The Feals story — Delivering Results with Precision and Purpose
Look, I’ve been in the talent game long enough to know that most recruiting “case studies” read like they were written by a committee of consultants who’ve never actually had to tell a hiring manager their top candidate just ghosted them.
This isn’t one of those.
This is the story of how we partnered with Feals — a badass CBD wellness brand that’s actually figured out how to grow without burning through VC cash like it’s going out of style — and ended up with results that confirmed what happens when everything clicks.
Here’s what happened: Feals (some of the raddest, most empathetic & personable people you’ll ever meet) needed one Growth Marketing hire. We delivered two hires with zero candidate dropout and a 100% acceptance rate on submitted candidates. First candidate presented in 5 days, second in 24 days.
No, that’s not a typo.
The Challenge: Scaling in a Market Thats Actually Hard
Feals isn’t your typical startup story. These folks built a $15M+ business with 15K customers in eight months. But here’s the thing — they’re in the CBD space, which means they can’t just throw money at Facebook ads and call it growth marketing.
When Amit Shah (Feals’ Head of Growth Marketing and a true OG) reached out, they were in that sweet spot where things are working really well, but they needed the right people to help elevate Feals to that next level. They needed someone who understood DTC growth but could navigate the unique challenges of marketing a wellness product in a regulated space.
The competition for this talent? Not just brands like Dr. Squatch (just got acquired by Unilever for $1.5B), Athletic Greens, and Huel — but also top performance marketing agencies like Tinuiti, Wpromote, and Bellroy’s internal teams. Companies with deep pockets, proven playbooks, and the kind of growth challenges that make marketers’ résumés pop.
And they needed this done fast. In startup land, a slow hire can mean missing an entire market cycle.
The Strategy: Going Where Others Wont
Most recruiters would have posted on LinkedIn, sent some InMails, and hoped for the best. That’s not how we roll.
We started with what I call “talent archaeology” — mapping out where the best growth marketers in the wellness / DTC space actually hang out, what their career progressions look like, and most importantly, what would make them excited about their next chapter.
The target companies: Dr. Squatch, Athletic Greens, Huel, Away, plus performance marketing agencies like Tinuiti, Wpromote, and Structured — places where growth marketers cut their teeth on real challenges across multiple brands and budgets.
The approach: Forget spray-and-pray outreach. We went deep on a smaller pool of candidates who were already doing the job well somewhere else. Passive talent who weren’t looking but might be intruiged if the right opportunity came along. Personalized messaging that drives engagement.
This meant understanding not just their skills, but their motivations. What gets them excited about new growth challenges? What kind of impact are they looking to make? What would make them take a meeting?
The Execution: Five Days to Find Gold
Here’s where it gets interesting. We didn’t just find candidates fast — we found the right candidates fast.
Day 1: Kicked off with a proper strategy session. No “send me five resumes by Friday” nonsense. We dug into what success actually looks like in this role, not just the job description someone copy-pasted from another company.
Days 2–4: Hit our target list hard. Direct outreach to growth marketers at companies dealing with similar challenges. The response rate? Way higher than usual because we’d done our homework.
Day 5: First candidate presented. Quality was so high that we kept digging.
Day 24: Second candidate presented — and Feals was so impressed with both that they decided to hire two people instead of one.
The Performance Video Editor role? Six days to present the right candidate. Same methodology, different function.
Timeline to close:
- Growth Marketing hires #1 & #2: 36 days
- Performance Video Editor: 22 days
The Numbers (Because Data Doesnt Lie)
- 19 candidates screened for the growth marketing role
- 5 candidates submitted to Feals (we’re picky)
- 5 candidates accepted by Feals (100% acceptance rate)
- 0 candidates dropped out during the process
- 5 days to present first candidate, 6 days for video editor
- 2 hires from a search that was supposed to fill 1 position
Look, I’ve seen enough recruiting metrics to know when something is actually impressive versus when it’s just dressed-up mediocrity. These numbers are the real deal.
What Actually Made This Work
We treated candidates like humans, not commodities. Shocking, I know. But when you’re trying to poach top talent from good companies, your process better not suck. And when Feals did include a take-home assessment, they paid for it. Shoutout to them for actually valuing candidates’ time — not enough companies do this.
We understood the market. This isn’t just about finding someone with “growth marketing” on their LinkedIn. This is about finding someone who understands subscription models, regulatory constraints, customer education, and building trust in a category where most people still don’t know what CBD actually does.
Speed with substance. Fast doesn’t mean sloppy. It means being prepared, making decisions, and not getting caught up in analysis paralysis. When you find the right people, you move quickly to present them.
Partnership over transaction. We weren’t just filling a req — we were helping Feals build the team that would take them to the next level. That meant being honest about what we were seeing in the market, flagging potential concerns early, and yes, recommending they hire two people when the talent was too good to pass up.
The Context That Matters
The DTC wellness space is absolutely exploding right now. The global health and wellness market hit $5.8 trillion in 2024 and is projected to nearly triple by 2032. Everyone and their mother is launching a supplement brand or wellness product.
But here’s what most people miss: the winners in this space aren’t just building products — they’re building trust. And trust, especially in wellness, requires a different kind of marketing approach. You can’t just performance-market your way to success when your product requires education and your category requires credibility.
That’s what made this search challenging and what made the right hires so valuable. These weren’t just growth marketers — they were growth marketers who understood how to build authentic relationships with customers in a space where authenticity actually matters.
The Real Impact
Feals didn’t just get two great hires. They got two people who understood their unique challenges and could hit the ground running on day one. No six-month ramp period, no “learning the industry” phase.
The growth marketing team has been instrumental in helping Feals navigate the complex advertising landscape for CBD products. When traditional platforms started restricting ads, they had the expertise to pivot to alternative channels without missing a beat.
And the video production capabilities? In a space where customer education is everything, having the right content creation talent isn’t nice-to-have — it’s essential for staying competitive.
But honestly, the best part isn’t even the immediate impact. It’s the fact that we’ve built a relationship with a startup that’s going places and genuinely true to their mission of helping people feel better. Feals continues to grow, and when they need their next key hire, they know who to call.
What This Actually Means
Here’s the thing about recruiting that nobody talks about: most of it is forgettable. You fill a role, everyone moves on, and six months later nobody remembers your name.
This wasn’t that.
This was the kind of search that reminds you why this work matters. When you can connect the right talent with the right opportunity at the right time, you’re not just filling jobs — you’re helping build the teams that build the future.
For Feals, it meant having the right people in place during a critical growth phase. For the candidates, it meant joining a company with real traction and real potential. For us, it meant proving that when you approach recruiting as a partnership instead of a transaction, everyone wins.
If your startup is in that sweet spot where things are working but you need the right people to take it to the next level, let’s chat. I’ve got some ideas.
Keep going & keep growing. ✌️
-Soper
PS — Don’t take my word for it. Hear Amit talk through the experience, impact, and what makes Feals such a remarkable startup to join below.
PSS — We just did the same thing for a Series B startup with an Engineering Leadership search – 9 days from kickoff to submittal of hired candidate).
matt@grosearch.io | 424.276.1013
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