Ep 168 Scott Hutchison, a serial entrepreneur who helped build an e-commerce jewelry brand to 15 million in sales in just three years. Listen as Nathan and Scott talk about the pros and cons of e-commerce and Ashley Bridget’s immense growth.
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3 Key Points:
- If you’re thinking about advertising through Instagram, keep in mind that accounts that list an email address in or below their bio are likely willing to do business.
- Ashley Bridget ran an immensely successful advertising campaign in which they gave away free bracelets – the average cart value during the campaign was 25$ from other products being purchased alongside the bracelets and the business got about 25K new customers.
- One of e-commerce’s advantages is not needing many employees. Ashley Bridget later sought professionals to enhance their business and increase the quality of their product.
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:00 – Nathan’s introduction to today’s show
- 01:24 – Scott joins the show.
- 01:41 – Scott Hutchison helped build Ashley Bridget which sells women’s jewelry almost exclusively on the website.
- 03:45 – In 2013, Ashley Bridget made 1.5 million in revenue, 4.5 million in 2014, and 8.2 million in 2015.
- 04:37 – To generate its first sales, the business advertised on Instagram. Accounts that list an email address below their bio are likely willing to do business.
- 05:16 – The business had a successful campaign starting out giving out free bracelets that got very popular. The shipping fee covered the cost of making the bracelet and so they broke even on the campaign.
- 05:58 – They got about 25K customers in 1.5 months just from the free bracelet promotion.
- 06:43 – When customers got the bracelet for free, they usually added other things to their cart.
- 06:59 – Ashley Bridget advertises with a combination of Google AdWords, Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook.
- 07:09 – The company’s started focusing on retention instead of advertising by increasing product quality.
- 07:54 – 20% of 2015’s revenue went into advertising (roughly 160K.)
- 08:45 – Initially the business relished e-commerce because it didn’t require a lot of employees, but now that they’ve expanded they’re focusing on hiring professionals.
- 09:23 – Scott talks about why the referral system is successful for his business.
10:43 – The business averages about 25K orders per month.
- 11:14 – In 2014, the business bought a warehouse, but it was difficult to manage.
- 12:36 – The business is lucky to have an experienced senior advisor who affords them a good network of Venture capital investors.
- 13:43 – The name Ashley Bridget came from what the founders thought would be an ‘ideal girl.’
- 17:16 – Famous Five
Resources Mentioned:
- Edgar – Nathan uses Edgar instead of other scheduling tools for twitter because Edgar cycles through content over and over (buffer/others you have to re-input content over and over – time consuming). In the last several months, Edgar has driven Nathan over 3728 clicks that he didn’t have to work or pay for. Here isNathan’s Edgar Content Calendar:
Famous 5
- Favorite Book?— The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris
- What CEO do you follow?— Gary Vaynerchuk
- What is your favorite online tool?— Evernote
- Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
- If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be?—To keep doing what he’s doing and to enjoy himself while doing it.
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Your host, Nathan Latka is a 25 year old software entrepreneur who has driven over $4.5 million in revenue and built a 25 person team as he dropped out of school, raised $2.5million from a Forbes Billionaire, and attracted over 10,000 paying customers from 160+ different countries.
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