Episode 100: A Special Q&A with Five Successful Entrepreneurs

100 episodes! Can you believe it?

Today marks a special moment in EcomCrew history. We've hit a very important milestone and we never would have done it without YOU.

I had my struggles; I can't tell you how frustrating it is not knowing whether people truly enjoyed listening to the podcast or if they got any real value out of it or not.

But then I go to these live events and people come up to me and tell me how the podcast helped them in their businesses, and I just feel stoked. It makes me feel like what we're doing makes a difference, and pushes me, and the rest of EcomCrew, to do our best in putting out even better content for you. Your comments, feedback, questions, and support keep us going.

And to celebrate our 100th episode, we have a special treat for you. I got 5 of my favorite successful ecommerce entrepreneurs in this episode and asked them one question:

"What would you have done differently if you could talk to your younger self when you were just getting started in ecommerce?"

Their answers are a mix of rookie mistakes and lessons that took them years to learn. You can use these lessons as warnings or advice and apply them to your own business, without having to go through years of trial and error.

Below is a snippet:

From Andrew Youderian of EcommerceFuel:

"The biggest thing I would probably fundamentally change in my approach about starting an ecommerce business today versus what I've done in the past is probably take something that I thought--it didn't have to be something I was madly in love with, or my soul passion but something that [I] had some kind of interest or overlap with what I enjoy or who I was."

From Bill D'Alessandro of Elements Brands:

"If I could go back in time, I would smack my 4 Hour Workweek self across the head and say, Don't be a wimp, hire people."

From Greg Mercer of Jungle Scout:

"If I were to start all over again--once I figured out how to launch the successful products, and the products themselves had good unit economics--I would've looked into using other people's money to invest in my business to start to scale it up faster."

From Scott Voelker of The Amazing Seller:

"I would focus on finding something that you know you can launch multiple products in, and then from there, taking that approach of a brand where you're able to have a face to that brand ... and then start building that following, start building that email list."

From Steve Chou of My Wife Quit Her Job:

"If there's something that you enjoy per se, that might not necessarily be the best idea for a business. Because chances are that if you have to do it for money, or you feel like it's a chore, then you're not going to enjoy it anymore."

And of course, EcomCrew will not be the same without Dave Bryant. He has been a prolific addition to the crew and has added many extremely useful content to the site. Here's what he would have done differently:

"If I can tell myself one thing to do differently at the beginning of my ecommerce journey, it would definitely be to start with an end goal in mind and reverse engineer from there."

Those are just a sneak peek of our incredibly loaded conversations. Go ahead and listen to the entire episode and find out why they came up with those answers.

Resources mentioned:

AsiaInspection Stamped.io EcommerceFuel Elements Brands Jungle Scout The Amazing Seller My Wife Quit Her Job 2018 Sellers Summit EcommerceFuel Live

And that concludes 100 episodes of the EcomCrew podcast! We invite you to stay with us for another hundred episodes of our ecommerce journey.

And from everyone at EcomCrew, THANK YOU.