Building loyal customers with AG1 and Favorite Daughter

On the surface, health drink AG1 and fashion brand Favorite Daughter might not have a lot in common.

AG1 (formerly known as Athletic Greens) was originally founded in 2010 to support the health needs of athletes. Today, the green powder supplement that has been endorsed by Olympian runner Allyson Felix and Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton is a billion-dollar company with a fanbase that has grown beyond athletes.

Favorite Daughter, founded five years ago by actresses, producers, podcasters and sisters Sara and Erin Foster, appeals to Hollywood celebrities and fashion enthusiasts. It’s also the clothing brand of choice on the Fosters’ popular Netflix series, “Nobody Wants This.”

And while Favorite Daughter has hundreds, even thousands, of products and SKUs, AG1 currently has only one product.

What both companies have in common is a “unique vice grip” on their customers, who not only buy the products again and again, but also recommend the brands to their friends and family, according to Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify.

“In an era where meeting new customers, acquiring new customers, retaining new customers is so difficult for most companies, these two companies and these two entrepreneurs have done so with incredible velocity,” Finkelstein during an on-stage conversation with AG1 CEO Kat Cole and Favorite Daughter co-founder Sara Foster at NRF 2025: Retail’s Big Show. “It’s truly remarkable.”

By tapping into a combination of influencer marketing, advertising on podcasts (the Foster sisters have their own weekly podcast, “The World’s First Podcast”), and focusing on brand authenticity, AG1 and Favorite Daughter have galvanized customers and “not only grown their piece of the pie, but grown the entire pie,” in their respective categories, Finkelstein said.

“Even though people like to talk about our marketing, you don’t market your way to this type of growth,” said Cole, who has more than 20 years of retail experience, including serving as president and COO of Focus Brands. She said the largest driver of AG1’s growth has been focusing on one “truly great” product that solves customers’ needs and then relying on those customers for repeat business and recommendations.

“We had many opportunities to add more product, grow even faster than we did,” she said, “but we have such insane quality standards, we said no to many opportunities. That has only continued.”

Similarly, Favorite Daughter doesn’t rely on its celebrity founders to organically get customers engaged, Foster said. “It used to be if someone with hundreds of millions of followers posted [a product], you were going to sell out of product, get written about. You had a brand,” she said. “Those days are over.”

Customers have gotten too smart to just follow celebrity marketing, she said; rather, they crave authenticity. “They want to hear from real people they can see and relate to. I don’t have millions of followers, but they’re engaged, and I don’t lie to them.”

Favorite Daughter relies on an ecosystem of content marketing created by the Foster sisters. The same customer who listens to the Fosters’ podcast also watches “Nobody Wants This” — and shops on the Favorite Daughter website, or buys the jeans at Nordstrom that they saw in the show or heard about on the podcast, Foster said.

“The only reason I’m sitting here today with that ecosystem is because we gambled big time,” she said. “We try to connect every single thing we do.”

Both brands are also examples of what Finkelstein calls a “post-omnichannel” retail world. “When I look at the most important brands that are successful, they are not selling everywhere. They’re selling in the right locations for the particular demographic,” he said. “When you look at both of your companies, all your channels are interconnected.”

In the case of Favorite Daughter, it’s the podcast and the Netflix show. In the case of AG1, it’s a partnership with Starbucks and the pop-ups the company undertakes. “All of these things have a throughline: Where do my customers want me to sell?” Finkelstein said.

Cole and Foster said they’re also willing to take risks and fail when it comes to their brands and products. For example, Cole said AG1 is now comfortable enough with its core product and consumer base to take “first steps into strategic retail and a few additional products.”

“Being willing to question what has historically driven your business is the gateway to innovation, which is the gateway to evolution, which is the gateway to relevance over time as the consumer moves way past you,” Cole said.

For Favorite Daughter, the risk was pivoting from direct-to-consumer to wholesale in select boutiques, Nordstrom and through subscription service Nuuly, “which opened us up to a whole new deal flow,” Foster said. “It’s changing our business.”