What Next For eCommerce? With Andrew Youderian, Founder eCommerceFuel

Andrew Youderian is the Founder of eCommerceFuel, a fantastic community of ecommerce entrepreneurs, operators, and experts helping each other scale and grow in businesses and build deeper relationships.

After spending a few years in the investment banking world, Andrew left his job to start his first ecommerce business. Since then, he’s sold numerous stores that have collectively generated millions of dollars. He has experience bootstrapping, exiting companies, and building unique communities along the way.

Andrew also hosts the eCommerceFuel Podcast.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[3:16] Andrew Youderian talks about how he started the eCommerceFuel community
[5:03] How the community of seven and eight-figure ecommerce brands operate
[8:40] How core values matter
[11:08] The struggle of scheduling and finding balance
[17:05] How marketing in the ecommerce space is evolving in a world without cookies
[22:33] Andrew relives how hard it was to build the eCommerceFuel community
[26:43] Scaling a community
[33:08] The value of community members
[38:38] Growth channels to look out for in 2022
[41:39] eCommerceFuel Capital — what it is and why Andrew started it

In this episode…

As we continue to embrace a cookieless world and as customers take back control of their data, paid ads are becoming less profitable for ecommerce brands. The question in the hearts of many ecommerce entrepreneurs is, what next? And with the high level of competition in the space, how should ecommerce brands approach marketing?

One of the biggest mistakes made is investing in paid ads without finding ways to get zero-party data. The second mistake is to ignore old-fashioned referrals and the communities that drive them. What other moves should you avoid to grow your ecommerce brand?

In this episode of the eCommerce Profits Podcast, Joshua Chin talks with the Founder of eCommerceFuel, Andrew Youderian. They discuss how marketing in the ecommerce space is evolving in a cookieless world, the value of building a community, growth channels to explore in the coming days, and lots more.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Special Mentions:

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Chronos Agency.

If you are a direct-to-consumer ecommerce brand that wants to unlock the optimum customer lifetime value through email marketing, then look no further than Chronos Agency!

Our team of passionate email marketing experts has helped hundreds of brands generate over $70 million in return from email alone, and our clients receive an average of 3500% ROI from our efforts.

Chronos Agency has worked with a variety of brands, including Truly Beauty, Alya Skin, and many more. Our mission is to help real businesses achieve real results.

If you want to take your revenue to the next level using email marketing, be sure to email our team at sales@chronos.agency or visit chronos.agency to learn more.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:04

Welcome to the eCommerce Profits Podcast where we feature top founders and experts in the ecommerce Industry and take an in depth look at the struggles and successes in growing ecommerce brands profitably.

Joshua Chin 0:21

Alright, hey guys, Josh Chin here. I’m the host of the eCommerce Profits Podcast where we feature top experts and founders in the ecommerce Industry. And we go behind the scenes of the struggles and successes of growing a brand. Now this episode is brought to you by Chronos Agency. If you run a direct to consumer ecommerce brand that is ready to scale and to double your customer lifetime value true own birthing.Chronos is your company. We’ve helped hundreds of brands scale profits with email, SMS and mobile push for getting an average of 3500% ROI from our efforts before active brands like The Oodie, Truly Beauty and Aly Skin and many more. The next step is email us at sales@Chronos.agency or you can go to Chronos.Agency to learn more. Today’s guest is none other than Andrew Youderian, the Founder of eCommerceFuel, an amazing community of ecommerce, entrepreneurs, operators and experts helping each other scale and grow their business and professionally and build deeper relationships with one another. After a few years in the investment banking world, Andrew decided that he’s had enough he decided to quit his job and start his first ecommerce business. Since then, he’s sold numerous stores over the years, collectively collectively generated millions of dollars. He’s had experience bootstrapping, exiting businesses, as well as building amazing communities along the way. And today’s bringing all of that and sharing his knowledge and curating that list of incredible people in the community through eCommerceFuel, which is a private community for ecommerce founders. As well as amazing podcasts one of my favorite will check out his recent episode on eCommerce Fuel Podcast with Steve. Again, last names Steve Chu. I know that’s a Chinese last name. So in Chinese I believe it’s Chow. But I know that no, no one pronounces it that way. So it’s Steve Chu. Amazing episode. I love that. So go check that out eCommerceFuel Podcast. Andrew, welcome to the show.

Andrew Youderian 2:36

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the kind intro and I have to chat with Steve because he’s a good buddy but we also rib each other quite a bit so good authority that he’s been mispronouncing his name for a while and it’s

Joshua Chin 2:51

no, it’s it’s that that’s what makes it fun. Right? I mean, that that’s, that’s entertaining. And I think that’s where for the most learning happens because you get you get in you get you feel like you’re a part of the conversation when you’ve been listened to a episode. So Andrew, tell us a little bit more about your, your background give us a high high level overview of the community that you’ve built.

Andrew Youderian 3:16

Yeah, um, you did a pretty good job, um, went to school for finance got done investment banking for two years. It was one of those things I think many people have in their life super glad I did it super glad I’m not doing it anymore. And quit, too, because I want to start a business. So we did a bunch of stuff and decided, hey, this ecommerce thing looks interesting. Started a dropshipping business selling CB radio equipment. A couple of years later started another ecommerce business selling trolling motors and ran those for a number of years and along the way just met much interesting people doing stuff in the space, sort of blogging about it eCommerceFuel.com met all these fascinating people and built a community around that. So since then, I’ve kind of sold those two businesses and focus full time on running eCommerceFuel, which is a veteran community for seven and eight figure ecommerce brands.

Joshua Chin 4:02

It’s it’s interesting, because I’ve been a I’ve been an eCommerceFuel community member in the past and the people in the community, it’s a private forum. So it’s been incredibly high level. But at the same time, everyone’s super, super giving. What I found is that people are giving first before taking and when you have a bunch of givers in the same room, you build a community that’s that’s not just for today, it’s long lasting and it will tie to any changes in the space. So I’m super impressed. I think it’s I personally feel that it’s one of the best private communities out there in the ecommerce space today. Then interestingly, you do no promotions, no marketing, I’m not sure if that’s changed, but it’s all through referrals and word of mouth. And people know about the community through Just you know, things like that conversations like this.

Andrew Youderian 5:03

Yeah, well, thanks for the kind words that one of the things we one of our core, really two core values guide, how we try to run a monitor the community, its reciprocity and respect. On the reciprocity front, one thing we do is everyone who comes in, we require everyone to share a case study to add some value right up front to the community, and then even on an ongoing basis. I won’t get into the weeds on this unless you really want to talk about it. But we have some internal thresholds where people come in and they’re just mining the committee for information how to do this, I do this, I do this, I do this without giving a lot back in return, we kind of tactfully either, you know, chat with them and make sure that changes or respectfully show them the door because any relationship isn’t viable, long term, unless it’s two ways unless people are giving taking about the same, same, you know, same amount of stuff. So but in terms of the marketing, yes, you’re correct. We traditionally have done almost zero, you know, practically no paid marketing. It’s all either referrals from people content marketing, the podcast, we’re doing a little bit of direct outreach to people in about seven or eight cities that we’re trying to really build some on the ground community. But apart from that, no, it’s been all all kind of organic word of mouth.

Joshua Chin 6:12

Interesting. What cities are you building communities around?

Andrew Youderian 6:17

Yeah, so we’ve got this next year, we’re doing a bunch of events. The four big cities are Charlotte, Austin, Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. So we’re doing some regional events there. once a quarter. We’re doing a an annual event in Norfolk, Virginia. That’s kind of our big event. And then we’ve got a handful of other cities, Toronto, Chicago, a handful of others, where we have kind of regular quarterly meetups with local members. But yeah, that’s kind of where we’re focused.

Joshua Chin 6:46

And you have EC ECF. Live as well, coming up in March next year. Yeah, it’s still happening, right?

Andrew Youderian 6:53

It is, yep. Where it’s, it is knock on wood here suing the world doesn’t kind of blow up, blow up or devolve next day for months. So, but yeah, we’re, it’s our member only events, and we get about 250 people together to talk shop and have fun and hang out and make some lifelong friends for three days. Awesome.

Joshua Chin 7:10

I love that. And one of the reasons that I left and a lot to come back if time permits was, was not because I, I didn’t enjoy my experience there it was, because everyone is so engaged in the community and so involved and so giving. And I was I joined a time in my career where I have just no time to allocate to be engaged at a level that I feel was meaningful for the community. So I told Patrick, right, the community manager that I don’t feel that I’m contributing enough in the community, and I should give him my space for someone else who might be a better, you know, a better value after community. And that’s just how much I respect to the forum. And it’s, it’s great to see that it’s, it’s growing. And every one I’ve spoken to about the the the forum in the space have been, have had nothing but good things to say. So very happy about that. Now, talking about your core values. Andrew, I know that you have a set of personal core values that you carry with you through your personal journey. Is that in any way related to the value that you bring to the table with eCommerceFuel?

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