How Shopify's Morgan Brown helps them stay ahead of the competition
Morgan Brown - Vice President of Growth at Shopify, the $7.6 billion e-commerce category leader. We hear about enabling potential customers to start businesses rather than targeting B2B customers, building an ecosystem around your product, and staying ahead in the field.
Key Points:
- Morgan explains Shopify's current pain points (01:07)
- Morgan explains how Shopify's ecosystem helps differentiate it (2:35)
- Morgan explains how Shopify's marketing targets potential business owners rather than B2B customers(3.48)
- I give my thoughts on Nassim Taleb's 'Antifragile' theory of attracting customers with a 'low risk, high potential reward' pricing model (5:04)
- I give my thoughts on using qualitative data to ensure you are targeting customers with the right messaging (6:55)
- Morgan gives his thoughts on lowering the barrier to entry for business (7.50)
- I give my thoughts on Richard Reynolds 'Good Strategy/Bad Strategy' theory, which suggests analysis of problems, not aiming for solutions, is the most effective way to plan (8.38)
- Morgan explains Shopify's long term goals and strategies - simple pricing, a product which can be adapted to suit the needs of every business, and solving the problems which matter to the most customers (10.35)
- Morgan explains where the business' core strategy of making e-commerce accessible comes from (15:15)
- Morgan talks us through Shopify's strategic planning process (17:05)
- Morgan gives his thoughts on staying ahead of the competition, and competing with the likes of Amazon (20:10)
- I give my thoughts on how to compete against a category leader (21:57)
- Morgan explains how Shopify tracks the competition's movements and strategies (23:16)
- Morgan gives his thoughts on Shopify's moats, and how it is maintaining its position (25:08)
- Wrap up (30:17)
