Podcast

Learn from Fast Growing 7-8 Figure Online Retailers and eCommerce Experts

EPISODE 308 59 mins

FitTrack’s Journey to $100M GMV



About the guests

Jeff Sawyer Lee

Kunle Campbell

Jeff Sawyer Lee is an entrepreneur and growth marketer who is transforming the direct-to-consumer space. As the co-founder of Cubert and founder of FitTrack, Jeff’s focus is to create brands that consumers can’t live without and scaling brands up sustainably through performance marketing. Before joining Cubert, Jeff has taken multiple brands from incubation to 8 figures within the past 5 years.



On today’s episode, Kunle is joined by Jeff Sawyer Lee, Founder of FitTrack. Jeff is a Toronto-based entrepreneur and growth marketer who has taken multiple brands from incubation to 8 figures within the past 5 years.

 

In one of our recent episodes, we showcased a business that hit 8-figures on the back of steady annual growth. But there are certain (rare) businesses who hit 8-figures in super quick time (we’re talking months!). As you would imagine, the challenges of achieving such rapid growth are unique.

 

In this episode, Kunle and Jeff talk about the learnings from supercharged growth. of growing . You will get to hear about how focusing on your customer personas can help you build marketing campaigns that scale FAST, how a company must evolve as it grows, and how customer service is the secret sauce for building a 8-figure business. This is a great episode for entrepreneurs and anyone interested in eCommerce.

 

Here is a summary of some of the most important points made,

    • Foundation of great marketing comes from having great creatives
    • After initial growth, businesses must shift focus from customer acquisition to customer service
    • Businesses that don’t plan ahead can’t cope with fast growth
    • It is critical to mine customer feedback for potential product improvements
    • A customer insights team should be a staple for high value businesses
    • If your product cannot become the category king, then you need to rework your product

 

Covered Topics:

On today’s interview Kunle and Jeff discuss,

  • Jeff’s journey as an entrepreneur
  • Bringing FitTrack to market
  • Growth Marketing Roadmap
  • Email Marketing
  • Selling Channels
  • Key Revenue Milestones
  • Common Customer Service Issues
  • Product Iterations
  • Improving Customer Experience
  • Selling Internationally

Timestamp:

  • 11:00 – Meet Jeff:
    • Co-founded his businesses to make a positive impact in the world
    • Quit his finance job to go into business
    • Went all in to get his develop his marketing skills
    • “It’s ok to lose sometimes if you learn”
    • Grew his 2nd business from 0 to 8-figures in 6 months
  • 20:40 – Running an ecommerce business with minimal staff
  • 23:25 – Bringing FitTrack to market:
    • Took 6-8 months to build out the app
    • Focused on really boosting user experience
    • Optimised both android and iOS from the get-go
  • 25:40 – Launch and Growth Roadmap:
    • “Foundation of great marketing comes from having great creatives”
    • Understand the customer personas by researching other related products
    • Scaled to $6 million in 3 months
    • People who wanted to shed body fat were the top persona
  • 29:00 – Email List:
    • Has a list size of over 1.2 million
    • Uses Klaviyo for email marketing
  • 32:40 – Selling channels:
    • DTC and Amazon
    • Also selling offline through some major chains
  • 33:20 – Key Revenue milestones:
    • When you reach $20 million, your business needs to evolve
    • “Build your business for the future and not for what you have today”
    • Customer service can make or break your business
    • Focus on customer acquisition for the first $20 million
    • Switched focus to customer experience before launching the 2nd product
  • 37:00 – Customer service issues:
    • Delayed responses
    • Lack of a process to mine feedback for product improvements
  • 39:10 – Product iterations:
    • All iterations are on the software
    • Released updates every 3-6 months after launch
  • 41:00 – Improving Customer experience:
    • Built out a full team
    • Had a focused customer insights team of data scientists
    • Created an internal process to keep all departments aligned
  • 43:00 – Tools for improving customer experience:
    • Better CRM tools
    • Using better chat bots
  • 45:00 – “Focus on building a product to become a category king”
  • 48:10 – 20 mil vs 100 mil company:
    • Building a social ecosystem
    • The company culture has to evolve
    • Start thinking ahead
  • 50:30 – Experience with Amazon:
    • Work well with Amazon
    • It is just another channel
    • Important to tap the segment that shops on Amazon only
  • 51:40 – Selling Internationally:
    • Have fulfillment centers across Canada, US, Europe and Australia
    • Use Borderwalks for fulfillment
    • The US is the strongest market
  • 53:20 – Tweaking messaging:
    • 65% of their customers are females
  • 56:00 – Experience with offline retail:
    • Started out recently only
  • 56:40 – Lightning Round

Lightning Round:

  • Q: What advice would you give to yourself 5 years ago?
    A: Hone marketing skills before starting a business 
  • Q: Are you a morning person?
    A: Now I am 
  • Q: Daily Morning routine?
    A: Start with meditation 
  • Q: 2 things you can’t live without?
    A: iPhone and Computer 
  • Q: What book are you currently reading?
    A: The hard things about hard things by Ben 
  • Q: Setback that has given you the best feedback?
    A: Growing too fast and having issues customer experience 
  • Q: Single most impactful book/resource?
    A: Play to win

Takeaways:

  • Marketing skills are a prerequisite for any ecommerce business
  • 8-figure businesses have email lists of 1 million+
  • It is critical to mine customer feedback for potential product improvements

Links & Resources

Tweetable Quotes:

“It’s ok to lose sometimes if you learn.”

Facebook Group • Continue the Conversation

The eCommerce GrowthAccelerator Mastermind Facebook Group has just launched.
It is a community…

✔️ for founders and experts passionately involved in eCommerce
✔️ for the truly ambitious wanting to make an impact in the markets they serve
✔️ for those willing and open to help and share with other members

Here is where to apply to join the Facebook group
>>http://bit.ly/ecommercefb<<

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SPONSORS:

This episode is brought to you by:

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.

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Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.

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About the host:

Kunle Campbell

An ecommerce advisor to ambitious, agile online retailers and funded ecommerce startups seeking exponentially sales growth through scalable customer acquisition, retention, conversion optimisation, product/market fit optimisation and customer referrals.

Learn from eCommerce Entrepreneurs & Marketing Experts


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