Ada Juristovski Jemc

Beware! Hackers Exploit AI Tools Like ChatGPT Ameen Sait chimed in with his expertise on today's call. Fractionals, message me to find out how The Fractinal Referral Network can elevate your business.

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This post from Alexis Grant is clear, concise and to those who have this on their radar, includes valuable nuggets. Bottom line: once you’re on your journey, moving at highway speed, pay attention as traffic, accidents, potholes and better routes etc can appear and approach rapidly, requiring decisions to be made. Huh? Ok, forget all that. Just read her post.

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These entrepreneurs faced risk in their platform-dependent business. So they opted to sell their Shopify app: Canadian entrepreneurs Derek Morin and Bogdan Radu knew there was a risk to building apps for someone else’s platform. In 2016, they launched Tabarnapp to enable automatic discounting in Shopify. Their metrics by 2022: • Over $1 million in annual revenue • 80% net margin • 60,000 downloads of their flagship app, Automatic Discount • 2,500 recurring clients paying $10 to $1,000 monthly But they recognized the risk. “We realized that at any point, because we were platform-dependent, we could go bankrupt or we could be disrupted by Shopify,” Morin said. Changes to the platform — plus an increased competitive landscape — sparked the idea to sell the company. They sold Tabarnapp to software company Staytuned in November 2022 in a mid-7 figure deal. All the details in our story... https://lnkd.in/eUGEB9K5

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Yesterday, Shopify announced an exciting new partnership with YouTube, enabling seamless shopping directly within videos and live streams. This collaboration allows brands to tap into YouTube creators' engaged audiences, enhancing authenticity and driving sales with a frictionless shopping experience. They’re calling it "shop while you watch." Shopify is making a smart move here by leaning into a few key trends: 1. Video content is more powerful than ever. 2. Content creators on YouTube (and other social platforms) have an increasingly significant influence on purchasing decisions. While I love that Shopify is directly challenging TikTok Shop head-on, I do see some limitations with shoppable videos from creators: - Creators often don't own the products they promote. When a product is gifted, it’s harder for shoppers to relate, as the endorsement may not feel as genuine as a real customer’s experience. - Partnering with creators can be costly. I always advise brands that their best creators are often their existing customers. They have smartphones capable of producing high-quality content and frequently share polished versions of their experiences on social media. Collecting content from satisfied customers and showcasing it on your website remains one of the most effective ways to build authenticity and trust. Moast is a great tool for achieving that.

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Nobody launches Consumer brands because they're obsessed with building a tech stack. Most of the time, people launch Consumer brands because they have a passion for their space, or a story to tell. And luckily the Shopify ecosystem made it so that any artisan can sell anywhere, and any consumer can buy from any artisan. It's beautiful—and I want to make it even more accessible for shops. They won't have the same ad budgets as legacy brands, but we may be able to give them something else. See, I used to work at Turo. There, we had access to funding, tech, and software in ways I didn't realize were possible beforehand. As a result, we grew—fast. I saw first-hand what being so well-resourced like that did for our business, and now I want to do the same for artisans globally. That starts with data. I want to give the tech all the big players use, to everyone. It will level the playing field—at least with data—and make ecommerce a meritocracy, not a game of budgets. If we make data a commodity, ecommerce as a whole is better off. That's our mission with Polar Analytics, so follow along if that sounds interesting!

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The 0 to 1 journey for brands growing up on Shopify today is nothing like when we started Chubbies in 2011. Here are some observations from the last 10+ years of brand building. --> When building a brand, don’t try to appeal to everyone. Define your audience clearly and engage with them deeply. When we launched Chubbies, Google was the only scalable advertising platform to reach new customers. We have Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Amazon, and more at our disposal today. This is both a blessing and a curse—you have more potential to scale, but you also have much more noise. While your team must develop best marketing practices across all the ad platforms, it’s even more critical that your products stand on their own, selling themselves across these platforms that are starting to behave more and more like marketplaces. To borrow a line from Preston 🩳 Rutherford, your products must stand out in a “sea of sameness.” Chubbies stood for carefree weekends and had a pretty irreverent voice, which made the brand unforgettable and shareable. In 2025, your brand & product must mean something unique—don’t be afraid to be polarizing. --> Don’t fight the retail math; build into it early. Here are a few universal retail truths you must never forget. 1. Master your margins early Get your product gross margin right and build towards profitable unit economics that works from Day One. In apparel, this means over 75% in product margins. It’s different for other categories—you’d know this, and you’d need to build towards hitting the number. 2. Lean into seasonality; don’t fight it Know when your customers buy. Reducing seasonality is rational, but it’s very hard to accomplish. Chubbies’ summer-centric style succeeded because it didn’t try to be “year-round.” We tried to completely own the mindshare of our audience in Spring and summer when we were most relevant. 3. Go where customers buy Whether online, in stores, or pop-up shops, just make it easy for customers to find you. Chubbies succeeded by being accessible in as many channels as possible over time. Expanding into the wholesale and owned store channels was the most effective way we reduced our reliance on ad spend. 4. Beware: economies of scale can be elusive We were taught in Economics 101 that as you get bigger, your per-unit costs should go down. As we scaled Chubbies from $5M to $50M, our supply chain became far more complex, and ultimately, there were many short-term per-unit price increases. The bottom line is that “economies of scale” aren’t always guaranteed—you have to go get them. At GoodDay, we’re continually enhancing operating tools to simplify scaling, make it more efficient, and fine-tune it to meet the demands of today’s market. For anyone starting out, remember that it’s not just about reaching audiences but also about creating an experience they want to return to. Got questions? Drop them in the comments. #omnichannel #ecommerce

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Just opened a package from Harley Finkelstein and the Shopify team and was surprised at how heavy it was. Shopify, the platform that powers our website sent us this Milestone for processing our 1,000,000-th order. It’s an arbitrary number that carries some heft, and to those who are thinking about starting out on their own it might sound impossible. The advice I’d share from my personal 3+ year grind to our millionth order is don’t spend a second thinking about those as goals. Instead focus on blowing away your first customer, then your 10th and then your 100th and before you know it you’ll be further along than you even expected. It’s like building a brick wall, if you focus on how many bricks it’s going to take to build it, it might seem so daunting that you never start. Lay the first brick perfectly, then the first row, then move up, and before you know it the wall is built, brick by brick. Thank you to Shopify for enabling us to ship a million orders to the construction workers and tradespeople all across the US who literally build our country. Brick by brick, LFG.

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There are dozens of ways to f*ck up a minimalist email marketing campaign and only a few ways to do it well. It’s a tough balancing act. Strip the email down to the essentials while still communicating the right information. Well, let me introduce you to Mejuri, a DTC jewelry brand that has mastered the art of minimalist marketing. SIMPLE MESSAGE 📝 The messaging in this email is very simple. “We offer a number of our jewelry designs in silver.” The entire email, from the copy, to the product photos, to the underlying message is all to communicate one thing: “Silver is back in fashion and it’s here to stay.” LIFESTYLE PHOTOS 🌆 Within the email, three different models show off several different pieces of jewelry. Here’s where the Mejuri marketing team differentiates itself: All three lifestyle photos feature the same color tones of black (clothing), beige (background), and silver (jewelry). THAT’S how you cultivate a minimalist aesthetic. PRODUCT PHOTOS 📸 The product photos are displayed neatly against a beige background with accompanying titles. Every product that’s included in the three lifestyle photos is also included in the product photos section. “NEW ARRIVAL” RIBBONS 🎀 Novelty is a very effective way of getting someone’s attention. The “New Arrival” ribbons are intended to pique the recipient’s interest and prompt them to click through to learn more about the new piece of jewelry. SMART LINKING 🔗 I’ve said it once before and I’ll say it a thousand more times: Linking will make or break a marketing email. The key to proper linking is to ensure that each button/image/hyperlink lands on the page that the recipient expects to see. If your promotional email links to the brand’s home page, you need to re-think your entire marketing strategy. Within this email, the lifestyle photos and the CTA button land on the shopping page for silver jewelry. Imagine that! Most importantly: Each product photo is linked to the product page of that specific product. If you want to do minimalist marketing right, start paying close attention to Mejuri. - - - - - Want to learn more about the intersection of eCommerce, personalization, and AI? ✨🤖 Give me a follow!

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It's been a while since I've posted here, so obviously this is important (slight tone of sarcasm - but really). At Ecom North this past weekend, Canada's first and biggest (1000+ attendees), I met a lot of amazing entrepreneurs, brand owners, and agency owners. A couple common mistakes really stood out to me with the younger/newer entrepreneurs that tend to shoot themselves in the foot: 1. Needing to fulfil every requirement under the sun before getting started. Real example: A very nice lady I was speaking to was getting into the CPG supplements space, she's been working on it for months, still doesn't have a product, already wants to rework her logo, and is way too concerned about all the liabilities and insurances she should have. All before validating her business and just putting an offer online, in front of a prospective market. When building a new business there are thousands of little invisible requirements that are frankly, just that. Invisible. All you really need to focus on first, is what you're selling, and who you're selling it to. You only run into all these little invisible "requirement roadblocks" when you go looking for them. 2. Not knowing, and not being able to admit it. I get my best advice from people who are the best in the world at what they do by simply presenting my constraints, what I've tried, and then admitting I need help or I don't know something or how to do something. A young entrepreneur who was also trying to build a supplement brand was speaking to me and aside from saying his supplements were organic and natural couldn't answer my questions of "who's your customer avatar? (who are you selling to", "What's your angle? (what story do you tell them)", and "What's your specific unique selling proposition (Why should they choose you?" His answers were a slurry of "healthier option" and "organic" and "natural ingredients" and many, many, "you know???"s. No man, I don't know. That's why I'm asking you. Please tell me, and if you don't know, let's find out together, but I can't help you if you don't ask for it. Lastly, in case you haven't heard yet, yep, I've built a supplement brand. I am my customer avatar, and I'm sure there are more high performers who need a healthy dose of mental enhancement and recovery so they can move the needle with their best work. The substances we've launched are the results of my 10+ years of testing every (healthy) substance known to man in attempts to overcome my ADHD distractibility and maintain high productivity without burning out. We worked with leading FDA compliment labs in the USA to create these. The only downside is that they're kinda pricey, and the capsules are a bit big, but boy do they work, and that's what I'm excited about, functional substances that actually work.

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Shopify showed the world that simplifying something complex can generate $8B in annual revenue. Here’s how I’m bringing that lesson to the company I co-founded: When Shopify started, they were turned down by almost all VCs - The market was deemed way too small.    What those VCs missed - Shopify was creating its own market. The VCs didn’t see this because they were only looking at existing markets. Now, Shopify is closing in on $8B annual revenue. “Market sizing gets much larger as friction is removed.” Tobi Lütke, co-founder and CEO of Shopify. Because taking something complex, making it simple, and inviting new players into the e-commerce space. Expanding the market size… This is essentially what we’re trying to do with private market investing at Stableton. Private companies that have reached the growth equity or pre-IPO phase are typically fast-growing, well-funded, often profitable and can provide strong returns to investors. The problem: It is out of reach for most investors, including banks and wealth managers. And even here, most of them typically only participate in primary funding rounds. The only way to invest is by participating in secondary transactions, which are complex deals many investors are unaware of. We’re taking this complex problem and making it simple. We’ve built a portfolio of the Top 20 pre-IPO tech companies by making 50-100 secondary transactions per year. As the go-to partner for pre-IPO investing, we can enable financial firms and their end clients to participate and subscribe to this portfolio, much like an ETF. This way, they get exposure to some of the most attractive private assets without ever engaging in a single secondary trade. From complex to simple. Want to learn more? Check out Stableton’s Navigator newsletter for the latest investing trends and insights: https://lnkd.in/eBE5GxAK #secondaries #innovation #growthequity

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Some Shopify brands are customer-centric, and then there's DOLAN. When you meet a customer-centric Founder, it's unmistakable. Jodie Dolan built an impressive scrubs brand that emerged in a competitive market with a best-in-class product and an organizational framing that truly puts the customer at the center of *everything* they do. As a size-inclusive brand, that obsession over the customer experience led her to provide her web visitors with the confidence to convert with The Dolan Difference. If you can't find your size, they'll straight up make you a custom pair. Now that's an unwavering commitment to the customer. Keep up the impressive growth, Jodie Dolan and Philip Atkins!

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In this episode of UpYourStack Podcast, I chat with Maddie Bell from Scheduler AI. She’s tackling the challenge of "Speed to Lead." It's all about quickly responding to new leads, as the likelihood of converting them into customers decreases the longer you wait to engage with them. Responding promptly demonstrates attentiveness and increases the chances of securing the lead. Now, imagine having an AI agent that handles this for you! Here are some highlights from our chat: AI-Driven Availability Matching: Scheduler AI intelligently matches meeting times based on participants' availability, reducing back-and-forth emails and accelerating the scheduling process. This leads to a more efficient workflow and timely meetings. Customizable Meeting Types and Templates: Scheduler AI offers customizable meeting types and templates, allowing teams to tailor the scheduling experience to different customer needs and scenarios, ensuring every interaction is relevant and personalized. Analytics and Reporting: Scheduler AI provides detailed analytics and reporting on scheduling activities. These insights help RevOps leaders understand meeting patterns, identify bottlenecks, and make data-driven decisions to improve overall efficiency. Enhanced Customer Experience: Scheduler AI enhances the customer experience by ensuring that meetings are scheduled at convenient times with minimal hassle. This leads to higher customer satisfaction and better relationships. Maddie’s story is inspiring, and Scheduler.ai is solving many pain points that growing organizations face when trying to respond to leads promptly. I hope you enjoy this episode! Check out the links in the comments section to listen to the podcast in your preferred format. HubSpot obo.

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Let’s talk about one of the most overlooked concepts when it comes to scaling your Shopify store: Incrementality. It’s easy to get caught up in the allure of quick wins—throwing more ad spend at a campaign, expecting exponential growth. But here’s the reality: not all sales are incremental. And if you’re not tracking incrementality, you’re likely overspending and missing out on sustainable growth. So, what is Incrementality? In simple terms, incrementality measures the true impact of your marketing efforts by isolating the sales that wouldn’t have happened without your specific campaign. It’s the difference between what your customers would have done on their own and what they did because of your ads. Why is this so important? Avoiding Double Counting: When scaling, it’s tempting to credit all sales to your ads, but the truth is, some of those sales might have happened without them. Incrementality helps you identify the real impact of your marketing efforts so you can avoid double counting. Optimizing Ad Spend: By understanding which campaigns are genuinely driving new revenue, you can allocate your budget more effectively. Incrementality ensures that you’re not just spending more, but spending smarter. Sustainable Growth: Scaling isn’t just about growing fast; it’s about growing profitably. Incrementality helps you see where your true growth is coming from, allowing you to double down on strategies that lead to long-term success. Here’s how to apply Incrementality in your Shopify store: Run Controlled Experiments: Use A/B testing to measure the incremental lift of your campaigns. Compare a test group exposed to your ads with a control group that isn’t to see the true impact. Leverage Attribution Models: Move beyond last-click attribution. Use multi-touch attribution models that give you a fuller picture of your customer journey and the incremental value of each touchpoint. Focus on High-Impact Channels: Identify which channels drive the most incremental sales and prioritize them. This ensures your scaling efforts are focused on strategies that truly add value. Bottom line: Scaling your Shopify store without understanding incrementality is like driving with a blindfold on. You might get somewhere, but you won’t know how you got there—or if you’re heading in the right direction.

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A lot of start-ups fail because they don’t understand product market fit. If you too are on the prenatal stage of figuring your business out, don’t miss this PMF concept. Sarah Jenkins recently interviewed Alex Burke, a product expert from Amazon, Airbnb, and Shopify, who shared insights on PMF’s three pillars: demand, satisfaction, and scalability. Many companies excel at demand and satisfaction—customers love and use their product—but struggle with scalability, ultimately leading to failure. Brands like Juicero and Fab had demand but couldn’t scale and didn’t survive. PMF evolves through four stages: → Stage 1 Your early customers are often personal connections. Red flags here include customers not missing your product if it disappeared or inconsistent core features. The focus is on truly understanding your target market. → Stage 2 At this point, the product should drive growth, not your sales team. A churn rate above 20% or stagnant growth signals trouble. → Stage 3 (solid PMF)  If you have a significant number of customers, strong net revenue retention, and low churn rates, it indicates that your growth is on track. However, if your net revenue retention declines significantly, it may suggest retention issues that could hinder your ability to scale effectively. → Stage 4  If you have a substantial customer base, a strong sales conversion rate, and your earnings exceed your expenses, you’ve likely discovered a solid product-market fit. At every stage, remember the "4P" framework: Persona, Problem, Promise, Product. The key is continuous evolution—PMF is not static, and you need to keep fine-tuning as you scale. Anything you’d add? #ProductMarketFit #StartupSuccess #BusinessGrowth

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❌ I’m a website developer. 🥱 (yawn) ✅ Nutritionists seek me out to get more paying clients. ✅ Dentists hire me to get more clients in their chairs. Sell the outcome, not your THING. Apple didn’t launch the iPod and proclaim to the world: ❌ “Now you get 3 GB of storage”. Jobs sold the outcome. Using 5 cent words not corporate jargon. _____________________________ What are you really selling? Are you sure? #unselling

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Check out our recent case study for a Shopify website We teamed up with Pinkergreen (who assisted w/ UX & design) Outcomes from work? Conversion rate up ⬆️ 60% Avg order value ⬆️ 7% Upsell value (within 45 days) $8100 SEO up ⬆️ Bounce rate ⬇️ Check out the full case study below with more info on process & outcomes

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The only serious competition to Klaviyo in 2025 for email/SMS on Shopify is Yotpo. Sendlane? They have a rebuilding job on their hands. Attentive? I hear too much negative sentiment. Omnisend? They're competing on the 'pricing' narrative. Yotpo is the only credible competitor that can challenge Klaviyo beyond the pricing argument. Because let's be honest, businesses that migrate ESPs to save a few hundred $ per month are generally not winning businesses SaaS wants to attract. As an ESP, Klaviyo's innovation and stability last year widened the gap significantly. But Yotpo is a better 'consolidated' platform, and that's a positioning that is still picking up momentum in 2025. Yotpo's reviews, loyalty and SMS are all solid, and their analytics are pretty decent too. They have a legit claim to be a better all-in-one 'retention' platform than Klaviyo, who appears to have struggled to date with their CDP & Reviews rollout. They are also the biggest threat to Klaviyo's integrations & ecosystem moat given the resources and backing they have. I think these 2 titans are going to battle it out in 2025 and the end customers are going to be the winner. It wouldn't surprise me if a native AI tool could also hit the market and cause some disruption based on ease-of-use, intuition AND cost, but that's an unknown right now. What are your predictions for 2025? #shopify #klaviyo #yotpo

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