Podcasts about surfstitch

In this Checkout episode, we chat with Damien Smith, CTO of Paramount Retail, the tech leader behind brands like BoozeBud and Barrel & Batch. Damien shares one of his more unusual online buys, sings the praises of small skateboard retailer brand Kick Push and highlights Good Strategy/Bad Strategy and the Manager Tools podcast as sources of practical, no-nonsense advice for leaders. He also explains how Asana keeps his team in sync across locations, highlights Shopify as crucial for powering Paramount's e-commerce presence and gives his insights on juggling the demands of leadership with personal growth. Check out our full-length interview with Damien Smith here:Reinventing BoozeBud: Inside Paramount Retail's Push to Transform Alcohol Retail | #446About our guests:With over 25 years of experience, Damien Smith is a bit of a Swiss Army knife in business and technology. After founding an IT services company in the late 90s, he eventually became CIO at SurfStitch in 2013. Immersed in analytics and eCommerce, he later held key roles at MTB Direct before joining BoozeBud as CTO in 2022. Damien now drives tech innovation at Paramount Retail, overseeing BoozeBud and helping transform the online alcohol retail landscape.About your host:Nathan Bush is the host of the Add To Cart podcast and a leading ecommerce transformation consultant. He has led eCommerce for businesses with revenue $100m+ and has been recognised as one of Australia's Top 50 People in eCommerce four years in a row. You can contact Nathan on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email.Please contact us if you: Want to come on board as an Add To Cart sponsor Are interested in joining Add To Cart as a co-host Have any feedback or suggestions on how to make Add To Cart betterEmail hello@addtocart.com.au We look forward to hearing from you! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Add To Cart, we chat to Erin Williamson (CMO) and Damien Smith (CTO) of Paramount Retail, the company behind leading online alcohol brands BoozeBud and Barrel & Batch. They discuss how they've transformed their business by simplifying operations and are introducing next-day delivery. The duo also shares their strategy behind launching physical BottleStop stores, focusing on convenience over brand exposure. With insights on streamlining tech, improving customer experience, and balancing online and offline growth, this episode is a must-listen for ecommerce leaders looking to scale.Links from the episodeBoozeBudBottleStopBarrel & BatchWhat you'll learnWhy simplifying your business operations can lead to improved efficiency, cost savings, and better customer experiences.How offering next-day delivery can give your business a competitive edge by building trust and convenience for your customers.Why expanding into physical retail can be a smart move when driven by customer convenience and strategic location choices.This episode was brought to you by…Deliver In PersonShopify PlusAbout our guestsWith over 25 years of experience, Damien is a bit of a Swiss Army knife in business and technology. After founding an IT services company in the late 90s, he eventually became CIO at SurfStitch in 2013. Immersed in analytics and eCommerce, he later held key roles at MTB Direct before joining BoozeBud as CTO in 2022. Damien now drives tech innovation at Paramount Retail, overseeing BoozeBud and helping transform the online alcohol retail landscape.Erin has over 20 years of marketing expertise and an adventurous eCommerce career. She began at Betfair in online wagering, survived 3 years of creative agency life, before holding multiple roles at Sensis. She then entered the world of eCom serving as Head of Marketing for Luxury Escapes and founding Chief Customer Officer at Cars24. Now, as CMO of Paramount Retail, Erin aims to get more drinks delivered to homes around Australia via BoozeBud and Barrel & Batch.About your hostNathan Bush is the host of the Add To Cart podcast and a director, strategist and advisor. He has led eCommerce for businesses with revenue $100m+ and has been recognised as one of Australia's Top 50 People in eCommerce four years in a row. You can contact Nathan on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email.Please contact us if you:Want to come on board as an Add To Cart sponsor Are interested in joining Add To Cart as a co-host Have any feedback or suggestions on how to make Add To Cart betterEmail hello@addtocart.com.au We look forward to hearing from you! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

General Pants, Surfstitch and Ginger & Smart are all in survival mode right now as its parent company loses millions of dollars. Zoom has dropped out of the Nasdaq 100 after battling to maintain its relevance and strong performance in 2023. Sportsbet has suffered a double-digit drop in revenue for the third-quarter compared to last year. — Build the financial wellbeing of your team with Flux at Work: https://bit.ly/fluxatwork Download the free app (App Store): http://bit.ly/FluxAppStore Download the free app (Google Play): http://bit.ly/FluxappGooglePlay Daily newsletter: https://bit.ly/fluxnewsletter Flux on Instagram: http://bit.ly/fluxinsta Flux on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@flux.finance —- The content in this podcast reflects the views and opinions of the hosts, and is intended for personal and not commercial use. We do not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any opinion, statement or other information provided or distributed in these episodes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joining me on the podcast today is Preeti Inchody, Managing Director in the Sydney office of a global consulting firm, Ankura. Specialising in mergers, acquisitions and strategic advice, Preeti's work has helped transition iconic Australian brands such as Napoleon Perdis, Surfstitch and Pierlite to support their growth at crucial junctures in their journey. Raised in Mumbai, India, Preeti's search for her professional calling led her to pursue business school in Spain and eventually immigrate to Australia. After finding her step in the industry after a long 10 years, she is now a champion for mental health, equality, and helping other qualified immigrants to have meaningful careers and contribute to our society. In this episode we spoke about: The courage it took for Preeti to step outside her comfort zone and move away from her culture Her beliefs, skills and strategies around building resilience The importance of taking personal responsibility The long game strategy and how it has helped her not give up when challenges arise Reaching out for help and being open to advice There is so much to learn from Preeti's story. She is a role model to many and I know you'll get so much out of the episode as we explore her resilience, intentionality and the power of the long game. LINKS: Where to find Preeti: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/preetiinchody/   Connect with Julie: Instagram: @juliehydeleads Website: https://juliehyde.com.auSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joining me on the podcast today is Preeti Inchody, Managing Director in the Sydney office of a global consulting firm, Ankura. Specialising in mergers, acquisitions and strategic advice, Preeti's work has helped transition iconic Australian brands such as Napoleon Perdis, Surfstitch and Pierlite to support their growth at crucial junctures in their journey.     Raised in Mumbai, India, Preeti's search for her professional calling led her to pursue business school in Spain and eventually immigrate to Australia. After finding her step in the industry after a long 10 years, she is now a champion for mental health, equality, and helping other qualified immigrants to have meaningful careers and contribute to our society.    In this episode we spoke about: The courage it took for Preeti to step outside her comfort zone and move away from her culture Her beliefs, skills and strategies around building resilience The importance of taking personal responsibility The long game strategy and how it has helped her not give up when challenges arise Reaching out for help and being open to advice   There is so much to learn from Pretti's story. She is a role model to many and I know you'll get so much out of the episode as we explore her resilience, intentionality and the power of the long game.    LINKS: Where to find Preeti: LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/preetiinchody/   Instagram:@juliehydeleads Website:https://juliehyde.com.au/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Perspectives Podcast - Tony Nash[00:00:00] Hey, everyone. Welcome to this episode of  Perspectives. It's such a pleasure to join you. And I want to thank you for being with us. I really appreciate you. I got interviewed the other day and I got to brag about our view is, and I think you're fantastic. So it's great that you're here today. We have a very special guest, especially if you're Australian centric.So his name is Tony Nash. You may know him as the man who co-founded Booktopia. It is a very large online book seller here in Australia. It's massive. It's where I do my business, which I didn't get to tell Tony in the interview, but Tony is just a great guy. He's a real pragmatist. You're going to enjoy.He's very down to earth approach and nature. When it comes to building such a successful business, it is the world's largest online and offline book retailer. In the world, which is quite the achievement. I think it's fantastic because obviously everybody's minds go to Amazon, but Amazon's focus as Tony reveals is an inbox now.So they've [00:01:00] carved out this phenomenal niche themselves with some entrepreneurial thinking, pragmatism seeing gaps in the market and just figuring out obsessing about what the customers want. He created the business with his brother, Simon and friend, Steve. And they're starting budget on Google ads was $10 a day.They deliberately did not make a profit until 2016. They started in 2004 did not make any profit to two 16. We talk about that in the interview, and that was deliberate because what they wanted to do was to keep funding the growth that was required to take care of their customer demands. It turns over in exists.I think it's over $200 million a year. Now it's been listed in the AFI Bow's fast hundred, eight times the only company ever to achieve this feat from 2009 to 2017, it's been voted bookstore of the year. They've moved into publishing as well. We didn't get to talk about that as much as I'd liked, but that's a really interesting new niche they're carving out for themselves.It has [00:02:00] won the New South Wales Telstra Business  of the Year the Australian Telstra Business Award People's  choice Award we were a finalist in that. I remember that. They've been a finalist seven times in the Telstra business awards and they are state, it stated that Australian authors and titles are a key focus for this company.And you'll hear that come through. When we talk with him, they completed an IPO in 2020 during the first year. Did you believe he'd ever say this the first year of this global pandemic and our response to it? They did an IPO. So initial public offering, they went public and their capital raised successfully.They did an 11 week launch from decision to IPO, which I think is fantastic. They hold nearly 200,000 books in stock, ready to ship. They sell an item every 4.8 seconds. Their warehouses in excess of 10,000 square meters. Their main rival apparently is Amazon. Even though Amazon is in Australia, Booktopia is just doing gangbusters, going from strength to [00:03:00] strength.We talk about teams, culture. We talk about what it takes to build a business very much this theme of pragmatism and keeping your head and focusing on the customer and figuring out where the sale is going to be made because everything else up until then is talk and with no further talk from him.Here is Tony Nash. So you've been going now, you began in 2004. How would you say if you were to describe right now, how you got here? Rather than telling me what you did. How did you get here to be in this position where you are now with Booktopia mostly, for me, it feels like one thing led to another. So I'm very horizon point driven.That means that I have a clear picture of where I want to get to. And I may not necessarily know that that's. How to get there, but by having that horizon point to me it's more like a mountain range beyond the mountain range that I can see in the [00:04:00] distance and going, right. We've got to get to X and at the moment we're turning over 200 million.So therefore, what have I got to do to get to 300 million? But before that, of course it was getting from 100 to 200, from 20 to a hundred and so on and so forth. So if you work your way back then that's that's quite often when I think about the driving force, it's like, if someone said to me, come on, let's, let's get on a boat and go for a trip.And, and, and where do you want to go? And I say, look, let's go east. Well, we can end up in Alaska. We could end up in Antarctica and you got, what can you be a bit more specific? And it's like, well, New Zealand, north or south island and north, so Wellington or Auckland, Oakland, Ryan and I were in Oakland.Well, you know, the where the marina is, where we're going to where they had the America's cup, that's where we're going. And all of a sudden everything gets clear. And, and that to me is a lot about having that destination that then creates a level of [00:05:00] thinking, which gets you into action. Okay. So you start with the end in mind, which is what anybody who's an entrepreneur who's successful and not successful starts with that's.I imagine that's part of it, but there must be more to the soup because. It's not as simple as just set the intention and the horizon line cause a new horizon line keeps presented itself and that horizon line is always further away and to get to their new horizon line, the challenge is always unique because the once you've conquered one horizon line, you've conquered those challenges.The next horizon line is completely different. Challenges are required for you to overcome. Can you talk about that? Yep. So where the Where the engine sits in terms of how we fire up and what we do comes from asking one question every day, what do our customers want? So even though there's an end point in mind, it's still coming from the point of what do they want, because that will determine what we do to get where we need to get to, to the horizon point.So that's how it feels to me. In [00:06:00] terms of, I guess, if you were to use the New Zealand metaphor, it's kind of like, oh, we're going to go in a cruiser or you're going to go on a sailing boat. Are we, how are we going to get there? And, and so that, that would be the next unpicking of the, you know, taking the layers of the onion away.There are many, many other things though that make up the. You know, who who's on your crew what sort of roles do you need to have or the other we can't afford to have passengers. So who's doing what that comes, that comes into play. If I think about it I've never really used it in this kind of metaphor before, but that makes sense to me.How are we funding it? So are we, do we want to have more month left at the end of the money or do we want to have more money left at the end of the month? We focused more on cashflow statements in the beginning that we did in profit and loss. There was a very clear growth strategies that I had in mind in terms of, in terms of getting, you know, I didn't want to overgrow.I didn't want to under, but I didn't want to grow too quickly. So it's slow down there. So it's talking about capital raising [00:07:00] or not capital raising. How did you decide what your sweet spot was for over or under growing? How did you, was it an intuition? Did you have numbers to base it on? How did you go?Yeah, kind of felt to me, like by growing at around 25 to 30% a year was was a, a stretch that was manageable. But not exhaustive. And so, and what I liked about that, it wasn't lumpy. So every year people were used to beat in the distribution center and customer service, sales, marketing, whoever, like, they just knew that we were growing at a very steady, right.And I found that to be really helpful in terms of people getting used to, if we were jumped, like. 80% one year with the pandemic, which some companies would have. And then it's only 10% the next year. Overall over two years, you've increased by about 40% a year, 35% a year. But for us having that steady growth all the time, Pru proved that we could bring on [00:08:00] people that we could fulfill the orders that we were getting, that we can manage our cashflow, that we weren't spiraling out of control.That's how it felt for me. And I imagine if you had overreach, you would have been in danger of not getting the capital funding you needed to bail you out of the overreach. So it wasn't as simple as finding the sweet spot, really the business relied on it because you were profit net, nothing for how many years.That was extraordinary. Part of the story. Yeah, that was, that was intentional. So to me it was about pushing, putting back into the business, everything that we were accumulating. So having started the business off a $10 note back in. 2004. We we had another business at a time and when I say we I've been in business with my brother and my sister and my brother-in-law and we had another business, internet marketing.So we were doing consulting work and Booktopia was a little side project for me that got bigger and bigger. So it was about, it was just about getting old that And the beautiful thing for us, of course, it customers paid upfront. [00:09:00] So they, they transacted, they gave us their money. We then hustled as hard as we could.And then our suppliers, mostly in the book industry is, is that it's 30 days end of month. So in some instances we may have sold the book on the first, second, third, fourth of the month. We didn't have to pay that for, you know, almost 60 days later. So there was an aspect of using our customer's money. They were our investors, they, they handed over their money and we, we worked hard to hire more people hold more stock, write more software, buy more automation.Yeah. But there were times when we when we moved, when we change facilities, we invested in automation and our suppliers were, were stretched to we, we were late in paying them. We had to continue selling more books to then eventually pay them. And, and then we got to the next level and we finally were able to.Kind of get some clean air again. And once we'd done through that light not make money for that was until 2016 and that was incredible, but that was on par. [00:10:00] So it was on purpose. It was on purpose. And what happened was we tried to IPO in 2016 we had got to 80 million in revenue and we we went through the whole journey and it was basically like going down to Bondai beach and Sydney on a mid winter's day to try and sell ice greens with a southerly coming in from the Antarctic.And it was eight degrees because temple and Webster were trading at 15 cents. Then now at $10, a Kogan had flatline over the six months since they had listed SurfStitch was going off. The market red bubble had gone backwards. And so it was there. And then the, the week that we were trying to firm up the price and do our management roadshow, Amazon announced they were coming to Australia and the fund managers all said, well, they're going to annihilate you.So we're not interested. And, and we had to go away and do go from 80 million to 200 million in the meantime. And so Amazon didn't annihilate, but the one thing I took away from. From that particular process, was that okay. Growth has been great and, and putting all the money [00:11:00] back in has been terrific, but I think we now need to become a little bit more sustainable and, and focus on revenue and profit.And, and so we, we started to focus on profit and build that up as well. So that then type it out our growth. So we didn't put as much money back in, but we had we still had high double digit growth. We just didn't have as much, but we were then is no one gave us money. If we couldn't raise money ever, ever, ever, ever.Then we still had our own business too, and we were still funding it then. So they put us in a stronger position and that's why we, we shifted. And I shifted from being a revenue based business. And in the early days of the internet, people really didn't care about profit. They just wanted to know that you were growing.Yes. But it'd be, I, it was clear to me that especially talking to fund managers, they wanted to know that if they put the money in it, wasn't, it wasn't only going to be potentially capital growth, but it was also going to be dividends as well. In long-term yeah. When you're talking about sustainability, you talk about in terms of the needs to be the cashflow and the [00:12:00] profit.Isn't sustainability though. Also about stabilizing your supply chains and stabilizing distribution in Australia. Tell me about it. So you had to not invest as much money back in your business, as you had to stabilize a sustainable distribution network. How did you do both? How did you do all of that?Nope. The way that most people do that is they, they understand their supply chain model and where they can get their product from and how that works. And then they start to order and and build up a level of capacity that Takes into consideration the slowness of whoever whoever's supplying you.So in our case the, the algorithms that we write to, to order the stock that we needed for the. 150,000 titles that we had in stock was to make sure that yeah, we would buy them out and have zero for a little while, but then it was coming back in now algorithms, cause we've got the funding is to hold as much as we can.So we, our low tide is well above the zero [00:13:00] point. And so then you do that. What I'm doing now though, is which is more exciting for me having moved from online retailing about four or five years ago, we got into distribution. Now the publishers are appointing us as their Australian distributor. So we go to ourselves, but we also sell to Amazon and Dimmick's and QBD and all the little indie bookstores, whether they buy from us, buy from us.So we've actually, we've actually addressed that supply chain by saying, Hey. We can hold your books. We can actually sell more if you keep less. And of course for Booktopia we get better discounts because we are the distributor now. And so that's one of the areas. Okay. Thank you. And, and then also we are we're talking to printers, like for example there, there are printers, there's a legal publisher here in Australia.They print in Sydney, their warehouses in Canberra, which is three and a half hour drive away. So they drive all the stock and all the product down to Canberra, put it in the warehouse. Some PR obviously gets sold in Canberra, but it's mostly in Sydney and [00:14:00] Melbourne. So then it all comes back to Sydney, into Melbourne, right?What the hell? Like my company is making money out of that. And there's yeah, there's even at the last semester we were very big on academic books and one of the PhD students ordered a book from us, which John Wiley is the publisher. So we ordered it from Wiley. It's a. PhD books are not many are needed.So it was print on demand. It was printed in Singapore, which is the PID partner. They then ship it to Queensland. Where there John Wiley shed is their distribution center is they then freight it down to us and Sydney and we sent it to the customer. What the hell, how much it's all going to the freight companies?So my goal over the next 10 years is really to address that Leia historically in the book industry. Cause it's been going for 570 years and certainly for the last several decades, it's very siloed. So the printers did the printing and the publishers did the publishing. The distributors held the books, the authors write, then the literary agents represented them and so forth.It's very, very silent and I'm looking [00:15:00] at it addressing that without investment in logistics and publishing which we've also stabbed in the last couple of years. And and, and just kind of see if we can remove some of that and have that profitability. Sit with us, give more to the author.And, and hopefully make the price very compelling to the customer. What you're also doing is taking over proud of the market. That's never been addressed. You're doing something you're making a unique offering that hasn't been available to authors until now. Yeah. And one of the reasons for that is The lucky thing for me is I'm not really a reader.I actually do. I listen to audio books. I listened to a lot of audio books, but to sit down or because I have ADHD is that I I don't, I was never much of a Raider. So I came into the book industry as, as an outsider, looking at it from a very different perspectives. They had a very, like, this is the way it always was the way it always is.We're looking across the valley of, of publishing in the book, industry gain, look at our valley and I'm going well, [00:16:00] I'm in a helicopter looking from up here. Or I went over to the other side of the valley, or I sat down through the river through the middle of it and I got a different perspective. And so from my view, I just didn't see it the way that they saw it.And I just saw other opportunities within that. One of the things that you saw was a belief in a business model. I'm going to say it. Perhaps Amazon may have been on your mind in a couple of those meetings. How did you know to keep going? When this monolith had decimated the U S book market and the publishing industry around the world, how did you, I want to know your thinking.Cause it's more than a punch that you've done. This is well, in the beginning though, the thing was, is that Booktopia was started with no light bulb moment or insight, or there's a gap in the market. It was just a side project, $10 a day. We used another company to manage our site and fulfill our orders because they had done it for one of our internet marketing clients, Angus and Robertson.So they built the site for you as well, the first ever ordering. [00:17:00] Yeah, they, we got through our internet marketing consulting business. We got Angus and Robertson. One of Australia's oldest bookstores, their website to the top of Google as a project. And they use this company in Sydney to manage their site and fulfill their orders.And this company managed 80 bookstores websites. So my brother who had done that project set up a meeting and Christmas of 2003 pitched the idea of, of of us. Being introduced to their other clients and getting them all to the top of Google so they can make more money. And the owner of that company said not interested.I said, you're not interested in making more money. I said, seriously. And he goes, he goes, no, we build websites. We manage you. We've got this platform that we can, we can get a bookstore website up and running within 10 minutes, 10 minutes. There's a million books on there. And if you sell anything, we pay a commission.I said, well, that sounds interesting. Yeah. And he goes, yeah, I know, but no internet, only businesses have made anything out of it's all been off the back of a traditional bookstore. So I went away from that meeting. I [00:18:00] said to my brother, he said, what? Wouldn't mind giving that book thing a bit of a guy.Cause I could see there was very little cost from outside other than driving traffic and, and getting a commission. And, and so I kind of went away from that, came up with the name, Booktopia registered the business and sure enough, this company got the Booktopia website up and running within 10 minutes with a million books on there.And my brother handled the finances, said. You can stop Booktopia it's gotta be outside of hours. Cause we're doing all this consulting work. And I said, sure. Yeah. So you was selling your time for money as a consultant, not even. Visualizing the vision of what God's hope you could become. No, we had no idea my brother, right.My brother read the sales plan. You'll you'll sell one book for the first three months and then it'll go to two and then it'll go, right. This is awesome. This is awesome. And my brother finances gave me a budget of $10 per day to start. What did you spend the $10 on? I've been dying to ask you that question.Google ad words. I was a Google ads, Google ads, but I didn't [00:19:00] go for search terms like books or bookshop or, or or, you know, those kinds of generic terms. I went for authors and titles and sent them deep into the site because they had already used Google to do a search. So I sent them to where those books were and it took me three days to sell my first book.And that was the total sales for the day one book. At the end of the month, I had done $2,000, but by the fourth month, I was up to 30,000 a month by the end of the year, a hundred thousand dollars a month by the end of two years, $200,000 a month. So We kept publishing distribution back then they, so that, that company that managed our site amazing, they took care of it all for a commission.That's all right. Yeah. Well, they, we got a commission for generating a sale, so it was a white label system. They had 80 odd stores that they were managing and they, they did Angus and Robertson, Collins books bunch of other independent bookstores. And, you know, we were one of them and then we quickly became one of their largest and it was once we got to [00:20:00] around 2 million in revenue we could see that there was something going on here.And I went through the Australian booksellers association annual conference in 2006, and we were still doing the internet marketing. We were still using this other company. And I came back from that and I said to the family, these guys have no idea what's going on. We got to go out and do this ourselves.And because of my background before internet marketing I was, I. Sorry. I was a recruitment consultant for the competing industry. And before that I was a computer programmer and my brother-in-law was an IBM software engineer. And so we had the confidence to build our own site, which we did. And in 2007 beginning of 2007, three is after we had started Booktopia.We parted ways with the other company when it moved into a small warehouse in Sydney, 500 square meters, next door, a brothel. And not that we knew that when we moved in, we had found out later and then bought some shelves on eBay. Hi, hi to warehouse manager rang the publishers and we said, it's assets.Booktopia, we're [00:21:00] turning over 2 million a year. Never heard of you. Because all our orders have been going through this other company. So we've got basic terms, basic discounts, and we still did our consulting work. So it wasn't until two years later that we could finally say, all right, Booktopia is turning over.I think it was around 7 million. So we could stop doing the recruitment or the internet marketing. So we could focus on the, the Booktopia business. What were the publishers saying to discuss, to offer you such lousy terms? When you clearly, the volume you were moving was bigger than any one bookstore or brand in Australia, we were only doing 2 million, so there was nothing there.In fact, I remember getting a letter from PSM, the education publishers to say, as you're an online retailer and have no overheads, your discount will be 10%. Now at that stage, I think we had about 10 people working in the business. I looked around at our warehouse and our shows and our people. What do you mean no overheads?I just think that it's some sort of smoke happens by magic. And so [00:22:00] it took quite a while. It took I would say another five or six years for them to really get their head around what was going on. And they started to shift because it was a very archaic industry where you know, where they they controlled everything.And, and so w once we got to 30 or 40 million in revenue, we were starting to you might've negotiated a little differently, probably. Yeah. I just got some discounts, improved terms improved once we, of course, you know, paid our bills and, and, and put more volume. Yeah. What was it like signing that first contract on the first warehouse, still working in your other job that wasn't too scary?It was $1,500 a month. Yeah, I think so. It was not much more than what we're paying for an office in, in north Sydney. But it was. We didn't hold any stock in the beginning. So we literally took orders from customers. And we would order it from the supplier would come in, you know, a few weeks later, five weeks later, eight weeks later, and people were [00:23:00] bitching and complaining saying, you don't like you guys suck.I should have bought from Amazon. And it was about a year after we had gone out on our own. So almost four years of being in the business, there's one book had been selling really well at because the author had been on Oprah and it was the wife of Jerry Seinfeld, Jessica Seinfeld and, and America had sold out of its 300,000 copies and HarperCollins in Australia had 200 copies left.So I said to my brother and brother-in-law, we shouldn't buy all of them then no one left, but except us. So we did, and it arrived into our warehouse. And imagine what keen to a bookshop where there's only like one book on the shelf or that yeah, that's how a bookshop looked at that time. So, so when this order, when an audit would come through the site, we just pick it, pack it and ship it.And the feedback from everyone was, wow. What great service you guys are really quick. And I, I said to the others, you know, to kill a Mockingbird is sold every single month for 50 years. Why, why are we ordering it in? And what else is there? How to win friends and influence people, power positive thinking, thinking very rich Harry Potter, Dr.Zeus. So a little warehouse that was supposed to be more of a cross-docking kind of thing [00:24:00] really started to fill up. And then after a couple of years, by 2009, we had to move out of there to, to 2000 square meters. And we thought, well, this will last us five years, the five years that ran out of space after two years.And then we take another 2000 square meters. And at this stage it's all manual handling of every book. Yeah. Yeah. Except we had, we bought one packing machine that in the middle and someone would have the one in, just put it through and we'll come out with a package wrapped around. And it was in 2014, seven, seven years ago when we moved to 10,000 square meters.And that was a pretty big league. We were turning over 40 million. And we moved here. And that was where we invested initially 5 million in automation and then, which was conveyed as in more packing things. And then, and then over the next few years we invested another 5 million in, in automation to improve our capabilities.And then that got us to around 150 million in revenue by the beginning of 20 [00:25:00] 2020. And that's when we did our first raise, how, how did you come to the decision to do the crowdfunding? Can you talk a little bit about that? I think our listeners would be really interesting interest in how Boulder moved.That was to even consider it. Was it over a glass of red that you came to that decision when you're on MBMA how did you crowd go to crowdfund? Talk about that. So what happened was when the IPI didn't happen and we had when you do an IPO, there was there's a lot of costs involved and we accumulated those costs and then we never raised the money to pay our first costs.What I recommend to the listeners, if they are looking at it is definitely. Accumulate the money for the capital raise rather than trying use it out of the proceeds of your business, because that really stretched us. We had a couple of million dollars in costs that needed to be paid down and that put pressure on our suppliers, which meant that we were putting, being put on stock because we couldn't pay them.We had to sell so more and it was a very tricky period to navigate and our way through to get that's not how you want to do an IPO. Yes. Well we [00:26:00] didn't have much 80 million in turnover, so we didn't have many other options, but yeah, that was our learning, our lessons and learnings on that period. So then once that didn't happen, we didn't look at a trade sale.So we, we engaged a company from Seattle to go around the world and talk to companies who might be interested in buying us because we were on track to under a million in revenue. We got no interest there, so then, okay. That's that was done. And then we the business was continuing to grow and I felt well, you know, one of the reasons why we wanted to IPO in the first place is that our customers are our hugest fans.They've been our investors all the way through buying books from us. And that's why we wanted to list. So I knew some guys who did had the crowdfunding platform and I reached out to them and I said, look, how about we do raise some capital through you guys. And so we we had some conversations and we said, we already had a prospectus that could be used reused to go to market with.And, and so we, we did that and we were going to be able to raise a few million dollars out of that. [00:27:00] And the reason why we didn't was because we also did a road show with a guy who has a company called wholesale investor. And we went to Sydney, Brisbane, and Singapore presenting ourselves to to invest at the investor community.So this was alongside the crowd funding and through those. Those events I did end up at the top of the Sheraton at 11:30 PM, edging my way to the back of the room. Cause it was so noisy standing next to this guy who we get into a conversation and he came out to Booktopia gave him a tour, told him where we were at and he goes, I think I know a guy who might be able to help you out raise some capital.Yeah. And then this guy, mark Peyton from ifs G capital came out. We really liked each other. He came into the business three to four days a week working inside. And that's the one thing I feel at that time, it felt like the problem or the reason why we weren't getting any any results in terms of raising capital is we didn't come from the capital markets and other companies who had been [00:28:00] succeeding, had someone there.Either an investor or a CEO or something who had come from the capital markets and can talk the talk of the, of that part of the world. And so, so he came on and there was things that were missing in terms of some of the modeling that we had within our books. That's helpful, more profits. So we've made some changes to some of the things that we've been doing in terms of postage and so forth, and made sure that we upped our profits slightly.And then within six months we had completed an $8 million raise. And then we also added to that $12 million of some senior debt that we had had for, we ended up having for about 11 months until the IPO, and that enabled us to, to invest in the automation that we needed to get to the next level. So that was, that was how come the crowdfunding came into play.I still won. 10 11. I wanted to have our customers own a piece of booklet. Exactly. I love that. It's a really inspiring message. How was it received by your customers? [00:29:00] W well pissed off in the end because we, we closed it off and and, and went through the traditional because we were going to raise a lot more money, which is what the business actually needed rather than, you know, three to 5 million.But they, they loved it. And those that were going to invest More than most people that were investing 5,000 and more we're invited to be on the priority offer for the IPO. Yeah. And that, that would have been great. The head away to have P feel part of the story that was unfolding. I'm interested that when you went looking around the world, there were no potential buyers.Was that because you feel you were under in terms of what those potential investors may have been looking for, what weren't they seeing that this is a stable, sustainable replicable completely. It can only scale up because all you're doing is supplying to customers, not consulting clients. So the scalability is obvious.What was the gap? That's a tricky one to [00:30:00] answer. Cause there's two types. There's obviously private equity firms who have got a specific mandate and they'll, they'll be looking at businesses in a very. Two dimensional way going, okay, where are they geographically, geographically? Are they based? What's what vertical or sector are they in?And a variety of other things and being Australian and growth, they care about growth trajectories, tremendously. They're going to show how they can make the money in five years. Yeah. The Australia was not part of their geographical mandate or, you know, what, what they were looking for for those that were in publishing.Because we're e-commerce and because of the value that we, and Amazon and others at LaSeon and so many other businesses that are out there based on it's a very different valuation than a publisher or a traditional business is based on. So they, they struggled to get their head around the multiples.So the multiples are higher. Yeah. Yeah, because not according to them though, no [00:31:00] traditional businesses there was there was little appetite there, so it just, I mean, interestingly for me after the IPO didn't happen because many reasons, but one was because Amazon was announced that we're coming to Australia.So I reached out to the Amazon through that process. And personally, directly, I reached out to the Amazon M and a team and I said, are, you know, here we are, we're turning over a hundred million a you interested in. I said we only buy businesses that we don't care what revenue you're doing. We don't care how much profit you make.They just have to be aligned to our three to five year goals. And I said, well, where Australia's biggest online book retailer, you guys sell books with turning over a hundred million and we're on track to get a 200 million. And you're saying that we're not aligned to your three to five year goals. I said, To myself, not to them.Thank you for that insight information. I will take that away and on. That was really helpful because we were seeing that Amazon was moving away from books and have been doing that globally. And [00:32:00] even though they're still the biggest book retailer, the publishers and the evidence was there, that they actually were moving more into a tech company rather than a supply chain and logistics fulfillment business.That was a very inspirational conversation to have had. So that's led you to decide then and there to do IPO again, or what was your thinking that time just to, were you always going to keep it in the family? What led you to decide to IPO again? Was that a turning point moment or what was the turning point for you?For us, it was always about how do we get money off the table? So we build a business and my brother is always, he's two years younger than me. I'm the CEO and have been he was, once we got past 50 million, it was big enough. He was happy to still leave it at 50 million revenue, pay a dividend lovely business.Thank you very much, but that's not what our, it, he may say. That's not what I wanted, but it's actually not what our customers were wanting from us. And to be fair. And yeah. And when you say that, can you just slow down? So I assume you mean by that you had to [00:33:00] provide a bigger range and faster. Is that what you mean by what our customers wanted?No, it's just that more people were transitioning online and therefore more people were coming to us. What do you do say we don't want you to buy from us. We, you need to stay at 50 million. No, they, they continued to To want to transact with us. And that's what was fundamentally, we kept doing what we were doing.More people were moving online. We were, and we did it well. So, so Simon, my brother, he, he was ready to retire, which he did just before the IPO. But part of that whole that whole journey, that goal was to how do we get money off the table? How do we convert the value of the business? So the family can know, can be set for, you know, how many generations who knows.We knew that we had done the hard work. There were many ways to, would have been happy to sell it to someone if the price was right. But that, that wasn't the way it worked out. So when we did the capital raise at the beginning of 2020, which is quite funny because I'm assuming one who is the founder and chairman of champ [00:34:00] benches and He was it wasn't through champ.It wasn't through private equity is to resign personal investment and a consortium of people who came in with him to make the $8 million investment. Six weeks later, the pandemic hit. And I remember meeting out with him and looking at his very grave and grey face going, what have I just done? I've just put what was money into a company.And we're being hit with a global restructure and, and it turned out to be one of the best investments that he's been the best investment. He made that. If you're online and you must've known it at the time, I'm going to throw that credit to you. Everyone has to go home. They have to have things to do.Now. That's not in the moment. In those days. When I, when I reflect on it, there was no guarantees who knew with the postal service stay open with, would we be able to deliver, how, how devastating was it? How, how did it, was it transmittable by, by a book? All these things, [00:35:00] there was still a lot of dust had to settle.Got it. So but things very quickly, we worked out that we were on the right track and sales kicked in excuse me. So, so what happened was we we were never planning to IPO. In that year we were going to wait a whole year because the investment that we had that they had made in us was to, to, for us to.Increase our capacity by adding more automation. We want it to go from our capacity of 30,000 books in and out per day to 60,000 out per day and an hour. That, that was a project that we'd been working on for some time and why we did the raise and that wasn't going to go live until the end of the year.So pandemic hit and we didn't have that in place. So we wanted to we wanted to get that deployed, get it optimized, and then be able to say to the market look how much profitability we have now. Look at the scale, look at everything else and, and have, have the runs on the board, but everything was very [00:36:00] uncertain and.E-commerce had moved from the wings to send a stage theater had been darkened and the spotlight was on e-commerce and we decided in August let's do it. And basically we did an 11 week IPO. Yeah, it was bloody quick. And that helped actually it helped so well because we could nothing was as long as a piece of string, everything goes, no, no, don't worry about that.We'll just, you know, just do this, do this. And so we stripped a lot of a way decisions were made quicker. And we, we were fortunate to a degree because we tried to IPO four years before and we still have that Pathfinder, which is the pre prospectus document we have We had, we had appointed out chairman four years before and we, he and I liked each other and he stayed on for those four years as our unlisted chair of Booktopia.So he'd been to our monthly board meetings. He had heard us discuss everything. I'm assuming Wong had joined us as a board member [00:37:00] already at the beginning of the year and had met with me already. Well, before that, as we discuss the plans for the business and he was on as a director. So, so there was already quite a bit of.Knowledge about our business quite often, when you try to IPO, which is what happened last time, you're appointing your, your non-executive directors. They're going into the due diligence process and the DDC meetings which is due to the due diligence committee meetings with the lawyers and with the accountants and so forth, doing all of the due diligence to then get their head around what your business is.They have a cultural match or a philosophical match about how to, how to do it. Exactly. So you had, so your feeling is, and your perception is it was successful this time around partly because you had the right people around you who already up to speed with how you were doing it. No, because it was like going down the Bondai beach on a mid day.So ice creams, right. We were oversubscribed four or five times. The value survey on the valuation of the business is [00:38:00] 300 in 15 million. And when we started probably four or five months before, it was probably more like 200 million. So e-commerce was e-commerce was really hot and we had the product and to be fair, even though a businesses value today at around 350 360 million, we're very similar in size to temple and Webster who have got a market cap of 1 billion.We've got a, we're much bigger than Adobe beauty and their market cap is in the mid 400. So we, we knew we had a very, very good business. And, and so what we've been able to do is get some money off the table. Like we had planned the school that the family still owns at this stage, I think over 40%, 45% of the companies, which is, which is Terrific.And we were able to sell down and, and and bought some and great institutional funds onto the register and very passionate about a business we're in for the long term and also the retail customers as well, who are now. So we, we did accomplish, it was very helpful to have the pandemic [00:39:00] accelerate.E-commerce exactly. What was the biggest challenge you've faced in your first 10 years when you had made a conscious decision not to make profit? It was 12 years. What was the mental challenge? Not the physical challenge of making sure you had enough money and money, but what was the biggest challenge you faced for you?I never feel like I haven't like them. The question I get asked often as, you know, what keeps you up at night? Nothing. I hit the bed, I got to sleep. So I'm I don't feel like that. It's this, you make it sound like it's it's you know, it was a big burden or that it was heavy or that it was like, oh my God, I, you know, I don't know how I'm going to do this, but we did it.It's it's never been like that. I don't think that way, I think, okay, this is what you've thrown at me out of left field. Never expected it. Okay. How are we going to deal with this? Because we will, and, and that's, that's one of the attributes that I have, I think, [00:40:00] I think so, which is quite helpful. I think maybe the things that I don't, and this is the way that I explain it when I do my keynotes to entrepreneurs and, and hopefully anyone can get this you know, through this, just through talking about it, is that Yeah, I've got a, I've got a good friend of mine.She's she's in credible talent, but she rides the highs. Like she, she has a great month or like win an award and like, she's just not there. Right. And then something doesn't work out and it's just like, blah, she's just bitching, incompliance. Right. And then she's up again. And she said, you know, I get exhausted just watching her go along this journey of like a roller coaster.Like we, we list on the, on the ASX. So we win the Telstra business award of the year or whatever. It's like, I, yeah. That's how I celebrate very little, you know, a fist pump and we're on track. And then when something doesn't work out, so the distance that I travel, right. Modulator is very flat. It's very modulator.[00:41:00] Very rolling. Rolling Hills. Yeah. And so I'm not, I'm a peaks in the valleys. And I think for me that, that. Solid being solid and, and not being. And actually she and I caught up only the last couple of weeks because I told her exactly what I what I tell people in, in I gave her that and she goes, you know, I've, I listened to that and I I've stopped myself sometimes and going, I don't need to get that pissed off or agitated or aggravated.And she, even, she, she heard me, she listened. So that was but I that's the way that I do it. And I think anyone that is in business, particularly as a business owner you get stuff thrown at you out of left field that you do not expect. The government will contact you. The regulations will change.The ASX will have a view. Yeah. In our, in our warehouse, the first time we moved in here, we moved in mid winter. It was called, of course it's a warehouse, but then it hit summer and it was 42 degrees in the warehouse. And then everyone struggled and it got to winter and everyone was fine. And then it was coming around to summer and they [00:42:00] were going to complain to fair work and it was okay, what do we have to do?Well, we're going to have to strengthen the stress into the ceiling and we've got to put these big jet engines. Two of them that are going to cost $600,000 and that'll keep it at 28 degrees and get all the hot air out. Okay. That's what we've got to do. You didn't expect it was an extra cost, but that's what you do.And you, you, you just keep pushing through that. That's that's that's what it is to be in business. You've got to say, bring it on. You also gotta be pragmatic. So the biggest challenge I faced, so you didn't really face my, my biggest challenge when I built my business in the first 10 years was my inability to trust others.As much as I trusted myself, I could do everything better all the time. And that was my biggest thing to get over. It's just that I know best. So therefore I should do best or interfere and just learning how, when to let go when it's not abdication, but delegation, which taught me systems. That was my biggest challenge.And is the only way we go. We're nothing like you. We do [00:43:00] over eight, we do eight figures, but to get to my first eight fears, I had to overcome my own BS about what others could do around me and how to build a team and what culture means. Yeah. That's interesting. So I do talk about that in my keynotes about Shlomo.So he, he also had an online bookstore and Booktopia, and his company started a similar time and we were turning over about, I don't know, five, $7 million. And I keep in touch and I called him. I said, man, how you going? And he goes, all tidy, terrible. I said, what's the matter? And he goes, well, I've had 18 angina or texts in the last three months.Wow. You're kidding mate. What's why. And he goes, well, you know, my wife and I were working 18 hours a day, six days a week. And and I said, how many people have you got working there? Cause he was turning over 2 million and we had, I don't know, maybe 12, 14 people. And he goes, oh, and there's my wife and I, and two casuals.You're joking. He goes, why don't you hire more people? [00:44:00] He goes, well, they just never do it as good as us. I said exactly, but at least they're doing part of it and they're taking it away. So if it's at 80 or 90% or 70%, but that's more because I'd come from a recruitment background. And I 14 years in recruitment, I understood hiring people.I understood what it took to bring people on board and let people go and so forth. So it was, it's been very much part of me as bringing people on and empowering them to, to give them the opportunity to grow with the business. So that was not one of the things that that I had to, that I, I had to NGO or challenge like you, you had to do.But I will share one thing with you, which I think has been really valuable to me when I was a recruitment consultant. I had contractors it contractors working for me and. I had 15 of them. And I went and did this course with Robert Kiyosaki, the guy that wrote rich dad, poor dad, about seven years before you wrote that book in the course called money in you, I did that.Or you did that. Okay, [00:45:00] great. You know what I'm talking about? 1992. And, and what happened was it was actually, I went in there because it said money, but in the end it was more about you. You probably have the same experience. And so, so I came back from that course, having had some great insights about myself, because the problem I had with my recruiting was that I got to 15 and then.I would drop back down to 11 contracts and then I came back up to 15 and then I dropped back down to 10 to eight and it just, I was stuck at this invisible ceiling. And then I had some breakthrough realizations about myself that I realized how I was self sabotaging or my thinking was not this certain.Right. And I went from 15 to 30 contractors in three months. Yeah. And then I got stuck there and I'd got back down to 24, 25 that got to 30 and then down to 20. So then I went back and did another one of these courses called creating wealth. And I had another breakthrough and I got to 45 contractors and I'd get back then.[00:46:00] And I was stuck at 45 and then I did business school for entrepreneurs in Hawaii in 93. And then I had more breakthroughs. And then I ended up with about 110 contractors working for me. Now, the reason why I share that story with you in particular for entrepreneurs, because I talk about, and I make up, I make up the scenario.And if you can hear me out, imagine if you owned them as Alrighty. I actually. Was presenting to a group of jewelers. My friend is in the jewelry business and I S I said that, you know, imagine you're in a Maserati and they all looked around the room. Yeah,well, that was quite a, that was not the normal reaction, but imagine you're in a Maserati and Maserati being an Italian sports car, quite often, it needs to end up in the workshop. And, and this particular day, there it is. You've got to drop it off and a mechanic needs to work on it. He gives you the loan and the loan is a 15 year old to Dorothy it.And you've got this very important meeting that you need to get to. And it's [00:47:00] in double bay or it's in Toorak if you're in Melbourne. All right. And you've got to get to this meeting and, and you, you get there and when you arrive there, It's a little restaurant cafe that you're meeting this new, big client that you're going to pitch to.And, and you think, well, I'll just pack in the back straight and I'll walk around and there's no parking spots and the light is light. And if you do not get there on time, right? It's a reflection on the opportunities, but there's only one spot available in front of the cafe restaurant. So you pack 15 year old two-door theater in front of the restaurant and you get out and you look at the client and they're looking at you and you're looking at the car and they're looking at the car and you're going, I mess it, rati.This is not, this is not my car. It's not, this is not who I am. Right. You got to get out of that car as you is not. About the car, right? You are not your car. You are not your wife. You are not your husband or boyfriend or girlfriend. You are not your kids. You're not your kids' academic results or their [00:48:00] sporting results.You are not your footie team. Even though one of my best mates thinks he's the Richmond tigers. He is not the Richmond tight, the Richmond tigers. And, and with Booktopia. Right. I am not. Booktopia. OPR is listed it's Booktopia that was listed when it wins the Telstra business awards. It's Booktopia. And I remember when I started it and I was walking through the apartment and pass the room where I was doing my work in, and I stopped all of a sudden in front of the door because I felt this boom, boom, boom.I felt the baby. Like I could feel the hopper business. I remember when it crowed. I remember when it took it to the steps. I remember when we went to daycare for the first day, I remember when it went to primary school and high school and went to university and went out on its own. And because I see it as a separate organism and I'm thinking all the time, what does it need?What does it need right now? Who does it need to have in its team? What funding does it need? What nourishment does it need? What [00:49:00] space does it need? Right. I am not. I have not overlaid my own ego and my own belief systems about myself onto my company, which is for me. I honestly, I can honestly say to your listeners that one of the reasons why Booktopia has had for from 2008 to 2000, 20, 30% plus company, and you guys, right.And its revenue is because of that is because I have not identified myself as the business. It's its own organism, it's its own thing. And I I'm sure that that's how Jeff Bezos and others think about their business. It's unencumbered is enabled to, to flourish, overturn a core because if it, if it was me and I had to overlay my own ego on it maybe we'd be at 60 or 70 million because that's all I could.You know, imagine of myself, it's been a very interesting aspect to the growth and the success of the business. Have you made mistakes with hiring with someone has brought their ego or their own [00:50:00] insecurity into it and tried to move it in a different direction or a bad direction or a self-serving direction?Not that because I'm, maybe I'm waiting. Maybe I'm just way too dominant in terms of my vision. I do empower people to get on with it. They, if they know what they need to do, and I'm not saying I'm, I'm not micromanaging. I think people who've worked here will attest to that. So this is what we need to do.Go away and make it manifest it, make it happen. So they have a lot of scope there, but I, I don't feel like I've been. Now that we have a board there's that aspect in terms of being listed, of course, non-executive, they can have their inputs, but I think one of the reasons that's the beauty of the Booktopia business versus say an adore beauty is that you know adore beauty, Kate has stepped back new CEO.She's very talented actually to kneel. But it's a, it was an IPO led it was a private equity led IPO. They already own quadrant owned 60% of the business. That's not the situation here, so people are investing in [00:51:00] Booktopia and see Booktopia because of the vision that I am the executive have not necessarily that it's transitioned more towards, towards you know, a, an investor led business.So You know, Jeff Bezos owns 10% of Amazon. That means 90% is owned by everyone else. It's still quite a large number, 180 billion us in, in personal wealth. But it's yeah, it's, it's I think that's one of the things, so I don't, I didn't experience that. And I, I understand the question that you asked, but I've never felt like I've been.Railroad I've certainly made mistakes. I've certainly learnt from certain things where I've been able to pivot and change and, and go, yeah. Okay. That didn't work. So let's, let's move on and let's do this. I'm sure you get a lot of questions about your mistakes. I'm generally pretty interested to know what are you most pleased about in terms of strategic thinking?People will say you only learn from your mistakes. You don't learn from your successes. That is not true. I've learned stacks from when I'd make a good strategic decision, and I'm going to keep doing [00:52:00] that. Where did your strategy really serve for you to get to where you are now? As you look back in hindsight, you can think, ah, I see now why that really contributed.It's asking that one question over and over. What do our customers through through asking that and exploring that and be curious, curious around it, holding stock, investing in automation all the things that we've done to, to. Complish that has, has led us to here. So I think that that has been one of the the most insightful and valuable things that we were able to hold onto as a, as a, a guide along the journey people ask me, is they all the time, the same thing, actually oddly enough I give them the tour of the facility.So they see all the automation and the robots and the automatic packing machines, conveyors, you know, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of books everywhere. It's like, they go crazy. And as we were walking back towards the office, they say, oh, you must be so proud how proud you must be. And I say, [00:53:00] I say to me, I said to them, this is pride to me.Imagine yourself in a pitch black room where you can't even see the hand in front of your face, that you. You know, when you take a step forward that you're on track or off track, simply by the way that your foot strikes the ground. Nah, that doesn't feel right. That that's where I'm going to be. That is pride to me.So it's very, very internal. It's very internal. It's a very, yeah. Internal sense of knowing they say that in the money in you, I remember that flip chat that height was on track only 3% of the time and 97% on you know, correcting and re and reconnecting back to be on track. So it's a bit like that.So yeah, I'm the successes to me in terms of some of the things that have come that have come through is, is like, is that knowing that you're on track? Knowing that that, and that, that you're not, you're not there yet. Like one of the thing with the IPO people asking me, oh, you must be, you must feel fantastic.It must be [00:54:00] great to list. And like I could tell by the way they were asking, it's like, this is kind of feels like you finally made it. And I said at the ASX, in my, in a speech to the people that were there, I said, I said, here it is. This is the way it feels to me. It's like being on the tour, de France you're on the 10th stage.And the IPO is the 40 kilometer go banner, where you've got still 40 Ks to get to the top of the mountain to finish the stage. And after that, you got an another 11 more stages before you get to the sharps Elisa. When you get to drink champagne with your mates, go 20 kilometers an hour and, and make it to the finish line.I said I said, this is just assigned to say, you're on track and you want that in your revision mirror really quick, because it's focused on whatever you got to do next. And that that's how that the IPO and many of the other things that we've accomplished as well, Telstra business awards, so forth, I'm sensing from you.And I'm sure it's coming through to our viewers. You ha you've become more of you through this process. And not [00:55:00] less of you. I see a lot of business owners have success. I would call a successful or a business that's in the public eye and they seem to magnify aspects of themselves that perhaps they wouldn't be pleased with.As they look back, I have a sense that you're pleased with. As you look back of you becoming more review in the aspects of you that you like about yourself. It's I would, I would put more of that down to marriage. Nice. Yeah. You know, my wife and I have been together for almost 10 years. My son is 18, so yeah.I never got married, but I I'm a father and and my ex works in the business. My wife was married before, I've got a 15 year old stepdaughter and, and I, I would say that re you've got a lot of hope and you've got a lot of you know, imagination about why you want to marry that person and be in that relationship.But I can assure you it is at times you do not feel like you're going to be married the next day. And that [00:56:00] divorce lawyers are going to be, I going to be cold in, but you talk it through and you love each other and you keep discovering, you know, how you're, how you're connected and you know, what's not working for you and why what's going on for you.And it's it's businesses. Life is like that. It's, it's a, it's a, an emotional. Marriage of, of, of achiever accomplishing something together and, and that it's easy to bail out and go, you know, I'm pulling the rip cord and I'll see you back down on the ground. You know, I'm out of this one, it's going to crash and burn or you're in it for the longterm.So, so I have no there's no guarantees that cath Catherine and I are going to be together. We just are in it every day. And Y that's how businesses is as well. It's like, you've got, you've got, you're dealing with issues and you're being, you're being asked to step up and learn and challenge yourself.And, [00:57:00] and and that that's, you know, that you're either, you're either invested in your own personal yeah, that's what I'm sensing in. You, you either are invest in becoming the best of you and you bring that and business requires that. So does marriage. You've got to want to bring your best to it for the best of it to flourish, or it's not going to be the best.It's going to be some facsimile that just can't sustain. That's right. Add on top of that parenting, would you even take you at a whole nother level? But I think, I think for me that even one of my best mates product from when I went to high school, he goes, Tony, I know you from, I know you from high school Chatswood high school, just a typical, you know, public school.And he goes, how the hell did you end up here? Like what? I know that kid. Right. It's impossible to think that you're the guy, but it's just that personal mission that voyage of discovery to find out more and ask those questions and to go deeper and [00:58:00] understand yourself and unpack. I liked, I liked to do personal development workshops.I did many of them just with Robert. I did tons of different ones to me now being in businesses like a personal development workshop, being in a marriage and being a parent is like a personal development workshop to act like it's not it's to let down the other team, you'll let down your business. You let down your wife or your husband, you let down your kids.If you don't see this moment as an opportunity for ourselves to grow, cause then we put it on them and it's up to them to change it's up to them to do bad, or it's up to them to stop it rather than saying, what can I own in this? That's what I got from my personal development. How much of this can I look within rather than.I can easily point don't get me wrong, but how much can I look within myself? If there was an entrepreneur starting out today, what would you be talking with them or mentoring that mentoring them about other than the basics and getting the fundamentals in play? Most of the time when I meet entrepreneurs what's missing [00:59:00] is that the point of cash?Where is someone going to hand over the money to that's something. And I'll share with you a story. When I was at business school with Robert Kiyosaki in 1993, I The course of 16 days, it was incredible. You at 7:00 AM and you're running team, you finished at 2:00 AM and your marketing teams. He flew people in a crisis, many different subjects all through the, through the 16 days.I learned so much and it was three years before I started my own company. But during, on one of the days as a, just as a process, as a, as a challenge at the break, he sent us out and said, what I want you to do is I want you to go out there. And we were in Hawaii on the big island of Hawaii, and I want you to go out there and sell.And if you got a dollar bill in your pocket, just take it out. That was 150 in the course, just go around and sell it. And if you, for the point of integrity of the process, if you could be the, the one being sold to, if you feel like you want that, then you got to hand over your dollar. And I went out and I was in recruitment.So I went out hard and strong. Like we've got the [01:00:00] best business, we've got the biggest, we advertise more in marketing than anyone else, Ellison in the newspapers. And we, we attract more candidates and so on and so forth. And I was just saying all these. You know, it was really intense. And I came, I came back in after that, I had not made one back test as a really hopeless, you know, I'm the best salesman in my company that that really sucks.And so I walked back into the room and the course goes on the next break. He does the same thing. I changed my tactic and I, I'm more loving, you know, I listened, we listened to our candidates. We, we understand what they need. We talk to our clients really looking for what they want. And we, we do, it's like a matchmaking service and people were much kinder in the feedback this time around tenure.I really love what you're saying, but no, I don't think so. I went back into the room and go that price that's really sucks. I hate that prices I'm in the best salesman in my company. And so of course goes on. Then we take the next break [01:01:00] and I do something completely different. I sit in the corner with my arms folded and my legs crossed and I said, well, you can go and get stuffed.Right. That didn't work either. Can't believe it. Yeah. While I was sitting there and got into myself, you know what? I just, this is not right. What am I not thinking? What am I doing here? That's this is, I've got, something's got to change. And while I'm sitting there, I realized, oh my God, two years ago, I remember I did that.That remedial massage course, I can go out and offer a massage. So the next break, I offered three minute massages for a dollar. I made four backs. And seriously, when you ask that question, in terms of entrepreneurs, it's about really understanding where the Kashi is. So when, when we had our before our internet marketing business, we had a chat software company and the.com crash.And we were not, no one was interested in putting chat software in the website. We couldn't pay ourselves a salary. My son had just been born. My [01:02:00] brother and brother-in-law his families. They, I mean, they did, they couldn't earn any money. My parents were giving us a bit of money to make it through. And I was speaking to a web designer asking them.How do you, how do you get to the top of Google? Like if we were at the top of Google for the software that we had, which was chat software for the internet, how do you get to the top of Google as someone does a search? Cause they'd been goin

In this episode of Add To Cart, we checkout Justin Hillberg, Managing Director of Surfstitch. From being the innovative leaders and market darlings of the ASX, to going through voluntary administration and now back to profitability, Justin has led his team at Surfstitch through it all.Links from the episode:AppleNikeThe Jason and Scott ShowImpact (sponsored) Wipeout Survivors: The SurfStitch Story | #060Questions answered in the podcast:What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever bought online? Who is your favourite retailer? Which retail fad do you wish was history?Can you recommend a book or podcast that our listeners should immediately get into? Finish this sentence. The future of retail is… This episode was brought to you by… ImpactI get it. Marketing is becoming harder. New privacy features are making it tougher to target individual customers, the cost of paid social is skyrocketing and it feels like you need an editorial team to create enough content to break through the clutter. That’s where Impact’s partnership automation technology can help you connect with other brands, affiliates, influencers and content creators on a performance basis to help you grow revenue, delight customers and reach new audiences. Visit impact.com/growth to learn more or jump back to episode #81 to hear how Booktopia is driving 219% growth through the power of partnerships.About your co-host: Justin Hillberg from SurfstitchStarting his career on the retail shop floor has paved the foundation for Justin’s customer centric approach to strategy development and leadership. Justin is passionate about delivering influential leadership and driving positive cultural change through collaborative strategy development. Over the past seven years, he has been leading the fast paced, high energy online business that is SurfStitch and has achieved a number of milestones resulting in a significant turnaround to profitability under challenging conditions including navigation of VA and the sale of the business in 2018.As a people leader, he is honest, approachable, engaging and trustworthy and has found that he is able to unite teams around common goals and motivate individuals to produce their best, even in times of adversity. Through fostering effective teamwork, Justin is known for delivering results. He encourages open communication, interdepartmental collaboration and continuous improvement across all levels of the organisation.You can contact Justin at LinkedInAbout your host: Nathan Bush from 12HIGHNathan Bush is the founder and lead strategist at eCommerce consultancy, 12HIGH. He has led eCommerce for businesses with revenue $100m+ and has been recognised as one of Australia’s Top 50 People in eCommerce four years in a row. You can contact Nathan on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email.Please contact us if you: Want to come on board as an Add To Cart sponsor Are interested in joining Add To Cart as a co-host Have any feedback or suggestions on how to make Add To Cart betterEmail hello@addtocart.com.au We look forward to hearing from you! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode of Add To Cart, we checkout Justin Hillberg, Managing Director of Surfstitch. From being the innovative leaders and market darlings of the ASX, to going through voluntary administration and now back to profitability, Justin has led his team at Surfstitch through it all.Links from the episode:AppleNikeThe Jason and Scott ShowImpact (sponsored) Wipeout Survivors: The SurfStitch Story | #060Questions answered in the podcast:What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever bought online? Who is your favourite retailer? Which retail fad do you wish was history?Can you recommend a book or podcast that our listeners should immediately get into? Finish this sentence. The future of retail is… This episode was brought to you by… ImpactI get it. Marketing is becoming harder. New privacy features are making it tougher to target individual customers, the cost of paid social is skyrocketing and it feels like you need an editorial team to create enough content to break through the clutter. That’s where Impact’s partnership automation technology can help you connect with other brands, affiliates, influencers and content creators on a performance basis to help you grow revenue, delight customers and reach new audiences. Visit impact.com/growth to learn more or jump back to episode #81 to hear how Booktopia is driving 219% growth through the power of partnerships.About your co-host: Justin Hillberg from SurfstitchStarting his career on the retail shop floor has paved the foundation for Justin’s customer centric approach to strategy development and leadership. Justin is passionate about delivering influential leadership and driving positive cultural change through collaborative strategy development. Over the past seven years, he has been leading the fast paced, high energy online business that is SurfStitch and has achieved a number of milestones resulting in a significant turnaround to profitability under challenging conditions including navigation of VA and the sale of the business in 2018.As a people leader, he is honest, approachable, engaging and trustworthy and has found that he is able to unite teams around common goals and motivate individuals to produce their best, even in times of adversity. Through fostering effective teamwork, Justin is known for delivering results. He encourages open communication, interdepartmental collaboration and continuous improvement across all levels of the organisation.You can contact Justin at LinkedInAbout your host: Nathan Bush from 12HIGHNathan Bush is the founder and lead strategist at eCommerce consultancy, 12HIGH. He has led eCommerce for businesses with revenue $100m+ and has been recognised as one of Australia’s Top 50 People in eCommerce four years in a row. You can contact Nathan on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email.Please contact us if you: Want to come on board as an Add To Cart sponsor Are interested in joining Add To Cart as a co-host Have any feedback or suggestions on how to make Add To Cart betterEmail hello@addtocart.com.au We look forward to hearing from you! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode of Add To Cart, we are joined by Jason Wyatt, the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Marketplacer which, in his words, allows you to “sell shit that you don’t own”. Put another way, Marketplacer allows retailers to create marketplaces to dramatically expand the product range and serve every need of your customer. The platform currently powers 100 marketplaces in 10 countries across the world and connects about 25,000 businesses. In Australia, they are used by leading retailers including Woolowrths, Surfstitch., Myer and Petstock and have recently got investment from Woolworths and Salesforce. They are currently focused on their US expansion as they aim to take over the retail world! But this isn’t his first parade!Jason also started Bike Exchange which is a leading online cycling marketplace in 10 countries and valued at $32m on the ASX. In today’s chat we cover the different types of marketplaces retailers can consider for growth, why marketplaces are a customer strategy - not a product strategy and why Jason starts his Melbourne mornings off with a surf. Links from the episode:MarketplacerUrban SurfWoolworthsSalesforceBassat brothersSeekGreg RoebuckCarsalesBike ExchangeFishbrainShane DeliaProvidorSurfstitchMyerBob Jane T-martPet StockNokiaSam Salter Time and TideShopify & JB Hi Fi (sponsored)Signet & Air Guitar Australia (sponsored)Questions answered:How did your idea for Marketplacer become a reality?If brands want to spin up a marketplace, what investment would you recommend they start with? How much technical work is involved? How do you see marketplaces evolving in the next 2-3 years? This episode was brought to you by… SignetListen to this… [silence] that’s me playing my new air guitar. Our friends at Signet recently partnered with Air Guitar Australia and were responsible for protecting the national team's air guitars while on tour in Australia and around the world. We are proud to announce not a single air guitar was broken while in Signet's packaging! Confused? Worried that you may have finally gone a little loco? Visit signet.net.au/airguitar to find out more.Shopify PlusThink Shopify Plus if just for ‘simple retailers’? Well let me tell you - JB Hi Fi is no simple business. But when their old site crashed for two hours during Black Friday, doing nothing was simply not an option. Shopify Plus was selected as the eCommerce partner to help facilitate the fast growing $5b retailer. However, with over 200 dispatch locations, a reliance on a web of API’s and the ability to handle tripling growth - it wasn’t an out of the box implementation. But the results spoke for themselves. JB Hi-Fi cruised through a record Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2019 without a hitch, have reduced average page load time by 15% and were even able to redeploy three techies who’s job was to watch the servers to make sure they don’t go down! JB Hi FI - not just smashing prices but smashing eCommerce. To read more of B Hi-Fi’s story and see other case studies visit the customers sections on shopify.com.au/plus.About your host: Nathan Bush from 12HIGHNathan Bush is the founder and lead strategist at eCommerce consultancy, 12HIGH. He has led eCommerce for businesses with revenue $100m+ and has been recognised as one of Australia’s Top 50 People in eCommerce four years in a row. You can contact Nathan on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email.About your co-host: Jason Wyatt from MarketplacerJason Wyatt is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Marketplacer, global technology Platform as a Service (PaaS) company that builds successful and scalable online marketplaces. Combining the financial acumen of a Chartered Accountant with the flair of a seasoned inventor, Jason is one of Australia's most successful entrepreneurs and sought after leaders of high-performing team cultures. With Marketplacer, Jason has nurtured and grown a talented team of over 100 and counting; challenging the status quo of eCommerce in helping retailers, wholesalers and communities transform the way they engage, trade and transact online since 2016, and watching their businesses grow.You can contact Jason at LinkedInPlease contact us if you: Want to come on board as an Add To Cart sponsor Are interested in joining Add To Cart as a co-host Have any feedback or suggestions on how to make Add To Cart betterEmail hello@addtocart.com.au We look forward to hearing from you! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode of Add To Cart, we are joined by Jason Wyatt, the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Marketplacer which, in his words, allows you to “sell shit that you don’t own”. Put another way, Marketplacer allows retailers to create marketplaces to dramatically expand the product range and serve every need of your customer. The platform currently powers 100 marketplaces in 10 countries across the world and connects about 25,000 businesses. In Australia, they are used by leading retailers including Woolowrths, Surfstitch., Myer and Petstock and have recently got investment from Woolworths and Salesforce. They are currently focused on their US expansion as they aim to take over the retail world! But this isn’t his first parade!Jason also started Bike Exchange which is a leading online cycling marketplace in 10 countries and valued at $32m on the ASX. In today’s chat we cover the different types of marketplaces retailers can consider for growth, why marketplaces are a customer strategy - not a product strategy and why Jason starts his Melbourne mornings off with a surf. Links from the episode:MarketplacerUrban SurfWoolworthsSalesforceBassat brothersSeekGreg RoebuckCarsalesBike ExchangeFishbrainShane DeliaProvidorSurfstitchMyerBob Jane T-martPet StockNokiaSam Salter Time and TideShopify & JB Hi Fi (sponsored)Signet & Air Guitar Australia (sponsored)Questions answered:How did your idea for Marketplacer become a reality?If brands want to spin up a marketplace, what investment would you recommend they start with? How much technical work is involved? How do you see marketplaces evolving in the next 2-3 years? This episode was brought to you by… SignetListen to this… [silence] that’s me playing my new air guitar. Our friends at Signet recently partnered with Air Guitar Australia and were responsible for protecting the national team's air guitars while on tour in Australia and around the world. We are proud to announce not a single air guitar was broken while in Signet's packaging! Confused? Worried that you may have finally gone a little loco? Visit signet.net.au/airguitar to find out more.Shopify PlusThink Shopify Plus if just for ‘simple retailers’? Well let me tell you - JB Hi Fi is no simple business. But when their old site crashed for two hours during Black Friday, doing nothing was simply not an option. Shopify Plus was selected as the eCommerce partner to help facilitate the fast growing $5b retailer. However, with over 200 dispatch locations, a reliance on a web of API’s and the ability to handle tripling growth - it wasn’t an out of the box implementation. But the results spoke for themselves. JB Hi-Fi cruised through a record Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2019 without a hitch, have reduced average page load time by 15% and were even able to redeploy three techies who’s job was to watch the servers to make sure they don’t go down! JB Hi FI - not just smashing prices but smashing eCommerce. To read more of B Hi-Fi’s story and see other case studies visit the customers sections on shopify.com.au/plus.About your host: Nathan Bush from 12HIGHNathan Bush is the founder and lead strategist at eCommerce consultancy, 12HIGH. He has led eCommerce for businesses with revenue $100m+ and has been recognised as one of Australia’s Top 50 People in eCommerce four years in a row. You can contact Nathan on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email.About your co-host: Jason Wyatt from MarketplacerJason Wyatt is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Marketplacer, global technology Platform as a Service (PaaS) company that builds successful and scalable online marketplaces. Combining the financial acumen of a Chartered Accountant with the flair of a seasoned inventor, Jason is one of Australia's most successful entrepreneurs and sought after leaders of high-performing team cultures. With Marketplacer, Jason has nurtured and grown a talented team of over 100 and counting; challenging the status quo of eCommerce in helping retailers, wholesalers and communities transform the way they engage, trade and transact online since 2016, and watching their businesses grow.You can contact Jason at LinkedInPlease contact us if you: Want to come on board as an Add To Cart sponsor Are interested in joining Add To Cart as a co-host Have any feedback or suggestions on how to make Add To Cart betterEmail hello@addtocart.com.au We look forward to hearing from you! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mini malls, shopping centers, and large department stores all still exist and remain popular despite their digital counterparts But online marketplaces are where more and more brands are gathering to not just sell goods, but to get a better 360 view of their customers, and gain access to sell products from other big name brands that fit their marketplace niche. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, I explored that idea a bit more with Jason Wyatt, the Executive Chairman at Marketplacer, a business dedicated to creating marketplaces. We dove into the various ways that Jason has seen marketplaces evolve, especially in recent years. Plus, Jason talked about some of the incredible innovation that he’s seen take place  thanks to marketplaces — including the birth of Providoor, an Australian marketplace for restaurants that was built as a reaction to COVID-19 and reached a $100 million run rate within 12 weeks. We talked about how the marketplace connections made that possible, and also how the B2B landscape can be revolutionized thanks to marketplaces. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:Getting The Bigger Picture: By creating a marketplace, businesses can get a much deeper picture into the attributes of their customers, while also gaining access to inventory and products to sell from big name brands. The key to success? Curation.We Have A Connection: One of the greatest advantages of a marketplace are the connections that can be formed within them. Especially from a B2B perspective, because for so long those buyers have been left out of the ecommerce equation. They desire the same level of connection and ease that those in B2C have come to expect though, and marketplaces have provided a way to create community and engagement that has made B2B selling and buying much easier.Long Live Loyalty: Big brands have long tapped into loyalty programs as a way to earn customer trust and keep them coming back. By expanding point systems to usage within a marketplace, brands are now becoming even more trustworthy and respected in the eyes of consumers, who can all of a sudden get more bang for their buck. Additionally, the rise of wide-ranging marketplace loyalty strategies will likely become a new way for retailers to attract customers to newer marketplaces.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey everyone, I'm Stephanie Postles CEO at mission.org and your host of Up Next in Commerce. Today on the show, we have Jason Wyatt, who currently serves as the executive chairman of Marketplacer. Jason, welcome.Jason:Hi Stephanie, thanks so much for having me on the show today.Stephanie:Thanks for hopping on at 7:00 am. I think you're one of the earliest guests I've talked to over in Australia, so I appreciate you coming on and joining me for a fun chat.Jason:No worries at all. It's just a pleasure to be on the show and talk to your community.Stephanie:I was hoping we could start back in your... way back in the early days when you were 13, because I saw a fun story about what you were doing back then and a little entrepreneurial spirit that was going on, and I was hoping you can kind of share what you're doing back then so people can get to know you a bit before we dive into Marketplacer. This is all around a loan that you got from your dad if you know what I'm talking about.Jason:Well, I might, I was actually... I was a mad sports fan, as the majority of Australians are in this country. And I was playing tennis at the time, if I'm on the right track with this story. And we used to play a lot and pretty competitive. But my brother was a lot better than me, but I used to sort of grab onto his heels, but we constantly used to break racket strings. And we didn't come from this massive affluent family. We come from a family of just, the harder you work, the luckier you get. But dad, what he did do is he loaned us the money to buy our own stringing racket. He just said, "If you keep breaking these strings, well you got to fix them yourself."Jason:My brother and I took advantage of that situation. We figured we had an unfair advantage versus the other tennis players within the group. And then what we actually did is we turned that into a little tennis racket stringing business. So at the age of sort of 13 or 14, we were making a hundred bucks a racket, stringing out sort of four rackets a night and we had a little good business going on. I suppose the entrepreneurial spirit sort of started at a very, very young age where we had a problem to solve and then we solved it for other people.Stephanie:I love that. It definitely rang close to home because I was out in my neighbor's yard, raking, weeding doing anything I could just to earn $5 here and there. And I love hearing about how other people had that itch early on too, and seeing what it turned into later on in life.Stephanie:I'd love to jump into Marketplacer a bit and hear what is it? When did you create it? And what are you guys up to today?Jason:Marketplacer is probably the most fascinating business that I've ever been associated with, because it enabled so much global connection and enables people and businesses all over the world to sell things they don't own and to really supercharge commerce. And the story started back when my co-founder and I, Sam Salter, we just had a simple idea 13 years ago to make it easier for people to buy and sell bicycles. And we created a business called BikeExchange. Think of cars.com for bikes. You're buying a new bike and you want to see everything in one single destination or you're selling your bike and you want to sell it to a community that's a trusted community, has a sense of belonging behind it. And we created BikeExchange. But in doing that we had some really, really big, tough entrepreneurial problems to solve.Jason:We had to come up with a sales and marketing plan. We had to come up with a customer success program, but most importantly, the technology never existed. So, we not only have to be great salespeople, not only a great customer focused, but we had to become technologists at the same time. And we just thought, in everything, in creating a business, in creating a marketplace on a global scale it's a problem that we could help other entrepreneurs or other businesses now actually start to use a platform to enable them to be able to create it. So the story was born out of solving our own problem, out of eating our own dog food in a technology term. But now we help people all over the world in 10 countries solve that marketplace journey, of really just making it easy to connect a customer and community to make it easier for them to sell things they don't own and to supercharge commerce. And I'm sure we're going to unpick what that means in a lot more depth over the next hour or so.Stephanie:That's awesome. What's wild to me is that building a marketplace is notoriously like the hardest thing you can do in commerce. Everyone struggles with supply side, demand side, how to build which one first, and you're not only doing it once. You're replicating it, using your software and doing it with multiple industries. How do you even go about approaching it, especially if it's a new marketplace?Stephanie:You had your bike one, I know earlier you were talking about meal delivery from restaurants, how do you even think about building a new marketplace and solving for both sides of the market?Jason:It's a really good question because we always identify what we consider to be an unfair advantage when we help our clients and customers really figure out whether it's a worthwhile strategic project for them. Because it's a strategic project to go through, that marketplace journey. And the unfair advantage has really been always anchored around two core elements. The first being an existing community or audience or customer base that you know they want to buy more things from you. Or you know you can connect them up in a single destination to improve that customer experience. And the second is more often not the ability to have an in-depth knowledge of the supply base, a connectivity into that supply base and product base. You can actually really exploit the now and explore the future around connecting those two sides of those marketplace journeys.Jason:The evolution and the story of a marketplace has really evolved over time too, from the humble beginnings of a BikeExchange when we first started. It's now in 10 countries, and now we're out around the world and listed on the Australian stock exchange in January of this year.Jason:Thank you, awesome team effort by the team. To really large retailers and brands and, and all types of traditional types of business saying, "Hey, I've actually got one or probably two of those unfair advantages and how can I make it easier for me to grow and drive growth within my existing customer base, without the limits of capital and without the limits of actually producing all of the products, but enhancing my customer experience along the way?"Stephanie:How do you figure out, I mean, how I'm envisioning is that you would probably have like a lead brand who's for the bike one or for the meal delivery one you'd have to have kind a lead person who's owning that marketplace and then they're onboarding other brands as well. And other customers, is that how I'm thinking about it? Because I can't imagine having 20 BikeExchanges where every bike company is, "Well, I want my own marketplace. And I want mine." It seems once you have one, it's probably good enough and you have to be a part of that one.Jason:It's a really, really good question.Jason:There's different types of marketplaces, but the evolution that is really happening at the moment is, take SurfStitch for example. SurfStitch is actually a commerce cloud customer. They're a pure play surf wear brand. They sell hard goods, soft goods and clothing and bus fashion around it. But they've got this community, this tribal community of surfers and they're really a successful business, great growth really, really well leveraged on the commerce cloud stack. But when they looked at their business and they looked at their strategic path, they're constrained by warehouses, they're constrained by the capital, but they had in the back of their mind that they thought that, if we could have the full range of surfboards, instead of only taking 20% of the range of surfboards in all sizes, by connecting up to the wholesaler warehouses.Jason:And then to unpick that to the next layer, when you think about it, a surfer is quite a soulful person. They love the outdoors and are they only surfing? Or are they going hiking on the weekend? Are they exploring the outdoors as well? But I don't want to put a hiking gear in my warehouse. That's too risky, but I could go and connect up to Patagonia to take a full range extension from Patagonia without owning the inventory. So by taking a marketplace strategy or really a growth strategy, what they were really able to do is make it easy for them to connect that to a supplier base, to improve their customer experience and really enhance that 360 view of what that customer is trying to do. Not only from a data perspective, but a product and an experience perspective.Stephanie:Got it. That makes a lot more sense now. And it also just seems the role of curation is so important and whoever's curating the best products and not just throwing a thousand things into one marketplace, really thinking, like you said of, okay, you might be hiking, but you're probably not cooking too. Like I'm not going to put cookware in my marketplace with Patagonia stuff and surf boards. It seems like curation is huge when it comes to that. And also knowing what's trending and what their customers will like is a big part.Jason:Yeah, but it also enables this strategy, the ability to fail fast within there as well. If you put it a camping stove on there or a shower after you go for a surf, to clean yourself off, you haven't bought it. You've had a go at growing in there. It didn't work customers didn't like it. So just turn it off.Jason:With Marketplacer what we really focus on as well, is a really strong vetting engine for the sales force customer and any of our customer community so that they... it's just not a free for all, for all of the products flowing through. It's that ease of connectivity into the supplier base. And then it's the strict controls and measures that you can put in place to enable your customer experience within the marketplace strategy, not just "the everything for everyone" experience. If that makes sense?Stephanie:Yeah, it makes sense. I was going to ask when it comes to marketplaces, how do you guys think about marketplace or versus the Amazons and the eBays and Etsy's of the world that seem like they are kind of creating custom curated collections in a way too. But not as much of a niche level where I would say "Okay, we're going to be doing bikes and here's your community and your people." How do you think about the landscape of marketplaces right now?Jason:It's a very interesting landscape, because it's kind of a bit of a cross matrix at the moment, Stephanie. In that there's B to B, B to C and B to B to C plays within what we're trying to do. And then if you take the types of marketplaces the other way, so all three of those really go across all three gamuts. And then if you take the types of marketplaces, you've got the niche and the tribal based marketplaces, and we put media organizations into that bucket. If you imagine all of the great magazines, like we power lots of magazine marketplaces, where Time+Tide is a good example of a watch marketplace, where they have the beautiful content, they have the trust within the industry. They had a community of people looking to buy watches, but they didn't have that connectivity into the supply. But now they've got it. Another really great example is FishBrain, which is the world's largest fishing marketplace.Stephanie:Didn't know that existed. That's awesome.Jason:I'm not a big fishing person, but think of Strava fishing. Think of a really, really large... I think they've got over 13 million users within the United States now. They wanted that into a commerce play, but they didn't want to own inventory. They didn't have a buyership, they didn't have product developers. It was too difficult to do it. So what they did is they partnered and they connected into the world's best fishing suppliers to create a marketplace. Now that has over 60,000 products to sell that you can just buy.Stephanie:Is there ever a chance of them getting lost. When I hear 60,000 products within a fishing marketplace, how do you get found in that big marketplace?Jason:That's an interesting one. So fishing is probably the best industry to do it because what I have learned about fishing is there's lots of micro products for the local areas. So there's lots of little lures and lots of little different tackles setups, the different communities and different areas. There's lots of niche products within the niche. That one makes a ton of sense to have a really big, broad breadth of inventory within that.Jason:So if you think of the tribe, the addressable market behind people trying to take that convergence of content into commerce and contextual commerce, that space is born for a marketplace. Isn't it? It's an affiliate 4.0 where it can connect into the supply banks. Then you look at brands and retailers and franchise groups and cooperatives. If you actually look at the structure of all of those businesses... Co-operatives and franchise by default are marketplaces. They're a masthead brand their third-party inventory is owned by their franchisees groups. What we're finding in this space is we're just increasing the offering that they can have.Jason:We connect up their franchisees group into a single destination. For example, actually within Australia, we run the largest tire business called Bob Jane T-Marts and Bob Jane T-Marts are a really large franchise group. They're a $600 million business. And tires are a complicated product. They seem simple, but they're incredibly complicated because you've got to match every tire to every car to every wheel ever made, ever sold.Jason:But by creating a marketplace strategy within that, they're really famous for solving one problem. We connected up all the franchise groups via our marketplace technology. But if you think about it, what they really have is car data and car ownership data. What else could they sell a person at the BMW, other than tires and wheels that could enhance their car driving experience? You'll start to see lots of these franchise groups, not only connected in unifying their customer experience, but actually starting to think about how can they enhance their customer experience without the cost of capital burden placed that amongst their franchisees group or cooperative structures and buying groups are in the same bucket.Jason:Then if you just think of traditional retailers, whether they're a pure play or a bricks and mortar or a blend of both. Which the world has a blend of both now, right? There's no real, just pure play or bricks and mortar retailers anymore. So the problem they're trying to solve is exactly that problem we talked through with SurfStitch. How do they enhance their customer experience in store or online. Where they can range extend or category extend, to supercharge their commerce journey within that.Jason:And that last sort of bucket within that is that brand or wholesaler journey. And the brand and wholesaler journey is a really interesting one because it does really touch on those three sort of core verticals that I said at the start being B2C, B2B and B2B2C within that.Jason:The first one's pretty obvious from a B2C perspective, if you're a brand and you can see a perfectly complimentary product, why would you want them to leave your platform to buy it from another platform? Why wouldn't you just connect it up to enhance your customer experience?Jason:If you sell shoes for example, I'm going to dumb it down, but if you sold shoes, how could you connect up with a sock company that had the best brand to associate the shoes with socks without actually owning all of those imagery behind it? And we've seen lots of great examples of that. We actually power the Nokia marketplace. If you're thinking of buying the phone, what other connected product and you put in within that connected ecosystem and Google are a partner of Nokia phones globally now, and all of the Google products is going to be available on the Nokia marketplace.Jason:You can start to see this connectivity piece really, really drive home within that. And then from a B2B2C perspective is how do you not cut out your stockists? How do you find a way as a brand or a distributor in a modern world not to cut them out. Whether it's a marketplace, a unified experience, but what our marketplace platform can do is connect it all up. You can cut your retailer into these third party product sales, but without, without actually going against your traditional business model. And we're seeing a fair bit of that momentum behind it as well. Then the growth space and it's going to be really interesting, because I think that the world is saying how, from a B2B perspective, from a traditional brand, when you're selling to retailers when you're consolidating in a B2B industry, how does a marketplace make sense?Jason:There's Alibaba and then there's not much. The interesting play within there is the unfair advantages to businesses is pretty similar then than it is to a B2C perspective. Their unfair advantage is really anchored around their existing stockists or retailer base that they sell into. They've got a great community of sales representatives or sellers on the floor, who are going around and servicing them. How can they then connect up to other suppliers in other industries that could actually self to that community and we make it easier to do that. And there's a really sort of large demand at the moment behind B2B marketplaces as well. It's an interesting thing to call these things marketplaces. They're not all marketplaces, but what we're doing is we're connecting the world to enable supercharged commerce.Stephanie:I love that. I want to hear a little bit about the revenue numbers. When brands embark on this marketplace journey, what are some stories when a new company starts revising your guys' tech?Jason:It's a really interesting story and journey behind it. I'll give you one example during, during COVID, the world's a different place and we all know that, and there's not much point in delving into what's next after COVID. I think everybody's thinking about what's next after COVID but what we fundamentally know today. It's just a different world. It's a different world than it was in the past. And the power of connection during COVID in a digital sense, drove some of the greatest innovation stories that I've seen for some time. And I'll share the story of Providoor. In Australia, this is a case study we rolled out.Jason:It's nearly exactly this week, last year to the day and a great friend of mine, but a celebrity chef Shane Delia. He owns some of the best restaurants in Melbourne and he's got cooking shows on TV and big personality, vibrant, enthusiastic. Had 150 staff behind his restaurant business at four restaurants, one at the airport. The institution restaurants you know, think of Mamasita in New York. These are like famous restaurants within this country. And he emailed me and he just said, "Jason, I'm stuffed. I've got all of these people, I've got food, I'm just throwing into the bin. I've got leases that I've got to pay, but I've got this one glimmer of hope."Jason:"I've just done a trial where yeah, I'm doing ready, sort of made precut food where the customer just has to finish it off at home. So it's like they're getting the magic of a restaurant quality experience in their home."Jason:And he said, "I've done it for a couple of weeks and I'm selling like $5 to 6,000 a day." And I said, "Well, talk me through the problems that you've sold." And he said, "Well we've solved this packaging, we've figured out how to I get it to the customers with the boxes." He did this in a week, like extraordinary innovation. He's, he's sourced the products, the lined boxes, he's got the dry ice, he's fixed the packaging for this. So the tumor is sort of doing, you know, that those types of volumes in a small way. And I said, "How are you delivering them?"Jason:He said, "Well I've got no choice. My chefs are preparing it, My chef's are driving at 35K around Melbourne, to drop it off at people's doorsteps at 4:00 am in the morning." And I said, "Well, you've probably got to solve your logistics problem in a real quick way. But there's something in this, because there's a demand." You're not doing any marketing, your unfair advantage is you're... I call him a B grade celebrity, he probably thinks he's an A grader. But he's got this celebrity audience that he can tap into. He's got trust within the community. The other chefs will trust him. He's never gonna do anything wrong by that industry or community and customers just loved it. If we could solve a couple of problems, i.e, how do we make it easy for all restaurants to sell in the same way and create a marketplace around it.Jason:And then how can we make it easy for people to get the delivery experience behind it? I think you've got the bones of a really good business. Shane's a pretty good hustler. And five weeks later, we'd pulled every string in the world to get Providoor live. Where the best restaurants within the Melbourne CBD was selling to a 35 kilometer radius of the Melbourne CBD, get it delivered in two delivery slots AM and PM. They would cross stock. The trucks would drive around Melbourne pick up every box. Cross stock it into a single parcel. So you would only get a single parcel. You could order from all the restaurants in one. If you were entertaining in your home or just wanted to release from COVID, or you had a birthday party, or mum and dad couldn't get to the restaurant, then you could actually experience it. And after a 12 week period he was on a $100 million rate. Solving those capital problems.Stephanie:And this was from other restaurants as well that he onboarded onto essentially the marketplace that he created. It started with his restaurant. He brought on others as well. What does the cut look like for him versus the restaurants that are also selling on the marketplace that he essentially established?Jason:Yeah, it was again, really interesting. Shane took, I think it was a 15% slice of the pie. So he actually...Stephanie:Who decides, or you decide when you create the marketplace how much you...?Jason:Yeah.Stephanie:Nice, okay.Jason:It's part of the marketplace platform, when you create a marketplace. We solve all of those commission calculations and you choose, as running that marketplace, what each seller gets, and you can change it by product or category. Now you can do really complex commission calculations, but we also manage all of the seller payouts. You imagine that volume in that period of time, if you're cutting checks, so you're doing individual payments it's un-scalable. So that's why he had to... besides the fact that's why you needed a marketplace platform to, to scale at that rate, but it just shows you if you can leverage those couple of unfair advantages and pull it together in a really neat way and solve a problem, how big you can get quickly.Stephanie:That's crazy. It sounds like you kind of want to make sure you have an audience first or partner with someone who does already have, like you said, that tribe, who's kind of waiting that you can tap into that. How do you go about even convincing customers to come and buy on a marketplace? Are you doing anything around exclusivity where it's if you're selling your bikes or your box meals or whatever on Marketplacer, you can't also sell, I don't know, on DoorDash, do you have DoorDash in Australia? Or something similar.Stephanie:How do you think about creating that moat around the market places that are building up?Jason:I think any business, whether it's a marketplace or not a market place, you create moat. And if you could get the number one selling product of the world and get it exclusive to your business, whether you own it and send it yourself, or whether it comes direct from the supplier. I would a hundred percent recommend that every single day of the week.Jason:In Shane's situation and in Providoor's situation he solved some pretty big problems. No one else in the world, in my opinion, in a five week period could have created this marketplace. And then secondly he partnered exclusively with the logistics company that was an under utilized fruit. You imagined it was a fruit delivery business where they were delivering to corporates, their fruit boxes. And they went from a hundred percent capacity to 0% capacity, but then Shane took them back to a hundred percent capacity. So you've got to, you have to find very innovatively, underutilized, cold, refrigerated delivery network in a really short space of time. He created a couple of really, really solid moats that enabled it, nearly impossible for somebody else to do it in that period. But they were just extraordinary. But the short answer to your question, I'd always promote a moat.Stephanie:So try and make things exclusive, if possible. How do you bring... what are some of these brands methods of bringing their customers onto a new platform? Because that does kind of feel like it could be an experience that might cause a bit of friction of like, "Oh, I'm always used to either just buying directly from your website or just buying from Amazon." What kind of tactics should a brand use if they're trying to convince someone to come and buy on a new platform that maybe they haven't heard of before.Jason:You're talking from the end consumer experience when they're buying from you. It's all around trust in the process. It's in that front end customer experience or any communication around it, it's about building trust and rapport around building a marketplace community. And there's many techniques you can use around that.Jason:Some companies choose not to even say who the seller is on the marketplace. They take a really hard supplier agreement and they say, here's your SLA supplies. If you don't supply under these terms and conditions in these ways, then we're going to exclude you from our community, moving forward. Other marketplaces take the opinion of, "I'll let you rate my supply. I'll let you rate your seller." So it's going to be a customer led trust build up around it.Jason:Other marketplaces over time have put their own sort of ratings and experience... the one thing I'll say around the customer journey when you don't physically own the product is you've got to be really clever and your communicative style. The items might not appear in one parcel, items maybe sent at different times. And if you can bring your customer and community along that journey, they're very attuned to it in this world that you don't get one single parcel from one single vendor every single time and boxes can appear on different days, just as long as the communication strategy around when they're turning up. I mean, the timelines as a customer's experience is really well handled. I think it's a problem that's that's well solved in market.Stephanie:Always good to make sure you're doing it in a trustworthy way where your customers are like, of course I'll go where something's being sold and there's good curated products there. What are some best practices around developing that community and keeping your community engaged and making them want to come to your marketplace that you built up. What kind of tactics do you see happening behind the scenes that are working?Jason:We're seeing at a little bit of scale at the moment, the loyalty programs being attached back into the marketplace strategy. And I think it's a space that's going to be really interesting moving forward, whether it's loyalty or membership economies or subscription economies around it, it's something that's definitely an interesting space.Jason:Take Myer's another example within our region, but Myer's a really large department store. It's the Macy's of Australia. It's the number one department store. They've had some really challenging times, pre COVID and obviously during COVID. Big box department stores, lots of inventory, really expensive leases. And they've kind of been kicked off from every corner. Right. But what they did have is they had an incredibly loyal customer base that actually had a brand affiliation with Meyer, but most importantly had a really strong brand affiliation with the Meyer loyalty program, because it was such a good rewards program.Jason:When they launched their marketplace, they actually gave the customer base the same points that they would earn on Meyer across all third party marketplace products. And you could use your points to buy from all of the third party products.Stephanie:That's imposing.Jason:Exactly. And we won a, I can't say who, but we've won a major global airline at the moment where instead of just being able to book airfares using your airline points, now you can buy 40,000 products using your points, promote burn perspective from your airline miles. So I think what you're going to find is this community of traditional loyalty programs or earn and burn points systems, being able to tap into really broaden their range to become really big, meaningful marketplace strategy, loyalty program.Stephanie:That's super smart. The one thing that's coming to mind is thinking about data privacy and how does the sharing work, especially if you're onboarding other brands onto your platform, I'm guessing I would want access to that customer data. I'd want to be able to talk to them, especially if I'm shipping something to them, or even someone's viewing me as a person that's shipping it to them, even if I'm not really in the backend. What does the sharing of the, maybe customer information look like, in a way that's probably protected and keeps everyone safe.Jason:Say for example, we're talking to the commerce cloud community. If you're a commerce cloud customer, you're the merchant of record in that instance, aren't you? You're always controlling the customer record. You're controlling, you're receiving the funds yourself. But you do have to share the customer address and you do have to share some details of that customer because they've got to receive the items. You've really got to make sure your supplier agreements are quite stringent around data privacy. And then within the marketplace platform, there's a couple of configuration points where you can mask email address and not mask email address. So there's configuration around customer privacy settings that gets forwarded through to that end seller within there as well. But what we actually find is that the broader supplier or seller community is unbelievably respectful of the end customer because they're attuned to selling in this methodology now, and they know if they break or breach those privacy laws or those privacy policies that you set up as a marketplace operator, is that they're going to be cut off and, and they're going to lose that whole channel.Jason:We've had basically no problems of that over the journey of Marketplacer. It's something that's a very small, minimal risk.Stephanie:Amazing. Let's talk a little bit about ads. And I'm thinking about you're this big marketplace. Maybe if you're the fishing one, you've got 60,000 products, I could see you guys having an entire ad unit or the person who maybe is owning the marketplace, starting to create a demand side platform when it comes to delivering ads. And how are you guys approaching that right now with all the brands that you're onboarding?Jason:The world of relevant display and sponsored contents and contextual commerce, back in to market places is a real interesting space. Because if you can not only just send your products to a third party marketplace, but then you can buy specific media around it and launch products within it. It's super exciting. We're actually integrated into Google DMP, and all of those great ad serving systems within that. And what you'll find especially as the world moves into a headless commerce situation, is that the brands can put whatever DMP they want into the commerce cloud headless stack. They can be really quite innovative around, not only just creating traditional revenue streams for the product they own. Not only creating modern revenue streams in the fact that they can sell things they don't own, but now they can actually turn their traditional retail businesses into a media business as well, which obviously comes at a much higher gross margin than physically owning the inventory.Stephanie:Any innovative stories that you see happening around the advertising space within Marketplacer? That brands are maybe trying just new and different things because of the operating model of this new business they didn't have access to before?Jason:The obvious one that just comes to mind is actually BikeExchange. BikeExchange does exactly that every single day of the week. It connects live into all of the retailers. As part of the Marketplacer platform... because some of the problem in the marketplace scenario is how do you make it easy for your sellers to connect? How do you make sure that the inventory is accurate and live? How do you make it so that when a retailer of stock list receives the order, that they can just seamlessly process it, without having, necessarily a billion spreadsheets rolling every direction for everything they sell. We sold that in a really nice, elegant way where if you're on... and if you've got an existing POS system, so point of sale system or an existing e-commerce engine, we built pre-built connectors for the majority of them in the world.Jason:If you're a bike seller selling on BikeExchange and you're on Lightspeed and you wanna send your inventory into the BikeExchange marketplace, it takes minutes. What would typically take hours? Why is this important from a media perspective? It's because then the brands on BikeExchange or Specialized or Trek, or any of the big brands when they're launching a new product, they can actually drive the leads into stores that have stock available today. You can get very clever around your display and media allocation and where you drive the sales to. And a physical stockists level within that marketplace strategy, which is pretty cool.Stephanie:That's huge. I think about the times I try and order stuff Home Depot. And it takes me 15 minutes trying to find what store you can go to pick it up. I'm like, why is this so hard? Just don't show it to me if it's not within 20 miles of where I'm at.Jason:Exactly. And that sort of relevance posts, zip code, allocation and inventory allocation is something that comes out of that marketplace assistant, but it's all structured around live connectivity back into the source seller system. Obviously if a seller wants to connect manually and they've got a few products or they've got a CSV uploader, or they've got a great API, but it's this pre-built connector platform that's enabling our marketplace at the scale at a rapid rate.Stephanie:That's awesome, so where do you all want to be in the next two to three years? What are you planning and prepping for and building for right now, other than scaling and IPO'ing and doing all the fun, things like that.Jason:I think what really drives us at Marketplacer is we just want our customers to grow and to grow in a really sustainable way. Where they can, they can enhance their customer experience. So we've really launched hard within the United States today. We've announced that Salesforce ventures has actually bought a stake in Marketplacer and that enables us... yeah, we're so humbled by it. It's such a great experience to deal with that Salesforce community, but what that enables is any commerce cloud customer globally to now really look at Marketplacer as the way to significantly grow your business and grow your customer experience within that.Jason:It gives us deep access to the Salesforce product team. Gives us deep access to the implementation partner community. It gives us deep access to the actual Salesforce customer success team. What that really enables us to do is to help that Salesforce commerce cloud community grow and connect up to all of these great suppliers, make it easy for you to supercharge that business. And it's a core focus of ours over the next sort of 12 to 18 months, for sure.Stephanie:That's awesome. After hearing all this I'm like, why wouldn't you try this out? Why wouldn't you want to be a part of a marketplace, start a marketplace, so many opportunities and easy ways to scale that maybe it would be hard for single brands to do on their own. That's amazing. Congratulations. That's huge.Jason:No thank you so much and it's a big shout out to how the commerce cloud Salesforce, commerce cloud leadership are thinking at the moment. They're really putting that customer lens first and, and you're trying to grab those trends and you build it back within their community as well.Jason:It takes a little while for you to get your head around it. But when you dumb it down, we make it easy for you to sell products that you don't own. So you can supercharge commerce and grow. That sort of one line, and that sentence can start to really resonate with you. And maybe out of today you're not thinking this is my path, but it might just get those thought bubbles going to say, Hey, what about this supplier? What about this supplier? And if I only had those products, I'd love to try that one, but I don't want to buy it. It starts to connect it all up.Stephanie:Really good way to explain it. All right let's jump over to the lightning round. The lightning round is of course, brought to you by our friends at Salesforce commerce cloud, which they got many shout outs well-deserved throughout this interview. So that is great. This is where I'm going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready Jason?Jason:I'm ready.Stephanie:We'll do the hard one first. What, one thing will have the biggest impact on e-commerce in the next year?Jason:I'd like to say the evolution of Marketplacer.Stephanie:That's okay. You do you. You can say whatever you want.Stephanie:What's one thing from 2020 that you hope sticks around throughout 2021?Jason:The ability to put the customer first and solve problems from a customer lens, when there was no other way to do it. And I think that transformative thinking of traditional businesses in that lens is going to put them in a really good light moving forward. We saw the acceleration of five or six years of thinking and thought, and decision-making in the space of six weeks. And just, don't let that go. Don't let that go. Let that stick with you forever. Because I think it's a unique opportunity.Stephanie:What's one thing you don't understand today, that you wish you did?Jason:French. No, I actually don't personally know how to program. I've never been a programmer and it's been to my advantage because I've never got sucked into it, but one day in life, I'd love to actually learn how it all stitches together and works.Stephanie:There you go. Well, that's a good skill to have these days. Let me know if it's hard, I'm guessing it is. If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Jason:It would probably be about surfing to be honest. And it would have to be Kelly Slater.Stephanie:There you go. That's a good one. And then the last one what's up next on your reading list?Jason:It's actually interesting, because I bought it yesterday. I'm actually reading about gut health at the moment and the benefits of gut health. So I bought the CSIRO gut health book to understand how that can have benefits right throughout your life, from sleeping patterns to energy, to that holistic sort of view that the power of food and what it can do for you or, or can't do for you.Stephanie:Good, you can send me a TLDR of what I should be doing and I'll just listen to you.Jason:It doesn't mean I'm going to do it though Stephanie, this is the problem with reading. You don't always do what you should.Stephanie:We will do it. We will manifest it into our life. We will do it. All right Jason, this interview has been so fun, really a good time hearing about Marketplacer and where you guys are headed. Thank you for coming on, where can people find out more about you and Marketplacer?Jason:Traditional channels marketplacer.com and Jason White on LinkedIn and Marketplacer on LinkedIn.Stephanie:Amazing. Thanks so much.Jason:Thanks so much Stephanie, appreciate your time.

In this episode of Add To Cart, we are joined by Anthony Chesler, CEO of Thread Together, an organisation that aims to drive social and environmental change by connecting excess retail clothing with people in need. Whether these people are impacted by floods, bushfires, domestic violence, homelessness, asylum seekers, leaving jail or even, COVID, Anthony and his team hope to restore some dignity through the power of clothing. In this chat, Anthony talks about the amazing retail partners they have on board including Surfstitch, The Iconic, PE Nation, Bec & Bridge, UnderArmour and Afterpay, how they manage fulfillment and why clothing is the forgotten basic human right.Links from the episode:Thread TogetherUnder ArmourBendonThe IconicSurfstitchConor YD Johnny BigTarocashCamilla & MarcBec & BridgePE NationSaturday the LabelNudie JeansLevisAthlete’s FootBamboozleCalvin KleinTommy HilfigerThe Goodman FoundationAfterpayCommonwealth BankKlaviyoHubspotCarla Zampattii=Change DecjubaShopify Plus and Aje (sponsored)Signet and Free to Feed (sponsored)Questions answered:How much waste is there in the fashion industry?Who can benefit from a Thread Together wardrobe and what is the impact on that person’s life?What key things do you need from brands who want to get involved?This episode was brought to you by… Shopify PlusSocial enterprise, Free To Feed, connects refugees, people seeking asylum and new migrants to their communities using their skills… and delicious, delicious food. But when COVID hit, these community gatherings weren’t possible! By partnering with our packaging partners, Signet, Free to Feed were able to quickly move to online meal kits which were boxed up and delivered safely to homes all over Australia. Free to Feed keeps on delivering for the community! Visit signet.net.au/blog to find out more.SignetSocial enterprise, Free To Feed, connects refugees, people seeking asylum and new migrants to their communities using their skills… and delicious, delicious food. But when COVID hit, these community gatherings weren’t possible! By partnering with our packaging partners, Signet, Free to Feed were able to quickly move to online meal kits which were boxed up and delivered safely to homes all over Australia. Free to Feed keeps on delivering for the community! Visit signet.net.au/blog to find out more.About your host: Nathan Bush from 12HIGHNathan Bush is the founder and lead strategist at eCommerce consultancy, 12HIGH. He has led eCommerce for businesses with revenue $100m+ and has been recognised as one of Australia’s Top 50 People in eCommerce four years in a row. You can contact Nathan on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email.About your co-host: Anthony Chesler from Thread TogetherAnthony is a results driven, outcome oriented Management Consultant with broad expertise and global experience across a range of industries with achievements, underpinned by integrity, respect, performance, collaboration, personal development and corporate social responsibility You can contact Anthony at LinkedInPlease contact us if you: Want to come on board as an Add To Cart sponsor Are interested in joining Add To Cart as a co-host Have any feedback or suggestions on how to make Add To Cart betterEmail hello@addtocart.com.au We look forward to hearing from you! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode of Add To Cart, we are joined by Anthony Chesler, CEO of Thread Together, an organisation that aims to drive social and environmental change by connecting excess retail clothing with people in need. Whether these people are impacted by floods, bushfires, domestic violence, homelessness, asylum seekers, leaving jail or even, COVID, Anthony and his team hope to restore some dignity through the power of clothing. In this chat, Anthony talks about the amazing retail partners they have on board including Surfstitch, The Iconic, PE Nation, Bec & Bridge, UnderArmour and Afterpay, how they manage fulfillment and why clothing is the forgotten basic human right.Links from the episode:Thread TogetherUnder ArmourBendonThe IconicSurfstitchConor YD Johnny BigTarocashCamilla & MarcBec & BridgePE NationSaturday the LabelNudie JeansLevisAthlete’s FootBamboozleCalvin KleinTommy HilfigerThe Goodman FoundationAfterpayCommonwealth BankKlaviyoHubspotCarla Zampattii=Change DecjubaShopify Plus and Aje (sponsored)Signet and Free to Feed (sponsored)Questions answered:How much waste is there in the fashion industry?Who can benefit from a Thread Together wardrobe and what is the impact on that person’s life?What key things do you need from brands who want to get involved?This episode was brought to you by… Shopify PlusSocial enterprise, Free To Feed, connects refugees, people seeking asylum and new migrants to their communities using their skills… and delicious, delicious food. But when COVID hit, these community gatherings weren’t possible! By partnering with our packaging partners, Signet, Free to Feed were able to quickly move to online meal kits which were boxed up and delivered safely to homes all over Australia. Free to Feed keeps on delivering for the community! Visit signet.net.au/blog to find out more.SignetSocial enterprise, Free To Feed, connects refugees, people seeking asylum and new migrants to their communities using their skills… and delicious, delicious food. But when COVID hit, these community gatherings weren’t possible! By partnering with our packaging partners, Signet, Free to Feed were able to quickly move to online meal kits which were boxed up and delivered safely to homes all over Australia. Free to Feed keeps on delivering for the community! Visit signet.net.au/blog to find out more.About your host: Nathan Bush from 12HIGHNathan Bush is the founder and lead strategist at eCommerce consultancy, 12HIGH. He has led eCommerce for businesses with revenue $100m+ and has been recognised as one of Australia’s Top 50 People in eCommerce four years in a row. You can contact Nathan on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email.About your co-host: Anthony Chesler from Thread TogetherAnthony is a results driven, outcome oriented Management Consultant with broad expertise and global experience across a range of industries with achievements, underpinned by integrity, respect, performance, collaboration, personal development and corporate social responsibility You can contact Anthony at LinkedInPlease contact us if you: Want to come on board as an Add To Cart sponsor Are interested in joining Add To Cart as a co-host Have any feedback or suggestions on how to make Add To Cart betterEmail hello@addtocart.com.au We look forward to hearing from you! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode of Add To Cart, we are joined by Justin Hillberg, Managing Director of SurfStitch. From being the innovative leaders and market darlings of the ASX, to going through voluntary administration and now back to profitability, Justin has led his team at SurfStitch through it all. In this chat he shares his views on everything from how discounting is not ideal but there are ways to do it effectively to how they are helping other retailers get off the ground with their own marketplace and why they are moving into homewares and beauty under the SurfStitch umbrella. Finally, Justin gives us insight into what it looks like when a business goes through the wild ride of administration and how he kept the team together throughout it all. Links from the episode:SurfStitchBillabongSurfdomeSwellQuicksilverThe IconicAsosAccent GroupTrue AllianceUniversalDepactusVolcomRustyMarketplacerSignet (sponsored)Shopify & Tamberlaine Wine (sponsored)Questions answered:How did you navigate through the uncertainty of voluntary administration and come out the other side?What is an email address worth to you in dollar value?How do you manage the presence of your own brands alongside other brands that you sell?This episode was brought to you by… SignetLike bees to the honeycomb, retailers are loving Signets new sustainable alternatives to traditional eCommerce packaging. They have recently introduced honeycomb mailers into their eco-friendly range. Made from Kraft paper the 100% recyclable padded mailers offer the same protection as plastic bubble mailers without costing the earth. Signet has over 5,500 packaging solutions to help leading eCommerce businesses step up their packaging game. Visit signet.net.au to find out more.Shopify PlusWhen Tamburlaine Organic Wines were looking to push their expansion nationally and internationally, they realised their customer built, POS focused platform wasn’t going to cut it. They selected Shopify Plus as the foundation for their expansion. Plus allowed Tamberlaine to create tiered member pricing using scripts, web chat and customer churn analytics. The result? A 30% conversion rate boost within the first six weeks of migration. That’s something to cheers to. To read more of Tamberlaine’s story and see other case studies visit the customers sections on shopify.com.au/plusAbout your host: Nathan Bush from 12HIGHNathan Bush is the founder and lead strategist at eCommerce consultancy, 12HIGH. He has led eCommerce for businesses with revenue $100m+ and has been recognised as one of Australia’s Top 50 People in eCommerce four years in a row. You can contact Nathan on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email.About your co-host: Justin Hillberg from SurfStitchStarting his career on the retail shop floor has paved the foundation for Justin’s customer centric approach to strategy development and leadership. He is passionate about delivering influential leadership and driving positive cultural change through collaborative strategy development. Over the past seven years, Justin has been leading the fast paced, high energy online business that is SurfStitch and has achieved a number of milestones resulting in a significant turnaround to profitability under challenging conditions including navigation of VA and the sale of the business in 2018.As a people leader, he is honest, approachable, engaging and trustworthy and has found that he is able to unite teams around common goals and motivate individuals to produce their best, even in times of adversity. Through fostering effective teamwork, Justin is known for delivering results. He encourages open communication, interdepartmental collaboration and continuous improvement across all levels of the organisation.You can contact Justin at LinkedInPlease contact us if you: Want to come on board as an Add To Cart sponsor Are interested in joining Add To Cart as a co-host Have any feedback or suggestions on how to make Add To Cart betterEmail hello@addtocart.com.au We look forward to hearing from you! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode of Add To Cart, we are joined by Justin Hillberg, Managing Director of SurfStitch. From being the innovative leaders and market darlings of the ASX, to going through voluntary administration and now back to profitability, Justin has led his team at SurfStitch through it all. In this chat he shares his views on everything from how discounting is not ideal but there are ways to do it effectively to how they are helping other retailers get off the ground with their own marketplace and why they are moving into homewares and beauty under the SurfStitch umbrella. Finally, Justin gives us insight into what it looks like when a business goes through the wild ride of administration and how he kept the team together throughout it all. Links from the episode:SurfStitchBillabongSurfdomeSwellQuicksilverThe IconicAsosAccent GroupTrue AllianceUniversalDepactusVolcomRustyMarketplacerSignet (sponsored)Shopify & Tamberlaine Wine (sponsored)Questions answered:How did you navigate through the uncertainty of voluntary administration and come out the other side?What is an email address worth to you in dollar value?How do you manage the presence of your own brands alongside other brands that you sell?This episode was brought to you by… SignetLike bees to the honeycomb, retailers are loving Signets new sustainable alternatives to traditional eCommerce packaging. They have recently introduced honeycomb mailers into their eco-friendly range. Made from Kraft paper the 100% recyclable padded mailers offer the same protection as plastic bubble mailers without costing the earth. Signet has over 5,500 packaging solutions to help leading eCommerce businesses step up their packaging game. Visit signet.net.au to find out more.Shopify PlusWhen Tamburlaine Organic Wines were looking to push their expansion nationally and internationally, they realised their customer built, POS focused platform wasn’t going to cut it. They selected Shopify Plus as the foundation for their expansion. Plus allowed Tamberlaine to create tiered member pricing using scripts, web chat and customer churn analytics. The result? A 30% conversion rate boost within the first six weeks of migration. That’s something to cheers to. To read more of Tamberlaine’s story and see other case studies visit the customers sections on shopify.com.au/plusAbout your host: Nathan Bush from 12HIGHNathan Bush is the founder and lead strategist at eCommerce consultancy, 12HIGH. He has led eCommerce for businesses with revenue $100m+ and has been recognised as one of Australia’s Top 50 People in eCommerce four years in a row. You can contact Nathan on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email.About your co-host: Justin Hillberg from SurfStitchStarting his career on the retail shop floor has paved the foundation for Justin’s customer centric approach to strategy development and leadership. He is passionate about delivering influential leadership and driving positive cultural change through collaborative strategy development. Over the past seven years, Justin has been leading the fast paced, high energy online business that is SurfStitch and has achieved a number of milestones resulting in a significant turnaround to profitability under challenging conditions including navigation of VA and the sale of the business in 2018.As a people leader, he is honest, approachable, engaging and trustworthy and has found that he is able to unite teams around common goals and motivate individuals to produce their best, even in times of adversity. Through fostering effective teamwork, Justin is known for delivering results. He encourages open communication, interdepartmental collaboration and continuous improvement across all levels of the organisation.You can contact Justin at LinkedInPlease contact us if you: Want to come on board as an Add To Cart sponsor Are interested in joining Add To Cart as a co-host Have any feedback or suggestions on how to make Add To Cart betterEmail hello@addtocart.com.au We look forward to hearing from you! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Samantha Wong is a partner at Blackbird Ventures, a technology venture capital fund with $1B in funds under management. Blackbird was an early investor in Australia's startup successes: Canva, Zoox and CultureAmp. More recently, the fund invested in Fable Food Co. - Founder, Michael Fox, was on the show back at Episode 106. Prior to joining Blackbird, Sam was a startup founder, product manager with multinational e-commerce startup, SurfStitch.com and a corporate lawyer with Minter Ellison.

Joining me today is Louis Tuttle. Louis graduated from King's College London with a degree in Geography. He decided to pursue the ACA as an Audit Trainee within BDO's Consumer Markets team. He spent 3.5 years at BDO, including a secondment to Brisbane, Australia, and some time out to travel afterwards. He joined Busaba, initially as a Finance Manager, and was promoted to Group Financial Controller. After 2.5 years here, he decided to return to Australia permanently. Since returning to Brisbane, he completed a brief stint as a Manager in Deloitte's Restructuring & Advisory division before joining SurfStitch, where he is currently Head of Finance. You can also listen to recent interview on my YouTube channel.

In this episode of 'How To Thrive In A Crisis' Margot sits down with Richard Facioni. Richard is a well-known investor and retail identity operating a diverse group of business including LEGO Certified Stores, e-tailer SurfStitch, high-end fashion label Ginger & Smart and a portfolio of more than 40 discount variety stores with Cheap as Chips. He’s also Executive Chairman of the country’s largest apparel group -  ASX listed MOSAIC Brands - which represents a substantial part of Australia’s mass fashion landscape with more than 1200 stores and a portfolio of brands including Noni B, Rockmans, W Lane, Katies and Millers.  The interview with Margot draws upon Richard's truly inspirational work ethic which is perfectly summed up in his mantra, 'what we're doing is never enough'.  To consistently operate like this - even in a crisis - is truly encouraging. CREDITS Host:Margot Faraci Guest:Richard Facioni  CONTACT US If you'd like to get in touch with Margot, head to her LinkedIn profile here; https://www.linkedin.com/in/margot-faraci/ Find out how NAB can help you today by visiting https://www.nab.com.au/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Add To Cart, we are joined by Dave Dennings who was most recently GM Digital Storefront Ops & Technology at Surfstitch. We discuss the upcoming discounting season and how retailers can join participate without giving away all of their margin.Common questions answered in the podcast include: Should retailers participate in mass discounting? What are some tactics retailers can use to protect margin while discounting? How do you measure the success of sales? A full transcription of the episode can be found on the 12HIGH website. Links from the episode 2019 Sales dates How to offer Black Friday discounts without killing your business Australia’s most popular shopping holidays revealed as e-commerce hits a major milestoneInternational retailers rethink Black Friday strategyShopify Plus Holiday Pre-Season Playbook (Sponsored)This episode was brought to you by… Shopify Plus. Our friends at Shopify Plus power some of the world's fastest-growing brands including JB HiFi, Koala and Kylie Cosmetics. The average growth rate for Shopify Plus customers is 126%. Massive! Shopify Plus has just released a really great Holiday Pre-Season Playbook which is well worth checking out. Visit shopifyplus.holiday/au to download the guide. Massive thanks to Shopify Plus for being the inaugural partner of Add to Cart.About your host: Nathan Bush from 12HIGHNathan Bush is the founder and lead strategist at eCommerce consultancy, 12HIGH. He has led eCommerce for businesses with revenue $100m+ and has been recognised as one of Australia’s Top 50 People in eCommerce four years in a row. You can contact Nathan on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email.About your co-host: David Dennings from Surfstitch & Clearspace DigitalDave Dennings was most recently General Manager of Digital Storefront Ops & Technology at surfwear pureplay, Surfstitch. He has a long history in digital strategy and has helped a wide range of clients across technology, operations and marketing. You can contact Dave on LinkedIn. Contact UsPlease contact us if you: Want to come on board as an Add To Cart sponsor Are interested in joining Add To Cart as a co-host Have any feedback or suggestions on how to make Add To Cart betterEmail nathan@12high.com.au. We look forward to hearing from you!Interested in more eCommerce news and insights? Sign up for free to 12HIGH’s HIGHmail newsletter to receive regular eCommerce news. Highlights include the ‘This Month in eCommerce’ mail which updates you on everything you need to know to keep you up to date in the fast-moving world of eCommerce. Subscribe here. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode of Add To Cart, we are joined by Dave Dennings who was most recently GM Digital Storefront Ops & Technology at Surfstitch. We discuss the upcoming discounting season and how retailers can join participate without giving away all of their margin.Common questions answered in the podcast include: Should retailers participate in mass discounting? What are some tactics retailers can use to protect margin while discounting? How do you measure the success of sales? A full transcription of the episode can be found on the 12HIGH website. Links from the episode 2019 Sales dates How to offer Black Friday discounts without killing your business Australia’s most popular shopping holidays revealed as e-commerce hits a major milestoneInternational retailers rethink Black Friday strategyShopify Plus Holiday Pre-Season Playbook (Sponsored)This episode was brought to you by… Shopify Plus. Our friends at Shopify Plus power some of the world's fastest-growing brands including JB HiFi, Koala and Kylie Cosmetics. The average growth rate for Shopify Plus customers is 126%. Massive! Shopify Plus has just released a really great Holiday Pre-Season Playbook which is well worth checking out. Visit shopifyplus.holiday/au to download the guide. Massive thanks to Shopify Plus for being the inaugural partner of Add to Cart.About your host: Nathan Bush from 12HIGHNathan Bush is the founder and lead strategist at eCommerce consultancy, 12HIGH. He has led eCommerce for businesses with revenue $100m+ and has been recognised as one of Australia’s Top 50 People in eCommerce four years in a row. You can contact Nathan on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email.About your co-host: David Dennings from Surfstitch & Clearspace DigitalDave Dennings was most recently General Manager of Digital Storefront Ops & Technology at surfwear pureplay, Surfstitch. He has a long history in digital strategy and has helped a wide range of clients across technology, operations and marketing. You can contact Dave on LinkedIn. Contact UsPlease contact us if you: Want to come on board as an Add To Cart sponsor Are interested in joining Add To Cart as a co-host Have any feedback or suggestions on how to make Add To Cart betterEmail nathan@12high.com.au. We look forward to hearing from you!Interested in more eCommerce news and insights? Sign up for free to 12HIGH’s HIGHmail newsletter to receive regular eCommerce news. Highlights include the ‘This Month in eCommerce’ mail which updates you on everything you need to know to keep you up to date in the fast-moving world of eCommerce. Subscribe here. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on Open The Pod Bay Doors we chat to Sam Wong, Partner at Blackbird Ventures, an Australian venture fund who back exceptional founders with big ambitions to build global businesses. They provide equity capital for Seed, Series A and later stage - no cheque is too early. With a portfolio of over 40 companies, Blackbird has backed some of Australia’s startup powerhouses like Canva, Safety Culture, BugCrowd, Culture Amp.Sam and her parents emigrated to Perth from the UK in the 1980s, shortly after her mum started a computer sales business, and it wasn’t long until Sam and her dad were helping to run the business. Growing up with entrepreneurial parents instilled a drive and ambition in Sam from an early age.Sam went on to study law, this led to a summer clerkship and a graduate offer at top law firm. Sam loved the learning and analytical framework, however wanted to work on side projects (including learning French), and lawyer hours allowed no time to focus on these.One of these side projects was SurfStitch, a surf e-commerce company, so Sam left corporate world to help with their SEO and email marketing. A year later, she was in France hiring the team to run SurfStitch’s European operations - putting the French she’d learned to good use.After SurfStitch Sam knew she wanted to start her own thing, so she thought about a problem she faced working as a lawyer, working fewer hours, and CapacityHQ, an on-demand marketplace for legal talent was born. They were part of the Startmate cohort in 2015, the program accelerated their learning, and about halfway through realised they could build a small business but it wouldn’t meet their ambition.At the end of Startmate and after selling CapacityHQ, Sam became the first employee of the Blackbird team as Head of Operations, two years later Sam became a Partner.Blackbird is on its third fund of $250 million ($100M for new investments and $150M for follow on). They are focused on investing earlier and writing smaller cheques to back founders all along their journey. Outside the portfolio, Blackbird has been leading the charge adding value to the wider ecosystem with community initiatives like the Sunrise event, robotics clubs in universities and schools, and the partners regularly writing blog posts.     Sam has seen all sides of business, raised by entrepreneurs, working as a lawyer, a startup employee, founding her own business, and now an investor. In this episode she shares lots of her experiences and lesson learned along the way.  Enjoy.

1) Earnings Season continues - Woolworths, Coca Cola, Kogan, Flight Centre, Greencross, Sydney Airport 2) the end of the Trump Trade? 3) Is the property market turning? 4) Surfstitch wipes out 5) Andrew's High Horse - buy prices See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

Harry Hodge made surf movies so he could travel the world, washed up in France where he built Quiksilver into a $500 million European Brand. Now he's on the board of industry disruptor SurfStitch. His story epitomises the evolution of surf retailing.

In episode 16 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, I interview Sam Wong, Head of Operations at Blackbird Ventures and Partner at the Startmate accelerator program. Sam started her career as a lawyer, before joining Surf Stitch as the Global Product Manager, growing the company from 40 to 300+ employees. She then founded CapacityHQ, a marketplace for legal consultants that helped firms and corporates deal with surge capacity requirements. CapacityHQ went through the Startmate program before exiting the company just 14 months after launching. In this episode, Sam shares her insights on the pros/ cons of accelerator programs, the challenges of growth stage startups and why it's important to think globally from day 1. Show notes: SurfStitch CapacityHQ Blackbird Ventures Startmate Sam Wong Email Sam Wong Twitter Mike Cannon- Brookes Ned Dwyer Holly Cardew Alan Downie Credits: Intro music credit to Bensound Click here to listen on iTunes Click here to listen on Stitcher The post Ep016 – Sam Wong (Head of Operations – Blackbird VC) on going global from day 1 appeared first on Startup Playbook.

1) What happened to Surfstitch? 2) if the oil price is dropping, why isn't petrol? 3) Should we care about Australia's credit rating? 4) how to save yourself 50 Grand See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.