“The proof is in the pudding,” as the saying goes. While we could go on and on about how great our Start & Scale ecommerce course is, there’s no better proof than the success of our students. But that’s not the only reason we’re sharing these nine success stories.

Sure, if you read Foundr regularly, you know all about the power of social proof and testimonials in marketing, and how this helps us encourage new students to sign up for our courses. It’s true.

But we publish these roundups of success stories for two other very important reasons:

• Transparency: At Foundr, we strive to be an open book. We don’t want you to take our word for anything. We want to show you everything we can, about our team, our products, our process, and our audience. Which leads us to…
• Community: We operate on the principle that your success is our success, and vice versa. We’re not just a website, or an iPad app, or a podcast. Foundr is a collective of people working together.

The following are some incredible stories from that very community.

You’ll read about how one of our students went from having no product and no customer base to having a thousand-dollar day while working two full-time jobs. You’ll learn how two of our students took their already successful company and transformed it into a popular online product. And others who had made a great start, but wanted to level up, multiplying their sales as much as 10x. Everyone’s story is different, and inspiring.

To be clear, not all Start & Scale students will have these outcomes, depending on a long list of variables. We also certainly don’t take credit for their accomplishments. But we are damn proud of these alumni and their successes to date, and whatever support we were able to offer them.

Without further ado, here are nine of our most successful Start & Scale students.

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Pinar Parry

Store: Delta & Co.

Product: Jewelry created with the intention to help you find your passion, purpose, and strength every day

A year and a half ago, Pinar decided to start her own ecommerce store. She already knew how to source a product, manufacture it, and have it ready to sell. She was confident in her success to date.

Her problem was that she didn’t know how to make her store grow. She felt stuck.

That’s when she found out about Start & Scale. Before the program, Pinar had made A$1,751.05 from 24 orders. Not bad, but not enough to cover her living expenses.

Six months later, Pinar had generated A$29,342.72 worth of sales from 457 orders.

After doing the course and following Gretta’s instructions on how to use influencer marketing, how to brand your product, and how to use Facebook ads for retargeting, it all came together. We had a dramatic, dramatic increase in sales over the last two months.

By connecting the dots of exactly how to execute some of these key strategies, Pinar was able to grow her business from a side-hustle into a full-time job.

Meagan Brettle

Store: Ahimza

Product: Plant-based lifestyle apparel that uses supportive messaging to encourage everyone along their plant-based journeys

Meagan had no prior business or ecommerce experience when she joined Start & Scale. She had always wanted to start a business, however, she wasn’t sure how to do it.

Since joining Start & Scale, Meagan and her business partner developed a product idea, validated it, built a brand, and created a product line and website.

For Meagan, it wouldn’t have been possible to get to where she is without the Start & Scale community.

To see so many inspiring people achieve successful businesses was exactly what I needed to build the confidence to follow through with it myself.

Meagan is most excited about being able to take everything she learned up to this point and re-apply it to any other product idea to confidently build another ecommerce brand.

Lucas Spinella

Store: Candidi

Product: A kit for taking great selfies

Launching an ecommerce store takes a monumental amount of work, but with the right tools and mindset, anyone can do it. Ask Lucas Spinella, who founded Candidi while working two full-time jobs.

In just a few months, he went from nothing—no experience, no product, no audience—to making A$1,477.08 in one day!

I have been implementing everything that Gretta and the team have been teaching and then slowly, slowly growing it to the point where I’m getting consistent sales.

Lucas’ best day so far

Monique & Chevalo Wilsondebriano

Store: Charleston Gourmet Burger

Product: Sauces that create the juiciest, most flavorful burgers

Running a successful offline retail company takes just as much hard work as an online one, if not more. However, the online and offline worlds are very different, and the success of one will not necessarily transfer to the other.

Monique and Chevalo run Charleston Gourmet Burger, already a $200,000 per month business. They were comfortable running their company, selling to restaurants and specialty stores. They had a website, but it was something they did because they had to. Sadly, no one could purchase on their website or do anything but look at their products.

So they decided to launch their store. In May, before they took the course, they had only generated $372.51 in online sales and attracted 530 visits. The reason for such meager results is that they simply weren’t putting much effort into it. They weren’t collecting emails, working on their retention, using coupons, or using any other effective ecommerce tools.

Then, they saw an ad for Start & Scale. At first, they were very skeptical because they had tried similar things before and they didn’t work. Still, they decided to take the plunge and enroll in the course.

By July, they had generated $21,900 and attracted 9,110 visits. That’s 5.8x more sales in two months!

The course is just incredible. Our key was that we followed everything that was taught in the course. We never tried to reinvent the wheel. – Chevalo Wilsondebriano

While they didn’t reinvent the wheel, they sure did make it spin. They have increased their total sales (both online and offline) more than 10%.

Adam Hendle

Store: Ball Wash

Product: Men’s personal care products specifically designed for guys

If you had told Adam Hendle he was going to be the owner of a million-dollar company eight months ago, he’d have thought you were crazy. But today, Adam is the Founder and CEO of Ball Wash, a personal care product company that is going gangbusters.

I think you can figure out on your own what his products are for, and why its PG-13 branding has gained so much attention.

Last November, Adam had made literally one order worth $17.99 and attracted 10 visitors to his store.

Since then, Ball Wash has sold $1,023,749 in revenue and generated 641,635 visits.

A lot of my success has to do with Start and Scale. It’s just an amazing course—everything in it that they teach you, the blueprints they give, the hacks they give. They really can take you from A to Z. Whether it’s finding the right store to work with, how to validate your products idea, or how to post social media ads. They really do it all.

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Shamanth Pereira

Store: InvisiBelly

Product: High-waisted compression leggings

The abundance of information on how to start an ecommerce store can be as much of a curse as it is a blessing. Sure, the information is all out there, but it’s so easy to get overwhelmed and confused. That’s what Shamanth Pereira was facing when she came across Start & Scale.

At the time, she didn’t know how to use social media or how to leverage influencers to promote her products. Also, she wasn’t aware of the importance of building a pre-launch list and engaging with it.

One of the key benefits I found very valuable from the course was the way in which the information was presented. It was presented in bite-size chunks. There were a lot of actionable items afterward that I could just go listen briefly and then take action. And also, the step-by-step process where you start off with finding an idea, then you go on to validating it, thinking about branding, and how to go about it. And everything is done in the most practical way possible.

Shamanth went on to find her product idea, and while we often recommend creating your own store from scratch, Shamanth decided to leverage Kickstarter to pre-sell her product.

In a short period of time, she raised £46,625, which represents over 300 orders. The fears of launching a store from scratch are already gone, and Shamanth is on her way to becoming a successful ecommerce entrepreneur.

Lindsay McCormick

Store: Bite Toothpaste Bits

Product: Organic, plant-based toothpaste bits

What separates a successful ecommerce store from a struggling one? Strategy. Specifically, the former has a clear path that leads its founder to reach all of their objectives.

Lindsay McCormick had already launched her ecommerce store, but what she needed—and what she hoped to get from Start & Scale—was a clear strategy. She found herself absorded in the day to day, manually manufacturing every item, and couldn’t keep up with demand. Instead of running a store, the store was running her.

After enrolling in Start & Scale, the first burden Lindsay took off of her own shoulders was manufacturing, by finding a new source that took her out of the production process.

While Lindsay prepares to relaunch her store, she has also learned the importance of using influencers to help her promote her store.

I would recommend this to anyone who’s just starting out. I would have saved so much stress, anguish, time, and money if I would’ve started this from the very beginning and been able to just follow the steps.

Conclusion

We want to emphasize, the success of these nine students demonstrated here is not a product of our online course. Rather, it is a reflection of their own untapped potential.

In all cases, they followed their hunger to improve their skills and knowledge, rolled up their sleeves, and got working.

Our course only helped them find the elements here and there that they were lacking in their stores, which helped them grow and succeed.

We’re incredibly proud of their work, and excited about the future students who’ll join our next class!

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