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.

Jordan’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-west-marketer/?originalSubdomain=ca

Jordan’s podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/secrets-to-scaling-your-ecommerce-brand/id1480733021

➡️ Building Blocks website: bbclass.co

🍍Jason’s twitter: https://twitter.com/EggrolI

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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.

Cody’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cody_Wittick

Kynship’s website: https://bit.ly/3yzdCZp

➡️ Building Blocks website: bbclass.co

🍍Jason’s twitter: https://twitter.com/EggrolI

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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. 

Emily’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilymiethner/

Travel Cat Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yourcatbackpack

➡️ Building Blocks website: bbclass.co

🍍Jason’s twitter: https://twitter.com/EggrolI

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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.

JT’s site: https://www.barnettx.com/

JT’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtbarnett/

Social media: @jtbarnett

➡️ Building Blocks website: bbclass.co

🍍Jason’s twitter: https://twitter.com/EggrolI

Sign up for Jason's weekly newsletter:  http://news.bbclass.co

This episode is sponsored by Varos. Get started for free by typing WONG into the referral field at https://www.varos.com/

In this episode of Ecommerce Building Blocks, Jason talks with Alessandro Bogliari, the founder and CEO of Influencer Marketing Factory about what has changed since influencers first arrived on our screens more than a decade ago and what will be happening to influencer marketing in the near future. Jason and Alessandro also have a fascinating conversation about the differences between global western and eastern approaches to online marketing, app usage, and shopping - and the impacts of each on technology and marketing as a whole.

As a former influencer himself, Jason invited Alessandro onto the show to discuss what has changed in the influencer space and what is most exciting about influencer marketing now. In recent years influencers have shifted from being promoters of 3rd party products to essential, entrepreneurial shareholders in the larger marketing ecosystem. Meanwhile, in places like China and Korea, users have been using super-apps and online streaming platforms to make in-app purchases for at least the last decade, so influencer marketing in Asia is much more gamified than it is in the US or Europe. While western countries may end up with this kind of cultural shift at some point, for now, Alessandro emphasizes his belief that influencers are best placed top-of-funnel across multiple channels where they can get more eyes onto your branding. In this environment your influencer marketing will have a cumulative effect, driving more traffic and interest, generating comments sections that provide further insight, and creating a community and culture that will take your brand further forward.

Influencer Marketing Factory: ​​https://theinfluencermarketingfactory.com/

Alessandro’s Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alessandrobogliari/

Alessandro’s twitter: https://twitter.com/alexeidos

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

🍍Jason’s twitter: https://twitter.com/EggrolI

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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’s twitter: https://twitter.com/EggrolI

Sign up for Jason's weekly newsletter:  http://news.bbclass.co

Adii’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/adii/

Adii’s Book: Life Profitability

Cogsy: https://cogsy.com/ 

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

Kenny’s instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kennyhaisfield

➡️ Building Blocks website: bbclass.co

🍍Jason’s twitter: https://twitter.com/EggrolI

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This episode is sponsored by Varos. Get started for free by typing WONG into the referral field at https://www.varos.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 

Lindsay’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/lindsaymc

Lindsay’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsay-mccormick-39188521/

Carbon Fund: https://carbonfund.org/

➡️ Building Blocks website: bbclass.co

🍍Jason’s twitter: https://twitter.com/EggrolI

Sign up for Jason's weekly newsletter:  http://news.bbclass.co

This episode is sponsored by Varos. Get started for free by typing WONG into the referral field at https://www.varos.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

Ron’s linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronak06

➡️ Building Blocks website: bbclass.co

🍍Jason’s twitter: https://twitter.com/EggrolI

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This episode is sponsored by Air. Get started with using Air for free at  Air.inc 

https://air.inc?utm_medium=paid_podcast&utm_source=wonghaus_podcast&utm_campaign=may_25_2022

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.

Jacob’s twitter: https://twitter.com/jsappington

Homestead Studio: https://homesteadstudio.co/

➡️ Building Blocks website: bbclass.co

🍍Jason’s twitter: https://twitter.com/EggrolI

Sign up for Jason's weekly newsletter:  http://news.bbclass.co