Amy McKenzie and Kirsten Dodds, co-founders of House of Kook, an interior design studio and furniture e-commerce business based out of South Africa discuss the challenges they face in the South African market as a niche e-commerce furniture business. Despite difficulties in gaining customer buy-in, competition from both local and global retailers, as well as high shipping costs - Amy and Kirsten share their vision for future growth, including expanding their range and catering to a wider audience. 

David Zamarin, the founder of DetraPel, shares the story of building a nanotechnology-based liquid repellent spray company as a young entrepreneur without having a formal education or experience in the chemical industry. Zamarin discusses the importance of thinking from first principles, learning from mentors, and building the right team to create businesses that solve significant problems. 

Matthew Olen of Grip Spritz shares how he and his two co-founders are helping to bring a basketball shoe traction spray product to market. He shares the challenges of building awareness and distribution of the product as well as the unique challenges of shipping a liquid product to customers. 

Parker Garlitz of True Leaf Market. True Leaf Market, an independent seed company, discusses the importance of non-GMO seeds and the company's focus on providing people with a choice. Garlitz emphasizes the importance of competition in the seed industry and highlights their focus on customer service and quality products. 

Steven Liszka of BigFilms shares the story of creating a digital visual effects products business to fund his original passion of Film Making. 

Howard Law of Magnus Home Products shares the story of building a high-end home, kitchen and bath products e-commerce business from scratch to recreate a small family business experience he and his partner had previously worked for. They started with a drop-ship business model to manage risks and moved to primarily sourcing, warehousing, and fulfilling own products to maximize profit margins and deliver greater value to customers. 

Jared Waters of Mini Materials shares how he purchased an already established niche Mini Building Supplies ecommerce business and is using newer manufacturing and operations processes to scale the business to new heights

Vladimir Gendleman of Company Folders shares the story of starting a Customized Presentation Folders business offering the largest selection of options available and growing it into a multi-million-dollar business. Learn about how a business can differentiate itself in a commoditized market by focusing and doing a few things right. 

Brittany Taylor and Julius Dease, the Co-founder of Black Luxe Candle Company share the story of creating a Candle E-commerce Business out of necessity and different pivots they made to grow their business. They also created a local candle making class business after identifying a need in the market. Learn how their unwavering resilience, goal-setting, and collaborative spirit paved the way for a one-of-a-kind candle-making experience that deeply resonates with customers.

Daniel (Dan) Thompson, co-founder of Salt Water Digital, shares the story of how he left the Engineering profession to launch a successful digital marketing agency that offers Local SEO, Web-Builds, Google and Social Paid Ads services to small and medium sized businesses. Discover how SEO has evolved and what it takes to rank your local business on search engines to get targeted leads.