise you.

Technology doesn't replace strategy.

But the wrong tools GUARANTEE your strategy will never reach its ceiling.

Peace out - and genuinely, nothing but love to the Omnisend team.
It is a good product, and I love Lithuania in more ways than one. 

But saying it’s on parity with Klaviyo?

That’s wild.

I thought I was dreaming. A friend introduced me to this cold outreach provider. I took the call mostly as a courtesy. They asked for our ICP. 

I shared it.

And then they sent me this email:

“CPG is hard. I’ve tried it. It didn’t go well. And because we’re selling email marketing on top of a tough ICP… I don’t know if you’d make your money back with me.”

They essentially rejected working with us without any hype.

 No “25–30 guaranteed appointments per month.”

 No fake case studies.
 
Just a brutally honest “We’re probably not the right fit.” 

(Who would have thought, an honest cold outreach provider, haha). 

But here’s the strange part: I trusted this guy more than all of the others who promised me the moon and told me they've "cracked cold email." 

There's a lesson in that. 

Disqualification builds more trust than exaggeration ever will. 

If you can say “no” when it’s not the right fit… you’ll get more “yes” than the clowns who say yes to everything, then tarnish their firm's reputation in the process.

Wishing y'all a profitable, low-CPM, Black Friday. LET'S GO! 🔥

Get out of spam FAST. This is what Klaviyo won't tell you about deliverability: https://lnkd.in/dxK3Ra6K

Everyday Dose  just ran the most *INSANE* BFCM offer stack I’ve ever seen: 61% off, free creamer, VIP starter kit, random $100 cash in boxes AND 100 full refunds. 

I tore apart every step of the funnel and broke down what you can steal from them in this short YouTube video.

Question for you: do you want me to go “full nerd” and buy the product so I can reverse-engineer their onboarding, billing reminders, and churn prevention flows, too?

Video here: https://lnkd.in/dEZPcWYe 

👇 Drop a YES in the comments if you want the retention breakdown next.

I have significantly less respect for lifecycle specialists who move from agency to brand than lifecycle specialists who move from brand to agency. Brand-side is easy mode! Where's the fun in going for "easy mode"!???! Only someone who's done both can recognize this.

We know (definitively) that every time a billing reminder is sent, churn goes up. We also know it's illegal not to send one. The conventional response is to optimize the billing reminder itself.

Stronger copy, clear skip/pause options, etc. 

There's value there. Our friends over at Zaymo (YC W24) have done great work to make the process smoother and more effective through their technology.

Yet, if you reason through first principles, the better solution isn't to optimize reminders.

It's to reduce how often they happen.

Because mathematically speaking - fewer billing moments will lead to fewer churn opportunities. 

Which means the most powerful churn-reduction tactic isn’t lifecycle-related or creative - it’s structural, and it starts with your selling plan or offer.

Sell greater quantities upfront. Quarterly. Semiannual. Annual.

Do you think it’s an accident that telco companies lock you into 24-month contracts?

:)

Glad to contribute to Klaviyo’s latest blog as a subject-matter expert: https://lnkd.in/dN6QG8ht If you take 10 minutes to apply the tip I share, you’ll see your conversion rates, and AOV go up. 

Thanks for the collab Steph Darrah, Omar Lovert, and Stefan Milicevic - and the golden nuggets y'all shared!

taplio

The Battle

Katya Samotoi

George Kapernaros

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The Battle

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George Kapernaros

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