Operators Series

Would you sleep on a pillow made out of recycled plastic bottles? It’s probably more comfortable than you think, and it may be more eco-friendly than your current pillow. In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Tracey Wallace who founded Doris Sleep, as well as Matt Crawford, the GM of shipping at BigCommerce.

In today’s episode, you’ll learn more about using recycled plastic in pillows and why Tracey thinks it’s important for both products and their shipping solutions to be eco-friendly. Listen in to learn about how to encourage higher value orders and repeat business, what the BigCommerce partner program is, and how e-commerce might change in the future. 

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

The origin story for Doris Sleep

What was difficult and what was easy about going direct to consumer

Why people would want to buy recycled plastic pillows

How Tracey handles eco-friendly shipping

How people should think about shipping from a margin perspective

How Tracey encourages larger purchases and repeat business

What drew Tracey to BigCommerce

How Tracey handled the process of vetting companies

The BigCommerce partner program and how it works

How to create a connection with customers

Mistakes that Tracey has made

How Tracey manages marketing

How e-commerce might be changing in 2021

Tips for today’s entrepreneurs

Resources:

How Doris Sleep Takes Comfort in Outsourcing Fulfillment & Shipping [Case Study]

Automate BigCommerce order fulfillment with ShipBob

Experience Doris Sleep's sustainable pillow collection

Get to Know the speakers:

Tracey Wallace

Matt Crawford

Casey Armstrong (Host)

What’s makes you think about the pandemic and COVID more than hand sanitizer? But the brand that you’ll be learning about today, Touchland, launched their hand sanitizer brand long before anyone had heard of COVID-19. 

In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Andrea Lisbona, founder and CEO of Touchland as well as Chris Lavoie of Gorgias. Listen in to hear about how Touchland approached retailers, the evolution of communication mediums that Chris has seen, and what advice each of them would give to new entrepreneurs.

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

What Andrea’s catalyst to launch Touchland was

What made Andrea believe in the hand sanitizer space as a market

Touchland’s hand sanitizer stations

When Touchland was officially launched

How Touchland generated awareness

How Andrea approached retailers and got their buy-in

Whether others have tried to copy Touchland’s retail approach

How Andrea thought about brand awareness before Touchland launched, and the evolution after

How Touchland has approached customer interaction

How Chris has seen the evolution of communication mediums

Whether Touchland has been utilizing SMS

How Touchland developed the packaging for their hand sanitizer

How Touchland has leveraged data to find out more about customer behavior

How much funding was needed to start Touchland and how they approached it

How Touchland approaches marketing and forecasts how it will drive business

Shifts in connecting with customers during the pandemic

What Chris has seen in the evolution of what customers expect

How Andrea sees Touchland evolving as a brand

How inventory allocation has evolved over time

How Touchland approaches new scents

Mistakes that Andrea made

What Touchland’s international plan looks like

Chris’s numb

One way to start a direct-to-consumer business is to solve a problem that you yourself are having – if you’re looking for a product you can’t find, chances are that others are as well. That’s how today’s guest started his business – by creating the plant-based energy shots that he wanted but wasn’t able to find. Listen in to hear from Vincent Bradley, CEO and co-founder of Proper Wild, as he discusses product manufacturing, FDA regulations, and promoting your ecommerce brand out on different sales channels.

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

Vincent’s acquisition and how he got into e-commerce

Accelerating the learning cycle

How Vincent came up with version 1

How Vincent approaches FDA regulations

What people should expect from Proper Wild

Working out flavors

Metrics Vincent looked at before launching

When a subscription option became a must-have

Where traffic is coming from

Launching on Facebook and Instagram

How to prioritize on your channels

The offer at the bottom of the Proper Wild website

The five-word ad

How Proper Wild uses email

How Proper Wild uses SMS

Resources:

Vincent Bradley

Proper Wild

Have you been looking for good ways to spend time outside with your friends or loved ones? You can only take so many walks or sit on so many park benches, and many people are still being cautious about the pandemic – or enjoying their new habit of spending time outdoors that they learned during the pandemic. Today’s guest is one of the founders of CrossNet, a unique four-way net that allows for a different type of volleyball game. Listen in to hear an interview with Chris Meade, one of the founders of CrossNet, to learn how CrossNet was created, what the patent process was like, and how B-to-B partnerships work.

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

Chris’s favorite surface to use CrossNet

How Chris came up with the idea for CrossNet

Other ideas that Chris came up with

The process of making the first CrossNet

What Chris has seen from a competition standpoint

How the outreach with Facebook works

When CrossNet started the patent process

How COVID affected CrossNet

How quickly the patent was issued

How CrossNet scales

The first channels CrossNet approached for audience building

The product-testing process

How the CrossNet team looks at Spike Ball

The qualitative and qualitative numbers CrossNet Looks at

How CrossNet priced its net

How CrossNet’s B-to-B partnerships work

How selling on Amazon works from CrossNet

What channels work best for CrossNet

The data in SnapChat’s ad platform

How CrossNet made millions on a $60 ad

Networking on LinkedIn

How to segment the messaging for different demos

How the Today Show segment came about

The biggest reason people have not to buy CrossNet

Conversion rate data on afterpay methods

Today’s guest is a man who definitely understands the e-Commerce field and the issues and challenges that surround it. Brent Bellm is the CEO at BigCommerce, and over the years he’s also held key roles at HomeAway, PayPal, eBay, Escalate, and more. Listen in to today’s episode to hear Brent discuss what he’s learned in previous roles that he took with him to BigCommerce, how his approach to business has shifted, and how he defines what his company is doing. 

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

How Brent replies to email so quickly

What Brent learned from Escalate and why he thinks the space wasn’t ready at the time

How Brent applied what he learned later in BigCommerce

How Brent identified the mid-market gap

The biggest shift in approaching business at PayPal as opposed to BigCommerce

How Brent’s background helps him at BigCommerce

How Brent has weighed the pros and cons of opening up the market

What Brent’s lessons at PayPal Europe taught him that he’s using at BigCommerce

When Brent decided to go with the traditional model

How BigCommerce convinced investors that other e-Commerce businesses were not a threat

How Brent prioritizes his approach

Brent’s approach to hiring

Balancing each person’s superpower in a group

What is different since the IPO

Brent’s advice for entrepreneurs

Resources:

Automate BigCommerce order fulfillment with ShipBob

BigCommerce: Ecommerce for a New Era

Speakers:

Brent Bellm

Casey Armstrong (Host)

How do you get noticed in the hair extension space? What does it take to get started and build a community, and how does the word spread about your product? Listen in to today’s episode with Sharon Pak and Jordynn Wynn of INH to find out about how they picked their name, why they decided on wigs in the first place, and what they did to launch, grow, and maintain their community. 

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

How Jordynn and Sharon came up with the name of the business

How word spread about Ariana Grande’s products

What Jordynn and Sharon learned from CoulorPop

Why they decided on the wig category

The background of Jordynn and Sharon’s other co-founder

The biggest lessons learned in going from zero to one

How to get a community off the ground, then maintain it

Approaching the different community channels

Why younger people are moving toward Twitter

From the first sale to the first million

How INH’s content is made

How INH found its first supplier

How Jordynn and Sharon manage inventory and cash flow

INH’s approach to hiring

How INH’s products are named

What hero products are

INH’s approach to remote work

The initial go-to-market approach

Making personal connections with influencers

What INH offers influencers

How INH approaches performance marketing

Jordynn’s and Sharon’s why

Jordynn’s and Sharon’s number one advice for new entrepreneurs

Resources:

Learn More About Order Fulfillment for Haircare Products

Check out INH

In his last appearance on this podcast, Leo Carrillo III explained what it was like to jump into his new business right before COVID hit. Now, Leo returns to discuss what things have been like for his company since. Listen in to hear about Leo's experiences as an ecommerce founder in the personal care space. He breaksdown how he identified his target market, and secured professional athlete endorsements to grow his brand against all odds.

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

What’s been most interesting for Leo over the past four and a half months

What put Leo in the best position going forward

Where Leo’s company started from an audience creation level

The accounts that Leo’s customers follow

Customers who are spending money on fitness gear

How Leo’s company puts the creative content together

How the company got promotions from professional athletes

How the margin has changed over time

How Leo thinks about the spend on Facebook ads

Leveraging traffic to drive repeat customers

How people use and order Leo’s products

The impact of Afterpay

Why you should use SMS

Resources:

Leo Carrillo III

Hair Craft Co.

What’s more unique than yourself? Each person is different, so if you want to stand out from the crowd, maybe you can do it by using yourself as the brand. At least, that’s what today’s guest successfully did. In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Vivian Kay of KinkyCurlyYaki. Listen in to hear Vivian discuss how she created her product, how she began generating sales, and how she focused on brand to set herself apart.

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

What “Chad” is

Vivian’s “start it” tweet

Why Vivian started her business

How Vivian created the first iteration of her product

How Vivian got started selling

How Vivian made her first sale

Why Vivian niched it

How Vivian differentiated herself

How Vivian generated early sales

How Vivian scaled and how she handled payment processing

Influencer marketing

How Vivian has focused on brand to differentiate her product

How receptiveness has increased with order quantities

Vivian’s brand ambassador program

Vivian’s loyalty program

Staying true to the brand voice through expansion and evolution

Copywriting brand names

Vivian’s tips for entrepreneurs

Resources:

How to Support Black-Owned Ecommerce Businesses + Resources for All Brands & Consumers

Learn More About Order Fulfillment for Haircare Products

Shipping Hazardous Materials: A Guide to HAZMAT Shipping & Compliance for Ecommerce

KinkyCurlyYak- Handcrafted Textured Hair Extensions

Meet the speakers

How has the demand changed for things like reading glasses? What about probiotics? What is it like to shift your product strategy over to hand sanitizer in order to meet ecommerce demand during a pandemic? In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Stefan Weitz of Jetson, Sem Lewkowict of Black Wolf, and Jon Corwin of Readers.com. Listen to the episode to hear about how the pandemic changed the way they operate and the way their customers interact with their products. 

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

How things have changed as far as demand for Jetson products

How demand changes for reading glasses during a pandemic

Whether reading glasses for computers have offset the loss in sales of outdoor glasses

How Black Wolf pivoted into the hand sanitizer space

How Black Wolf handled the high volume of orders

Negotiating lower MLQs

How switching to hand sanitizer affected payments and cash flow

The drop shipping or manufacturing in China model

How to handle delays in shipping with customers

How to identify where to manufacture in the US

How to scale up quickly

Shifts across different platforms

The most important data points to look at

Advice for brands trying to navigate through a pandemic

Resources:

Stefan Weitz

Jetson

Sam Lewkowict

Black Wolf

Jon Corwin

Readers.com

What are paleo skincare products and why would you use them? Cassandra Burnvoth is the founder and CEO of FATCO, a company that makes beauty products that make paleo-friendly skincare products. Listen in to the interview to hear why FATCO got started, how giveaways can help a business breakthrough, and what the benefits are of having a community like the paleo community behind you.

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

What made the reviews tab important for Cassie

Why Cassie built FATCO

How Cassie cracked into the community to sell FATCO

The value of being able to give away free things

How to handle bad reviews

Who can write a review

How to address medical claims in advertising

How Cassie approached marketing

Why she wanted “fat” in the name of the company

Social channels that Cassie uses to drive revenue

How affiliates drive traffic to the site

Cassie’s movement from Squarespace

Partners that allow Cassie to have more time

Using Canva

How Cassie continued to get momentum after the first orders

The launch at Target

Getting loans

Why selling on Amazon was important

Navigating Amazon delays

What to list on Amazon

Preparing for Cyber Monday

How it works with Cassie’s husband as a coworker

The future of FATCO

Cassie’s number-one tip for entrepreneurs

Resources:

Cassandra Burnvoth

FATCO