For the first episode of the Stellar Saturday Conversations, host Richie and guest Rame talk about the past, present, and future of the direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce business model. Rame is a senior at UC Berkeley studying economics. This past summer, Rame was a project management intern here at Stellar, and helped cofound a direct-to-consumer productivity brand that we have been working on. In Berkeley, Rame is working more on the venture side, as he is part of the AMENA Center, center that helps develop entrepreneurship programs in the Middle East through courses and incubators. In this conversation, Rame and I talk about the current state of DTC brands, and what the DTC brands of the future are going to look like. We cover funding models, DTC strategies, and how multi-billion dollar DTC brands of the future are going to look like.