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§ 03 — Work

The ledger

Built, bought, sold, or shut down. Including the one that died so a platform could ship a feature.

§ 01

Shipping now

All on Shopify
§ 02

Everything, in order

  • 06

    Internet Research Unit

    Alternative data for the ecommerce industry.

    2024 —

    Founder

    Active

    Revenue, SKUs, tech stacks, and consumer trends across millions of DTC brands. Built for brand owners, agencies, app developers, and the people who finance them.

    Practical Ecommerce, 2024 ↗

  • 05

    Vigilance

    Coupon-leak protection for DTC brands.

    2022 — 2023

    Co-founder

    Closed

    Blocked extensions like Honey from injecting discount codes at checkout. First outside round — ~$250K from operators in the Shopify and DTC ecosystem. Shopify deprecated checkout.liquid and the product's foundation went with it. Shut it down and offered the money back.

    Practical Ecommerce, 2023 ↗Startup Obituary ↗

  • 04

    OrderBump

    One-click checkout upsells for Shopify.

    2021 — 2022

    Owner

    Exited

    Bought it in October 2021, sold it by February 2022, then spent the following few months helping transition it into AppHub's ownership. A lot of that timing was luck.

    Practical Ecommerce, 2022 ↗

  • 03

    LiveRecover

    SMS cart recovery for Shopify.

    2018 — 2021

    Co-founder

    Exited

    Real humans texting real customers about abandoned carts. One of the few SMS apps operating at scale without outside investment. Sold to private equity in 2021.

    Practical Ecommerce, 2022 ↗The Usual SaaS-pects ↗

  • 02

    Exposely

    Self-serve marketplace pairing brands with social influencers.

    2013 — 2016

    Co-founder & CEO

    Closed

    Brands bought distribution from people with real audiences, without an agency in the middle. Built it in Los Angeles, never raised outside money. This was influencer marketing before the category had a name — I'd come up through MySpace, so I was selling the thing I'd already been.

    Fast Company, 2014 ↗

  • 01

    Ecommerce stores

    My own stores. The school I actually went to.

    2009 — 2017

    Operator

    Closed

    Funnels, creative, ad platforms, conversion. Started in the MySpace era around 2008. Not a developer — took the classes and the tutorials anyway, mostly so I could tell whether the engineers I hired were doing good work.

Also

Fake VC — I angel invest, mostly in the Shopify and DTC ecosystem. I've been public about pulling back on it: the returns didn't justify the attention it cost me, and writing checks is not the same thing as building. The long version ↗

Advising — I take a limited number of calls with ecommerce and SaaS founders. Usually about pricing, app-store distribution, or whether to sell.