Ecommerce Building Blocks

Brightland might be the first sustainably sourced DTC olive oil company to exist, and it has achieved cult-status for its freshness, its colorful and beautifully designed bottles, and its personal touch. All of this is thanks to Brightland’s founder, Aishwarya Iyer, who joins us this week to share her story, and some tips for finding your own success story.

It often seems like crossing the distance between an idea and its execution is impossible, especially when you have a product in mind but no clue where to start. In this episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks, Jason wants to find out from Aishwarya Iyer how she went from corporate communications to founding Brightland, the much-heralded sustainably sourced California olive oil company. Aishwarya eschewed the typical marketing tricks used by DTC founders and chose to lean into her skill set. She focused on what she could do, and on how she could educate herself in areas where she needed to learn making every step of the production process into something personal and meaningful.

Topics Discussed:

-The difference between product affinity and brand affinity, and why it matters for your marketing strategy

-How Aishwarya Iyer got the idea for Brightland

-Her thought process in telling the story of Brightland

-Why she began with PR and Communications instead of branding

-How Aishwarya Iyer legitimized her product even without a background in food

-Using your superpowers as your marketing compass

-The preparation that went into creating Brightland’s supply chain: olive education, establishing relationships with farmers, creating packaging

-How packaging and shipping are intertwined, and how to prepare for common pitfalls

-How to use DTC’s major communication advantage when you experience delays

-What makes a cult favorite?

-How Brightland takes their customers on the journey with them, and why that is so valuable.

-Aishwarya Iyer’s if she could do it all over again advice to herself as a young entrepreneur

➡️ Building Blocks website: bbclass.co

Steven and Jordan Neman started House of Léon as a DTC business that only the brave would attempt: furniture. Massive, bulky, made to order, and expensive, how could they apply DTC building blocks to something so far outside of the box? In this episode, Jason talks with Steven about how they got started and what they are learning along the way.

Jason and Steven begin by talking about what went into founding House of Léon and how they were able to work around the standard furniture manufacturing conventions that guarantee that almost everyone is paying the same prices for mostly identical pieces, no matter the branding. Instead Steven and his brother Jordan began by designing one-of-a-kind pieces and then found someone who would make them to order, always putting their vision first. Of course, the brand has only existed since 2021, so there have been lots of learning along the way - Jason and Steven get into what it takes to manage inventory when it is so large in size, how to manage it by doing market research ahead of time, and what Jason wishes he had learned when he was at the beginning of his founders journey.

Topics Discussed:

• Jason’s 56 page deck for ecommerce founders
• What changes for companies based on the size of what they sell - from tiny false eyelashes to sectional sofas
• House of Léon’s founder story
• How House of Léon was able to upended manufacturing’s hold on furniture pricing
• How House of Léon stands out: quality materials and excellent design
• How to avoid making products your customers don’t want
• Listening to your customers to make production choices
• Different inventory problems: overstock and stockout
• Different inventory solutions: conservative ordering and demand prediction
• Jason’s take on hiring early in the business life cycle

➡️ Building Blocks website: bbclass.co

Matt Mullenax founded Huron because he saw a void in the men’s grooming industry and tested this hypothesis by launching a dummy brand before pouring all of his capital into developing real inventory. He and Jason run through how this testing worked, and dive into the topic of capital efficiency - a solid business concept in the age of rampant branding.

In this episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks, Jason invites Matt Mullenax to outline his business mindset in a variety of ways: what it means to truly be a leader and to grow a team, how Matt detected and leveraged a disconnect between high-end and chain store skin care products for the male population, and why carefully watching the two metrics of gross margin and profitability will outlast any waves of hyper growth, virality, and branding trends. Jason shares stories from his own business and breaks down how Matt’s theories can be applied to time usage and social media marketing.

➡️ Building Blocks website: bbclass.co

Barry Hott is a growth consultant with more than a decade of experience guiding brands through advertising and strategy on every social platform. After working with a who’s who of Fortune 500 companies and viral DTC brands like Harry’s and Keeps, he has branched out on his own as an Austin-based consultant. In this episode Jason picks his brain about how to get paid social to pull people into caring about your brand.

In this episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks, Jason and Barry Hott talk about why Barry is still excited about making ads even after the social media landscape has changed so much. He  believes that meeting customers where they are is the #1 principal behind successful advertising no matter the medium. He and Jason talk about structuring a business to make sure this is always possible even when technology or trends change. Then they shift to Barry’s theory of getting around the brain’s ad-blockers by creating content that places attention and engagement above branding.

Topics Discussed:

-Differences between creating ads for startups and for Fortune 500 companies

-The challenge of shifting messages between platforms

-Why internal dev is not always the best for your marketing plan

-What every business owner should factor into their 10 year plan

-How to get people to care about your brand

-What it takes to break through the noise

-Making people feel something or getting them to want to solve a problem

-Differences between DTC twitter and mega-advertising twitter

-Stunt cars

By the time Gefen Skolnick finished college she had already dipped her toes into the world of venture capital, and was well on her way to a tech career in Silicon Valley. But in 2021 she put down the laptop, founded Couplet Coffee, and became an immediately successful CPG entrepreneur. A year later, Couplet is wildly successful in both online DTC and on retail shelves and Gefen is exploring what it means to grow a business intelligently and intentionally, all while having fun and enjoying great coffee.

In this episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks, Jason picks Gefen Skolnick’s brain about why she founded Couplet, how she broke into the saturated coffee market, why package design and inclusivity go hand-in-hand, breaking into wholesale, and tips for founders who are looking for creative ways to self-fund. The most important takeaway from this wide-ranging interview is that Gefen figured out early on how to think in ways that work for her business. She asks a lot of questions, gathers tons of information, and then makes decisions for what works best for her bottom line. Listen ahead for inspiration and new perspectives on marketing, sales, growth, and more.

 Topics Discussed:

-Couplet Coffee’s founding story

-Breaking into the saturated world of specialty coffee

-How Gefen decided what kind of product she wanted to sell

-The open space Gefen saw in the coffee market and how she filled it

-Why packaging design is half the battle in some markets

-How taking her time and asking questions influenced Gefen’s business plan

-The way Gefen approaches growth - in advertising  budgets, sales, and seeking funding

-How wholesale can stabilize revenue

-Intelligent growth

Alicia Reisinger started Wax Buffalo Soy Candles out of her home and grew her business to be both a hub of community in her brick and mortar flagship store as well as a thriving DTC online business. In her seven years as a business owner, Alicia has defined her company through her willingness to be vulnerable and to share her story each step of the way, and it has paid off emotionally and financially. Here, she shares her story with Jason, talks about her community building approach and gets deep into 21st century content strategy.

Jason invited Alicia Reisinger onto Ecommerce Building Blocks to showcase an entrepreneur who is both a working mom, and who didn’t use the typical steps that many Ecommerce founders use to get their product out into the world. Alicia started extremely local, and still uses her local community as a foundation for her entire business. Having this home base allowed Wax Buffalo to grow at a slow and steady pace. This episode covers the intangible factors that go into how entrepreneurs scale their business, and Alicia’s journey as a storyteller, mom, and business founder. With a surprise detour to Google’s content strategy pyramid, Alicia and Jason conclude their conversation with Alicia sharing her most important lesson as a business owner.

Topics Discussed 

-Wax Buffalo’s founding ethos and story from spending 100 on candle supplies to millions in revenue

-The toxic history of candles

-Why founders should think about the life they want when making business decisions

-Building a strong business foundation by growing slowly

-What it took for Wax Buffalo to build their community

-Is vulnerability a good content strategy?

-Jason’s TikTok 101 for businesses who haven’t joined yet

-The 3H approach to content

-Wax Buffalo’s middle path approach to making big decisions and long-term plans

This bonus episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks is  a great place to start if you want  to see what you can learn from the show. Jason has selected these clips from some of our favorite summer interviews. Listen ahead for aha moments that will apply to operators, product developers, and marketers and use these foundational segments as units that will help you build to your next level.

Topics Discussed:

-Inventory Management

-ROI simplified

-CTA’s for your audience on TikTok

-learning how to ask your customers to do something

-educating your customers so they know what your product is worth

-how inclusive marketing inspires people to pay more for your product (and to be loyal)

-understanding how customers prioritize their spending

-summer 2022 marketing and operations

This episode features clips from:

Bryan Reisberg founded his dog backpack company, Little Chonk, after his beloved Corgi, Maxine, had amassed a huge following on Instagram and TikTok, from being shown getting carried around in modified backpacks all over  the New York City subway. Jason talks with him about the dog backpack community and what it’s like to go into business after you are already an influencer.

In this week’s episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks, Jason talks with Bryan Reisberg about his journey from proud dog owner to successful pet backpack entrepreneur. Using only unpaid social media, Bryan successfully sold out of his prototype in 4 minutes and has continued to perfect his design and to expand his inventory (and Maxine’s following) over the 10 months since his company launched. Bryan’s marketing stack demonstrates that having an enthusiastic following and an engaged community always wins over ad-spend.

Topics Discussed:

• The expansion of TikTok during the Covid-19 pandemic
• How the TikTok algorithm rewards niche material
• Using each social media platform for what it is capable of doing
• How Bryan’s viral content lead to product development and not the other way around
• Steps to pulling together a company from hiring designers to creating an advisory board
• Why responding personally to customers is important
• How drumming up excitement takes constant connection with your audience

➡️ Building Blocks website: bbclass.co

Jack Benzaquen founded Duradry to provide solutions for people who experience excessive sweating. In the process he created a product that has rescrambled the very full DTC deodorant playing field and has been massively profitable year-over-year. Jason interviews him about his product development and marketing in this upbeat episode.

In this week’s episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks, Jason invited Jack Benzaquen onto the show to unpack how Duradry became so profitable in the already saturated deodorant market. The answer: when you’re going into a competitive space - go deeper. Jack did his research, found an unexplored niche in the market, and deployed all of his business acumen toward solving a specific problem for consumers. He used visual marketing and customer testimonials to stand out, and has been extremely profitable year-over-year. He and Jason discuss this as well as early investment models for CPG businesses and why going all-in and quitting your job should also have some data to back it up.

Topics Discussed:

• Changes in the DTC consumer packaged good landscape over the last two decades
• The importance of not waiting too long to launch
• The concept of iterative product development
• The importance of not being afraid to start
• Investing in founders and ideas vs investing in the perfect product
• Optimizing for cost vs optimizing to solve a specific problem
• Standing out in saturated markets by finding your niche
• The formula: find your niche, dominate it, then use messaging to expand
• Why UGC’s are best for products that claim to solve a problem
• The trigger for Duradry’s astronomical year-over-year growth
• How to mitigate risk when putting all of your eggs in one basket
• Jack’s hot take on VC’s

➡️ Building Blocks website: bbclass.co

Jordan West has founded several Ecommerce businesses, runs and agency, and also hosts a successful podcast of his own where he shares marketing  tips for other founders in the space. Jason invited him onto the show to share his recipe for creating demand with gated launches. They get into building community, the steps for ensuring a profitable launch event, and lessons learned over the course of a successful career.

In this episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks Jason and Jordan West get into the nitty gritty of of gated launches - how to do them, which channels to use, and which community pool to pull from to ensure their success. All product launches depend on the community that surrounds the brand and Jordan also has great tips for building a community for your brand, whether it is oriented directly around your product or around other shared interests and activities. Finally Jason and Jordan reflect on what it means to constantly be learning on the job, from hiring experts to continually educating oneself.

Cody Wittick is the co-founder of a highly successful agency that pairs businesses with influencers and he is known for tweeting practical daily business advice to his many followers. Jason invited him on the show to pick his brain about what the influencer marketing ecosystem is really all about in 2022 and how to make the most of it in your business. 

On this week’s episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks, Jason and Cody Wittick take lessons from Cody’s experience heading influencer marketing at Qalo and now at his own agency, Kynship. Cody is passionate about people doing influencer marketing the right way and has a lot to say about what that means. First, as a foundation, it’s about building relationships. Cody gives great advice about how to reach out to influencers, how to approach them, and how to develop a relationship with them organically so that when they support your product it comes from a genuine and authentic place. Next, it’s about content - and as Savannah Sanchez emphasized so much in our earlier interview with her - no matter the platform, there are ways to create great content that pulls customers in and makes them want to know more. After Cody gives his step-by-step breakdown of how to do influencer outreach correctly, he and Jason discuss how to set up flows for sending out product, and talk about the dangers of looking at vanity metrics when deciding which influencers to pay for.

Emily Miethner co-founded Travel Cat with her husband when they became cat parents and realized the market for pet products was missing a company that was geared specifically toward cat owners. With their targeted community building and inclusive educational approach, they’ve built a deeply loyal customer base and a profitable business.

In this week’s episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks, Jason and Emily discuss the meaning of community in the broader sense, and then Emily breaks down her strategies at Travel Cat for creating meaningful experiences for customers (and their cats). The approach to branding and marketing for pet products is interesting because it requires an understanding of how much your customers are willing to invest in caring for their pets. Emily breaks down how she builds trusting relationships with her customer base through in-person and virtual education events. For the second half of the episode she and Jason pick apart a case study of the biggest mistake Travel Cat has encountered in its 5 years of business. Along the way they provide a not-to-be-missed guide to finding and vetting 3PL companies once you need to scale fulfillment. 

Depending on your interests, you might know JT Barnett from his time as a pro-hockey player or as the founder of Honey House, one of the early TikTok houses that blew up in 2020. In the last year, JT has pivoted from being a viral TikTok star on multiple accounts to running his successful consulting business helping brands learn how to have an impactful presence on the platform. Jason and JT get into all of the above, and most importantly for our listeners, they talk about what brands should be doing with this platform, what they should avoid, and why it is absolutely not too late to prioritize TikTok in your marketing stack.

In this episode, JT and Jason dive into what makes TikTok a revolutionary platform - why it works so well for reach, and also how the algorithm works to categorize creators. JT debunks the myth that it might be too late for a brand to get a robust presence on TikTok, shares the #1 misconception he sees brands approach the platform with, and then provides alternative strategies. TikTok is all about giving your community a backstage pass to the story of your brand - and Jason and JT go deep into how brands can achieve this, what it means for smaller companies, and what they need to keep in mind if they want their content to go viral.

Adii Pienaar is a third time founder with Cogsy his successful operations software business, and Jason invited him onto the show to talk both about his shifts in mindset through years of building companies as well as the nitty-gritty of supply chain and inventory wisdom he uses to ensure his clients make the most of their working capital whether they are placing their first PO or restocking after years of being in business.

In this episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks, Jason and Adii talk about what Adii has learned through founding multiple successful companies - why empowering employees and crafting a value-based culture is truly what makes life worth living and work worth doing. Adii also shares the greatest lesson of his career so far, and it is not a hack, but rather a mindset aimed at challenging his earlier conceptions of growth and thirst for expertise. This leads him directly to the Cogsy founding story, and how a dynamic, responsive service is able to upend the static grip that spreadsheets have on operations and inventory management. With the contextualized data that Cogsy provides, DTC businesses are able to make more accurate predictions about what their inventory needs and lead times will be, and will also be able to craft messaging to their customers that contributes to higher conversion rates and more brand loyalty. Finally, listen to the end for Adii’s rules for any brand placing their first PO.

➡️ Building Blocks website: https://www.bbclass.co/

Jason invited Kenny Haisfield, founder of Kenny Flowers onto the show to delve deep into the philosophy of creating high quality apparel with an authentic story and coherent lifestyle focus. Together, they go behind Kenny’s founding story of recreating his father’s vintage Hawaiian shirt to what it means to grow a lifestyle business year over year, how to make room for emotional investment in the brand, and why quality allows businesses to level up alongside their customers to create a lifelong relationship.

In this episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks, Jason talks with Kenny Haisfield about not just the origin story of Kenny Flowers, but how his company has evolved over the last seven years. It started with one shirt, but what was the timeline from the initial idea to where the company is now, with multiple verticals. And what was the focus on each year of that journey? Kenny attributes much of his success to being very clear not just on what he wanted to make but the reason why he wanted to make this product. He believes that focusing on every aspect of a customer’s experience of a product is the definition of both quality and of what it truly means to make a lifestyle brand. If a customer feels that something was created with them in mind, they will have a genuine experience with the product. This leads Jason and Kenny to talk about the marketing approaches Kenny’s company has taken which are designed to create a specific mentality and feeling that a customer can take with them wherever they go. This aligns back to the quality that Kenny wants to educate his customers about so that they can see that this lifestyle is more than just aspirational marketing and is about enjoying time spent with his products.

Kenny’s business: kennyflowers.com

Jason invited Lindsay McCormick onto the podcast to tell the story of founding Bite, a company she started to make personal care more environmentally friendly by getting toothpaste tubes out of the oceans. Lindsay had to lay the groundwork from manufacturing to supply chain to customer education ahead of any success and it paid off when Bite went viral on Facebook in 2018. Listen ahead for her wisdom on what a thriving, mission driven company looks like and how she continues to expand the company’s offerings and revenue.

On this week’s episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks, Jason sits down with Lindsay McCormick, founder and CEO of Bite (Because It’s The Earth) a sustainable personal care brand that started by taking toothpaste out of the tube and putting it into tiny capsules. The word sustainable can be a catchall, so Jason and Lindsay spend some time talking about what being a truly sustainable brand means at Bite, from the mission, product materials, operations, supply chain and education. Any mission driven brand needs to be able to take complex, nuanced information and to break it down in a way that customers will understand and relate to. Lindsay outlines the ways Bite tackles messaging on various platforms, and who the brand focuses their most energy on. She shares the challenges of designing carbon neutral and plastic free packaging and shipping in an environmentally friendly way. Bite isn’t the same price as a tube of toothpaste from the pharmacy shelf and Lindsay provides insights into successfully communicating the cost of being environmentally friendly so that her customers can make the choice to pay a premium for Bite’s products. This leads Lindsay and Jason to agree that understanding customers in terms of their priorities and reaching them at the level they are at is always the key to successful branding. Finally, Jason and Lindsay talk briefly about the attention economy and how the most successful companies can make pivots in spreading their message across all communication channels.

Episode links: 

Bite: trybite.com 

Ron Shah is the CEO of Obvi, a collagen supplement business he founded with 2 friends in 2019 and now with 30 million in sales across DTC and retail. Jason invited him onto the show to get underneath the idea of runaway success to find out about the incredible amounts of preparation that went into being ready to build a sustainable business in an already saturated market.

On this episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks Jason interviews Ron about what it was like to found Obvi. Ron and his other two co-founders set themselves up for success by doing a huge amount of research and preparation in their careers previous to venturing into entrepreneurship. Jason and Ron get into the details of what it is like to work with friends, and how to clearly define roles within the leadership structure of a company. For the bulk of the episode, Ron shares the step-by-step process he and his co-founders used to jump-started Obvi with their own money in the already extremely saturated supplements market. They were able to make their initial ad-spend work super efficiently by almost immediately developing a community of loyal customers and going back to them repeatedly to get feedback on exactly what products they wanted to use. This created a positive feedback loop of innovation and retention that is still going today. Once you hear the Obvi story you will realize 1.) Ron’s success isn’t by chance and 2.) it is possible to build your own business without funding if you prepare yourself and make a good plan.

Ron’s Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/obviceo

When Jacob Sappington was getting started as a freelance retention marketing specialist, Jason Wong was his first client and their friendship grew from there. Now that Jacob is a partner at Homestead Studio he and Jason reconnect to underscore the importance of retention marketing and the specific role it plays alongside other channels in a company’s growth plan.

In this episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks, Jason invited Jacob Sappington onto the show to discuss how brands can make the most of retention marketing by understanding what it does well and how it can work with other marketing channels like paid advertising and influencer marketing. Jacob outlines how he sees all marketing channels as touchpoints inhabiting different places on a timeline. Retention marketing is a way of keeping a product top of mind at customers on all parts of their journey with a brand. Jacob talks about specific ways that brands can stand out, and why it’s most often not about generating more content volume. Jacob and Jason give their hot takes on what’s going on with email marketing in Spring/Summer 2022, and they end the interview with some reflections on the difference between being an employee and taking on the role of partner.

Charles Tichenor IV has made millions of dollars for his clients through Facebook ads and trains other businesses and marketers advertise on Facebook. If anyone has the learnings to make the most of changes to the platform  in the wake of ios14 and TikTok’s emergence it is this guy. He shares his insight and philosophy in this -  dare we say optimistic ?- episode of Building Blocks.

Jason and Charles sit down to talk about what Charles has learned from a decade of successful advertising on Facebook. His findings over such a long period of time have left him with a refreshingly positive perspective on how advertisers can use Facebook's smarter-than-ever machine learning capabilities to work for them. With the rise of TikTok and the IOS14 update, Facebook is focusing its algorithms on end user experience. What this means for advertisers is that they do better when their priorities align with the platforms. Charles shares the three things marketers need to do to succeed on Facebook right now, his formula for finding the right creative approach to use, and most importantly, his definition of a.) the kind of platform Facebook is and b.) how it should fit into your business model.

➡️ Building Blocks website: bbclass.co

Jon MacDonald is one of the world’s top CRO experts and he just came out with a book outlining the principles that have allowed him to lead brands like Nike and Adobe success and longevity. In this conversation with Jason, he breaks down some of the laws of Conversion Rate Optimization with advice for how any company can use data to increase customer retention.

In this episode Jason asks Jon MacDonald, the President and Founder of The Good - a CRO firm - about the CRO principles that have led him to success. First Jon addresses the idea of small improvements: if you are trying to increase conversions, the best place to focus is the top 10%. Then he lists some common misconceptions about CRO that he has seen over and over again in the last decade - and how to properly approach them. CRO does require some specialization, so John tells Jason his best practices for building a team that can combine data analytics, creative and marketing seamlessly and he also gives advice to the businesses out there who might not yet be at the stage where having a whole CRO team is affordable. Finally, he gives a great step-by-step run down of how to gather information from customers about what works and what doesn’t in your store, and how to use that information wisely to give your brand longevity and to keep your customers coming back.

In this episode, Jason talks with Patrick Coddou - pronounced like canoe! - co-founder and CEO of Supply Razors about what it was like to have a great idea for a product in an already crowded space, how he found the room for inventing something new and identified his customers needs, and why interpersonal relationships transformed the way he thinks about his business.

Before Patrick and his wife launched Supply Razors and took their product onto Shark Tank, he cut his teeth selling fighter jets to foreign governments. An obsession with the precise shave he found in a vintage single blade razor was the start of the story, but when Supply came into the world, it shared the stage with many large, already successful men’s grooming companies. Jason discovers Patrick’s singular focus on engineering and tinkering with his hero product to deliver something truly unique, and delves into the copywriting that Supply uses to target their market and to constantly deliver relevant solutions to the problems their customers are trying to solve. Finally, Jason and Patrick share from each of their experiences why building rapport with colleagues, potential mentors, and even competitors in the space helps to create an environment where business can thrive and people help one another to achieve their goals.

Topics Discussed: 

• Supply Razors before and after Shark Tank
• The saturated single blade razor market
• Product differentiation in a crowded field
• The Men’s grooming space in 2022
• Iterating a hero product vs expanding verticals
• Solving specific problems for skeptical customers
• How to educate your customers about why they want your product
• Copywriting’s job in a saturated market
• Patrick’s #1 piece of advice: invest in your relationships and let them take time

Jason talks with Andrew Goble about founding Jambys, the crowd pleasing performance inactivewear brand. They get into the details of why product development was Jambys’ priority, how branding came from customer feedback, and risks to embrace or avoid during a company’s early days.

In this episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks, Jason talks with Andrew Goble, co-founder and co-CEO of Jambys, about what it took to go from idea to market in 4 months, and how the Jambys team built the brand on a shoestring in such a short amount of time. Andrew is still the only full-time marketing person at Jambys and the reason is simple: he and his co-founder wanted to allocate as many resources as possible to perfecting their product. Andrew and Jason talk about what it was like to learn on the job during Jambys’ meteoric rise, Andrew’s philosophy of continual improvement and learning from mistakes, and how to incorporate the customers into what a brand is and who it is for. Jason and Andrew finish on a high note with advice to all founders on how to approach risk the right way and what it means to be able to learn from one another.

Kevin Lee, co-founder of immi, comes from a background in VC and product management, and brought his learnings from those experiences to guide his success as a founder. In this episode he shares his insights on making the most of every hire, delegation, and creating processes and culture that allow the whole business to grow and thrive.

In this episode Jason was curious about how Kevin Lee and his partner developed immi, the world’s first high-protein plant-based instant ramen, but more than the product, he wanted to focus on the people. Kevin is known for being a leader, and as a young founder himself, Jason was curious, how was Kevin able to go from working with money to managing a business and scaling up to having a thriving staff in such a short time? Kevin shares candidly about what he had to unlearn to become a good delegator, the team-wide written exercises that took his team to the next level, and his standards for hiring and setting expectations in a way that makes the most out of each person’s time at his company. Going it alone will only get a company so far and Kevin’s vision for growing the entire immi team will be inspiring and helpful in pragmatic ways to any entrepreneur at the beginning of their hiring journey.

Books recommended in this episode:

The Great CEO Within: The Tactical Guide to Company Building by Matt Mochary

The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber

Ben Jabbawy on how Privy hit its stride through focusing its energy on customer feedback, what problems early stage founders should focus on and they should be trying to please, and why you can never go wrong by providing value (especially to people with proven intent to use your brand).

In this week’s episode, Jason sits down with an old friend, Ben Jabbawy, the founder and CEO of Privy.com, to talk about how Privy (and email marketing) have evolved over the last decade, and what it was like to found a Saas company at the earliest stages of ecommerce. In the beginning Ben’s business model provided lots of different options to many different kinds of businesses, but it wasn’t until he “got in front of his skis” and had to scale back that clarity struck and he found the principle that he’s built everything on since then: find one kind of customer, solve one kind of problem for them, and expand from there. Ben and Jason share their similar experiences with specializing and focusing on what customers want and need from you, and why being flexible and learning from feedback and data will withstand the test of time, no matter what your business model is.

Ben’s daily podcast: https://www.privy.com/ecommerce-marketing-school

Olamide Olowe on building a real lifestyle brand and how she got Topicals into major retailers like Sephora.

Jason invited Olamide onto the show to catch up, founder to founder. Olamide shares her founding story, fundraising story, cash flow management learnings and how she was able to get on Sephora shelves. It’s hard to break into the beauty industry, learn how Olamide went from trackstar to founder of a darling DTC startup.

#sephora #fundraising #startup

Olamide's Twitter: https://twitter.com/olamideaolowe

➡️ Building Blocks website: bbclass.co

James Camp on how to acquire and monetize great niche content sites. If you’re looking to get into entrepreneurship and making money online James’ story will show you where to start.

Jason talks with Kevin Miller about how he became an expert in SEO and organic revenue, and what it was like to start Gr0, which has been called the best SEO agency in the United States. In the conversation, Kevin reveals what he believes it takes to be the kind of CEO it takes to run a company that employees want to be at, and how he has achieved that in his workplace.

In this episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks, Jason talks with his old friend Kevin Miller. Kevin is an astute expert on organic revenue and SEO and the founder of Gr0, an SEO and digital marketing agency. Jason asks Kevin what inspires him about SEO and why SEO has the reputation for being something that either works or doesn’t work. In the beginning, Kevin didn’t know the answer to that question himself, and committed to cracking the code. He continues to test on his own web properties consistently, and to apply his learnings to his own sites and his clients. In only two years, Gr0 went from 0 - 80 employees, and Jason and Kevin wrap up the interview by going deep into what it means to be a good employer, a good CEO, and a good business partner. Gr0 has received numerous accolades for being a work environment that people love, and Kevin’s insights demonstrate the values and frameworks that lead to people truly being able to do their best work in a creative and supportive workplace.

Jason talks to Nick Saltarelli about what it was like to start the fastest growing chocolate brand in North America, what building a factory from the ground up in the 21st century looks like, and why Nick thinks manufacturing is the next great opportunity for ecom entrepreneurs who are really serious about their product.

In this episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks with Jason Wong, Jason introduces us to the world of manufacturing with his guest, Nick Saltarelli, the coFounder of Mid Day Squares. When Nick and his now wife and brother-in-law were dreaming up a business they had no idea they would get so deep into consumer packaged goods that they would end up starting their own factory. They wanted to create a food product that lived up to the hype and couldn’t compromise on ingredients or composition, so they had to build it from scratch themselves, leveraging to get investors by keeping retail prices down and making their first million from the manufacturing hub they built in their apartment. Nick thinks the time is nigh for young entrepreneurs to take back manufacturing for North America, he gives some solid tips for truly hustling, and he gives some solid relationship advice too!

Chris Meade with the from-the-ground-up story of CrossNet, the 4-way volleyball game, how he got into 3000 stores while also being a viral ecom brand, and his philosophy of learning along the way.

In this episode of Building Blocks, Jason Wong talks with Chris Meade, co-inventor of CrossNet, entrepreneur, Forbes 30 under 30, and now a self-taught ecom and wholesale expert. It’s rare for a DTC ecom product to make it so deeply into the world of wholesale, and Chris talks openly about all of the things he had to learn as his product began moving from online sales to the shelves of sporting goods stores. Chris’s entire framework is about trying all sorts of things, learning along the way, and sharing what works. He touches on the details of contacting retailers for the first time, negotiating with manufacturers to optimize cashflow, funding and financing pitfalls and solutions, in-store vs TikTok marketing, and why sharing what he has learned is the most essential part of his success.

Eli Weiss on using CX to build customer retention and word of mouth, how Olipop uses CX as a primary acquisition channel, and what’s next for Olipop.

Jason invited Eli onto the show because he has not only been a part of Olipop’s meteoric rise from a niche DTC healthy soda brand to an expanding presence in major retail chains like Target, but he has done it through focusing deeply on customer service. As Eli and Jason agree, so much of customer service feeds into retention if it’s done right, which is an insight Eli seems to have hit upon in a major way: customer service is where customers are directly telling companies what works and what doesn’t. Jason and Eli dive into this intuition, and how it can impact an entire business.

Chase Dimond on how email marketing changed in 2021, how to segment and run tests to make your marketing program effective, and why specializing opened up his entire career and community.

Chase Dimond, self-described email marketing nerd and partner at Structured Digital Marketing Agency was the very first guest on Ecommerce Building Blocks. In this pilot episode, Chase and Jason apply the Building Blocks framework to trends in email marketing in 2021. Chase shares his breakdown of how email marketing has evolved in the last 18 months, his approaches to segmentation testing, his favorite cadences, recommended testing timelines, and specific variables to isolate when testing for patterns in digital marketing strategy. We get to the crux of the episode when Chase shares the moment in his life when he realized he had a philosophy to live by in order to be successful in his career, and why sharing his successes and failures with others has been so positive for his business.

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