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Business
Amid Facebook Ad Turmoil, Supply.co Retrenches
October 15, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Patrick Coddou is a direct-to-consumer pioneer, having launched Supply.co in 2015. The company designs, manufactures, and sells premium shaving products — all to great success. Until April 2021. That's when Apple launched iOS 14.5, upending Facebook's ability to hyper-target ads. Coddou's company relied on sales from those ads.
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Business
Mental Conditioning Is Vital for Entrepreneurs
October 8, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Lauren Johnson says high-performing entrepreneurs have similar characteristics as professional athletes. Both have mental traits that lead to inevitable success. She first observed those qualities when working for the New York Yankees, teaching mental performance to accomplished baseball players.
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Influencers & Affiliates
PPE Provider Thrives on Influencers (and Hollywood)
October 1, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Roman Zrazhevskiy's company, Mira Safety, sells protective gas masks. It launched in 2018. The masks protect against tear gas, chemicals, and, yes, viruses. Still, reaching prospects was a challenge.
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Business
Lessons from Bankruptcy Drive Ecom Agency Founder
September 24, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Josh Durham knows the downside of entrepreneurship. He founded an ecommerce company in 2015 and quickly grew revenue. Then it went out of business. Fast forward to 2021, and Durham has bounced back. He launched a successful marketing agency, Aligned Growth Management, that builds on his own early-day lessons.
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Business
Should DTC Brands Sell to Mass Merchandisers?
September 17, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Beardbrand's products are in all 2,000 Target stores. Lindsey Reinders, my business partner, drove that project in 2018. Selling products to mass merchandisers is a goal of many direct-to-consumer ecommerce brands. Has selling to Target worked out for Beardbrand? I asked Lindsey that question and more.
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Business
Software Exec Shifts to Bicycle Components, and Thrives
September 10, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Brian De Groodt launched Dispatch Custom Cycling Components in 2018 after a long career in enterprise software. The company sells bicycle headset caps, which sit atop the stem connecting handlebars to the frame. Customers can customize the caps, adding uniqueness to their bikes.
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Staffing
Foundr Owner on Burnout, Recovery, Priorities
September 3, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Nathan Chan seemingly had it all. His business, Foundr, is hugely successful, combining media with entrepreneurship training. He interacts with prominent global founders. Then came burnout.
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Business
Hyve Founder: Bacteria Is Helpful for Home Cleaning
August 27, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Shreya Patel is a biologist and healthcare administrator who seeks to change how folks clean their homes. Products that kill bacteria do more harm than good, she says. And that's why she launched Hyve, a direct-to-consumer seller of household cleaning goods.
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Business
Apparel Merchant Is the ‘Godfather of Memewear’
August 20, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Ardon Lukas wore a shirt to this interview from his online apparel store, Shirtwascash. It was a velvet tank top with a photo of Elon Musk smoking marijuana during a podcast. "I see my role as broadening people's perspectives," he told me.
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Business
‘Intrepreneurship’ Has Rewards, Says Company Founder
August 13, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Bryan DeLuca has a name for folks who build brands within large corporations. He calls them "intrepreneurs." He should know. Having co-founded and then sold a successful ecommerce business, DeLuca worked for a traditional retailer, creating brands within the company.
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Business
Greenbelly Thrives with Backpacking Meals
August 6, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Chris Cage founded Greenbelly, a maker of high-nutrition meal bars for backpackers, after leaving his accounting job and traveling the world. That was in 2014. Fast forward to 2021, and the business is thriving.
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Business
Entrepreneur Loses $6 Million, Bounces Back
July 30, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Shakil Prasla recently made a big mistake. An astute ecommerce operator and owner, Prasla purchased in late 2020 Covid-related protective gloves at roughly twice the ultimate selling price. His company, Gloves.com, lost $6 million.
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Business
Keyword Sleuthing Propels Niche Publisher
July 23, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Merchants know that content marketing can engage and retain customers. However, identifying a topic that prospects want to consume — read, watch, listen — is often difficult. But not for Kyle Boureston.
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Business
Hustle Exec: Ecommerce Firms Should Acquire Content Providers
July 16, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Adam Ryan joined The Hustle in August 2016, four months after its launch, as a part-time advertising salesman. By February 2021, when HubSpot acquired it, he was president. Ryan is now an investor and consultant, advising companies on content strategies that engage prospects.
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Business
Happiness, not Profit, Drives Grasshopper Founder
July 9, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Having sold Grasshopper, the virtual phone service, for $175 million in 2015, David Hauser assessed his priorities. Grasshopper was his third launch and exit, following ReturnPath (email services) and Chargify (subscription management).
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Business
Entrepreneur’s Eczema Inspires New Skincare Company
July 2, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Felipe Correa is a pro at product development, custom manufacturing, and logistics. He also knows much about skin lotions, as he had eczema when young. And it's his frustrations with eczema that inspired Goodspread, a direct-to-consumer seller of skincare products that launched on June 7.
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Business
Vitaman.com Seeks Real Men for Hair, Skin Care
June 25, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
On his website, Antonio Centeno lists the businesses he owns. They include Real Men Real Style, a blog and YouTube channel with millions of readers and subscribers. Menfluential Media is an influencer ad network. And there's Vitaman, a direct-to-consumer online seller of organic skin and hair products for men.
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Business
Girlfriend’s Eyelashes Spur DTC Entrepreneur
June 18, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
What prompts an entrepreneur to enter the eyelash industry? For Jason Wong, it was watching his girlfriend apply makeup. Just 23, Wong is a Los Angeles-based serial entrepreneur and consultant. His latest company, Doe Lashes, launched two years ago as a direct-to-consumer seller of comfortable, lightweight eyelashes.
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Business
Berlin Brands’ Exec on Ecommerce Acquisitions, Technology, More
June 11, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Berlin Brands Group started on eBay 15 years ago. It is now a global ecommerce powerhouse, with over $300 million in annual revenue across a dozen or more brands. Managing Director Christian Salza addresses the company's acquisition process, its focus on technology, and more.
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Business
Form Nutrition Finds Opportunity in a Crowded Market
June 4, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Is there a more competitive consumer market than nutritional supplements? I asked that question to Damian Soong, the co-founder of Form Nutrition, a maker and seller of plant-based proteins and food products, which launched in 2017. "Certainly it was a crowded space," he told me. "But the sellers were all doing the same thing."
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Business
BOOM! Founder: Spend 30% of Revenue on Ads
May 28, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Ezra Firestone launched his first ecommerce business in 2007. It sold wigs. He has since owned multiple brands. BOOM!, which sells cosmetics, he co-founded in 2010. He focuses on key management metrics, such as spending 30% of ecommerce revenue on advertising.
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Platforms & Apps
Drupal Commerce Founder on Collaborative Code, Software Freedom, More
May 21, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
The viability of open-source ecommerce platforms may seem limited given the rise of SaaS providers such as Shopify and many others. Not so, says Ryan Szrama. He's the founder of Drupal Commerce. He wrote the code in 2005 as an addition to the open-source Drupal content management system.
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Business
Chord.co Founders: Future of DTC Platforms Is Headless
May 14, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Henry Davis and Bryan Mahoney anticipated in 2018 an avalanche of direct-to-consumer companies that served smaller, niche audiences. Chord, a DTC-first ecommerce platform, is their answer to bringing sophisticated, "headless" technology to smaller firms. "We like to call Chord the first headless platform with a brain," Davis told me.
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Business
The Magic of Fringe Sport? Improving Lives
May 7, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Peter Keller launched Fringe Sport in 2010 to help folks assemble home-based gyms. He also wanted to make a lot of money. "I was very financially motivated," he told me. Then he attended a seminar a few years ago that focused on a company's purpose, its mission.
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Business
Quality and Craft Drive Chisos Boots Founder
April 30, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
The idea for Chisos boots started with back pain. Will Roman, the founder, owner, and lifetime cowboy-boot buyer, injured his back in a motorcycle accident. Wearing boots became painful. He launched Chisos.com, a custom, handcrafted bootmaker, in 2019. Quality and craft drive Roman and his outlook on life.
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Business
Personal-care Founder: No More Petrochemicals
April 23, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
I've interviewed entrepreneurs for this podcast who developed organic consumer-care goods. But none did it before Eric Malka. He and his wife, Myriam, devised shaving oils from their kitchen in 1996 and then launched The Art of Shaving. Their new company, Ingredients, focuses on wellness and sustainability.
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Business
Home Gym Provider Overcomes Supply Disruptions, Thrives
April 16, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Imagine selling home gym equipment online at the onset of the pandemic. Athletic clubs were closed. Consumers were stuck in their houses. According to Kaevon Khoozani, the founder of Canada-based Bells of Steel, the demand for weight-training equipment was “obscene.” “We ran into two giant hiccups,” Khoozani told me.
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Business
Online Onion Seller Rises from Domain Auction
April 9, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Most entrepreneurs start with a business idea and then secure the domain name. Peter Askew does the opposite. He purchases domain names and then builds the business. Take VidaliaOnions.com, for example.
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Shipping & Fulfillment
3PL Founder: ‘I’m in the Exceptions Management Business’
April 2, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Jay Sauceda launched his ecommerce fulfillment company, Sauceda Industries, in 2013 in Austin, Texas. He says packing and shipping products is easy. What's difficult, he stated, is managing unforeseen events. "The shipping business is, essentially, the exceptions management business," he told me.
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Business
Lessons from Vine Elevate Feat Clothing
March 26, 2021 • Eric Bandholz
Having co-founded Feat Socks in 2015, Taylor Offer hired Aly Raisman, the gymnast, to design and promote a custom sock. It generated $500,000 in revenue. Influencer marketing was clearly effective, and Offer wanted more. "I started looking at the kids that got famous from Vine, the short-video app."