The entrepreneurs leading 8 of the fastest-growing new retailers in the world share their best business advice
- The winners of Shopify's Build a Bigger Business competition are eight of the fastest growing online retailers in the world.
- They received a week of mentorship from coaches like Tony Robbins and Tim Ferriss at Robbins' resort in Fiji.
- Their best advice is centered on increased self-awareness and is universally applicable.
Starting and growing a business can be a lonely, unstable journey. Without the support of both mentors who have already been through it, as well as fellow entrepreneurs still in the trenches, achieving sustained scaled growth can seem impossible.
It's why Shopify rewarded winners of its first Build a Bigger Business Competition with a week of high-level mentorship from performance coach Tony Robbins, Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia, author and podcast host Tim Ferriss, and author and entrepreneur Marie Forleo at Robbins' Namale resort in Fiji.
To enter, applicants had to have a business that sold products through Shopify's ecommerce platform and had more than $1 million in annual sales. Applicants' growth was measured between March and July this year. The top eight winners had drastic growth and profitability.
Business Insider went to Fiji and interviewed the winners toward the end of the trip. We asked them to share a piece of advice or insight that changed the way they thought about their business, and their answers form a collection of knowledge that applies not only to entrepreneurs but anyone developing their career.
Gymshark founder Ben Francis learned that you shouldn't handle everything on your own.
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Francis founded Gymshark in England in 2012 out of his garage as a fitness apparel brand built around a curated fitness community. It is the fastest-growing brand in the United Kingdom, as ranked by the Sunday Times Fast Track 100, and is on track for annual revenue this year of £41 million, an increase of 215% year over year.
Francis told us that he would fill his spare time online studying lessons from successful businesspeople and management experts, and a lesson that he kept noticing was that you must focus on what you're good at and pass on the rest.
It became obvious to him that he needed to hand over the CEO reins this past April to his experienced managing director Steve Hewitt, allowing him to be the brand visionary while Hewitt handled the day-to-day. As Gymshark has grown, he's had to share more responsibilities with others.
"Gymshark is my baby. So it is a bit of a weird feeling," he said. But "I know that this is the best way to grow the business and it is best not only for me but for the business as a whole."
Lively founder Michelle Cordeiro Grant learned that she needs to avoid burnout.
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The New York-based entrepreneur began working full time on Lively in 2015 and launched in April 2016. That October, she raised $4 million in a seed round led by GGV Capital, and is looking to do to the lingerie business what Warby Parker did with eyeglasses.
Cordeiro Grant won the title of "Tony Robbins' Pick," and in their one-on-one mentoring session Robbins told her, "I'm passionate, I'm intense — I relate to you. That's probably why I have an affinity for you, right?" But he also said that he knows this unrelenting, aggressive push to constantly work on moving a business forward can lead to burnout if it's not used properly.
Robbins told her that the passion she has for her business gives him no concern about her failing to continue to grow and enjoy success. But he wanted her to learn to temper this passion for the sake of her well-being, which will allow her business to be more sustainable and fulfilling. To do that, she must clearly iterate a plan and be confident in it, rather than constantly powering through uncertainty.
As Robbins said, "there's a power in that total calmness. There's a power when there's no stress whatsoever. And not even excitement, just absolute knowing."
At the end of the session, Cordeiro Grant said that as she continues to grow her business, she will take Robbins' advice and not live in a constant frenetic state. Instead, she'll learn from each win and failure "and elegantly move on to the next. With that, there's balance and focus."
Sand Cloud founders Steven Ford and Brandon Leibel learned that urgency is the best motivator.
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Ford, Leibel, and their third cofounder, Bruno Aschidamini, were three friends living in San Diego who launched a line of fashionable, high quality beach towels in 2014. Sand Cloud now has a full line of towels and apparel where 10% of proceeds go to marine life conservation. Sand Cloud grew from $30,000 in sales its first year to $2.5 million in 2016, and are expecting to bring in $7 million this year.
Ford said that the best piece of advice they ever heard was, "If you're not growing, you're dying."
"If we're not growing, then we feel like we're on the brink of going out of business — even though we're not — but if we have that mentality, it just fuels us to work harder," he said.
He and his cofounders built that urgency into their company from day one, when they quit their jobs with essentially no safety nets. They had to work odd jobs and live off rice and beans during those early days, Ford told us. "We were just so desperate to make it work that we made it no other option," Leibel said.
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