

Offcuts
Tim Richardson
Offcuts is a podcast and newsletter about commerce, culture and AI.
We explore how brands grow in a changing landscape. From shifting consumer behaviour to the rise of AI in digital work. It is part founder’s perspective, part field notes from inside the industry.
We speak to founders, operators and technologists about what is working, what is changing and what is next. Expect sharp thinking, useful links and the occasional hot take.
All grounded in what is actually happening. Not just what is trending.
Brought to you by the team at Factory: https://www.factory-digital.com/
We explore how brands grow in a changing landscape. From shifting consumer behaviour to the rise of AI in digital work. It is part founder’s perspective, part field notes from inside the industry.
We speak to founders, operators and technologists about what is working, what is changing and what is next. Expect sharp thinking, useful links and the occasional hot take.
All grounded in what is actually happening. Not just what is trending.
Brought to you by the team at Factory: https://www.factory-digital.com/
Episodes
Mentioned books

May 10, 2023 • 39min
Ep 79: William Hedley co founder of Loah
We discuss the advantages of starting a brand with agency experience, balancing DTC and retail, why being on draught is the holy grail, the challenges and advantages of finding early adopters, the value prop to pubs for non alc options and why focussing on the boring stuff is a key ingredient to startup success.
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May 3, 2023 • 36min
Ep 78: Joseph Brown, Operations Director at Kubix Media
We discuss why Shopify POS was an important service in the early days at Kubix, a day in the life of an agency Ops Director, why brands are likely already using AI but don’t know it, navigating the tech partner landscape and the most challenging aspect of the current economic climate; hiring.
………….
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Apr 26, 2023 • 36min
Ep 77: Alex O’Byrne, co-founder at We Make Websites
We discuss the beauty of building and selling something you enjoy, the pros and cons of bootstrapping, the similarity in challenges at each stage of the agency life cycle, value-based pricing, the best uses of AI in an agency context, the importance of cultural fit between a buyer and seller and what life looks like after an exit 🚀
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Apr 19, 2023 • 38min
Ep 76: Namrata Nayyar-Kamdar, Founder at Plenaire
We discuss how a challenging personal period and extensive experience in the FMCG space led to the creation of the brand, the power of combining beauty and emotional well-being, why barriers to entry in the DTC space are both a blessing and a curse, the pros and cons of celebrity-backed brands and what Namrata is most excited about in 2023.
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Apr 13, 2023 • 40min
Ep 75: Oliver Rhodes, eCommerce Tech Consultant
We discuss what skills he acquired after the Peoplevox acquisition, why becoming a trusted advisor is an excellent sales tactic, what a dark stack it is and why it’s important, the power of eCommerce tech curation, why software sales experience is an advantage when advising eCommerce brands, balancing work and life and Ollie’s secret business book recommendation 🤫
………….
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Apr 11, 2023 • 37min
Ep 74: Mike Gammell, co-founder at Days
We discuss how a last flight out of London at the start of the COVID lockdown kick-started the brand, the advantages of crowd-sourced product development, why embracing a COVID-enforced D2C strategy was so powerful, the process of moving from D2C only to a multi-channel player, using D2C data to inform your retail strategy, why not spending any money on acquisition until the eComm basics were in play was a smart move, why sticking to 0% alcohol, whilst difficult, has been a key ingredient for success and their five year mission to build the world's next great beer business.

Apr 4, 2023 • 36min
Ep 73: Georgia Barkell , Chief Operating Officer at Sprint Ventures
We discuss why being exposed to her family fashion business was a stepping stone to a corporate career, the importance of personal values alignment when making career choices, the untapped potential of Web3, Sprint’s investment criteria and process, the current state of financial markets and central bank strategy and advice to anybody considering a pre seed, seed or Series A investment raise.
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Mar 22, 2023 • 36min
Ep 72: Tom Rees, founder of Wiro Agency
In this episode, the founder of Wiro Agency, Tom Rees, discusses various interesting topics such as their transition from a platform-agnostic model to focusing on Shopify, the value of Commerce Components from a pricing perspective, leveraging market volatility for hiring, partnerships with larger agencies, the need for hyper-realistic case studies, and their go-to internal agency stack.

Mar 15, 2023 • 34min
Ep 71: Tom & Tom, co-founders of Superco
We discuss building the Lizz Truss of Shopify apps, the advantages of being non-developer founders, approaching the agency business from a fist principles perspective, the keys to hiring great people, why the best partnerships are based on client needs not the best technical solution, the advantages of having a wide partner network including VCs and branding agencies, why adding quality to the conversations is the key to good personal branding, the advantages of a fully remote team and why working with your best mates is a good foundation for a successful business
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Mar 8, 2023 • 41min
Ep 70: Piers Thorogood, co-founder at We Make Websites
We discuss getting approached by an agency group in 2019 sparked the idea of an exit, how COVID derailed the exit plans, the key milestones of the Born deal; the initial conversation, due diligence and SPA negotiations, the advantages of having one person focusing on the deal, the importance of the business being able to run in parallel to the exit plan, the challenges of due diligence, specifically the difference in process between the target and acquirer, the lessons learned of not taking corporate finance advice, the inherent risk of a deal falling through and what he’d do differently if he did it all again.
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