The Ecomcrew Ecommerce Podcast

Many successful ecommerce businesses are born out of necessity. And some of the most successful ecommerce entrepreneurs are selling products that they're truly passionate about. A Business Born of Necessity Eight years ago, Jason Hsieh's son Keanu was diagnosed with autism. Living in Japan at the time, Jason struggled to find support services and products for him. So the family moved to Seattle. I...

I was in Miami for a couple of days last week for Sellers Summit and the finals of 5 Minute Pitch. Without putting out any spoilers, we've already picked a winner this season. I'm excited to meet with this person again to fulfill that mentoring session that comes as part of the prize. For a show that's on its initial run, we've had many interesting business ideas go through. One of which was from...

Are you struggling to grow your YouTube followers? If so, boy have I got a treat for you! Today's guest is Eric Bandholz, one of the founders of Beardbrand . From a community dedicated to beard care in 2012, it has become a full-fledged company selling a wide array of men's grooming products. The company is unique in that it isn't reliant on Amazon (at least, not anymore). Instead, it uses other m...

They say the most important things in life are not taught in school. For us ecommerce entrepreneurs, this is especially true. Unless you took up a business degree (even if you did, it's still not a guarantee), you probably learned how to run a business on your own, in the process of running said business. If you're anything like me, you had no qualms about learning things as you go because doing e...

While the process of selling a company is mostly between the buyer and seller, most people forget that it also greatly affects the people on the front lines of running a business: the employees. We've covered why we decided to sell ColorIt in the first place, how we prepared for the sale , and how the transaction transpired . In this episode, which is the 4th and last installment of the ColorIt se...

Hey guys! We're back with Joe Valley for part two of talking about the process involved in selling one of our brands ColorIt.com . In 247 , you found Joe and me at that point prior to putting the business up for sale. By the end of the episode, we had gotten a deposit and a signed LOI (letter of intent) from the two wonderful guys who are now the new owners of ColorIt. A signed LOI is similar to a...

Welcome to episode 2 of this 4-part series where I talk about the sale of one of our most profitable brands - ColorIt.com . In episode 246 , I discussed the motivation behind this particular move - from the reason behind the sale down to the brand's new owners. A major cog in the wheel with this sale is a man called Joe Valley of Quiet Light Brokerage . Joe has been instrumental in making sure tha...

If you've been following this podcast over the past few weeks, it won't come as a surprise to you when I say that ColorIt is officially no longer ours. We listed the business for sale in December and we officially closed on April 5th. Being our biggest brand, you might wonder why we sold ColorIt.com among all our other brands. In this episode we talk about The events that led to the sale of ColorI...

Amazon is crowded. Everyone and their mom is hawking something on Amazon, and since there's only a finite number of stuff most people are willing to buy, everyone is clawing their way up from the competition to page 1. One tactic sellers employ to get more sales is to lower their prices. The lower your price, the more sales you get. It only makes sense, right? While it is true to some extent, at t...

If you're a regular podcast listener, you'll know that I've been involved with something called the 5 Minute Pitch . It's a show where we offer up and coming ecommerce entrepreneurs the opportunity to grow their businesses. This season, we had 32 people make their pitches to us for the chance to win $50,000. Going into the second round, we've whittled down the contestants to 17. You can watch the...

Before I hop on a plane to Asia, I thought it would be a good time to do a review of those goals I made for myself at the start of the year. Sell a brand. We already did this. ColorIt is officially no longer ours. We'll be discussing the sale in a series of separate podcasts which is definitely something I'm looking forward to. Position another brand for sale in late 2020. All of our brands now ha...

Cory Stout has already built a successful brand, Woodies Sunglasses . But like any keen ecommerce entrepreneur, he's seen the potential of acquiring Amazon businesses to grow and improve on. In this Under the Hood , Cory walks me through the process of his latest acquisition. Inspired by the episode with Shakil Prasla of Pro Click Ventures , he jumped on Empire Flippers and looked at his options....

From a Dublin-based seller, we now have an Under the Hood guest from the UK. Jamie Graham is a Premium member. I met him in person at the Million Dollar Sellers meetup in Cancun last year. He and his wife Kayleigh own a beauty brand that's bringing over a million pounds in revenue, with a 30-40 percent growth rate. In this episode, the majority of the discussion was focused on these three points....

This Under the Hood guest is someone our Premium members would know. Fabio Molle was on one of our private webinars last month to talk about strategies he used to grow his brand's Instagram following to more than 200k followers. Fabio is the owner of Functional Tennis , a company that sells match journals to aspiring athletes and enthusiasts alike. While the brand is taking off on this particular...

If you ask us to pick one episode from the EcomCrew Podcast that we think every ecommerce store owner should listen to, today's episode would be a clear winner. We're very excited to have Brian Dean on today's episode. If you've been living under a rock, Brian is an SEO expert and the founder of the Backlinko blog . He has been called an " SEO genius " and is one of the people I follow closely, an...

Gideon Kai is facing a dilemma. His 74 year old father-in-law just declared that he'll need to start working a day job again to pay bills. Gideon knows he's a prolific artist, but not having displayed his art for anyone outside of family and friends, whatever he earns from selling his work is not enough to cover even his basic needs. He could not stand seeing such a great artist fall into the obli...

Dave and I always liken our Asia trip planning to a tumor - it starts small at first but as the travel dates get closer and closer, the anxiety gets bigger and bigger. We love going to Asia, especially Hong Kong, but there are little idiosyncrasies that make the trip the trip a pain in the rear end. One of these is the internet and everyone who's been to China knows what I mean. That's why Dave an...

As ecommerce sellers we ultimately want to be seen. That's why we spend ungodly chunks of money on Amazon PPC, Facebook ads, and Google Adwords and Shopping. But what happens if those paid traffic channels become unavailable? Christian Gravel of Grower Scrog Nets is facing this problem. He has developed a product that helps people grow good cannabis more easily in their homes, and with more states...

When Shakil Prasla graduated with an MBA and had no idea what to do next, he decided to venture into the world of ecommerce. He bought his first business for $52,000 and made the money back in 6 months. Fast forward to today - he has bought a total of 12 businesses under Pro Click Ventures , with his latest purchase being worth $3 million. In this episode you'll learn: How to get financing when bu...

To recap for those of you who missed Episode 222 , we're launching a brand-new segment called EcomCrew Roadshow where we help ecommerce entrepreneurs come up with a plan to take their businesses to the next level. The premise is we will come to your city, spend a couple of days with you at your office, go over your business, review things, and come up with a plan to grow your business. This episod...

When we made the move from affiliate marketing to selling our own physical products years ago, we realized in a kind of baptism-by-fire way how starkly different the two business models are. Mike Higman, owner of HuntingGearDeals.com , is trying to make the same shift. In this episode, he and I talk about the 3 things he needs to carefully consider to make sure he is prepared to take his business...

Meghla Bhardwaj is the Head of Content Marketing at Global Sources and organizer of the Global Sources Summit.  The summit is one that I really love, and for this year Dave and I will both be speaking at the event. Meghla has been on the podcast a couple of times talking about sourcing from China specifically through Global Sources, but this time our topic is different. Sourcing from India With th...

This Under the Hood episode is unique and perhaps unexpected. I'm joined by Speck Hansen of earthMonkeys , a brand that sells plush stuffed animals. The company's underlying mission is "for moms that wanna get their kids using less screen time and getting out and doing more physical activities through adventure." You might say that his products are in direct competition with those sold under one o...

The first time Joe Cochran came on the podcast, we were set on talking about free plus shipping offers. However, Joe's background proved to be too interesting to cut short, so we talked more about it instead. You can listen to that episode and the lessons he learned before before founding ComfortTac , his current company. We discussed the ups and downs of running an ecommerce business, and whether...

Hiring is not the easiest thing to do in the entrepreneur world, but it's also the most important task an entrepreneur eventually must do if they want their business to grow. Nathan Hirsch knows this all too well. At first he wasn't sold on the idea of hiring someone but when his first busy season came and led him to work 10-12 hour workdays all by himself, he knew he had to find someone and help...