David Gaylord: Building Bushbalm with Shopify’s Merchant In Residence

David Gaylord has had a multifaceted career in ecommerce. He started at Shopify in 2015 as a customer success agent, became an Ops Lead in the Office of the COO in 2020, and a Permanent Merchant in Residence in 2021 where he uses his knowledge & experience founding Bushbalm - a natural skincare brand focused solely on the bikini line - to inspire and advise aspiring entrepreneurs. David joins Blaine Bolus and Ramon Berrios at the DTC Pod and tells us what it’s like navigating the world of ecommerce.

EPISODE SUMMARY

David joins us at DTC Pod to discuss how working at Shopify gave him a solid understanding of e-commerce that he was able to apply to Bushbalm, finding product-market fit, how positioning products as 2-step/ 3-step routines was key to growing AOV, testing features & products on Bushbalm’s website, and more.

EPISODE NOTES

David Gaylord has had a multifaceted career in ecommerce. He started at Shopify in 2015 as a customer success agent, became an Ops Lead in the Office of the COO in 2020, and a Permanent Merchant in Residence in 2021 where he uses his knowledge & experience founding Bushbalm - a natural skincare brand focused solely on the bikini line - to inspire and advise aspiring entrepreneurs. David joins Blaine Bolus and Ramon Berrios at the DTC Pod and tells us what it’s like navigating the world of ecommerce.

Rising through the ranks at Shopify 3:54

Resources to learn about business 14:56

How Bushbalm increased AOV 20:21

Testing out subscriptions 29:21

Getting customer feedback 32:51

Advice on starting a DTC business today 35:29

The anatomy of DTC 43:42

Managing ads for wholesale/ retail channels 46:19

Finding success in waxing salons 48:18

Expanding the team 51:41

This episode is brought to you by OpenStore:

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David Gaylord - CEO of bushbalm

Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io

Blaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel