Topic

Pragmatism

A collection of 9 issues

Is your ecommerce growth stifled by technical debt and in need of a rebase?

It’s time to rebase when you’re paralyzed by technical debt, your team are frustrated because you can’t make changes you feel should be so easy, you need developers to do the simplest things, and you’re spending more time discussing minutiae than strategizing and implementing impactful initiatives.

Do you really want more features—or, do you actually want to achieve objectives?

If we rephrase “requirements” as goals and objectives, we will see leaner, more nimble projects that move faster, cost less money and headspace, and lead to more impactful and successful outcomes.

Growing faster and more sustainably on Shopify by adopting a “low-code mentality”

Despite all the best intentions, meticulous discovery, thoughtful design, and careful planning, how many ecommerce brands find themselves 6–12 months after launch of a new or refreshed site in a spiraling cycle of technical debt and increasing maintenance overhead?

A low-code experiment: using Retool to bulk identify and fix product issues in Shopify

Identifying and fixing issues with product data on large-inventory Shopify stores is time-consuming. This is an experiment to see what can be done by stitching together open-source or freemium tools using no-code or low-code principles.

Sustainable ecommerce growth has a complexity problem

We need to get back to basics. We need to have a relentless focus on simplicity—on foundational best-practices. We need to eliminate as many of the moving parts as possible to make it easier to diagnose problems and easier to identify the squeaky wheel or where to apply the grease.

Webinar: How to Stay Nimble as a DTC Brand

Some of my thoughts on how to develop more nimble mindsets in your organization, pragmatism, purpose, and a healthy dose of the first-principles of ecommerce—with a few nimble design and development conceps thrown in at the end.

Beware of the hidden costs of complexity

The more unknown unknowns there are in a design brief or system requirements, the more time is required to understand the core problems in order to design a suitable solution. Keeping things lean enables you to stay nimble, iterate faster, and grow more sustainably.

Some of the risks funded ecommerce startups face around over-designing and over-engineering for launch

For brands that have seed-funding, there is a strong tendency to get caught up in the look-and-feel and functionality of the website. Funded brands tend to quickly lose sight of factors such as nimbleness, technical debt, and the ability to iterate quickly based on analytics and data.

Are you wearing too many hats in your organization?

How many of you wear the hat of “ecommerce manager” on top of your official title—such as COO, CMO, CTO, Marketing Manager, Designer, Founder, CEO…? You are not alone.