Welcome!
Welcome to this e-commerce influencer interview! Today we had the pleasure of interviewing Naomi & Brad – the owners of a fascinating outdoor home-gym business. Our hope is that you find this interview to be enlightening and inspiring as you seek to start and grow your very own online brand!
Interview with Naomi & Brad
Thank you for joining us for this e-commerce business success story! We’d like to start by getting an understanding of your backstory. How did you come to own your business?
Our ecommerce brand, SwingSesh, was born from a love of fitness, family, and fun. As an active-duty U.S. Marine pilot, I have to stay fit to meet military standards, but found that with a busy work schedule, spending time in the gym was taking away from family time. My wife and I wanted to show our kids the importance of fitness in everyday life, and what better way to do that than to combine a home gym with a playset – something everyone in the family would love and use!
My wife and I set out to design something that wasn’t just a little kid playset that would be grown out of (or rotted) in a few years. In bringing this product to market, quality was a top priority; we were tired of seeing some of the junk that was on the market. We spent a couple years developing the design and finding the right manufacturing partners before releasing the SwingSesh in summer of 2020!
Terrific! Now, this article is about profiling successful e-commerce businesses. So – can you share your top 3 keys to running a successful online brand?
1 – Know your numbers, but trust your gut. Everyone says ‘know your numbers’, which is certainly good advice and an important part of running the business, but when you’re getting started, it’s just as important to trust your gut. You won’t be hitting all the recommended benchmarks, your ROAS won’t be as good as an established brand, and you won’t have every ad optimized and A/B tested from day one. Take steps to improve the numbers, but trust your vision and deliver a quality product and exceptional customer service.
2 – Balance the everyday details with the long-term vision. As a husband-wife team, we balance each other in this regard. Naomi manages the day-to-day administrative details and I keep sight of the big picture. Both are essential; you wouldn’t move forward without both.
3 – Don’t forget the people. In ecommerce, its easy to get lost in the digital world of data tracking, ad management, and inventory spreadsheets. Don’t forget that behind every sale, every HARO pitch, and every shipment there are real people working hard just like you! It’s important to make real connections and have gratitude for those that make your business function.
Excellent. Now, I’m sure it hasn’t always been that easy. Can you tell a story about one challenge, setback, or mistake that you’ve had to overcome on the road to success? How can others learn from your mistakes?
Ha, yeah, entrepreneurs don’t really understand the meaning of easy, do they? We’ve had our fair share of challenges, but I’d say the biggest was losing our powder coating contractor at the beginning of our first season! I was deployed on an aircraft carrier and Naomi emailed to tell me the powder coating shop we were using had been bought out and had to drop most of their existing clients. We scrambled, we figured it out, and eventually that lead to us starting our own finishing facility, USA Finishing, to prevent that type of supply chain issue from happening again.
Thanks for that. Now – we want to know what’s next! What new initiatives are you rolling out at your business and what results are you hoping to see?
We’re constantly adding new fun features to our fitness playsets! This year, the plan is to release several new fitness attachments (a landmine, spotter arms, and a battle rope attachment), as well as a shade sail attachment and hopefully a climbing wall option. More fun for the whole family!
Sounds exciting! Any final words of advice for our readers?
Keep going! Behind every overnight success is years of hard work!
Brilliant! We want to thank you for participating in today’s interview. Hopefully our readers agree that there is a lot to be learned from your brand’s story. What links can our readers use to follow along with your journey? Thanks for chatting with us! Check out our website and follow along on Instagram @teamswingsesh.
