Jake Starr, a former firefighter, started Recycled Firefighter in 2013 when he noticed decommissioned fire hoses being thrown into the landfill, took some home, and turned it into an iPad case he sold on Etsy. "I feel bad for whoever bought it."

Today, Jake's Shopify Plus store has sold thousands of wallets, backpacks, tool rolls and more made from recycled canvas fire hose material. He owes his success in part to the Every Day Carry community on Instagram where he has nearly 100,000 followers.

In this candid interview, Jake joins us in studio to discuss his journey, what he's learned, and why he's chosen to keep his business intentionally small, bootstrapped, and fun.

• RecycledFirefighter.com
• IG:@RecycledFirefighter
• Snapseed
• Every Tool's a Hammer by Adam Savage
• Four Hour Work Week
• The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry
• Company of One

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• Save 20% on Turbo, a blazing fast Shopify theme - Use code PODCAST20 at checkout
• Improve your shop’s search engine ranking with Venntov SEO Meta Manager

Last Spring, a listener invited me to lunch with the Courtrights, a couple who ran a business that invested in Shopify stores– hundreds of Shopify stores– and offered a guaranteed rate of return to investors.

On January 14th, the SEC announced that, "it filed an emergency enforcement action and obtained a temporary restraining order and asset freeze against Illinois resident Kenneth D. Courtright, III and his company, Todays Growth Consultant Inc., in connection with an alleged Ponzi-like scheme that raised at least $75 million from more than 500 investors throughout the United States and abroad."

Let's unpack that.

• SEC Statement
• Chicago Tribune: SEC freezes assets of suburban owner of The Income Store, allegedly a $75 million Ponzi-like website investment scheme

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• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

• See our recent work at Ethercycle
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• Get powerful marketing automation with Klaviyo's revenue-driving email platform
• Try Bold Product Upsell, free trial
• Save 20% on Turbo, a blazing fast Shopify theme - Use code PODCAST20 at checkout
• Improve your shop’s search engine ranking with Venntov SEO Meta Manager

Our guest today is Thomas "Tommy" Tartaglia, the self-described World's Okayest Exerciser, who sold more than $100k in t-shirts with "World's Okayest Exerciser" printed on it last year on Shopify.

Thomas Tartaglia has a bunch of degree's from various colleges, a significant amount of time in the Military, and a handful of years trying to figure out E-Commerce. He relies on other people to make himself look good.

Tune in for more details!

In this Listener Q&A episode, we talk:

• Post-purchase email marketing
• Content strategies when you can't run ads
• Migrating sales from Amazon to Shopify

• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
• Join Kurt's newsletter

• Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group
• Leave a review
• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

• See our recent work at Ethercycle
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
• Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store.

• Get powerful marketing automation with Klaviyo's revenue-driving email platform
• Try Bold Product Upsell, free trial
• Save 20% on Turbo, a blazing fast Shopify theme - Use code PODCAST20 at checkout
• Improve your shop’s search engine ranking with Venntov SEO Meta Manager

One of the hardest parts of ecommerce entrepreneurship is manufacturing your first product, but as retail and technology has changed, it's also become easier than ever. Today we'll pull back the curtain on finding a manufacturer with a man who has decades of experience.

Our guest today, Charles Kaliman, has helped big box retail stores launch new brands and find manufacturing supply chains. He collaborated in launching brands such as I.N.C., Structure, Everlast, and Gant.

You'll hear:

• Finding the right factory partner
• Mistakes to avoid
• How to vet a factory
• Why a great factory can help you finance
• How digitization and changing retail has disrupted and democratized manufacturing
• Why you should work backwards
• What we can learn from Kim Kardashian's shapewear line

Charles has been in leadership positions holding operational responsibility at major retailers and brands. Charles’ international experience has provided him with a deep understanding of a dynamic and ever-changing global manufacturing base. He developed relationships with leading global vendors and travelled extensively to factories in Asia, India, Bangladesh, Central America and the USA.

• Kaliman Consulting
• MAGIC Trade Show
• National Retail Federation

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• Take a ride with Kurt on YouTube
• Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store.

• Try Bold Product Upsell free for 90 days
• Save 20% on Turbo, a blazing fast Shopify theme
• Improve your shop’s search engine ranking with Venntov SEO Meta Manager
• Outsource your Shopify customer service with Simplr

Emily Jaime is the designer and founder of YIREH. She started the brand early in 2014 (when she was 22 years old!), without a background in fashion or business. She has built her online boutique with the desire to not only design functional and easy to wear clothing for women, but to also empower and encourage them to live their best lives.

Today's guest has twenty years of ecommerce experience and believes that "You can't survive as a commodity dropship retailer. You have to differentiate or Amazon will eat your lunch. If not today, then tomorrow."

In this episode, he'll tell us how he differentiated Karmaloop and more.

You'll hear:

• Lessons learned running a nine-figure brand acquired from AutoZone
• The simple strategies that Drew used to save KarmaLoop from extinction
• How to easily leverage direct mail to grow your business

In 2013, Drew founded his first company, DesignPublic.com, with $500 cash. Today he's the CEO of nine-figure vertically integrated brand AutoAnything. In between, he's saved Karmaloop, got Teamwork to eight figures, and built a variety of software and retail businesses.

• AutoAnything.com
• Traction
• 80/20 Rule
• Karmaloop
• Kettle & Fire
• Teamwork
• Ecommerce is a Bear
• PostPilot - Get 15% off your first purchase with code KURT15
• Nerd Marketing

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• Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings & reviews help, and I read each one.
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• See our recent work at Ethercycle
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
• Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store.

• Try Bold Product Upsell free for 90 days
• Save 20% on Turbo, a blazing fast Shopify theme
• Improve your shop’s search engine ranking with Venntov SEO Meta Manager

This episode is also available on YouTube.

Shopify merchants broke records with $2.9+ billion in worldwide sales over Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend.

In this episode, we unpack the biggest shopping week of the year.

You'll hear:

• Typical Facebook Ads ROAS stats
• How our biggest clients performed
• And our key takeaways for our successful BFCM in 2020

• Cyber Week 2019 Statistics Infographic

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• Join Kurt's newsletter

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• Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings & reviews help, and I read each one.
• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

• See our recent work at Ethercycle
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
• Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store.

• Try Bold Product Upsell free for 90 days
• Save 20% on Turbo, a blazing fast Shopify theme
• Improve your shop’s search engine ranking with Venntov SEO Meta Manager

Ryan Popoff founded a leather goods company after learning leather working as a creative outlet. Bootstrapped and run solo in 2013, Ryan is now leading a team of 12 full-time craftspeople in a 1,400 sq. ft. workshop in British Columbia.

Popov Leather makes handmade leather goods like wallets, belts, watch straps, notebook covers, and more. They're made to order, reasonably priced, and have turned thousands of customers into devoted fans.

In this episode, you'll learn:

Popov Leather is the quintessential rural small town success story. A hobby turns into a micro business following spousal encouragement which then turns into a thriving fast-growth business. Six years after its first sale, Popov Leather today YOR revenue growth as more than 90% of their production is shipped to satisfied international customers.

This episode is available on YouTube. Watch now: https://youtu.be/mjeP1M5cgEg

Its too late to change anything on your store now this close to Black Friday, so instead, lets do something fun and talk about politics.

In today's episode: How Presidential Candidates Maximize eCommerce Sales

We'll compare the Shopify stores of President Trump's 2020 campaign, and four Democratic presidential candidates, to see where they could improve and what they did right.

Listener note: While politicians are the subject of our teardown, we have entirely avoided political issues. Nothing about this episode should be considered political commentary. Fight the urge to send us your political opinions. Please.

• Trump
• Buttigieg
• Yang
• Sanders
• Warren

• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts
• Join Kurt's newsletter

• Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group
• Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings & reviews help, and I read each one.
• Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

• See our recent work at Ethercycle
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
• Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store.

• Try Bold Product Upsell free for 90 days
• Save 20% on Turbo, a blazing fast Shopify theme
• Improve your shop’s search engine ranking with Venntov SEO Meta Manager