Selling software was easier than dog pajamas
"Man, what didn't I get wrong? It's so much harder."
Brian Nolan sold his SaaS company Sellbrite to GoDaddy. Then he bought Darren & Phillip, an Australian dog apparel brand built around viral matching dog-and-owner bathrobes, and found out that owning a store is a different beast than building software for stores. The founder was the face of the brand, and she left with the sale. The Google Workspace account was locked to Australian billing. Moving inventory from Australia to the US costs more than shipping it from China.
In this episode: what nobody warns you about when buying an 8-year-old brand, how customers with 80+ repeat purchases justify losing money on the first order, and the TikTok creator seeding playbook that works in the hundreds, not the tens of thousands.
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The Unofficial Shopify Podcast is hosted by Kurt Elster and explores the stories behind successful Shopify stores. Get actionable insights, practical strategies, and proven tactics from entrepreneurs who've built thriving ecommerce businesses.
Kurt • 00:00.001
This episode is brought to you in part by Swym. Here's the thing about wishlist apps. Most of them just sit there. A customer saves a product, and then nothing happens. Swym actually activates that data. When someone wish lists a product, you could trigger price drop or back-in-stock alerts and feed that intent directly into Klaviyo or your CRM. You're not guessing what people want because they've told you. Plus, customers can share wish lists for gifts and your team can view them to offer personalized service online or in store. And unlike card abandonment, wishlist data is permission-based. These are people raising their hands saying, hey, I want this. Just not right now. Swym's been around for over a decade. It powers 45,000 stores and installs in about five minutes. You can try it for free today at getswim. com slash Kurt. That's G-E-T-S-W-Y-M. com slash Kurt. Hmm. Everybody's looking for, you know, a hot product, a viral product, and on Shopify, apparel, fashion and apparel, huge category. Yeah, I believe the biggest, maybe the biggest. What about apparel for dogs? No, apparel for dog lovers. Well, if we're doing one, we may as well do why not both? That's what our guest today sells, the viral matching dog bathrobe sets, among other things. Yes, we're talking to Brian Nolan, serial entrepreneur from Darren and Phillips. Brian, welcome to the show. How you doing?
Brian • 01:43.460
Thanks, Kurt. Thanks for having me. I'm doing well. Thanks. How are you?
Kurt • 01:46.820
Happy happy to have you here is how I'm doing. Um so you your last company you sold to GoDaddy.
Brian • 01:54.260
Yeah, that was actually two companies ago. My first company, Cellbright, I sold to GoDaddy. That was a that was a software company. We were uh software as a service in the e-commerce space. Um making tools for multi-channel sellers. We made it easy to sell on Amazon and eBay and all the other marketplaces and keep all your inventory and orders in sync. And uh yeah, after five and a half years of building that business, we sold it to GoDaddy.
Kurt • 02:20.980
And now you sell dog pajamas. Walk me through that career move.
Brian • 02:25.760
Well, there was a stop in between well, I spent a couple years at GoDaddy actually running product over there for their e-commerce tools. And then there was a stop in between where I had another business that was doing It was a online travel booking business for outdoor accommodations. I had that for three years, ended up selling it to a competitor. And then I took a step where how I ended up with selling dog apparel was I decided I wanted to own another company, but I was I needed a break from going from zero to one. I needed a break from starting something from scratch. So I started looking into buying an existing business. And I didn't go directly to dog apparel as my category, but I looked at everything really. And I came across this husband and wife team that own this brand, Darren and Phillip. And they were based in Australia. And they'd been running it for almost eight years. And they were looking for new owners because they've had a series of life changes as well, new, you know, young kids and and so forth, and they were just ready to do something else. And um so I saw the business and met the founders. They were great and the business looked great too. A lot of the KPIs and metrics around the business. Really look good. A lot of repeat customers, great organic traffic, great social engagement, so forth. And I felt like we could my wife and I bought the business. We felt like we could grow the business here in the US. It was actually started in Australia, given all our experience with e-commerce. So that's how we found ourselves into this. And we loved the brand because we A, we love dogs and we've rescued five dogs ourselves. So The brand is all about dogs and there's a huge component to giving back. And so the over since the beginning, and we've continued this, the brand has donated over a million, uh, 1. 25 million to dog rescues around the world. And we've done that through raising money through our community. We've done that through um donating proceeds to pro of products to to dog rescues, donating actual product to dog rescues where they need it. Um, so that was important to us too, and we continued that on. So that's how I ended up owning a business that sells. uh lifestyle business for dog lovers that sells both human apparel and matching dog apparel.
Kurt • 04:50.160
Was this your first business purchase?
Brian • 04:53.260
It was my first business purchase, yes.
Kurt • 04:55.180
So I had sold two businesses. If I buy a candy bar, that's a purchase. A business I acquire. Ooh, so much more formal.
Brian • 05:02.780
That's right.
Kurt • 05:03.340
Yeah. So in our our business acquisition What uh what surprised you about that?
Brian • 05:09.659
Well, in this business in particular, what we underestimated, I think, was how much how important the founder and her relationship with the community was. So she was really the face of the business. Actually, I take it back. Her dogs, who the business is named after, Darren and Philip, were the original faces of the business. They were they had an Instagram presence. and a huge following on Instagram and the brand developed out of that. And then she became the face, the human face of it, the founder. Once the dogs had passed, and once the founder was gone, because we acquired the business That engagement was hard to replicate. And so we've tried to reposition the brand to be not to copy her. Because we know we just can't replace her and copy her. She was loved by the community, but to make it a little bit of our own and put our own spin and vision on the brand. And so for the last year, we've been Working on that. And that that means a little bit of like brand tweaking as well, small things, logo and and visual things to indicate that it's a little bit of a shift in the brand, but also the product and more importantly It was originally developed as more of a novelty type product for dogs with a matching human side. So a dog shirt with matching human shirt or pajamas. We've tried to flip that to say this is a lifestyle brand for humans, for pet people, for dog lovers. And if you want, your dog can match you. So it's a little bit of a, you know, we're just sort of twisting it there, but Um but it it changes the direction of how we market it and how and the type of product we make for it.
Kurt • 06:51.699
So who's buying? Are we buying for ourselves or for dogs?
Brian • 06:57.400
Sometimes, well, our customers do both. We have customers that purely just buy for their dogs, and our the the robes that you mentioned early on are our best sellers. So that's a human, soft, luxury bathrobe. But there's also a calming robe for dogs. So it's made out of the same quality plush material. Feels like the dog is under a blanket or something. You know, it's very cozy for the dog, but there's a strap that goes around the dog to keep it on. And but it acts like a swaddle effect and creates a calming effect for the dog. So some people just buy for functionality for the dog. Some people buy for cuteness for the dog. But a lot of people buy for identity for themselves too. They want to say, I'm a dog person. I love my dog. My dog is like a child to me. We match. Just like the how they have like, you know, mommy and me matching for your your mom and the kid, or even daddy and me. Um with so many people owning dogs now rather than children, um and rather than having children. Um Uh do I own my children? Yeah, I own having children. So there's a little bit of both. We have customers on both. both.
Kurt • 08:05.080
In fashion and apparel, size is the big sticking point. People going, well, will this fit me? What happens if it doesn't? And then dealing with returns and exchanges. Now we're compounding the problem because we're doing sizing for people and dogs.
Brian • 08:18.440
Yeah.
Kurt • 08:18.760
Has that been a challenge or you know, solved problem?
Brian • 08:22.680
It's a challenge, but I I would say even the human sizing is easier because we're all basically the same shape, if you will. We're different sizes, but the same shape. Dogs are also Different sizes, but also different shapes. You have different barrel-chested dogs, you have long skinny dogs, you know, so different structure. of their bodies, which makes sizing even harder. We have seven dog sizes. Eight, sorry, eight now. We had just added double extra large, but we go all the way from triple extra small, which is your chihuahua, all the way up to double extra large. Thankfully, they had a lot of that sizing kind of figured out beforehand, except on the real small sizes, they were still too big for like your Chihuahua. So when we took it over, we adjusted the smallest three sizes to make 'em even smaller and grade that a little bit differently. Um but it's kind of figured out. I mean it again, it's not gonna fit every dog and sometimes, you know, we do offer free exchanges 'cause we know that's a thing. And we have a pretty good size chart on our website that shows you how to measure your dog and pick the right size. Um, but we use, you know, tools to make exchanges really easy too.
Kurt • 09:33.880
Uh favorite app you like for this for returns and exchange?
Brian • 09:36.920
Loop, we use loop returns, which is a popular, you know, favorite, yeah.
Kurt • 09:40.120
Very popular. What uh and you had to move this from Australia to you're in uh Denver. Any difficulties there?
Brian • 09:47.420
Weird things you would never think about. Like you could not That's what I wanted that's why I asked.
Kurt • 09:51.899
I'm like, I bet there's this is harder than I think
Brian • 09:55.320
Weird ram random stuff that I never thought. So the inventory is it we actually use a third 3PL third-party logistics for the inventory. So we still have a warehouse in Australia, because we have a big customer base there still, and in Los Angeles. So that didn't change. We still have our inventory there. But random things like they had they use Google uh workspace for email and everything, and you cannot change the billing country on your Google Workspace account. Whoops. Which means when I came in and I want to put my credit card, I can't. So I had to create a whole new Google Workspace account with United States billing. And find a tool to migrate it. They don't make migration easy either. So migrate all the Google Drive files, all the emails, all that stuff over to the new account. So little things like that. TikTok, same thing actually. TikTok, we you cannot change the country, the region that it's in. So we lost the following on our TikTok account. And we wanted to do that because they don't have TikTok shop in Australia. So I couldn't we couldn't create a TikTok shop and connect it to our TikTok account if it was still Australian based. So we Those kinds of things were just like driving me crazy in the first six months.
Kurt • 11:07.160
I yeah. All solvable, but like, you know, that's the kind of stuff that when you have a to-do list, it's just going straight to the bottom. Like Oh, go fight with SAS vendor. Just not not on the top of my list of exciting, productive, rewarding things to do as an entrepreneur, but jobs to be done. Um so And and even for you, I mean you spent years building software to help stores sell more. And so like you're someone who would be well versed in dealing with this, I would think, or at least, you know, adept at it. Now you're the store. You know, in the past you were building software for stores. You're the store owner.
Brian • 11:43.280
That's right.
Kurt • 11:43.840
What do you what do you think you got completely wrong about running a store?
Brian • 11:47.980
Oh man, what didn't I get wrong? I mean there's it's hard. It's so much harder. Most people run a i you know, some kind of inventory store and then go to tech because they realize r r running a store and holding inventory is hard. Things have changed just so much. You know, it when I started celebrate in 2013, it was really easy to list on Amazon. You didn't have to pay for ads. You just get your inventory there and it would start selling. Now you really have to like Use their Vine program to give out free product to get reviews. You have to run ads. Like everything just feels more complicated. There's more tools, there's more expectations. And on top of all that, you're trying to figure out inventory and purchasing. And for us, we now we have two warehouses. So how much do I want to send to Australia? How much do I want to keep in the US? Which ships to the rest of the world. So all those things I think were just a learning curve, right? I like I understood I'm very technical. I used to write software so like I can get into my Shopify theme and change the you know the liquid code and everything just fine. But actually getting the business to perform and improve conversion rates and list on Amazon and all these things that we do to try to grow our business. are just so much harder 13 years later than you know from from when I started my first company and things were relatively simple still in e-commerce then.
Kurt • 13:21.800
It's funny. It is the more sophisticated the tools become to make life easier, the more complicated all of this gets. Because it's just it is a constant arms race. You know, if someone says, hey, here's a tool that is going to, you know, do eighty percent of your marketing for you in one tenth of time. And that's that is what AI has given us. And they're like, guess what? It's going to be b 20 bucks a month. It's practically free. And it's going to do a C plus job on everything it does. It'll be great. And that's what you now have like that now becomes table stakes. So it's like you could do everything pretty well. Right. And so you have to do everything pretty well. And now, all right, like where do you go from there? But okay, if I'm a merchant, if I'm going from vendor to being a merchant, the things that scare me, cash flow conversion cycle Inventory and for inventory and forecasting. So like those two go together. And then the marketing funnel. I don't want to end up in a situation where I'm paying customers to buy my product, where I'm at net loss on that first sale. Tell me about your experience with marketing funnel.
Brian • 14:28.920
Yeah. Luckily we have a pretty strong LTV with this business and we have a really high repeat customer rate. We have customers that have purchased from us 80 plus times. So when we're looking at the customer acquis times is crazy. Right? Quite unusual. Right. And uh when we look at the customer acquisition cost. We are making that bet that okay, maybe it is okay to lose money on that first order just to get them in our world and, you know, and uh and and sell them more stuff as we launch new product and get Get that engine going with the repeat customers, right? We do obviously do email and SMS and all that stuff and social media and just keep you know keeping awareness and keeping them top of mind all the time. But losing money on every sale is great, but then but then the cash situation comes in. So you somebody still has to pay for that. And you don't get recouped and you don't get paid back until Down the line, maybe a year later. So where does that cash come from? We self-finance this business. Um and You know, we're putting in our own money into this. So there's a another risk factor there where it's our personal finances at risk and how much do we want to risk and spend Believing basically believing in the future that this will that this engine does work and will convert. Meanwhile, you know, the ads just keep getting more expensive every day.
Kurt • 15:53.040
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Brian • 17:37.320
Yeah.
Kurt • 17:37.640
Yeah. It's like, okay, you're stuck, and they know it. It's a kind of a strange situation.
Brian • 17:42.620
It is. And for our product, it does really well on a visual platform like, you know, Facebook or Instagram, where you can see there's a cuteness factor. You can see the pictures. We use a lot of creator content for our ads. Um And they do well. Um, some better than others, of course, but that's part of the process, right? Is just testing and see what works and um double downing on on that stuff. But but even then the content runs its course. And so you're constantly feeding new content. and trying to figure out what works and you know your ROAS is going like this and some days it you want to pound your head against the wall.
Kurt • 18:19.180
Is it I would imagine that you have an easier time than most getting UGC. My camera roll is like 80% photos of my wife. My wife's camera roll is 80% photos of our cat. Right. People this person who is going to buy a dog robe loves taking photos of their dog.
Brian • 18:37.820
What we're trying, that's true. We have More dog photos than we could want. What we're trying to do though is get more human and dog together photos, which are a little bit harder because a lot of these people have no problem posting pictures. pictures of their dogs online and there's a lot of Instagram accounts that are just dog accounts and people follow them to see cute pictures of their dogs But we're trying to make more of a lifestyle brand where the dog is the lifestyle. So I want to see the person interacting with their dog, matching with their dog. you know, walking their dog, taking them to the coffee shop, whatever, like living life with their dog, and I want more of those, that type of content, that's harder to get because not everybody's comfortable. being in front of the camera and taking pictures of themselves.
Kurt • 19:22.260
Not yeah, not everybody wants to go face to camera, right? It's a weird hurdle to get over. And not and then just the level of effort involved to make a decent video of yourself. Either I gotta get other people to hold the camera, you know, I need a tripod. Like there, it just adds. Extra layers of complexity. So I get how yeah you would end up with tons of dog photos, but not necessarily.
Brian • 19:47.059
You know, people don't want to be at the coffee shop. Taking a video of themselves. They feel funny doing that or whatever. But no problem with the dog. Everybody's looking at the dog anyway. So yeah, a lot of dog content. That's great, but we're trying to balance that because W there is the human side of it, you know. Um, and we want to showcase that as well.
Kurt • 20:08.000
I'm still hearing that uh selling dog robes is harder than s selling robes to dogs is harder than selling software to GoDaddy.
Brian • 20:16.660
Yes. I would say so. I mean, it's uh building a s well Again, times have changed. Subscription software right now is being rocked by AI as well. So I'm glad I'm not an owner of SAS in this business, in this time. But at the time, building a SaaS business with recurring revenue and high profit margins was like the dream and it was awesome. And we we timed it right with Amazon, fulfillment by Amazon just starting and And not having tools out there to support that. So that's where we started. Um don't get me wrong, selling the business was not easy either, but it was a w a one period of time that was very difficult to get through due diligence. Um, but this is like a daily, you know, owning a any kind of brand, but a in particular an apparel brand is difficult.
Kurt • 21:13.019
Yeah. Yeah, there's always issues that like you just didn't think of. Um and then margins and apparel can be rough too. Maybe we just we work Work with a lot of apparel brands.
Brian • 21:22.639
Yeah. Um the And just you you're constantly needing new designs and styles and So forth. Yep.
Kurt • 21:30.740
Yeah, I need fashion and apparel more than most is really driven by a lot of novelty, right? Okay, what do they have to offer now? Like I saw the last sweatshirt and I didn't buy it. Show what do you got now? Okay. Wow, a limited edition color? I can't believe it. You know, and then that's the one you buy. But okay, for the all the people the people who said yes to that, you had all these other customers who looked and said, I don't want that. And so 30 days later, guess what? You get to do it again. And that it's like, all right, I could do that for a little while, but then by year two, I mean it's get rough. You start running out of ideas.
Brian • 22:03.380
It's exhausting. It's exhausting. Yeah. And and and if you Make the wrong thing and you're stuck with that inventory, then you can you gotta figure out how to liquidate it and get rid of it and hopefully not lose money on it, but recover, you know, some money on it and Otherwise it's sitting in your warehouse just collecting storage fees.
Kurt • 22:21.540
And then yeah, the tough part is you like you truly don't know what will or won't be successful. You know, the stuff that I've fallen in love with before a launch is rarely the stuff that does hugely well after a launch. Um tell me, have you ever had a situation like that? Have you had a line or like, all right, this one, I'm so proud of this, and then crickets.
Brian • 22:42.740
We have actually, and this is goes back to trying to evolve the product selection from what it was, which was, you know. Prints that were um almost cartoony, like prints of illustrations of dogs on pajamas and and things like that. Which nowadays you can find at Walmart. You can get matching Christmas PJs with your dog at Walmart for $14. So we're also like, okay. This has become sort of widespread. We need to constantly evolve and stay ahead of it. But we came out with a really nice knit sweater that's super soft and thick and comfortable last year during winter. And We thought it was gonna be great and cute and it just didn't sell very well. So, you know, we have it in two different colors for humans and dogs and all this inventory and We'll see if we can push it through this coming win winter. Good thing is with Australia, they're up their southern hemisphere, right? So it's their winter now. It's our summer. So we can kind of like move inventory, but it's also cost prohibitive to move inventory back and forth between the US and Australia. That is that's more expensive than going from China to the United States. So it's interesting. We've been burned a couple times trying to move some like straggler inventory. We're like, oh, we'll just add it to the US. We have some demand here. And it just it ate up all our margin just getting it here.
Kurt • 24:08.140
Uh and is it is it like an import cost or is it just shipping cost?
Brian • 24:12.540
Shipping. It just takes takes thirty days on a ship to get from Asia to the US. It takes 45 days from Australia to the US on a ship. And it's just way more expensive, pro probably because there's less freight lines going back and forth. Um yeah. Just not good. And then you could ship it by air, but then it's like Insanely expensive. Hugely expensive. So yeah, so that yeah, I mean, we we've had some of those that just like we were excited about. We spent a lot of time on the design of it and samples and getting it perfected and then it just Just didn't move. We don't hard to say why.
Kurt • 24:49.080
Well, that's the other part. We I've also seen situations where stuff that we thought wouldn't move or like it did okay, but not great. on a relaunch in just a different different circumstances, suddenly is a huge hit. And so sometimes like you it's just timing. But you true when you launch it and it flops, you really have no idea why. So it yeah, it kind of shakes your confidence a little bit. You're like, oh man, what do we do here? It does.
Brian • 25:14.340
I mean, it could be as something as simple as like the photos and the models and the types of dogs we used in the photos or, you know, maybe reshooting it and getting other content there and kind of re like you're saying, sort of repositioning it, different timing, you know, different part time of the year. All those things could factor in and and change it.
Kurt • 25:35.460
What um we talked about, you know, meta and the difficulty and the the rising cause. You also mentioned that uh you're on TikTok. Do you sell on TikTok shop? Do you do advertising there?
Brian • 25:49.240
We do. I wouldn't say we sell a lot on TikTok shop, but we Have tried to follow the playbook that other brands, a lot of supplement brands and you know, consumables use, but also some apparel brands like comfort hoodies use this brand or use this model of Seeding out a crap load of product to creators and getting a ton of content. And it doesn't need to be big creators. We're talking little creators that have generated a little bit of GMV for their brands. And but just getting a high volume out there? Yeah, I want surface area. Surface area, right? And then and then that drives sh TikTok shop uh orders. But we we've also seen it's but it's not huge because I just we just don't have the budget to seat out Thousands or tens of thousands because it is oh wow, that's what it takes. Hundreds, but yeah, I think comfort got up into like fifty thousand creators that they sent product out to. Whoa. Um We're doing it in the hundreds and that's still expensive for us. So you have your cost of goods plus shipping, plus the tools you're using, you know. I have a um a woman helping me out on the TikTok side of things and managing all the relationships with the creators and getting them to post new content and everything. But we do see a halo effect with TikTok. So Not everybody is comfortable buying on TikTok shop yet, but they'll search for it. You know, they'll see it and then go search Either on Amazon or on Google or whatever. And so we see organic traffic and sales on our site and Amazon pickup when we do things on TikTok shop and some TikTok orders that come in.
Kurt • 27:32.480
All right, as a software guy in 2026, I have to ask you, are you Claude pilled?
Brian • 27:39.920
Um Yeah, yeah, yeah. We I use Claude. I use ChatGPT and Claude, but I use mostly Claude. I feel like ChatGPT does a little bit better with brand tone in terms of our copywriting and things like that. Um, but I use Claude for everything. Yeah. Code for strategic decisions for You know, uh analyzing data, spreadsheets, all that stuff.
Kurt • 28:06.279
Cloud code's my favorite, and I'm just a big dork, so I'm just always doing it in the terminal, right? I want the command line interface like I'm on a 1980s uh bulletin board. the and I love it.
Brian • 28:16.760
Have you used the superpower skill?
Kurt • 28:18.920
I've got superpowers installed. Um you know I use that uh for plan writing and late with the it's Where during the Fable preview, I would use I would have soup create superpower plans with Fable and then have Opus execute those. And so that's a conserving my my Fable tokens.
Brian • 28:37.720
Oh, nice. Like I said, I do most of I'll have it write some code that I can copy paste into a theme if I need to, but you know, I'm pretty comfortable with. with all that stuff anyway, but it's just fast. Yeah. Copy the code, paste it in, and say, I wanted to do this, edit it, and then it's So fast, right? Um but yeah, I have it hooked into the with the Shopify connector, and so it can access all the APIs on Shopify and pull in all the data and analyze and make suggestions. I basically made Claude my CMO. Um and told it, you know, it's a CMO and and uh and guiding decisions based on that.
Kurt • 29:15.299
Clever. Yeah. I have a I have a lot of fun with it. I like it. Um the only thing I don't like is For like for regular tasks, I love it. For building net new things, I have mixed feelings about it because it robs you of the joy of productivity. I mean it it's like I could describe it. It's gonna do the work, it's gonna do it in one tenth of time, and then it's gonna give me one tenth the satisfaction. And so that's like really that's become my big issue. That and like Everyone using it, not realizing that they're all producing exactly the same C plus stuff. And I'm being like, I built. And then for whatever reason it's always regardless of what it is, like it's just a spreadsheet. And they're like, it's blank OS. Okay. Claude came up with a name, right? And it's like that's what it always does. So just like seeing people very proud of the same software getting made over and over, a little strange. Um, but you know, overall I would not give up the tools. I would not trade them.
Brian • 30:13.160
Right. That satisfaction you thing you you mentioned is is big. And I I always tell people who aren't, you know, software developers or or software people or tech people or whatever. It's that same kind of satisfaction you get when you're working in an Excel spreadsheet and you get, you know, reference cells referencing other cells and it just works, and you change something and it like updates this whole thing. And that satisfaction you get. That's kind of the same thing. And when you build software and it works and you write it yourself and everything, and um yeah, I guess that's gone.
Kurt • 30:48.860
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Brian • 32:10.900
Yeah, exactly.
Kurt • 32:13.000
What are you excited about with this business? I'm sure, you know, just keep the day-to-day of keeping an online store going. I'm sure, you know, there are times it keeps you up at night. But looking forward, what are you excited about here?
Brian • 32:25.220
I still feel like there's an unlock that I haven't hit yet with the brand and really resonating with the audience and the right customer base of the dog person who is. Who who is stylish themselves and wants to have that identity, but not in a cheesy, corny way, you know, all the stuff you find on Etsy or whatever. So we haven't hit that yet, but I feel like that's the unlock to really grow this business. And so We're trying to get there. And part of it is just the the cycle time on creating new product. You know, our lead times are seven to nine months probably from starting a a design on a product to getting samples and actually being able to sell it in our warehouse. So it's just uh you have to be patient. You know, I'm used to software development where everything's pretty immediate and you can see your results quickly. And this is like it just takes time to see the fruit of your labor actually come to life and be able to sell it and and um and see the result. So But that's what I'm excited about. I feel like that unlock is there somewhere. And we're we're we've hit it a couple times with some products, but we're not quite there as a brand. And I that's what I need to get to.
Kurt • 33:47.919
I like that idea though, you know, of like, all right, if if people who own dogs, people who will buy I clothes matching apparel, okay, now people who want non-cheesy. You know, I I don't have a better phrase for it, but I know exactly what you mean. Non-cheesy.
Brian • 34:09.320
product yeah that fast fashion stuff they like yeah yeah yeah you buy quality hoodie that's that you would wear even if it wasn't dog related or whatever but then having the identity built in and if you want your dog can match. Not everybody puts clothes on their dogs and that's totally fine, right? Like that's fine. But you can still have your piece and your identity. And if you want to match with your dog or have your dog match you, I should say, then you can.
Kurt • 34:35.720
Have you thought about targeting based on weather and geography? So I'm in I'm in Chicago in the Midwest, and I don't think twice when I see a dog in a sweater in the winter. I guess that is a totally normal thing to do.
Brian • 34:49.220
Yeah, we have. And again, we have a global audience right now, so it's we always have some season going on. Um and uh Yeah, it it's really weird making holiday Christmas pajamas when for people in Australia, because they have they celebrated Christmas on the same day, but it's summer for them. So they want short pajamas, short sleeves and shorts, not long, cozy pajamas to sit by the fireplace. Um So those kinds of things you have to think about. And we yes, to answer your question, we have thought about and and done some targeting based on that, but it's also product development based on that.
Kurt • 35:30.160
Interesting. Okay. And any apps you can't live without in that store.
Brian • 35:36.160
Ooh. Man, I'd have to look through the list.
Kurt • 35:40.380
Um Do you s uh use anything to connect analytics data into Clot or ChatGPT?
Brian • 35:48.200
I just use the Claude connector, the native Claude connector to that connects to Shopify. Okay. Um to pull it all in. But I mean loop returns, we mentioned that earlier. That's a great hands off handling all the returns and exchanges automatically, which is awesome. Um we use judge me for reviews. Um kind of, you know, try to use best in practice. Apps for everything. Oh, we do I I will say we do a lot of bundling. So we use bundling tools. Because we want you to purchase the matching stuff. And so I can, you know, you add a um a a robe, a human robe to your cart, or add a dog robe to your cart. I want you to purchase the other corresponding robe and so we do bundling virtual bundling to be able to offer discounts when you buy those things together and upsells and cross sales based on all the that kind of stuff. So all those tools have been huge for driving up cart value and average order value.
Kurt • 36:46.520
Yeah, I love, I love bundling for driving up average order value. Like You know, e-commerce is a math problem. If I can't change anything else, I can always change potentially I can always change AOV and give people the opportunity and the nudge to be like, hey, if you wanted to make a bigger single order, here's the stuff that goes together. Right. And then they decide. But if you don't surface it, you know, those things, don't be surprised when those bundles don't sell. Right. Yeah. I like those a lot. Uh I saw a good one on a headphone site recently that just said, you know, they had like five five versions of the same thing. And then on every one it would say, considering an upgrade, and it would just jump you to the ne the next most expensive model. And it like so I clicked it. And then I the next one was like considering an upgrade and it was just the next most expensive one. And I just kept going and it walked me from 200 bucks to six hundred. I'm like, you know, and there were you don't need an app for that. You could build that in the theme. Shopify sidekick could generate it with the right description. Um, you would be able to do it easily. And yeah, so I like that. Um, it's like, you know, you bought the small popcorn.
Brian • 37:51.520
You sure you don't want the medium for fifty cents more?
Kurt • 37:54.059
I always I Oh yeah, the movie theater. They're a great exercise in merchandising. They do um may as well pricing, where it's like the medium is a dollar less than, you know the like extreme large bundles a dollar more. Just give me just give me the the vomit pack, please, for, you know, twenty seven dollars.
Brian • 38:12.539
Right.
Kurt • 38:13.380
But yeah. And then of course, I would be remiss to not mention uh free gift with purchase. You could run free gift with purchase on here to try and get people uh you know to nudge them to spend a little more.
Brian • 38:26.339
Yeah. Yeah, that's something we actually have not tried yet that I that's on my list that of of what I want to do. Um would you recommend an ex like an a separate item, an exclusive item for that gift, or just something in the in the store already as the gift.
Kurt • 38:46.080
The ideal scenario is you do an exclusive item that can only be purchased as a free gift with purchase. So you do like, you know. The the classic example as I use is, you know, a fancy enamel pin and you give it a real price, but it's limited edition, so it's like a little more and they can't buy it outside of and those are extra rules you gotta add, you know, if you really wanna enforce it, but Um, you don't let them buy it outside of the free gift with purchase. And I think, you know, I like that that method a lot for an FGWP. Like just adds additional intrinsic value to it.
Brian • 39:23.020
Yeah. Yeah, I saw um Viore did something like that and they had a pretty high threshold too. It was like get a free, you know, Viore tote bag, but you had to spend like $250. It was a pretty high threshold to get this, like probably cost some, you know, five dollars or less to make this tote. Um, but it was exclusive and that was the only way to get it. And people like to show off their viore, right? So Uh yeah, we gotta try that out. I think that would do well with us.
Kurt • 39:53.140
Yeah, the so we you know it's always top of mind for me because we have uh our own free gift with purchase app promo party. And it's got And you mentioned, yeah, I was like trying to f we were tearing our hair out trying to figure out like how do you communicate this offer, right? Like what's the best place, what's the best way to do it? And you know, progress bar or text is the right way to do it. And I've we decided Product detail page at the product form is the right place to do it because that's where the purchase decision happens. You know, that's where they're actively thinking about it. And you brought up Viore as your example, that when we were like looking at various examples and inspiration, that was the one that we picked as like, wow, they did such a good job of messaging this. on the product page as part of the product form. So really quite thrilled that you you brought that up organically because we found the same thing.
Brian • 40:42.359
Yeah, yeah, nice. Very cool. Okay. Well I gotta try it out. I'm gonna use your app.
Kurt • 40:47.579
Yeah. Oh thank you. Yeah. Any feedback. Happy to have it. Um yeah. Hashtag spawn con. Um Okay. Darren and fit. I mean, it's a it's a great looking site. It looks good. It works well. Um if I had a dog, for sure I would be, would be shopping the site right now. Um any Any future plans? Any any words of wisdom before you leave us? Like the the one thing you wish you knew before you got into this?
Brian • 41:17.420
I thought it would be a little bit more of a passive kind of business than it has been. Uh you can put unlimited hours into the into a business like this, right? To try to constantly tweak the levers to find growth. So But it's a lifestyle business for us. So we're not appeasing to any investors or anything, and it's what we want to make of it. So w of course we want to grow it and we'd love to grow it and For me, it's more it's it's as much of a just personal sort of gamification in my own head of of succeeding and trying to win and try to grow grow the business as it is like a money-making thing. So um, you know, I I I think you can go with you can create a brand like this or buy a brand or or however you want to go about it, but you can They don't all have to grow into a hundred million dollar brands. It's okay to have a brand just kick off a little bit of money for you and be something you work on and be proud of and and have some personal satisfaction building. And that's okay. Like I think a lot of what we see in media is talk about, oh my God, this brand got to, you know, $100 million in sales and they got bought by XYZ. That doesn't have to be everybody's goal. And it's okay to say, hey, you know, if I get to a million dollars in sales, awesome. Like that's a huge accomplishment. And Um and and I had fun doing it. So that'd be my advice to everybody is like don't be influenced by what you read or see in the media. Like just make it your own goal and do what you want. It's your own brand. You can do whatever you want.
Kurt • 42:57.140
I'd love that advice. I have music to my ears. Just satisfying to hear it. Yeah.
Brian • 43:02.500
Yeah.
Kurt • 43:02.980
Someone, yeah. Someone Preaching the lifestyle business as not a bad thing. No, not by people use lifestyle business in a derogatory way. I'm like, are you kidding?
Brian • 43:14.799
That may I mean I that makes up most of the businesses in this country or lifestyle businesses, right? And people make great livings on a lifestyle business and And honestly, having had an exit where I made no money for six years as a startup and then got a single check in one year and now, you know, have to use that money and and figure out how to make that grow. I would rather just have consistent money year over year and be comfortable that There's, you know, e even if it's a lifestyle business, even if it's a hundred K, two, you know, whatever it is, like just having that consistent money coming in from the business you built rather than trying to just go for a long stretch and hopefully you get an exit. That's just a much higher risk pro uh calculation that people need to make. So lifestyle businesses are there's nothing wrong with them at all.
Kurt • 44:11.440
Ryan Nolan, Darren and Phillips. I man, will any of this fit my cat? I gotta put a rope on my cat.
Brian • 44:17.839
We do have some people, yeah. I got some cat people using our products too.
Kurt • 44:21.680
He's a beefy cat. I think it would work.
Brian • 44:23.520
The biggest problem is cats are Feisty. You can't sometimes they're just getting something on them is the hardest part.
Kurt • 44:34.359
We'll see. We'll see. I'll consider it. Uh but Ryan, this has been great. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Hey, before you go, I was hoping you would check out our new app, Promo Party Pro. It is what I want to be the single best, easiest way to run a free gift with purchase promo on Shopify. We just put it live in the app store. We've got less than 50 users. We want your feedback. So if you need to run a free gift with purchase promo in the near future, install it, try it. There's a live chat. I check that all the time. And so if you have any issues at all. Yeah, or any suggestions on how we can make it even easier to use, let us know. We're happy to help. If you want to try it, search promo party in the app store. Promo Party Pro's the app. Give it a shot. It's got a free trial. Thanks.