Ecommerce Conversations

Chris Wichert is an investment banker turned direct-to-consumer entrepreneur. His luxury shoe brand, Koio, launched in 2015 and quickly scaled. Then the pandemic hit. By late 2022, he says, the D2C hype and funding had collapsed. He slashed costs, stabilized cash flow, and successfully exited the company. In this episode, he shares his story of boom, bust, and survival. For an edited and condensed...

Host Eric Bandholz has interviewed a slew of impressive entrepreneurs on this podcast. He says Drew Fallon is among the most versatile. Drew last appeared on the show in 2022 when he had co-founded a tattoo skincare company. Before that he was an investment banker. He now runs Iris, an AI-driven financial modeling platform, while also tracking and reporting on consumer-focused M&A transactions...

For years EcomFuel has surveyed its community of ecommerce merchants about their growth, margins, tactics, and more. The company released this year's findings last week. In this episode, founder Andrew Youderian recaps the report, addressing the state of ecommerce among 300 participating businesses — mostly seven, eight, and nine-figure brands. For an edited and condensed transcript with embe...

Molson Hart is the founder of Viahart, a D2C toy brand, and Edison, a legal technology company. He says every entrepreneur should own two businesses, where one offers more opportunities to scale, is more profitable, or diversifies risk. I'm all in on Beardbrand, my own D2C brand launched in 2014. Molson is a two-time guest on the podcast. His comment got me thinking about an attractive second...

Dave Diederen is the founder of Syntra, a Netherlands-based conversion rate optimization agency. He encourages ecommerce brands to test product pages, ads, and, well, everything.  He says merchants often prioritize their sites' aesthetics over copy and content, a big mistake. "Content and copy play a very big role in conversions, if not the biggest," he states. In this episode, he s...

Since 2013 Cherene Aubert has managed, advised, and executed ecommerce marketing campaigns. She's worked for agencies, merchants, and as a freelance consultant. Her D2C advisory firm, Growth Capital, helps scale premium, high-growth brands. Experience guides her advice. Brands are too quick to discount slow-moving products, she says. Bundles or buy-one-get-one offers are often better. Higher-...

Ray Hua is the director of ecommerce at Vessi, a Canada-based direct-to-consumer seller of waterproof sneakers. The brand launched in 2017 after its founders developed and patented breathable fabric that repels water. Ray joined the company in 2021. In this episode, he shares the challenges of targeting the right audience, cross-border selling, diversifying, and more. For an edited and condensed t...

In 2019 Nasrin Jafari was a middle school teacher in New York City. She had no ecommerce experience but was drawn to creating and building, which led her to sew and sell face masks during Covid. Fast forward to 2026, and Mixed, her direct-to-consumer fashion brand, designs and produces female apparel and accessories. Referring to the company's launch, she says, "I had no idea how to make...

Kaleigh Moore is a 12-year freelance writer and editor. She has contributed to Shopify, Forbes, Vogue, Adweek, and various B2B providers, among others. She's now grappling with the promise and limits of AI. She calls AI a "fire hose of information" that greatly increases efficiency. She also cautions on what it cannot do, such as interview humans or learn from experience. She shares...

Occasionally on the podcast host Eric Bandholz departs from interviewing guests to share his own experiences running Beardbrand, the D2C company he founded in 2012. In this episode, he addresses his favorite ecommerce tools in 2026, 18 platforms and apps essential to his business — from foundational site infrastructure to solutions for marketing, operations, creative, and more.   For an edited and...

Chris Hall is an ecommerce entrepreneur turned media operator. His new "Ecomm Cowboy" show broadcasts live Monday through Friday on X and YouTube. The mission, he says, is twofold: deliver daily news to sellers and offer companionship to those working alone. Chris first appeared on the podcast in 2023 as the marketing head of a D2C brand. In this our latest conversation, he addresses his...

Please enjoy this repeat of a popular episode first aired in September 2024. David Heinemeier Hansson is the creator of the Ruby on Rails software framework, the co-founder of Basecamp, a member of Shopify's board of directors, an investor in multiple tech startups, a racecar driver, and a family man with children. He's a modern-day polymath. Yet his workday calendar is not full of appoi...

Phillip Jackson's media company, Future Commerce, focuses on trends and developments in business. The company surveyed U.S. shoppers during the 2025 holiday season. He says one insight stood out: when AI recommends a product, 77% of respondents leave the platform to buy on the brand's site. Phillip first appeared on the podcast in early 2024. In this, his latest episode, he addresses the...

Frank Kosarek is the co-founder of BizPort, a mergers-and-acquisitions marketplace launched in November 2025. Before that, he was head of acquisitions for a large ecommerce aggregator. He says buyers of ecommerce businesses today focus on discretionary earnings, not revenue, and seek recurring sales, such as subscriptions. He addresses those items, the state of ecommerce M&A, and more in this...

Chris Harrison says it all started with a single pot on a stove. He and two high school buddies launched Liber & Co., a manufacturer of premium cocktail syrups, with that tiny test batch in 2011 in Austin, Texas. Fast forward to 2026, and batches are now in 1,500-gallon tanks and sold worldwide to restaurants, bars, and consumers. But the culture remains hands-on, do-it-yourself, and learn-by-...

In his previous appearance on the podcast, in November 2022, Jai Dolwani was the CMO of a wine subscription company that would shortly declare bankruptcy. It was his third struggling startup, he says, prompting "serious self-reflection." He pivoted to entrepreneurship and launched The Starters, a marketplace for fractional ecommerce talent, in late 2023. The company has thrived, having a...

Please enjoy this repeat of a popular episode first aired in January 24, 2025. According to Will Nitze, founder and CEO of IQBAR, success in a competitive market requires finding its uncompetitive niches. He did that with his flagship protein bar, which is plant-based, low-sugar, and plainly labeled. That was seven years ago when he launched the company with a $75,000 Kickstarter campaign. Fast fo...

In this episode, host Eric Bandholz reflects on his business and life at year-end. He reviews what worked for Beardbrand in 2025, what didn't, what was painful, and what made it all worth it. It's a reminder, he says, to take stock of our own priorities — how we allocate time, energy, attention — and whether they align with the life we're trying to build. Longtime listeners know tha...

In "How to Leave the U.S.A.," the venerable New Yorker magazine recently addressed what many residents have apparently considered. Yet Mikkel Thorup has lived outside of his native Canada for 25 years. He's visited 120 countries and resided in nine of them. His business, Expat Money, helps others do the same while protecting assets and lifestyle. Why relocate overseas? What are the...

Abir Syed is an accountant turned marketer turned chief financial officer. He says ecommerce marketing success largely depends on creative volume, and few merchants have exhausted any channel, much less Meta. Abir is co-founder of UpCounting, an accounting and fractional CFO firm in Montréal, Canada. In this episode, he shares common financial mistakes of merchants, key metrics to monitor, and, ye...

Jeff Oxford is our go-to interview for ecommerce SEO. The founder of Oregon-based 180 Marketing, an agency, Jeff first appeared on the podcast in 2022 when he addressed SEO's "four buckets." We invited him back late last year to explain AI's impact on search traffic and how merchants can adapt. In this our latest interview, he shared optimization tactics for ChatGPT, with a cav...

Chris Elrod is a renewable power entrepreneur. His company, Treaty Oak Clean Energy, builds massive solar projects that provide electricity for large corporations and utility firms. It's boom times for electricity generators as the likes of Google, ChatGPT, and Amazon scramble for reliable sources. How, exactly, does a company build a solar-generating plant and then sell the electricity to en...

Seth Spears is a Colorado-based entrepreneur who once taught consumers how to make their own non-toxic personal care products. He says customers valued the results but not the actual production process. "They kept asking us for ready-made versions," he told me. So he launched Wellnesse, a direct-to-consumer brand producing all-natural self-care goods, in 2020. Toothpaste quickly became t...

Kevlyn Walsh is a Denver-based art teacher turned entrepreneur. She launched Festive Gal, an Etsy shop, in 2019 after her handmade headband was a hit among Christmas party attendees. Fast forward to 2025, and Festive Gal is thriving, selling custom gifts and party supplies. A new second site, Bake It Fancy, on Shopify, sells cooking accessories. Amid the growth, Kevlyn manages employees, productio...

Andy Gould co-founded Batch, a Wisconsin-based D2C cannabis brand, in 2018. He says the company struggled for years until it perfected content creation and advertising. “Once we dialed in our Meta ads and built a strong creative flywheel, everything took off,” he said. Host Eric Bandholz first interviewed Andy and his two co-founders in 2023.  In this latest conversation, Andy addresses video prod...