When Helen Lo founded Lo & Sons at 65, she was solving her own travel problem. Fifteen years later, her family-run DTC brand is navigating one of the toughest environments in consumer goods: a flood of dupes, shrinking development windows, and a rapidly shifting AI landscape.

Rick Watson is joined by Katie Omstead, President at Lo & Sons, and Sonal Gandhi, Chief Content Officer at The Lead.

The Watson Weekly interview is sponsored by Avalara - the agentic AI platform automating global tax and compliance for leading eCommerce brands. For more details: https://avalaratax.watsonweekly.com.

In this Watson Weekly interview, we dig into how Lo & Sons compressed its product development cycle from two years to nine months (with four to five months on the horizon), why 90% of the business remains direct-to-consumer, and how AI is reshaping everything from ideation to inventory.

We also preview The Lead, the commerce summit landing in New York on May 20–21, where 3,000 operators and 150 speakers will gather — no vendor spin, just real talk on building brands in 2026.