The Unofficial Shopify Podcast

Alex O'Byrne recently launched the new Negative Underwear website, which took an astonishing 100 orders on the first day alone, followed by 7000 unique visits in just 5 days. A fantastic achievement that any ecommerce entrepreneur would be thrilled with. Alex pulls back the curtain and discusses the strategies necessary to achieve those results... and they're surprisingly grassroots. Alex O'Byrne is a Shopify Expert and co-founder of the UK's top-rated e-commerce agency WeMakeWebsites. He speaks regularly on the topic of marketing and e-commerce for design-led retailers and organizations such as the London College of Fashion and Startup Weekend. His agency, WeMakeWebsites builds beautiful and effective online stores for creative retail companies. Show Links: http://wemakewebsites.com/ https://twitter.com/alwaysmaking

Diana is an authenticity driven entrepreneur who is constantly seeking, creating, developing, growing and learning. She is passionate about business, personal development, wellness, travel, spirituality, productivity and maximizing her time and life to live exceptionally across all facets: faith, relationships, business and health. Being very unsure of her career path in her youth, she became even more unclear after completing law school. Pushed to find her passions she started her first company Tiny Devotions Inc. after taking a sabbatical in Bali post-graduating. Being keen to identify niches – Diana literally started an industry with her company selling mala beads and intentional accessories. Now with hundreds of competitors, Tiny Devotions founded in 2009 is still the innovative leader in the space. Having come from a very entrepreneurial family, the buzz of business, startups and deals is part of her DNA and a constant adventure no matter where she is in the world on her extensive travels with her husband. Hear our journey and the lessons she's learned along the way. Show Links: http://www.tinydevotions.com/ http://www.dianahouse.com/ https://twitter.com/dianahouse_ PS: I want to send you a sample chapter of Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Get it at http://ecommerce-bootcamp.com/

I owe much of my business success to my Mastermind group– I credit being in a mastermind with boosting my revenue 10x. So what is a Mastermind, how do they work, and why or how should you join one? To answer that question, Kai Davis and Jonathan Stark join Kurt to discuss their own mastermind experiences. Jonathan Stark is a mobile strategy consultant who helps senior executives transition their business to mobile. Jonathan is the author of three books on mobile and web development, most notably O'Reilly's Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript which is available in seven languages. His Jonathan's Card experiment made international headlines by combining mobile payments with social giving to create a "pay it forward" coffee movement at Starbucks locations all over the U.S. Kai Davis is an Outreach Consultant in Eugene, Oregon, who helps bootstrappers, product creators, self-funded startups, and single founder companies grow their audience and promote their best products and content. He connect with influencers and finds opportunities to expose your best products and content to their audience. Show Links https://mastermindjam.com/ https://expensiveproblem.com/ http://doubleyouraudience.com/

The year is almost over, and that means one thing: time to get your books in order! With running a business, you already know you need to stay on top the accounting that goes along with running a store. Joining us in this episode is Donnie Cooper of LessAccounting, to discuss why and how to make bookkeeping nothing like going to the dentist. You'll learn: The difference between an accountant and a bookkeeper (and when to use each) Why you want a bookkeeper What's a minimum viable company When and how do you owe taxes What to do when you're late on taxes Why not to ignore the IRS The secret to success: outsource anything you're not great at and why you should "just take next steps." If you'd like to automate your accounting with a real life bookkeeper, reachout to Donnie at http://lessaccounting.com/autopilot

Joining us is friend and colleague Keir Whitaker. Keir works at Shopify as their Designer Advocate. Like us, he's also had a lot of side projects. In this episode we discuss: What's a side project, why have one? The importance of projects. I have many, some worked, most didn't, and all were lessons learned Using Shopify to launch an MVP and validate a side project. How despite all the advances in technology, good business is still about personal relationships (and conferences are the fast track to those) Sign up for Keir's newsletter at: http://keirwhitaker.com/newsletter/ (Oh! And check out Kurt's new website --> http://kurtelster.com/ and while you're there, join the Insider's List, we've got some exciting things coming up you won't want to miss.)

Want to stop competing against Amazon and everyone else? Consultant Philip Morgan will teach us how to use hyper-specific positioning to make that happen. In this episode, you'll hear how to position your business in a way that leads to higher conversion rates and better customers. Get Philip's free crash course on positioning - https://philipmorganconsulting.com/free-positioning-crash-course - Though focused at dev shops, the knowledge is still useful. (Oh! And check out Kurt's new website --> http://kurtelster.com/ and while you're there, join the Insider's List, we've got some exciting things coming up you won't want to miss.)

Joining our episode is special guest Paul Jarvis, a self-described freelancer evangelist who teaches creatives & freelancers how to make their businesses work on their own terms. Paul's worked with companies like Microsoft, Yahoo and MTV, plus entrepreneurs with massive digital empires, including Danielle LaPorte, Alexandra Franzen, Marie Forleo and Kris Carr (and a whole bunch of amazing folks in between). He applied what he learned in his web design work to writing, and grew his audience from zero to releasing a bestseller, just a year-and-a-half after writing his first book. His words now appear in every major business publication and reach over 100,000 people every month. Those are the numbers and facts. But, Paul's goal isn’t to earn millions or become a bullshit thought leader; it’s to do work that matches his internal compass and provide real value. Defining success on his own terms has made him who he is, and that's what we're going to discuss: the importance of finding your authentic voice and using it in your business. Sign up for Paul's Newsletter at https://pjrvs.com/signup and join 16K+ others reading his weekly articles about freelancing, life and creativity. (Oh! And check out Kurt's new website which was inspired by Paul's! --> http://kurtelster.com/ and while you're there, join the Insider's List, we've got some exciting things coming up you won't want to miss.)

"A trusted referral is the Holy Grail of advertising." - Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO Why doesn't everybody do referral marketing, then? Why isn't it more popular? Because referral marketing is notoriously hard to execute properly. It requires a significant investment of time, energy and resources. It requires commitment. It requires a quality product that's worth talking about. It requires great incentives, effective communications, and the system has to be functionally watertight, or you'll have unhappy customers. In this episode, we talk with ReferralCandy CEO Dinesh Raju how to get it right. He shares what he's learned from running thousands of referral programs for merchants, retailers and businesses of all sizes, across all verticals. We'll discuss every single detail, from the incentive structures to how to effectively communicate them to your advocates. Add A Refer-A-Friend Program To Your Shopify Store: http://pages.referralcandy.com/InterviewPodcast.html Oh! And check out Kurt's new website --> http://kurtelster.com/ and while you're there, join the Insider's List, we've got some exciting things coming up you won't want to miss.

If you've ever run a Shopify store you've almost certainly taken a stroll through the Shopify App Store and installed some of the Apps on offer. But what are Shopify Apps, really? And how can store owners make sure they pick reliable, well-developed Apps that provide a measurable return on investment? In this episode we talk to Gavin Ballard, founder at Disco and author of Mastering Shopify Themes and Mastering Shopify Apps, about all things Shopify Apps, including: The "problem first" approach to finding Apps that deliver value; How to evaluate the reliability and quality of Apps in the App Store; Two things to watch out for when taking on board App recommendations; The benefits of having a custom application built, and how to find a professional developer to build it. If you enjoy this episode, USP listeners can grab a FREE copy of Disco's Shopify App Handbook, which covers the above material and more, from https://www.discolabs.com/handbook/?code=usp. Links: Mastering Shopify Themes: http://gavinballard.com/mastering-shopify-themes/ Mastering Shopify Apps: http://gavinballard.com/mastering-shopify-apps/ Useful Gifts: https://www.usefulgifts.org/ Screenflow: http://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm

We've got a mini bonus episode for you on getting your store ready for the holidays! The holidays are a stressful time. Your in-laws fly in for a long visit, the weather is lousy, you spend more than you anticipated on gifts, and you can feel yourself coming down with a cold. For 72 hours or more, your life turns into a bad sitcom. Oh, and if you're reading, you're probably also a retailer. On top of the personal drama, you’re facing a single day that may make or break your entire fiscal year: Black Friday. That’s actually why it’s called Black Friday. It’s the day that a retailer’s books go from red (operating at a loss) to black (operating at a profit). With the holidays around the corner, let's talk about how we can make the most out of the holidays with the highest degree of success – and the lowest degree of stress. So tackling a full-site redesign in October is probably out of the question. While it might work, it’s too risky. Instead of gearing up for a huge project, let’s focus on some quick wins that you can implement to prep now to prep your store before Black Friday and the holidays.