Own Your Commerce

Patrick Coddou - Supply.co founder shares lessons, learnings, and the journey of building a successful DTC brand.

Patrick Coddou (co-founder of Supply.co) shares the inspiring journey, packed full of wisdom and insights on building a successful DTC brand. 

From literally nothing, to now a very successful, well known and respected DTC brand, Patrick tells us some of the mistakes he made, some things he got right, and what he's working on right now to take the company even further. It's a conversation that won't just inspire you, it will give you actionable takeaways that you'll want to apply at your business today. 

Some of the topics we discuss are:

• Why work ethic is so important and how Pat can't stand ads for getting rich quick in ecommerce. 
• What Patrick did to get customers and grow in Supply's early days, and what he's doing now to take it to the next level. 
• "Jobs To Be Done" framework. What is it and why is it so important brands understand it and market accordingly. 
• Shark Tank! Patrick at not one, but TWO offers on Shark Tank. 

Greg Chapman - Getting tax right for ecommerce

Taxes have become more and more complicated over the years and you'd be blown away by how much misconception and misinformation there is on how you need to collect and remit tax. 

If you run an ecommerce store, you NEED to understand tax properly. On our show today we have Greg Chapman, the SVP of Business Development at Avalara, a leading tax compliance software platform for ecommerce brands. He discusses a few of the intricacies of the tax system, specifically for online retail. 

This is an episode you shouldn't miss! As an online merchant, small or large, you need to understand tax and get it right. 

 

Some of the topics we discuss are:

• What exactly are online merchants responsible for collecting and remitting when it comes to taxes. 
• Why are taxes so hard? Why don't merchants just use the tax settings built into ecommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento etc. 
• What is considered Physical Presence and Economic Nexus, how does it affect taxes, and what do stores need to understand about it.
• What are tax considerations when you start selling internationally? 
• What are some of the biggest mistakes merchants make when it comes to taxes that get them in the most trouble. 

Chris Meade - Tactics used to fuel Crossnet's hyper growth

If you've been to the beach lately, you might have seen what looks like two volleyball nets stitched together in a square. It's a game called Crossnet, it's like volleyball and four-square combined and it's taking the world by storm, growing like crazy! 

Just a few short years ago though our guest, Chris Meade, and his co-founders had an idea with $10K they could scrounge together. This isn't just an inspirational story though. This is a story about the tactics used, specifically around social media and advertising to propel growth, and I mean GROWTH!! 

Crossnet is shipping 500-1000 units a day and growing. They didn't just get there by having a great idea, they have been strategic every step of the way. 

Get the notepad out! In this episode we'll dive into what exactly they did to fuel their insane growth.

 

Some of the topics we discuss are:

• Specific tactics to grow traffic by platform (Facebook, Instagram, Snap, LinkedIn etc) 
• How Crossnet collect and leverage email to drive traffic / sales 
• How Crossnet leverages User Generated Content to the extreme to 10X engagement on social media
• Crossnet has made mistakes along the way too, what can you learn from them
• How referral marketing has played into their growth strategy

Steve Weiss - How the biggest ecommerce brands are using social media to scale.

There's often disconnect between creative and performance marketers when it comes to social media marketing. Figuring that out is just one of the things that helped Steve Weiss grow MuteSix from to over 200 people in just a few short years. 

"If I could educate my creatives how to be more data driven and if I could educate my performance marketers how to be more creative I'd have a winning company. In a humble way, that's how we started" 

In this episode we chat about some of the latest trends in social media marketing and tactics specifically for ecommerce. 

In this episode we discuss: 

• What are some of the biggest ecommerce brands doing to leverage social media 
• What's the deal with TicTok? How are ecommerce brands using it and is it worth investing time into? 
• What would Steve do if he ran an online store and only had $1,000 to spend on social media marketing? 
• What would Steve do if he ran that same store but had $100,000 to spend?  
• What's the latest with influencer marketing? Does it still work? What about micro-influences?

Our guest: 

Steve is a lifelong entrepreneur, marketer, and the Founder and CEO of MuteSix, an iProspect Company, and an award-winning, full-funnel digital and creative studio founded in 2014. He is responsible for the overall vision, strategic leadership, service delivery, culture, and growth of the creative agency that has generated over a billion dollars in trackable revenue for its clients. 

Under Steve’s direction, MuteSix has earned the distinction of most awarded Facebook social advertising agency, with more Facebook & Instagram marketing case studies than any other agency. MuteSix has grown into a comprehensive and integrated global marketing agency with prominent clients across all major industry B2B/B2C sectors, including leading brands in retail, e-commerce, luxury, nonprofit, technology, sports, publishing, and financial services. 

Steve is a frequent speaker at paramount industry events and serves as a regular commentator on ad-tech topics and trends as they relate to the digital advertising ecosystem.

Patrick Campbell - Why understanding Churn, LTV & Value Based Pricing is crucial to your store's success.

Patrick Campbell (Profitwell CEO) joins us to discuss some of the metrics every ecommerce store owner should be calculating, should understand, and should monitor. 

What is value based pricing? How do you calculate the LTV (LifeTime Value) of your customers? Why do people still calculate churn wrong? These are all things ecommerce merchants should be intimately familiar with, even more so if you run a subscription ecommerce business.

Some of the items discussed: 

• What is value based pricing, and how should ecommerce merchants think about it? 
• How should you calculate churn and LTV? 
• Why do customers really churn, or cancel subscriptions? 
• Free trials, try before you buy, freemium, annual vs monthly billing... How does a store decide the best approach to all these options?