⟨TXT⟩ WRITING

How & Why I Became an Investor in Order Editing

I First came across Hamish Mckay and orderediting.com on LinkedIn, as many people probably have. At the time, I had been wrestling with some intricate challenges around order management for a high-quality brand based in the UK, Frahm. Frahm operates a pre-order model, which is b

9 Ecommerce Tech Startups to keep an eye on in 2025

I've been actively engaged in eCommerce tech for over 10 years, and here are some lesser-known startups that I’m excited about right now: Two Boxes Two Boxes is the missing link between your returns platforms, like Loop, ReturnGO, and Swap. Their solution takes in your RMAs a

The Future of the COO in Ecommerce & Retail

Tech is reshaping how we do business—automation, data analytics, and AI are all making things quicker and more efficient. A tech-savvy COO can spot and implement automation, allowing the business to scale without a huge cost increase. This creates operational leverage.

Scaling Fashion and Apparel vs. CPG Brands: What You Need to Know

When scaling fashion and apparel brands versus CPG (consumer packaged goods) brands—think cosmetics, supplements, or food—there are similarities but also some stark differences. Understanding both can help brands craft strategies that are effective and tailored to their industry.

Why Chasing Innovation Isn’t Always the Smartest Move

“You need cutting-edge tech to stay ahead of the competition,” right? It’s the line you hear in every tech briefing or innovation workshop. But when does innovation stop being helpful and start making everything more complicated? Not all tech is created equal, and chasing the new

The Ultimate Checklist for Selecting Software for 8-Figure E-commerce Brands

Choosing the right software becomes critical as your e-commerce brand scales to 8 figures. If you leave software selection to operational leaders without experience, they might overlook essential factors that can lead to costly mistakes. Don’t learn system limitations the hard wa

How to Assess Whether to Replatform from an ERP

Replatforming from an ERP is a decision that your CEO and board may instinctively resist. The investment is substantial, and the risks are real. But what they might not see as clearly is the risk of doing nothing. As an Operator, you need to weigh your options carefully. Here’s

Tech Stack PRO: Inventory Planning Software

The worst-kept secret in retail is that retailers are overstocked. Buyers mistook COVID-19 growth for marketing skills. It was luck. Founders have lost their brands because of this. The biggest lie is that the root cause of this issue has been fixed. The second biggest lie is t

I've discovered shared to-do lists, and I feel less stressed, more productive and won't go back into hiding.

Trusting your team to manage their to-do lists privately is one of the root causes of a busy, reactive, and unproductive work culture. This approach often leads us to what Cal Newport describes as "a state of continuous partial attention," where we are "constantly scanning our

This person doesn't exist

This person doesn't exist. But if you do, you know what to do. Ecommerce Operations like the back of your hand. You've worked in-house for a brand. Or you've had years doing pre-sales/advisory or implementation (like me). Fricking love Airtable and building stuff on it makes

We made a thing and launched it today.

I started this blog in 2022 to help me translate what I observed from my tech consultancy work with Ecommerce brands. Out of my intent to write more and in this format were fully formed concepts like The Dark Stack, which have resonated with people and validated we were onto som

Before you hire your next Ecommerce Assistant, ask yourself this.

Are you hiring someone to do a role that could be automated significantly? What would the job role look like if you didn't have to do this admin? Assistant is abused as a Synonym for Administrator. It's unintentional; most Operators default to 'busy mode' not automation. We w

Empower and Enable your Operators

There is a war in Ecommerce technology between Shopify and every other software vendor that wants to be at the heart of your business. Whether you're a small brand that scales on Shopify or a larger retailer that migrates at some point, you start to ask, 'Why isn't my back-end l

Do we need an ERP? - Every Scaling Brand Ever.

I've seen brands implement an ERP for many reasons. Some are better than others but are no less valid. This is my checklist, and you're looking for multiple factors to justify the commitment. Forward Allocation Multiple inventory locations Inventory Transfers Outgrown your Acc

A Framework for Freedom

The competition that I spend most of my time guiding, nudging, pushing, and encouraging people to overcome is doing nothing. The bigger a business gets, the harder it gets for founders. They don't have all the information at their fingertips and can't make a gut decision that th

the war on legacy technology is going on inside your business

email to-doers Vs serious Slack'eds excel addicts Vs G sheeters Salesforce Vs Hubspot Sage Vs Xero the way we've been collaborating has been evolving since we've been working - the sands of time have been shifting at breakneck speed since we started using computers. on email

41 minutes of detail on how and why Airtable can save you from the Dark Stack

In conversation with James Gurd, host on the Re:platform podcast I share the most detail to date on the work we've been doing at Nolo Apps. Click here to listen on Spotify now. The interview covers: 1. What are the common operational issues ecommerce business face? 2. What is

How a £20M exit and a failed startup kickstarted our Airtable apps agency for ecommerce

The first software startup I joined Descartes Peoplevox got acquired for £20M. But the second software startup, a Fashion PLM, SupplyCompass, ran out of money. The Miro board I built from my SupplyCompass experience mapped the dark stack end-to-end - this is where we started ou

How to optimise your buying process to make faster, better decisions

In the video, I discuss the importance of defining a buying process when purchasing technology. Without a clear process, making informed decisions is difficult, and projects may not move forward as planned. I share my tips for creating a solid requirements list, shortlisting ve

Six software myths dispelled

To sell you software, marketers make up stories and weave into them commonly held myths. stories help us understand complex solutions - but your job is to get to facts and not simply buy into a story that sits most easily with you. These are commonly held myths to watch out for

Shopify Tech Stack Audit LIVE w/Replo

Lessons for people who build software

I was the first employee in a software business that was founded by someone who had never written a line of code. I was exposed to many mistakes and learned valuable lessons for Founders and in-house developers to consider. Go on a diet. You are going to build things that pe

How can ERP double your customer support admin?

One of the weird quirks of using an ERP or inventory management system alongside Shopify is that once an order is in both systems, it often doubles the workload. Common customer support workflows to quiz your ERP vendor on and to make sure you involve Customer Support in scoping

Imagine having no one to blame when tech doesn't do what you need it to.

In the past 13 months, I went from using Airtable to build a client directory in a beautiful gallery view and organise features for software products to delivering enterprise-level capabilities to brands for a fraction of the price of buying traditional enterprise software. you

12 months as a Founder working across 23 brands from £1M to £120M.

The last 12 months were my first as a Founder, working across 23 brands from £1M to £120M, advising on tech stacks and building Airtable Apps. I've shared a 6-minute video with thank yous and some more personal thoughts here. But as well as some thank yous, I've taken this mome

Before you put in an ERP, do this first.

ERP is not fit-for-purpose as a single source of truth for product information. Thinking it unleashes hell on your ERP implementation and your team. If your ERP is the source of truth for product information, it must have all the information related to a product. Digital marke

Your Basket Is Empty

I sat down with Tim Richardson this week for his podcast, 'Your Basket Is Empty'. We talk about the Dark Stack, my first year as a tech advisor, and I explain what I love about advising Founders and Operators. I also go into why I feel tech curation is so valuable and provide s

The remedy to being overpromised and underdelivered?

Software vendors are taking you for a ride. - paying for features you don't use - pricing so complex you can't decipher it - software so complex your team can't figure it out - managing a 'roadmap' but delivering nothing you need you need to fit your business into their softwar

ERP or not to ERP? That is the question.

How much are meetings costing your business?

An explosion of new meetings and an increasing frequency of existing ones is a telltale sign that a business is struggling to scale. Inspired by the virality of this tweet, we've built something to help you assess the extent to which you're suffering from your meetings addiction

Stop playing Recommendations Roulette

To answer solution-focused questions, you need to understand where a business is, where it wants to go and what obstacles will prevent them from getting there. People ask questions in communities and forums like: Which ERP should we use? What WMS do you recommend? Do we need

Going beyond the Dark Stack with connected Apps

The Dark Stack is where 80% of the work gets done. Slack channels, Google Sheets, Excel files, and Powerpoint reports. It results in meeting overload, hiring admin roles, rework, delayed decisions, and Slack or Teams becoming a dumping ground. The popular solution has been to i

Realisations from being inside brands advising on tech & ops and collaborating with software vendors to solve problems that aren't easy to fix.

💰 One of the biggest problems inside ecommerce companies is that brands need to invest in tech people or even IT managers and think they can wing it by adding Shopify apps and keeping it simple. The way companies are getting found out on tech, and their delivery capability indic

What is a Project Delivery Framework, and how could it help you scale your brand?

Most brands don't have a formal project delivery framework. I realised we needed one in the Summer of 2022 after we spent three months working on tech projects with a brand, and delivery was slower than I'd imagined possible. No accountability, too much going on at once, no str

The story behind the stack

Building consumer hardware like e-bikes, e-scooters and other innovative technology need tech stacks for supporting their manufacturing workflows and ecommerce sales channels.

CRM tips for DTC Brands selling to Wholesale

The amount of sales and marketing methodologies, processes, tools and technology built for SaaS (software-as-a-service) over the past ten years is mind-blowing. In the B2B software community, this image of the Martech landscape detailing over 8,000 solutions is well known. Off

Derisk your major systems change in 2023 by documenting your systems of record first.

You overlook these data types at your peril, so you can use these to create your systems of record map. Customer Data / CRM Inventory Valuation Purchase Orders Supplier CRM / List Products Product & SKU Codes Profit & Loss Balance Sheet Inventory Levels Ecommerce Invoicing Goods

There is a way to reduce the ticket backlog, but it doesn't involve changing your helpdesk

It is nothing to do with the ticket system you're using. That is the lazy excuse. Shiny tool syndrome tells you that changing the system will fix your issues. If you want to understand the health of your operation, go and work on your support desk on a day like today. Customer

Build Apps for Gaps, but first, try SaaS.

A few weeks ago, we penned the NOLO MANIFESTO. I've been in product companies my whole career, and you need to write down what you believe and how you approach problem-solving to keep everyone aligned, even when you're small. This post is about Rule #1: Build Apps for Gaps, but

The biggest difference between being employed and working for myself has been that you don't have to think about what someone else expects of you.

I was incredibly lucky to be mentored throughout my 20s and learn a great deal from some great operators. In the second chapter of my career, I have found that it is the absence of a boss that is enabling me to embrace freedom. The fear of going solo was about taking the step I d

Planning for next year? Don't dive into solution mode just yet. Do this first.

This time of year is when Founders and Operators responsible for choosing and delivering the right tech start coming up for air. Before you dive into solutions mode, take a minute to think. Business Strategy > Tech strategy There is probably a project hanging around from las

Everyone learns about API limits the hard way.

Every Operator has that first time that they learn about what an API is and why it is to blame for the oversells in your ecommerce platform and the cancelled orders you're going to spend the next few days smoothing over with customers. Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales events

Why you build your Operating System > Where you build your Operating System (so long as you use a database).

The emergence of the Operating System or OS has been one of the biggest tech trends of 2022. From Notion to LinkedIn to Integration platforms, everyone is calling their thing the 'insert thing you do' OS. What is an Operating System doing that a System isn't? Marketers are usu

The trick with software now is that you end up paying 100% of the price to use 20% of features.

We get sold the bells and whistles when what we needed was simple. How did it get this way? When you start out building software you don't know what the end goal looks like. You have a completely skewed view of the needs of businesses and the way they've been addressed by other

How should you manage listings for repeat products that get an upgrade?

Every brand is trying to find the winning products and then repeat them. But when you upgrade it from the original to a V2 should you just change the existing listing or create a brand-new product? Does it even matter? The short answer is yes it does, let me explain why. This

The Dark Stack is where 80% of the work happens.

It is also where typos get made. The last number got dropped off a barcode. You realise there is no audit trail to follow. It is where questions get pinged at you without context. I designed tech stacks with brands, and most were growing from £3M to £300M. So for 10+ years, I sa

Stop wishing you were them. They are envious of you. Small, agile you is a scary thing.

They wish they could be like you. But sometimes you'll wish to be where they are and think you need to be like them to get there. You can't, and this week in a design session we had a good reminder as to why you should limit your admiration for the competition. When we're desi

This is what I am building to help Founders, Operators and the people who make software.

I'm documenting what I know for 5-10 minutes each. This is the structure I am using to create a map of ecommerce operations. The processes, technology and the roles of the people who use them: 500+ Ecommerce tools. 420+ Operational processes. 20 Operating models e.g. Pre-Order

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.

This one thing that we chose not to do seemed crazy but had a ridiculous payoff for us at Peoplevox. We stopped doing On-site implementation and went 100% remote implementation. This sounds normal now but in 2014 it did not! When we started doing WMS we sold it on-premise and w

The Shopify Global ERP Program is misleading Founders and Operators

The Shopify Global ERP Program is a well-intentioned and thought-through piece of Product Marketing and PR to position Shopify as Enterprise. But it is misleading unsuspecting Founders and Operators. The vast majority of Shopify's customer base scales up on Shopify, they don't

Most people think that low code is for doing small, low-value jobs.

From where I am looking low code is the future of every workflow-management software category. ESPECIALLY ones that use an acronym. Low code is the future of Product Lifecycle Management Low code is the future of Enterprise Resource Management Low code is the future of Produc

POV: You've implemented an ERP but you are struggling to optimise the workflows around it.

This is how to get unstuck: 1. Schedule a workshop session with each of the teams that don't use an ERP as their system of action or even have a login: - Product Design - Product Development - Garment Techs - Production - Logistics - Brand & Creatives inc. photoshoot production

The Dark Stack

The Dark Stack is where 90% of the work gets done. The reality of most businesses is the Dark Stack lives in the shadows because anything goes - and it doesn't look good. 1. Meeting overload. 2. Hiring admin roles to copy & paste data and make reports. 3. The same process or

Ecommerce Trends or Necessities for Ecommerce Revenue Operations in 2023?

I'm not sure if my thoughts on what lies ahead are trends or necessities. Great merchandising and demand planning can make or break brands in the long run. When times are good it is easy to look like you know what you're doing. The explosion in demand and inventory planning too

Anyone who said they were aiming for a fully automated warehouse did nothing.

I sold warehouse management systems to e-commerce companies for ten years. I never once lost to automation; anyone who said automation was the goal did nothing. I lost many projects to 3PL. It was a foolish move because the brands outsourced versus their operating cost without

Acronyms add to the complexity of your expertise so keep it simple and cut them out.

The last 3 Founders I have said "PIM" to have asked me WTF it means. The people who matter don't know what we're talking about. You are more than likely part of this problem. If the Founders don't know what we're talking about. What about their management team? And the rest o

Ecommerce Operators are gold dust.

But unless they're the Founder, Co-Founder or have equity, they are unfairly compensated for their impact on the success of a brand. They also go into companies and make a tonne of changes at the start, define a working playbook and unless the growth of the business keeps up, th

Most salespeople don't understand how ecommerce brands operate. Most brands don't understand the game software vendors are playing.

Whether you are being sold to or buying from, you should be working on understanding the other side of the equation better. The people who do, on either side, have an unfair advantage. When they meet one another, they recognise that the other person 'gets it' and where these co

The case for identifying the root cause of issues versus treating the symptoms.

Imagine if a knee specialist prospected for business by cold emailing. What are the chances that the person they email has a painful knee at that moment? Like, they may have a painful knee when hiking a long way but it's unlikely to be hurting right there and then. This is why

I reviewed the returns processes of five high-growth fashion brands and these are the three issues that need to be solved.

These are the 3 problems the brands, the vendors selling returns solutions and 3PLs need to look at solving together. 1. Returns with no sales order ID Print your returns address on a shipping label with a barcode of the sales order ID on it so even if the customer pays for r

There has been a surge in software products for ecommerce brands that promise a lot but do very little.

This has been a reaction to most brands lacking the capability to deliver complex change projects or incorporate software into a wider strategy. Vendors get fed up trying to make change happen - it’s almost impossible when you’re just selling one product to a brand - so they foc

What I learnt in my first four months working for brands that were different from what I had seen selling software solutions.

12 years of building and selling software to solve problems for ecommerce brands, four months working for brands solving problems. Learnings 👇👇👇 1. Most brands need to narrow their focus and try to do fewer projects but execute better. As brands are scaling up their teams to

Boring software for boring companies.

The reality when it comes to choosing technology is people go with what they know. This is because in order to imagine a new way of doing things you need to have an intimate knowledge of how it's currently being done, how it could be done, and all of the technology available. Wh

Scaling up? Codify, trap and store information like never before.

You're hiring so many new people into the business. Making sure everybody has access to the same information and it's really easy to share information and collaborate is critical. And through the whole product journey, you need accurate data that everybody's working in the same

The case for closing the customer feedback loop for your fashion brand.

Iterating your products based on customer feedback and insight is the key to creating winning designs. Almost no one shares any customer complaints, returns or QC issues with their designers or factory. In software, customer feedback loops are as tight as you can make them. Peo

Before you launch your 'Sustainable Collection' read this.

Greenwashing is a more imminent threat to fashion brands than consumer preferences for 'sustainability'. Sustainability is intimidating. The steep learning curve means it's easier to overstep the mark and get called out than get any credit for your efforts. Because of the stee

Everyone likes to talk about tech stacks. The reality is most brands run on Google Sheets and setting up the right templates is key to handling the nuances of your business.

Here are 15 of the most common Google Sheets that brands use to run their Revenue Operations: 1. Content Planner - what content is being published and when? 2. Master critical path - all the key dates for a product from design to launch online 3. Product/SKU Creation & Barcode

Your ecommerce processes are cross-functional but information stops flowing really fast as you start to scale.

Visualizing Information Flows is a tactic that can help. To do this you just need to know 5 system types to create a shared way of grouping tools and then you can create a map of your business. ✍️ System of Record What is the system of record for each team? Where is data

There is nothing wrong with using Google Sheets to manage your operations.

There are some docs I'd leave in Google Sheets and some I would not. Google Sheets works well for: - Weekly sales, stock and intake (WSSI) - Costings & Margin calculations - Financial modelling - Budgeting - Fit & Grading These documents require formulas, focus on numbers and

I designed this style of visualising systems because anyone can do it and you probably should.

Here is how and why I designed it to look and work like this for designing solutions to Ecommerce Revenue Operations problems: 1. Put your ecommerce platform at the core. There is always a tonne of apps connected to Shopify, BigCommerce like payment gateways, email marketing and

I don't like Slack and I cannot lie.

It is where good data from your customers goes to die. The search is limited. The data can't be pivoted. Before you make your next #channel you need to ask WHY? A busy, frenetic Slack is the symptom of a business that hasn't designed its systems to drive its workflows and sto

To get to Point B, you need to know exactly where you are, Point A so you can correctly identify the obstacles you need to overcome.

Sustainable progress is only possible by identifying where you are, Point A, where you want to be, Point B and the obstacle preventing you from getting there. Helping to diagnose problems correctly is what I enjoy doing but I am limited in my capacity to do this because I have b

Stop getting sold a software category. Design your systems using this framework and visualise the flow of information across your business.

I've been using the framework below to map the flow of information between systems and teams. It has been useful for visualising gaps in the technology stack and it is remarkable how well-served some functions are versus others. Systems of Record What is the system of recor

The next must-have tool for ecommerce brands

Every now and then I hear about a new solution for ecommerce and I instantly know it is going to become a best practice. It is a case of when and with which provider brands will go...the race is on. The next solution category? Instant Refunds. What if instead of having to w

The Miro Board that started my business from £0.00

This is one of the ultimate lessons in why you should try and show your knowledge rather than tell people about it. The win the first clients for my consulting business I walked them through the end-to-end operational process map I built in Miro. I explained how I'd realised th