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Matt Raminick
Company
Sunnyside
Location
Costa Mesa, California, United States
Bio
I spent nearly two decades on the brand side (Quiksilver, Volcom, Pacsun, Mophie) hiring and managing agencies, and watched too many of them optimize for the wrong things. In 2020 I founded Sunnyside, a performance marketing agency built around one principle: marketing should be a profit center, not a cost. We bridge the gap between finance, creative strategy, and paid media so brands grow in a way that actually shows up on the P&L. I'd never worked at an agency before building one. But after years managing them as a client, I had a clear picture of what was broken and how to fix it. We work with lifestyle, outdoor, apparel, and DTC brands. Our clients include Brixton, Municipal, Xcel Wetsuits, Beek, Nixon, and Jetty. Outside the agency I write about performance marketing, brand-building, and what it actually takes to build something without a playbook. I'm also a drummer, a surfer, a proud dad of two daughters, and a lifelong Detroit sports fan.
I spent nearly two decades on...
description
Sunnyside is a profitability-first marketing partner for lifestyle consumer brands. Our proprietary Profit360™ framework connects your P&L, creative strategy, and channel execution to deliver predictable, profitable growth for lifestyle, outdoor, and apparel brands doing between $10M–$100M in annual revenue. Brands like Brixton, Municipal, Nixon, Beek, and Xcel Wetsuits have trusted us to help them grow confidently by aligning marketing and finance around the same goals, providing clarity, control, and long-term performance. Built by former brand operators and in-house marketers, Sunnyside was created to be the agency we always wanted to work with: high-touch, fluent in how brands operate, and focused on outcomes that actually move the business forward. We don’t just run ads. We run marketing as a disciplined growth engine that's profitable by design.
Sunnyside is a profitability-first marketing partner...
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Actionable Takeaways
The CFO Conversation Is the Real Discovery Call:
Sunnyside's first priority at any new client is understanding the P&L, margin structure, and spend efficiency — talking to the Head of E-Commerce and CFO before the marketing team; paid channels are the last thing they touch, not the first.
Great Decks Hide Margin Erosion:
The agencies Matt hired and fired during 20 years on the brand side consistently showed great ROI numbers while the business was quietly losing money; the flaw was optimizing for the metrics the agency controlled rather than the profitability the client needed.
The Silo Is the Real Problem:
The most common issue Sunnyside finds isn't weak creative or inefficient spend — it's that the marketing team is running campaigns on products the e-commerce team barely bought, with messaging that doesn't match the website, with none of the teams talking to each other; Profit360 fixes the alignment before fixing the ads.
Client Roster Size Is a Quality Signal:
Capping at 15 clients is deliberate; it signals to clients that they're getting genuine strategic attention rather than being one of 200 accounts managed by junior account managers, and it correlates with the 2.5-year average retention that funds the business.
AI as Utility, Not Crutch:
Sunnyside uses Claude and Notion as a unified operating system for all reporting and workflow, with MCPs connecting everything — but the philosophy is 'how can AI make what we're doing better' rather than 'what can AI do for us'; an AI consultant on retainer helps the team stay current and avoid plateauing.
Embedded Is a Strategy, Not a Perk:
Sunnyside's embedded model — physically showing up, being in lockstep with internal teams, showing up at the office multiple times a week — directly enables Profit360 to work; you can't align teams you don't sit with.
The Success Question Comes First:
Before discussing tactics or channels, Matt's first question in any sales conversation is: 'If we were high-fiving in a year or three years from now, what would have had to happen?' — this orients the entire engagement around the client's actual desired future state.
Conversation Highlights
Matt Raminick, founder and CEO of Sunnyside, built a performance marketing agency on a thesis that came from nearly 20 years on the brand side: agencies optimize for impressive decks and growing top lines while their clients’ margins quietly erode. At Quicksilver, Volcom, and PacSun, Matt hired, managed, and fired agencies — and noticed the pattern every time. When he founded Sunnyside in 2020, he did the opposite: no agency background, no focus on channel metrics, and the first person he asks to speak with at a new client is never the marketing team — it’s the CFO. The result is Profit360, a proprietary framework that rebuilds alignment between marketing, creative, and e-commerce before a single ad is placed.
Topics Discussed
- Matt’s 20-year brand-side career: music industry → Quicksilver (2007, junior web designer → marketing), Volcom, PacSun → founding Sunnyside in 2020
- Why starting an agency with zero agency experience turned out to be an advantage
- The core problem: agencies optimizing for their metrics while clients watch margins erode
- Sunnyside’s North Star: profitability, not top-line growth
- Profit360 framework: starts with P&L and margins, connects marketing/creative/e-commerce, aligns teams on the same story before touching ads
- First call at any new client goes to the Head of E-Commerce and the CFO, not the marketing team
- The silo problem: marketing running a campaign for a product the e-commerce team barely bought
- Client profile: DTC lifestyle brands ($5M-$100M annual revenue), clear brand identity, mature content engine, diversified channels
- Target brands: apparel, outdoor, action sports, accessories — Brixton, Nixon, Municipal, Goodr Sunglasses
- Max 15 clients at a time; 2.5-year average retention; some 5+ year relationships
- Team: 14-15 people, fully remote, half Southern California; core team + contractor/freelance network
- Embedded partnership model: physically in clients’ offices, in lockstep with internal teams
- AI: 18+ months heavy use; Claude + Notion as operating system; MCPs connected; AI consultant on retainer; creative AI for ad assets at scale
- 2026 goals: client outcomes (celebrating at year-end), modest business growth, team upskilling and fulfillment
