Shopify Masters

When Andrew Blackmon couldn’t find a rental tuxedo that actually fit, he didn’t just start a company—he rebuilt the entire formalwear supply chain from scratch, turning a strip-mall industry into a nine-figure business with seven flagship stores and showrooms in more than 40 Nordstrom locations. For more on The Black Tux and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

At 24, Marlyn Schiff was making beaded jewelry at her kitchen table with no business plan and nothing to lose. Today, Marlyn Schiff Jewelry is a seven-figure wholesale brand with staff who have stayed 18 years, a price point under $150 that cracked Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, and a growth strategy built entirely on passion over pressure. For more on Marlyn Schiff and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Carmen Dianne and Kara Still launched Prosperity Market during the pandemic to bring fresh food and economic power to Black communities in Los Angeles—with no background in farming, no trailer, and no blueprint. Scrappy pop-ups in church parking lots grew into an 80-vendor operation, a Good Morning America segment, and an unexpected partnership with Dr. Dre. For more on Prosperity Market and show notes click here  Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Melissa Mash built Dagne Dover from a business school focus group and $40,000 in pre-sales into a brand now carried in more than 250 retail locations—without ever taking venture capital. By ditching Meta and Google in favor of events, sponsorships, and high-touch retail relationships, nearly half the brand’s growth now comes from word of mouth alone. For more on Dagne Dover and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Melanie Bender spent years building some of skin care’s most coveted brands before betting her next chapter on fragrance—a category she saw on the verge of its biggest moment yet. By leading with story over specs and making influencer relationships the heart of her strategy, she took Lore from concept to 250 Sephora doors almost overnight. For more on Lore and show notes click here  Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

By owning nearly its entire supply chain and leveraging AI raw-material forecasting, Danish endurance sportswear brand Fusion managed to sell an impressive 101% of the product it produced last year. The company achieves this near-perfect sell-through rate with a nightly ecommerce inventory sync that directly dictates what its sewing factory produces the very next day.   For more on Fusion and show notes, click here. Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Aishwarya Iyer built Brightland into an eight-figure California olive oil brand by saying no to major retailers, outside investors, and every shortcut that came her way. She breaks down the brand’s scrappy early days, the organic press strategy that landed her in Bon Appétit, and why she said no to Whole Foods—twice. For more on Brightland and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Leaders Founders behind Ouai, Good Girl Snacks, Heaven Mayhem, Hedley & Bennett, and more share the expensive, embarrassing, and clarifying mistakes that taught them how to build stronger businesses. For more from these leaders click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Sara Sugarman turned her family’s rug business into Lulu and Georgia, a home brand that grows 20% to 30% a year, with no debt and a repeat-purchase rate double the industry average. She breaks down the inventory bets, infrastructure mistakes, and financial discipline behind building it all herself. For more on Lulu and Georgia and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

After tracing her own chronic skin and hair issues back to hard water, Karlee Zhang partnered with Omer Ozener to build Hello Klean on just £60,000 of personal savings. By educating consumers on an invisible problem and leveraging a “free trial” strategy, they created a new “shower care” category that now boasts more than 90,000 active subscribers. For more on Hello Klean, in show notes, click here. Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Dr. Jason Wersland turned a 3 a.m. garage experiment into the number one percussive therapy brand in the world, with more than 6.5 million Theragun massage devices sold. In this episode, he breaks down the unglamorous eight-year grind behind that overnight success: five prototypes, three bad partners, and a one-to-one credibility-building strategy that eventually landed him in Cristiano Ronaldo’'s training room. For more on Therabody and show notes click here   Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Hyla Nayeri co-founded 437, a bootstrapped activewear brand, into an eight-figure business— and she did it by simplifying ruthlessly, betting on organic social and influencer marketing, and protecting a culture that includes a four-day workweek. For more on 437 and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Sean Reyes noticed that every shock absorber looks identical from the outside—and none of the automotive brands detail what’s actually inside. So he built ShockSurplus, an education-first automotive parts company that turned that information gap into a bootstrapped, eight-figure business. For more on Shock Surplus and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Former comedy writer Bette Bentley built Skimpies—the world’s first liner designed specifically for leggings—into a number one TikTok brand entirely through organic livestreams, bypassing paid ads by treating the platform like an interactive group chat. This innovative founder breaks down how she embraced raw authenticity to collapse the traditional sales funnel, handle extreme burnout, and turn a grueling six-month streaming schedule into a $60,000 warehouse livestream. For more on Skimpies and show notes, click here. Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

When Jing Gao launched Fly By Jing, she wasn’'t just selling chili crisp—she was challenging a century-old story about the value of Chinese food. Starting from an underground supper club and a scrappy Kickstarter, she built a brand now found in Target, Walmart, and Whole Foods that has inspired a generation of Asian food founders. For more on Fly By Jin and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

We brought together 14 founders across 13 businesses building on Shopify and asked every single one the same question: How do you know when it's time to pivot? We've put together the playbook for the hardest decisions to make in business—the leap, the kill, the walk-away, and the quiet voice you almost ignored. Featuring Catherine Goetze (Physical Phones), Melanie Bender (LORE), Jing Gao (Fly By Jing), AC Hampton (Supreme Ecom), Melissa Palmer (OSEA), Kevin and Jin Chon (Coop Sleep Goods), Aishwarya Iyer (Brightland), Matt Hassett (Loftie), Vy Nguyen (Avocado Green), Drew Scott (Lone Fox), Sean Reyes (Shock Surplus), Carmen Dianne and Kara Still (Prosperity Market), and Sara Sugarman (Lulu and Georgia). For more: https://utm.io/upFkv  Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Trina Spear left Wall Street to build a billion dollar brand serving the 18 million health care workers no one else was designing for. Figs started out selling scrubs on sidewalks and grew into a NYSE-listed, direct-to-consumer powerhouse. For more on Figs and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Arey founder Allison Conrad turned an overlooked beauty category into a science-backed business, with a clinical study to prove it. Hear how she built a defensible brand, from securing a patent to mapping a retail strategy designed around when customers are actually ready to buy. For more on Arey and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Kevin and Jin Chon cut open a pillow, found carpet padding inside, and spent 13 years fixing it. They built Coop Sleep Goods into a nearly nine-figure brand by spending more on materials, staying focused on one product, and trusting that a better pillow would market itself. For more on Coop Sleep Goods and show notes click here  Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Krysten Kauder built Candier—a bold, irreverent candle brand with names like “Girl, You Need to Calm the F Down”—into a $14 million business stocked at Target, Whole Foods, and Ulta, and she did it without a PR firm, sales team, or single networking event. For more on Candier and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Before the screen-time backlash hit the mainstream, Cat Goetze was already building an analog antidote. Her brand Physical Phones—Bluetooth landlines designed to replace smartphone habits—generated $800K in its first year and turned a personal frustration into a full-blown cultural movement. For more on Physical Phones and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

She built Virtue Labs into a $50M+ hair care brand. Now Melisse Shaban is CEO of Aramore — a biotech skincare company backed by peer-reviewed NAD+ research — and she's throwing out the beauty playbook. No influencer deals. No aspirational campaigns. She's sending free product to Reddit strangers, asking for the honest truth, and betting that real science doesn't need hype to win. In this episode: Why she left a board seat to run one more brand How a 28-day Reddit trial beat any influencer campaign The products she cut from her own line — and why What 30 years at Aveda, the Body Shop, and Fekkai taught her about what's broken in beauty Why she hates the word "aging" and refuses to sell fear For more on Aramore https://www.shopify.com/blog/aramore-reddit-skincare-science?utm_campaign=shopifymasters&utm_medium=youtube&utm_source=podcast Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

The founders of Feel Goods built an eight-figure supplement brand with 100 million organic impressions and not a single product on a retail shelf. Their secret was radical transparency, founder-led content, and treating TikTok like a free testing lab before ever spending on paid ads. For more on Feel Goods and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Twelve founders building on Shopify reveal exactly how they’re using AI right now—the tools, the tactics, and where to draw the line. Here’s the playbook being written in real time by the founders of Figs, Therabody, The Black Tux, Loftie, and more. For more details on this episode and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Matthew Hassett noticed that smartphones were ruining sleep, so he built Loftie, a screen-free alarm clock, to fix it. Without venture capital or paid press, he grew the brand to more than 200,000 units sold, and earned Wirecutter’s top alarm clock pick six years in a row. For more on Loftie and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

She had 18 million followers, a product idea born from panic attacks, and zero paid ad spend on launch day. Within 24 hours, Hugz was sold out. Lexi Hensler built Give Hugz — a line of weighted stuffed animals designed to trigger deep pressure stimulation — by turning her own battle with anxiety into a brand now tripling sales year over year. But before Hugz existed, there was Lexi Llama: a merch line that launched a Christmas sweater one week before Christmas, promised worldwide delivery without knowing what international shipping cost, and ended with all four co-founders hand-signing apology cards at 2am. Every mistake became a blueprint.   In this episode, Lexi breaks down exactly how she built a brand that now stands on its own — where customers show up having never heard of Lexi Hensler:  Why she capped the Hugz launch at 3 SKUs — and how starting with 8 nearly sank her first brand The Goldilocks weight (4 pounds) and why glass beads won over rice and flaxseed (hint: mold, maggots, and microwaving) How vulnerability in content converts better than follower count — and what she told other creators who couldn't figure out why their merch wasn't selling Why all four co-founders took zero salary for years, and what that looked like day to day How she navigates the line between sharing and oversharing — including the engagement decision she almost posted and didn't Why their scrappy two-person phone shoots often outperform the ones with a full professional crew                                       Hugz donates 10% of every purchase to mental health charities — and Lexi has personally visited every partner organization they've worked with. This is the story of getting it wrong first, and building something that outlasts you because of it.           Start Your Free Shopify Trial: https://utm.io/yt_podcast_trial  SUBSCRIBE to our Youtube channel for more video episodes: https://utm.io/uhw53 For more on Hugz:

Lone Fox’s Drew Scott on the vintage pivot that doubled revenue, building two million subscribers without ads, and why his business model can’t be copied. For more on Lone Fox and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

What happens when the product that made you famous starts holding you back? Kevin Gould co-founded Glamnetic in 2019 with Ann McFerran, launching a magnetic eyelash brand that exploded from $1 million to $50 million in revenue in just one year — fueled by a great product, smart growth marketing, and the COVID-era boom in DIY beauty. But when the tailwinds reversed — iOS 14 updates sent acquisition costs soaring, the lash category contracted, and revenue dipped 25% — Kevin faced a make-or-break decision. Rather than doubling down on what was declining, he pivoted the entire business into press-on nails, a category still in its infancy. Today, Glamnetic is one of the largest press-on nail brands in the world, doing over $100 million a year. In this episode, Kevin gets real about the unglamorous side of hypergrowth: the cash flow crunches that come with scaling too fast, the inventory mistakes that haunt you, and the emotional toll of watching revenue fall when you expected it to double. He shares how he and his team navigated the pivot, why community and brand affinity will always outlast paid acquisition, and why the best advice he can give founders is: don't grow too fast. You'll learn: Why going from $1M to $50M overnight nearly broke the business How to manage cash flow and inventory when you're self-funded The marketing mix that built a real brand — not just an ad machine Why TikTok Shop is the biggest arbitrage opportunity right now How a 40,000-member Facebook community doubles as a product development engine The one hire every founder should prioritize early on What it really takes — personally and professionally — to turn a pivot into a $100M business Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Supreme Ecom’s AC Hampton breaks down how he turned a dropshipping business into $1.8 million in six months—and why it’s the smartest path to brand ownership. For more on Supreme E-com and show notes, click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Two recent college grads turned a dorm room pistachio recipe into a fast-growing food brand—by letting their community call the shots. Nicola Buffo and Francine Voit, co-founders of Pistakio, share how they pivoted from pistachio mayo to a sweet pistachio spread one week before their first big grocery pitch, built a loyal following on social media because a college professor forced them to start posting, and turned customer DMs into their best-selling products—including their crunchy spread and date bark. In this episode, Nico and Fran talk about: How a last-minute product pivot landed them in Portland's biggest local retailer Why they said no to Shark Tank and Target before they were ready How community-led product development drove 10x growth Building a brand in public from day one (even with terrible dorm room lighting) The café tour strategy that gets customers to try the product risk-free Navigating a business partnership that's also a romantic relationship The $20,000 TikTok agency mistake and what they learned from it Why taste—not health trends—is their only non-negotiable Whether you're starting a food business, looking for community-driven marketing strategies, or figuring out when to say no to big opportunities, this episode is packed with real talk and actionable advice for ecommerce entrepreneurs. For more on Pistakio and show notes click here: https://www.shopify.com/blog/pistakio-community-led-product-development?utm_campaign=shopifymasters&utm_medium=youtube&utm_source=podcast SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel for more video episodes: https://utm.io/uhw53 Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Flamingo Estate stayed true to its roots and built an eight-figure brand by saying no to almost every piece of outside advice. For more on Flamingo Estate and show notes click here.  Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Premier League soccer player Thomas Robson-Kanu turned a career-threatening injury into a mission—building The Turmeric Co., a raw functional beverage brand now reaching customers across 15,000 UK retail locations. For more on The Turmeric Co and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Kimberly Kreuzberger, founder of Pivot Projects, shares her framework for finding influencers who actually convert, briefing them, and scaling strategically. For more on Pivot Projects and show notes click here.  Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Inder Bedi spent 18 years building Matt & Nat into a global fashion brand—then walked away. Burned out by offshore production and boardroom economics, he came back with a radical new vision: Bedi Studios, premium outerwear built from waste materials in Montreal and guaranteed for life. For more on Bedi Studios and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Good Girl Snacks built a cult following and landed Whole Foods placement, with $0 spent on ads. Use its TikTok, community, and daily content strategy to scale as a scrappy startup. For more on Good Girl Snacks and show notes click here.  Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Kōv Essentials hit $1 million in sales in its first year thanks to a viral TikTok—zero paid ads. Here’s what founder Chelsea Branch did after the algorithm stopped delivering. For more on Kōv Essentials or show notes click here.  Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

A makeup artist started blending perfume at her kitchen table. Twenty years later, By Rosie Jane is set to hit $15 million in sales—bootstrapped, profitable, and still in control. For more on By Rosie Jane and show notes click here.  Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

After losing his eyebrows to alopecia while serving as a Canadian Armed Forces fighter pilot, Jason Berndt bootstrapped My Two Brows with his military pension and tens of thousands in free samples. Today the brand has shipped over 1 million brow sets across 275 styles worldwide. For more on My Two Brows and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

When Lauren Gropper noticed the amount of disposable plastics used on film sets, she saw a design opportunity. That reframe built Repurpose into a 15-year-old brand selling compostable products while diverting 727 million pieces of plastic from landfills. For more on Repurpose and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Ari Bloom has launched multiple eight-figure brands into more than 10,000 retail stores by building products that reflect the people buying them. The founder behind A-Frame Brands breaks down his problem-first framework and why long-lasting brands are built around purpose—not trends. For more on A-Frame Brands and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Heaven Mayhem founder and creative director Pia Mance built a $10M accessories brand by turning customers into co-creators with a bold community strategy. For more on Heaven Mayhem and show notes click here.  Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

When Curry Hagerty joined her sister’s jewelry brand in 2020, it was generating about $100,000 a year. By clearly splitting the founder and CEO roles and stepping out of the day-to-day grind, they scaled Hart Jewelry to a projected $20 million business with more than 100 employees. Fore more on Hart and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

From line cook to 8-figure founder, Ellen Bennett turned $300 and a vision into Hedley & Bennett, a heritage kitchen brand. For more on Hedley & Bennett and show notes click here.  Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

JW Wiseman built Curious Elixirs before a non-alcoholic cocktail category even existed—and grew it without outside investors. By spotting overlooked demand and building real community around the brand, he turned a personal pain point into an eight-figure business.For more on Curious Elixirs and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Rea Ann Silva couldn’t patent Beautyblender, so she built brand recognition stronger than IP. Learn how she scaled, without investment, to sales every 12 seconds.For more on Beautyblender and show notes click here. Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Anthony Barresi built a 7-figure pasta straw brand by launching fast, creating viral content and building relationships to drive sales.For more on Pasta Life and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Sonsie Skin's CEO turns customers into brand advocates through community-first strategies, from garden girl activations to in-person events. Discover how to create your own viral moments that drive real connection.For more on Sonsie Skin and show notes click here.  Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

COTTO's founder sold out her initial production run in 30 minutes by building her audience first. Use her social media techniques to validate demand before you’re ready to sell.For more on COTTO and show notes click here. Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Golden West Boots’s Michael Petry designs authentic products by fully embodying his customers’ lifestyles. Learn how to design products that your target audience will love.For more on Golden West Boots and show notes click here. Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Wild Rye designs stylish, sustainable outdoor gear for women, growing 30% to 50% annually through strong partnerships and community-driven fundraising.For more on Wild Rye and show notes click here  Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.