Shopify Masters

Shopify

Ready to build your business, but not sure where to start? Shopify Masters gives you the real stories and strategies behind successful entrepreneurship. Each week, we talk with founders and e-commerce experts who have launched, grown, and scaled real businesses. Learn how to turn your first idea into a product, run ads that actually work, and find suppliers you can trust. Our guests share lessons learned so you can avoid common mistakes and move faster.

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20 episodes
Updated Thursday

Episodes20

Newest first

How a Frustrating Diaper Change Inspired One of Baby Fashion’s Biggest Success Stories
When Lauren Levy struggled through a freezing diaper change with 30 snaps to close, she spotted a gap no one had filled in a century of baby clothing. She and co-founder Lawrence Scheer spent two years perfecting a patented magnetic closure before selling a single item. Today, Magnetic Me has 50 employees and has been profitable since 2012.
Thursday · 36 min
The Skin Care Brand That Refused To Compromise for 30 Years
Melissa Palmer inherited a wholesale beauty brand from her mother and rebuilt it into a nine-figure omnichannel business—with direct to consumer, Amazon, TikTok Shop, and more than 1,500 Ulta locations each playing a role in how OSEA Malibu finds and keeps customers.
Tuesday · 39 min
Branding for the AI Era: How Herman Scheer Designs Products That Stand Out in a Crowded Digital World
In a crowded market, copying products has become effortless. Herman Scheer cofounder John Scheer explains why building a strong, clear brand is an entrepreneur’s last line of defense. By rooting messaging in human truth and optimizing copy for AI search tools, he reveals how modern businesses can carve out lasting market moats that drive long-term value.
July 23 · 32 min
How The Black Tux Solved Formal Wear's Biggest Problem
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.
July 21 · 34 min
How Marlyn Schiff Built a 2,000-Store Jewelry Brand By Selling Passion, Not Pressure
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.
July 16 · 32 min
How a $5,000 Grant Snowballed Into a Dr. Dre Partnership
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.
July 14 · 50 min
How Dagne Dover Turned Word of Mouth Into Its Biggest Marketing Channel
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.
July 9 · 35 min
The Beauty Brand Playbook Behind Lore's Successful Launch
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.
July 7 · 36 min
How Fusion Achieved a 101% Sell-Through Rate by Owning Its Supply Chain
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.
July 2 · 30 min
How Brightland Became The Olive Oil Brand Beloved by Press and Retailers
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.
June 30 · 44 min
The Mistakes That Changed Everything (From 8 Real Businesses)
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.
June 25 · 13 min
Site Crashed Day One. Now She Runs One of America's Fastest-Growing Home Brands.
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.
June 23 · 32 min
Inventing “Shower Care”: How Hello Klean Turned a Hidden Problem Into a Global Business
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.
June 18 · 33 min
How a Motorcycle Crash Led to 6.5 Million Theraguns Sold
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.
June 16 · 48 min
How Getting Back to Basics Turned 437 Into an 8-Figure Brand
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.
June 11 · 41 min
How Giving Away Free Knowledge Built a Multimillion-Dollar Car Parts Business
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.
June 9 · 41 min
How Bette Bentley Built Skimpies Into a No. 1 TikTok Brand Without Spending a Dollar on Paid Ads
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.
June 4 · 43 min
How Fly By Jing Turned Chili Crisp Into an 8-Figure Brand
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.
June 2 · 45 min
"How Do You Know When to Pivot?" Here's What 13 Businesses Actually Did
Founders of thirteen businesses building on Shopify share how they navigate the pivot—when to leap, when to walk away, and how to tell fear from excitement. Insights from the founders of LORE, Fly By Jing, OSEA, Loftie, Avocado Green, and more.
May 28 · 24 min
How Figs Built a Billion-Dollar Brand for the People Saving Lives
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, 90% direct-to-consumer powerhouse.
May 26 · 49 min

Shopify Masters

How a Frustrating Diaper Change Inspired One of Baby Fashion’s Biggest Success Stories

The Skin Care Brand That Refused To Compromise for 30 Years

Branding for the AI Era: How Herman Scheer Designs Products That Stand Out in a Crowded Digital World

How The Black Tux Solved Formal Wear's Biggest Problem

How Marlyn Schiff Built a 2,000-Store Jewelry Brand By Selling Passion, Not Pressure

How a $5,000 Grant Snowballed Into a Dr. Dre Partnership

How Dagne Dover Turned Word of Mouth Into Its Biggest Marketing Channel

The Beauty Brand Playbook Behind Lore's Successful Launch

How Fusion Achieved a 101% Sell-Through Rate by Owning Its Supply Chain

How Brightland Became The Olive Oil Brand Beloved by Press and Retailers

The Mistakes That Changed Everything (From 8 Real Businesses)

Site Crashed Day One. Now She Runs One of America's Fastest-Growing Home Brands.

Inventing “Shower Care”: How Hello Klean Turned a Hidden Problem Into a Global Business

How a Motorcycle Crash Led to 6.5 Million Theraguns Sold

How Getting Back to Basics Turned 437 Into an 8-Figure Brand

How Giving Away Free Knowledge Built a Multimillion-Dollar Car Parts Business

How Bette Bentley Built Skimpies Into a No. 1 TikTok Brand Without Spending a Dollar on Paid Ads

How Fly By Jing Turned Chili Crisp Into an 8-Figure Brand

"How Do You Know When to Pivot?" Here's What 13 Businesses Actually Did

How Figs Built a Billion-Dollar Brand for the People Saving Lives