Karen Lawson from Nontre | Checkout #394

Justin Ryan from Glow Capital Partners | Checkout #401

In this episode of Add To Cart, we checkout Justin Ryan, Co founder of Glow Capital Partners, a growth equity firm investing in high growth brands and businesses in Australia and New Zealand. Having led 22 private equity investments and a big fan of partnering with innovative entrepreneurs and founders, Justin started the Glow Capital business in 2021 alongside Kate Morris of Adore Beauty. Earlier this year they secured their first major client, Cargo Crew.  

Links from the episode:

Glow Capital Partners

How Glow Capital Partners Choose Bankable Ecommerce Founders | #354

Questions 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…

Emarsys

About your host: Nathan Bush from Add to Cart 

Nathan Bush is 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.

About your co-host: Justin Ryan from Glow Capital Partners

Justin Ryan is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Glow Capital Partners, a private equity firm that invests in high growth and future focused companies. Justin has an extensive private equity investment track record since starting in the industry in 1997 at Catalyst Investment Managers, including the last decade at Quadrant Private Equity as a Managing Partner. Justin was Chair of the Australian Venture Capital Association (now Australian Investment Council) in 2003.  

Since 1997, Justin has led 22 private equity investments, 17 are fully exited and 2 partially exited. Seven have received deal of year from the Australian Investment Council. Justin also has extensive operational experience, gained while CEO and Managing Director of Alesco Corporation, an ASX 200 listed company with a portfolio of over 100 industrial brands which was acquired by Dulux Corporation in 2011.

You can contact Justin at LinkedIn

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 better

Email [email protected] We look forward to hearing from you!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Carla Penn-Kahn and David Kahn: Boosting Ecommerce Profitability with Visibility | #400

Today’s guests join me to go deep into the subject of profitability and separate the layers that hide in different areas of an ecom business.  Carla Penn-Kahn and David Kahn are co founders of Profit Peak, a SaaS tool built to give merchants true visibility on everything that contributes to profitability, all in one place, in real time.  The husband and wife team started ProfitPeak in 2022 to help them run their own ecommerce business and it soon became clear this was a solution that other founders were crying out for.  Today they work with clients such as Arms of Eve and Flora and Fauna.  In this chat, Carla and David share their insights, including the key metrics within marketing, inventory and customer that contribute to profitability.  We hear about their customer-first approach to Profit Peak’s social media presence and what the duo gained from being a part of the Blackbird Giants…that’s the mentoring programme, not a baseball team :)

Links from the episode:

ProfitPeak

Shopify Plus (sponsored)

Deliver In Person (sponsored)

Questions answered:

• Tell us about your two successful exits as ecommerce business owners
• When you had the idea, how did you put a plan in place to build and launch Profit Peak? 
• What metrics should retailers be looking at daily when it comes to profitability?

About your host: Nathan Bush from Add to Cart 

Nathan Bush is 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.

About your co-hosts: 

Carla Penn-Kahn from ProfitPeak

CEO for 10+ years with a team in Sydney and Kuala Lumpur. Our eCommerce brands were no1 and no2 according to the independent voice of Australian consumers on ProductReview for our category.  Acquired by Kitchen Warehouse in 2023 to create the largest Kitchenware player in Australia.  Founder of Profit Peak, an operating system for profitable eCommerce businesses. Optimising advertising and inventory for profitable outcomes in real time, with first party data, solving attribution.  Mum to two gorgeous kids.

You can contact Carla at LinkedIn

David Kahn from ProfitPeak

eCommerce CMO for 10+ years making our business grow from $3m ➡️ $30m+ in sales selling the world's best kitchenware brands for Australia's leading pure play kitchenware stores without external capital before exiting.

Now heading up growth as co-founder of Profit Peak with a focus on customer success with a product-led growth strategy, helping e-commerce businesses boost their profitability.

You can contact David at LinkedIn

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dan Ferguson from Adore Beauty | Checkout #399

In this episode of Add To Cart, we checkout Dan Ferguson, Chief Marketing Officer at Adore Beauty.  He has over 20 years’ experience in e-commerce and digital marketing. Prior to joining Adore in 2018, Dan had roles leading e-commerce for brands such as Vistaprint, Officeworks and Dell.

Links from the episode:

Adore Beauty

The Psychology Behind Successful Marketing with Dan Ferguson from Adore Beauty | #390

Questions 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… 

About your co-host: Dan Ferguson from Adore Beauty

Dan Ferguson joined Adore Beauty in 2018 as Chief Marketing Officer, doubling returning customer growth and revenue in his first six months. Responsible for marketing, brand, retail media and loyalty, Dan has led high and sustained rates of customer acquisition and retention alongside new income growth through new channels and markets, the launch of retail media, and audience platforms including Adore Beauty’s Top 5 ranked Beauty IQ podcast.  

Dan has over 20 years’ experience in e-commerce and digital marketing. Prior to joining Adore Beauty, Dan had extensive roles growing and leading e-commerce, multi-channel and online retail business in Australia for local and global brands, including Vistaprint, Officeworks, Dell with consistent average 2.5x business or portfolio growth across his tenure in these roles.  Dan currently serves as Board Advisor for Preezie and holds a Bachelor of Arts/Psychology (Honours) from the University of Sydney.

You can contact Dan at LinkedIn

About your host: Nathan Bush from Add To Cart

Nathan Bush is 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 better

Email [email protected] We look forward to hearing from you!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brendan Gillen from Fight Gear Direct: Creating Repeatable Systems for Ecommerce Success

Today’s guest owns a business that sells fight gear, but don’t worry, we won’t be quizzing you on how well you know your MMA from your Muay Thai, but we will be bringing you plenty of knockout ecom tips.  Brendan Gillen is Chief Ecommerce Officer at Fight Gear Direct and CEO and Founder of The Ecommerce Factory, delivering advice and coaching to help store owners, ecommerce businesses and founders grow, optimise and scale their ecommerce businesses. You might recognise him from his black hat and outrageous facial expressions in his YouTube clips.  His client list includes The Horse and Superdry and he’s been in the Top 50 people in Ecommerce list for the last three years running.  In this episode, Brendan shares why it helps to care about the product you’re selling, the importance of owning your supply chain and the way he’s using ChatGPT for data analysis.

Links from the episode:

Shopify Plus (sponsored)

Deliver in Person (sponsored)

Questions answered:

• How important is engagement?
• What are the most common myths in ecommerce?
• What’s your favourite story of a founder you’ve been able to coach to turn something around? 

This episode was brought to you by…  

Shopify Plus

Deliver In Person

About your host: Nathan Bush from Add to Cart 

Nathan Bush is 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.

About your co-host: Brendan Gillen from Fight Gear Direct

Working with some of the world's leading and most iconic brands, Brendan strives to help them lead the way in innovation and best practice digital marketing and ecommerce.  As a digital professional,  he has a strong background in technical project delivery, creative marketing concepts and hands on digital design.  Throughout his business career Brendan has worked in, led, started, built, invested in and successfully sold a number of businesses both online and offline which has given him real world, tangible learning that he can now apply in my everyday work.

You can contact Brendan at LinkedIn

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 better

Email [email protected] We look forward to hearing from you!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

George Hartley from Bluethumb | Checkout #397

In this episode of Add To Cart, we checkout George Hartley. Co founder of Bluethumb, Australia’s online art marketplace.  Representing over 20,000 emerging and established artists from Australia, Bluethumb’s mission is to make discovering artists and buying art easy.  They have on boarded a third of Australia’s Indigenous Art Centres and have recently launched in the US. 

Links from the episode:

Bluethumb

The Power of Dumb Ideas with George Hartley from Bluethumb | #388 

Questions 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… 

About your co-host: George Hartley from Bluethumb

George is co-founder and CMO/CPO of Bluethumb, Australia's largest online art marketplace. Prior to that he founded SmartrMail, a marketing automation company that was acquired by Relay Capital in 2022. He has a masters in Computer Science (Intelligent Web Systems) from RMIT, and is a (very) amateur musician.

You can contact George at LinkedIn

About your host: Nathan Bush from Add To Cart

Nathan Bush is 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 better

Email [email protected] We look forward to hearing from you!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.