Over the last nine months I’ve been a total slacker.
The previously weekly podcast got cut back to one flimsy episode a month while I took a sabbatical to take a little time off and figure out what I wanted to do next.
Well I’m thrilled to announce that the podcast is returning to its weekly schedule and I’ve finally figured out what I want to do with my life.
(Spoiler: Decided against the full-time mime gig. Turns out it wasn’t as lucrative as I thought.)
Today on the show I’m excited to bring back the podcast full-tilt, share what I’ve been up to and what I see ahead for eCommerceFuel.
After a bit of family time and exploring new ideas and options for eCommerce Fuel, the podcast is back and gearing up to bring fresh new episodes and topics. Some topics coming up will include business acquisition strategy as well as advice on investing in e-commerce businesses.
Also coming up soon, there will be an increase in ECF events and meet-ups. A focus on growing the tight knit community and adding value to those involved via events, mastermind groups and more. Stay tuned for more as eCommerce Fuel kicks it up a notch these next few weeks.
(With your host Andrew Youderian of eCommerceFuel.com)
Welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast, the show dedicated to helping high six and seven-figure entrepreneurs build amazing online companies and incredible lives. I’m your host and fellow eCommerce entrepreneur, Andrew Youderian.
Andrew: Hey guys, Andrew here and welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast. Thanks so much for joining me today, and pretty excited for this episode because I’m gonna make an announcement which I’ve been looking forward to which is that started today, the eCommerceFuel podcast is back on full tilt, with new episodes coming out every Friday.
Obviously, I’ve been, you know, at a much slower pace this year, in 2017, taking a bit of a sabbatical, and I’ll get into some kind of background behind that. But yeah, going forward, we’re gonna be doing this thing every week, and I’m excited to be bringing you fresh, new, hopefully, if I’m doing my job, interesting episodes with interesting founders and on topics that are relevant.
So if you’ve been listening, albeit at a much slower pace over the last month, or the last nine months, rather, thank you for sticking with me, and I’m looking forward to really getting back on the horse full tilt there. So a little bit of context, what was I doing the last nine months? You know, if you remember back, or if you don’t, I took a break from the regular publishing pace of the podcast, you know, beginning of the year, really to make some space for a couple of things.
But the biggest thing was trying to figure out what I wanted to do in terms of either focusing full time on eCommerceFuel or buying another business and making space for thinking about that and also exploring some of those options and doing diligence on businesses and searching, and also have a little time with my family as well.
So it’s funny, definitely did a little bit of travelling, hit the road with the family this spring, did some meet-ups in California and other places, but it’s funny, I feel like I’ve still been working just as much as usual for the most part on various, just random eCommerce things. But also looking at companies to potentially buy and acquire. And I looked at a couple of companies, in-depth, one, very seriously.
I’ll be doing an episode in the next month or two about one of the companies I looked at, specifically on, you know, how I made a decision, how you do due diligence on a company, and theoretically, at a high level, how you think about whether it’s a good opportunity, whether it’s what you want to invest a tremendous amount of money and time into.
So that was interesting. I really enjoyed that process. Ultimately, the end of the day, I didn’t find something that I was really excited about that I wanted to invest a lot of time and money into. And about the same time, I started getting some good advice from people that…I really respect it, that were strongly advising me to consider going full time on eCommerceFuel, and really focusing 100% on the community.
And ultimately, at the end of the day, after a lot of contemplation, so I decided to do…I’m excited to go full tilt on that. Partially, because I enjoy doing it, I love doing it, but partially because the ability to focus entirely on one thing is powerful, and I’m excited to be at a position to do that.
So anyway, that’s where I am now. In terms of that, what does that look like for the podcast and eCommerceFuel? Well, on the podcast front, of course, as you know, gonna be kicking that off, doing that on a regular basis, love doing that, it makes a lot of sense. I’m excited to be up and running on that. For eCommerceFuel, the goal there, the overarching goal is really to build the absolute best community for experienced store owners on the web.
And we even try and continue to go deeper with that. I think, foster the community we have there, and make it stronger, and there’s a good chance we’ll probably even continue to try to get it even more and more experienced in terms of the members that we have there. But that’s the goal with my role, to really try to help facilitate that, improve that, and take a…be a community builder and add value, especially at a macro level for everyone in the community.
What does that look like? I think more local events for our community members, if you’re a private community member, you’re almost certainly aware of what’s going on right now. This week, we’re running what we’re calling “ECF Week” across the globe. Right now, as this episode is going live, I’m actually in Philadelphia, hosting a meet-up for members there, part of our ECF Week where we have 20 meet-ups going on across the globe for local members. I’m gonna be at seven or eight of those.
I’m kinda doing a crazy seven-day sprint from Bozeman to Denver to Austin to Charlotte to Philadelphia, New York City, Detroit, Toronto, to cap things off at Shopify’s headquarters with the Toronto crew and then back home, but we’ve also got meet-ups going in 12 dozen-plus other cities, from Dublin to Melbourne, all across the world. So definitely focusing more on getting people together more in-person is gonna be something I focus on.
And also more kind of summit-style ECF live events, more than once per year, most likely, in the future. So working on things like some of the deep impact masterminds that we’ve launched in the community where we’re…I’m trying to really help bring together very highly confidential, highly experienced entrepreneurs and store owners in small, intimate eight-person masterminds, that’s something I’ve got a couple pilot programs going on now.
A couple other things that I’m exploring or investing in eCommerce businesses, that’s something that we share about on a future episode, in the next, you know, probably six weeks or so. I think there’s a lot of room and potential for a job board for eCommerce, especially for companies that, you know, that aren’t…overstocked.com, you know, smaller, intimate, more nimble eCommerce companies, I think, having a job board, there’s some room for that, and I think the need is there. Anyway, those are some of the things that I’m thinking about.
And to be honest, the hardest part about the decision to go full time on eCommerceFuel was that I, you know, I love being involved in the trenches and kind of the day-to-day of an eCommerce business. It gives me…I enjoy doing it, one, but I think it helps insure I’m not disconnected from the people in our community, helps prevent me from feeling like a fraud, to be totally honest.
I’ve shared this with different people, but you know, I don’t wanna be some guy who’s…And I think this is probably just… I don’t know if it’s’ a fully-founded fear, but you know, five years from now, some guy who leads a community of store owners just totally disconnected from what’s going on in their lives and what the actual day-to-day is like.
And so as I’m gonna be focused on eCommerceFuel full-time going forward, I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say I’ll probably have small little stores or launch some experiments here and there, advise on other people’s stores, you know, potentially go out and help them on the ground, in their warehouses, running some stuff. So I will be getting as much as I can, keeping my hands a little dirty so I don’t get totally disconnected.
But, you know, the end of the day, I don’t think I could do ECF justice and build another 7-figure retailer from scratch, and so that I made a decision to go full tilt and I feel good about that. So anyway, that’s the news. Excited to be back on the mic. Excited to focus full time on the community.
If you’re not in the community and you’d like to be a part of that, we are capped at…we maintain a cap at a thousand members for that community, but we are always looking for especially high-quality experienced store owners. And if you’re interested to learn more about that, you can check it out.
Of course, eCommerceFuel.com, but yeah, I’m excited to be back. And let me know if you’d love to hear something specific on the podcast or if you just wanna say hello, come comment on the post, or hit me up on Twitter, I’d love to hear from you, and I appreciate everyone sticking with me through this last nine months as I kinda had my little soul-searching moment through the desert and I’m back and excited to be charging harder.
So got lots of good stuff for you coming up in the coming weeks. Thanks so much, and looking forward to what’s ahead.
Want to connect with and learn from other proven eCommerce entrepreneurs? Join us in the eCommerceFuel private community. It’s our tight-knit, embedded group for store owners with at least a quarter million dollars in annual sales. You can learn more and apply for membership at ecommercefuel.com.
Thanks so much for listening and I’m looking forward to seeing you again next time.
