On today’s episode, Kunle interviews Jimmy Hickey, Co-Founder & CEO of Findlay Hats, a 6 year-old Portland-based company producing unique, functional and patented hats. “Built for Good Times” is the common theme running through their comms, work culture and customer community. Jimmy shares his story of leaving behind professional photography to pursue what was a sidegig he started along with Co-founder, Sarah Wishard. They started out in a living room with their first batch of 80 hats, and have today grown to a 7-figure business having a 100k strong community called “Findlay Force”. Jimmy shares his insights and learnings from growing his company organically using communities and word-of-mouth, to fast-tracking growth leveraging Facebook ads. You will get to hear about strategies to use in Facebook marketing, and how to build (and manage) active communities. ----------- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo. Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments. Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.   Rewind This episode is brought to you by Rewind. The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind. Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!   For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’ Bolt This episode is brought to you by Bolt. The fastest ecommerce checkout in the industry. Bolt loads 10x faster than native checkouts, with an average checkout duration of over 30 seconds. Bolt is mobile-native with no scroll on mobile screens. It offers a zero-fraud guarantee and has 42% fewer fields than native checkouts. Bolt supports Stripe, Apple pay, Paypal and several more payment gateways and providers. Bolt is offering a completely free checkout audit to 2x listeners. Head Over to Bolt.com/2x to get your free checkout audit now! ★ Support this podcast ★

This episode is a recap from Episode #48. Get the show notes here: https://2xecommerce.com/podcast/ep48/ In 2011 when Jameson Morris was just 22 he co-founded Conscious Box with a $10,000 student loan. Conscious Box as most of our U.S listeners know is one of the biggest players in the subscription box ecommerce space. Jameson exited conscious box due to the complications of VC funding and having learnt never to use outside funding to launch a subscription commerce business, he went unto found multiple bootstrapped subscription-box businesses. He sold one of the business commerce businesses for a tidy sum that enabled him purchase a house and then founded another subscription business around Yoga called Yogi Surprise with 1000s of subscribers. His subscription commerce wizardry landed him a job at Cratejoy - a subscription commerce platform akin to a Shopify dedicated to subscription box businesses as a Director of Consumer Marketing where he helps their subscription business clientele launch and grow their businesses.    He shares the ins and outs of launching and managing a subscription box business on this episode.    ★ Support this podcast ★

On today’s episode, Kunle interviews David Wachs, CEO of Handwrytten, a Phoenix-based automated handwritten notes company. He started the company in 2014 on the back of a successful career in digital marketing. David shares how wanting to build better customer experiences inspired him to transition from electronic media to handwritten notes . He shares real-world use cases of how handwritten notes can lead to ROIs of over 300% for Ecommerce and DTC businesses.  In our post-pandemic world, where more and more businesses are going online, using handwritten notes can prove to be a powerful weapon in your branding arsenal. In today’s episode, you will learn how to leverage handwritten notes for providing an unparalleled level of personalisation and boosting your ROI. The conversation circles around the “Why” and “How” of handwritten notes. You will get to hear specific examples of how companies use handwritten notes to get a leg up on their competition. There is a special bonus for 2x listeners: use the promo code “2xecommerce” while signing up on Handwrytten.com to get a $10 starting credit.   ----------- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo. Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments. Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.   Rewind This episode is brought to you by Rewind. The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind. Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!   For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’ Bolt This episode is brought to you by Bolt. The fastest ecommerce checkout in the industry. Bolt loads 10x faster than native checkouts, with an average checkout duration of over 30 seconds. Bolt is mobile-native with no scroll on mobile screens. It offers a zero-fraud guarantee and has 42% fewer fields than native checkouts. Bolt supports Stripe, Apple pay, Paypal and several more payment gateways and providers. Bolt is offering a completely free checkout audit to 2x listeners. Head Over to Bolt.com/2x to get your free checkout audit now! ★ Support this podcast ★

On today’s episode, Kunle interviews Solomon ‘Chaz’ Chazanow, Co-Founder and CEO of LIV Watches, a DTC swiss watch micro-brand based in Miami, Florida. He co-founded the company in 2012 with his wife, Esti Chazanow, and has over 20 years of experience in the swiss watch industry. Chaz shares his story of how he built a career around his life-long love of swiss watches. You will also get to hear about how he funded  and scaled his company through 4 highly successful (7-figure!) Kickstarter campaigns. He shares his company’s customer success philosophy which has helped him achieve a 40% repeat-customer rate. The focus of the conversation was to understand some of the marketing & branding strategies and tools used to grow his DTC brand. For those of you who are doing or thinking of doing a crowdfunding campaign, you’ll definitely want to listen to this one! You’ll get to hear about what it takes to make a success of your first and subsequent campaigns. ----------- SPONSORS:   This episode is brought to you by:   Klaviyo    This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo.   Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments.   Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.     Rewind   This episode is brought to you by Rewind.   The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind.   Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!     For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’. ★ Support this podcast ★

On today’s episode, we interview one of the Co-founders of Unbound Merino. They are a 4-year-old, $4M+ in premium men’s T-shirt brand that uses only Australian Merino Wool, a sustainable ultimate performance fibre that is breathable, odourless, anti-bacterial and can be worn for weeks without the need to be washed. ----------- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo. Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments. Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.   Rewind This episode is brought to you by Rewind. The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind. Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!   For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’   ★ Support this podcast ★

On today’s episode, Kunle interviews John Tabis, a Co-Founder of Bouqs, a 9-figure, sustainable direct-to-consumer business serving the floral vertical. They are venture-backed with $74M+ raised and are the 7th biggest company to be featured on the TV show, Shark Tank. Kunle and John discuss Bouqs' DTC journey from ideation 8 years ago to their current omnichannel retail fluidity model.  They are cut-to-order online flower delivery business with roots in sustainability.    ----------- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo. Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments. Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.   Rewind This episode is brought to you by Rewind. The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind. Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!   For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’   ★ Support this podcast ★

On today’s episode, Kunle interviews Moshe Saraf, Founder and CEO of Pareto Solutions, an elite performance marketing agency headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel. They specialise in promoting direct-to-consumer and unicorn brands such as eko, Fiverr, NectarSleep, Mixtiles, The Flex Belt, Uprightpose, Puls.com  If you live in the US or the EU, chances are that you will most likely have not only seen one of Pareto's fast-paced, product-oriented ads but also purchased a product or service (like Kunle has), that the agency has promoted on Facebook or Snapchat. The focus of our conversation today was on creative led media buying on the Facebook Advertising Platform.  Here is a summary of some of the most important points made,  Pareto Solutions operate a Creative Leasing Model - this means that they exclusively work with brands with a monthly Facebook ads spend starting from $500,000 - the take on $200,000 as a test to prove their expertise and control not just campaign structure but more importantly control all creatives.  When they demonstrate their entire campaign and creative structure to be better, the lease out their creatives to the clients.  They apply an 18% campaign management fee to the $200,000 spend and then a 7.5% fee on the campaigns leasing their ad creatives. Moshe says that they spend 80% of their time and focus on eCommerce ads campaigns on either creating creatives or optimising existing creatives.  When selling direct-to-consumer you essentially want to create product-oriented ads Their campaign structure is incredibly simple - it is comprised of just 2 campaigns  The first frame of creatives are hugely important for engagement - craft them like you craft a landing page - you want to address either the key value or a key pain as early as possible in your creative. Do not limit signals to Facebook by limiting audience sizes or focusing on narrow audiences.   ----------- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo. Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments. Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.   Rewind This episode is brought to you by Rewind. The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind. Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!   For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’ ★ Support this podcast ★

Depesh is the author of the CBO Cookbook and has just re-launched as well as renamed his Facebook Ads course: The BPM Method. He is offering 2X eCommerce listeners a 25% OFF discount. Use this link to get $400 off the usual $2000 price tag: https://2xecommerce.com/bpm The offer will be available until Monday 3rd August 2020. On today’s episode, we talk about Brand-driven Performance Marketing (BPM) - a Facebook media buying methodology coined by Depesh Mandalia that is required in a new era of automation in the Facebook advertising space where; campaign budget optimisation (CBO), dynamic creatives and AI-driven media buying are dominant pillars. Depesh also talks about the need and obligation of marketers to create customer personas, write copy the directly appeals to each persona and the importance of telling stories that sell your brand’s essence. With the above in place Depesh drills on the importance of using effective audience filtering in funnels in the technical aspects of media buying.     ----------- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo. Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments. Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.   Rewind This episode is brought to you by Rewind. The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind. Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!   For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’ ★ Support this podcast ★

In this episode, Kunle speaks with Rohan Sheth, the CEO and Co-Founder of Direct Heroes.  Over the last five years, a tremendous amount of focus has been placed on the Messenger marketing platform built on Facebook’s messaging functionality.  As Facebook gradually rolls out an amalgamated messaging platform that integrates messaging on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, I felt the need to interview an expert on Instagram DM marketing.  Rohan as the Founder of a dedicated Instagram messaging CRM had a deep understanding of how engagement can be nurtured and honed within the Instagram direct messaging eco-system. Rohan explains how Instagram DMs work, why not is the time to aggressively build your Instagram messaging list, why open rates sit at +85% and he explains a viral loop flow that is guaranteed to maximise brand reach and engagement on Instagram.  ----------- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo. Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments. Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.   Rewind This episode is brought to you by Rewind. The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind. Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!   For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’ ★ Support this podcast ★

Retailers often focus on engaging shoppers at the top of the funnel, which typically involves onsite user experience optimisation, and driving traffic. On today’s episode, Greg Greiner from Bolt discusses why a focus on the bottom of the onsite funnel - ‘checkout’, is equally important to focus. According to Baymard Institute, 30% of shoppers cite friction at checkout as a major impediment to not completing a purchase and 70% of all shoppers abandon their carts at the bottom of the funnel. Greg is the head of Product at Bolt, an eCommerce checkout solution that works a range of eCommerce platforms like Magento, BigCommerce, Salesforce, NetSuite, Woocommerce, and any headless eCommerce solution.  According to Greg, Bolt’s remit as an eCommerce checkout solution is to speed up the checkout process and improve conversions.  Bolt reduces standard guest checkout sessions times from over a minute to just 30 seconds. This episode will help you understand checkout performance benchmarks as well as checkout best practises to deploy in your checkout flow in a bid to improving conversions. ----------- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo. Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments. Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.   Rewind This episode is brought to you by Rewind. The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind. Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!   For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’ ★ Support this podcast ★