Paid Forward

Most ecommerce brands don’t fail because of the product. They fail because they can’t build trust, retention, and community at scale. In this episode of Paid Forward, Raman Verma sits down with Darcy Laceby, co-founder of Absolute Collagen, to break down how she scaled a garage startup into a £30M collagen brand and one of the UK’s leading DTC success stories. Darcy shares the realities of buildin...

For ecommerce and legacy businesses struggling to scale digitally, improving customer experience and operational thinking is often more important than simply driving more traffic or launching new technology. In this episode of Paid Forward, Raman Verma speaks with Hemant, a digital transformation leader with experience spanning ecommerce, travel, retail, and international expansion. From helping g...

For ecommerce brands struggling to improve performance, understanding what truly drives conversions is just as important as driving more traffic. In this episode of Paid Forward, Raman Verma speaks with Adam Pearce, Shopify CRO expert and Co-Founder of Blend Commerce, a specialist agency helping high-growth brands improve revenue through data-driven Conversion Rate Optimisation. Adam shares how CR...

For founders struggling to stand out in crowded markets, understanding what makes a brand truly investable is just as important as understanding what makes it attractive to customers. In this episode of Paid Forward, Raman Verma speaks with Leon Hughes, Partner at Piper, a private equity firm with a 40-year track record of backing high-growth consumer brands. Leon shares how Piper evaluates opport...

Most ecommerce brands struggle to clearly communicate why customers should choose them. When messaging sounds generic, brands compete on price, conversion rates suffer, and long term growth becomes difficult. In this episode of Paid Forward, Raman Verma speaks with Steve Willicott about how strong value propositions help brands stand out, connect with customers, and build sustainable competitive a...

Most ecommerce brands are still treating email marketing like it’s 2018 and it’s costing them revenue. In this episode of the Paid Forward Podcast, Raman Verma sits down with Rich Evans to unpack what’s actually working in email marketing today and what’s already outdated. If your emails aren’t converting, it’s not because email is dead. It’s because your strategy hasn’t evolved with AI, data, and...

In this episode of Paid Forward , Raman Verma speaks with Toby Hart, Co-Founder of Nusa Studios, about what it really takes to build ads people choose to watch. They break down what “thumb-stopping” means in 2026, how to balance brand and performance without compromising either, and why most creative fails before it even launches. You’ll learn: • The three pillars of effective social creative: att...

In this episode of Paid Forward, Raman Verma is joined by Sean Begg Flint, Founder of Position Digital, to unpack what is really driving results in AI search today. We unpack the shift from traditional SEO to GEO, AEO, and LLM optimisation, and explain why most brands are chasing the wrong tactics. Instead of obsessing over top-funnel traffic and prompt hacks, Sean shares a pragmatic framework bui...

In this episode of Paid Forward, Will Laurenson shares what he has learned from working with scaling ecommerce businesses and running a conversion rate optimisation agency. We explore what genuinely increases ecommerce revenue today — and why many traditional CRO tactics no longer deliver meaningful results. Will explains why focusing purely on conversion rate can damage profitability, why revenue...

What does it really take to scale on Shopify in 2026? In this episode of Paid Forward, Raman sits down with Nathan Lomax to break down the commercial reality behind Shopify growth - from migration risk and SEO to total cost of ownership and when Shopify Plus actually makes sense. This is a practical conversation for founders and ecommerce leaders who want clarity, not hype. We explore app stack bl...