Evolution of ecommerce: "The whole reason ecommerce exists is because of how people shop, and how to make it easier for them to buy the things that they want and to be where they are when they are at the moment that they think about buying something. And a lot of that happens on social media." - Kevin Eichelberger, founder Blue Acorn
Commerce Famous Podcast, episode 20: Kevin Eichelberger on the early years of Blue Acorn and his entrepreneurial drive
In this episode of Commerce Famous, hosts Ben Marks sits down with Kevin Eichelberger, founder of Blue Acorn, where Ben was employee number one!
Kevin shares insights into the early days of Blue Acorn, the challenges of the ecommerce space, and the evolution of the industry. The conversation delves into topics such as the impact of social commerce, the shifting consumer behavior, and the entrepreneurial opportunities within the ecommerce ecosystem. Join us as we explore the fascinating journey of Kevin Eichelberger in shaping the world of digital commerce.
This episode was recorded at Shoptalk 2024 in Las Vegas.
Listen to the episode right here or subscribe to Commerce Famous on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your preferred podcast player
Successful business acquisition: "We had a process, so we hired an investment banker and went to the market, and they did a great job of packaging up the business, and we had a lot of interested parties, which was really amazing to me to see the biggest players in the ecosystem and beyond the Infosys of the world all interested in what we had built and what we had put together and wanted to take it forward." - Kevin Eichelberger
The best ecommerce and retail podcasts
Transcript of Commerce Famous episode 20, an interview with Kevin Eichelberger
Ben Marks [00:00:38]: Hey, everyone. Welcome to Commerce Famous. I'm your host, Ben Marks. Today's episode, we have a guest near and dear to my heart, Kevin Eichelberger, founder of Blue Acorn. Now Blue Acorn ici, part of Infosys, hired me as employee number one back in 2008. So if there's anyone responsible for unleashing me on the world of e commerce, it's really this guy.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:01:01]: I'm sorry, everybody.
Ben Marks [00:01:03]: The origin story for me at Blue Acorn started with, I sent you what I believe may be the world's worst cover letter.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:01:09]: I argue the best.
Ben Marks [00:01:11]: And I stayed with you from, what, zero eight to 2014? Six years, yeah. And then blue acorn went on to become, I think, one of the biggest agencies in the Adobe commerce space, and I think, even some other platforms as part of now part of Infosys, if.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:01:32]: I remember correctly, that, sir, is correct.
Ben Marks [00:01:34]: Do you miss it?
Kevin Eichelberger [00:01:35]: Absolutely. Every day.
Ben Marks [00:01:37]: Every day. It's a good. I mean, some of the people that even I worked with back in the day, they're still there. Chris Guerra, Emily Willhoy, and more. And then it's interesting when we get together in Charleston for our little commerce collective, I think pretty much everyone there is at most one degree removed from blue acorn.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:01:55]: That's pretty remarkable to see the impact everyone has had. People like yourself, just in the ecosystem, you know, just kind of taking what we started and rolling with it and running with it, and just the impact had by so many people has been amazing to see for me.
Ben Marks [00:02:12]: Yeah, it's. I mean, you know, when you were so, you know, let me see how much I remember about the backstory here. Cause it was, you know, for a long time, it was just the two of us, and then we had. Then we had a third. We don't talk about him. And then we had, you know, Luis TFSN, Thomas Slade, you know, and it just kind of, it kind of grew. But did you have, you know, so you were, you were a bartender in Atlanta. You had some.
Ben Marks [00:02:34]: You actually, you were a retailer yourself. So, yeah, in fact, booze and gear is still around, is it not?
Kevin Eichelberger [00:02:41]: That it is. My brother continues to run it to this day, right?
Ben Marks [00:02:44]: So, you know, Kevin figured out, and I'm a reformed bartender myself. And, you know, it was always cool the distributors who come through and like, they have the cool swag and your regulars are like, hey, how do I get that hat or that shirt or that bottle opener or whatever? And you just had the insight to say, well, let's go to the people making this stuff. We'll just sell it until someone tells us we can't.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:03:03]: That started when someone wanted to buy the hat I was wearing on my head when I was bartending. And I knew I bought it for $5 from my brother. Cause he worked at a distributor and I was like, hmm, this is pretty cool. People wanna buy this stuff. I'd like to buy this stuff. I wanna wear more of it. And there was really nowhere to get it.
Ben Marks [00:03:20]: Yep. And so it was great. Cause so you had the retail side of the experience, which I think was pretty helpful. You dabbled in. I mean, you also dabbled in some coding, right? Cause you were working with, what was it, BV commerce.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:03:31]: Oh, yeah, it was a.net platform. And then I also had originally launched the site on a custom built PHP platform that I made from scratch.
Ben Marks [00:03:40]: Right, because you were so pissed off because you couldn't get the, it couldn't do the SEO stuff that you knew it needed to do, and the analytics stuff.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:03:47]: And Os commerce has seemed really wonky. It was before more modern open source platforms came around. And at that point, it was early in the days of build it versus buy it. I built it and then realized what a shitty developer I was. Yeah, I mean, it lasted several years. It was surprising how long I made that thing tick.
Ben Marks [00:04:08]: I'm glad you never realized how shitty developer I was.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:04:13]: That's not true, Ben. I once brought out the code that I still had to some of the blue Acorn employees and showed them so that everyone could have a good laugh.
Ben Marks [00:04:22]: And I was setting that up for you to say, yes, I did know how bad a developer you were. So. And then as time goes on, there were some interesting approaches, though, in the beginning, I remember we, you know, you partnered with, you had some interesting arrangements with the customers where there was a bit of like, you know, hey, we'll handle not only the custom coding side of the business, but we'll also handle the marketing and, you know, we'll, and basically the arrangement was we'll take a share of the increase in revenue, which for me, I feel lucky that I started out there because it taught me to really respect and value a relationship focus in the space rather than just a puppy meal, just build a site, push it off on someone else. Don't really care about the results.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:05:12]: Yeah, that was largely the norm. What motivated me was driving results in numbers. I knew that design and development were part of that equation, but not the full equation itself. And if we wanted to help our clients drive revenue, we really needed to help them in a variety of ways. And generally, you know, when we started off, smaller clients would prefer to work with less vendors and have them do more things. And as we moved up markets, you get more specializations and people that are trying to find the best SEO agency, the best PPC agency. Over time, we kind of narrowed our focus to just the things that were on site. So that brought us into a lot of analytics and a b testing and more of the sciences behind commerce.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:05:54]: And that to me was, I'd rather see results in numbers than just here's a before and after picture of the website.
Ben Marks [00:06:00]: Yeah, absolutely right. Because it's really the true measure of whether what you did made a difference or not. And then as time went on, the clients got bigger, the builds got bigger, the scopes got certainly much more substantial. You graciously shared me with Magento starting in 2011 and then started splitting my time doing education for them, and then coming back and usually sneaking up behind new hires. And there were always new hires sneaking up behind them as they were watching the videos of me doing the training. How's it going? And then enter circa 2015, Magento two comes out. A whole seismic shift in that world. Those were interesting days.
Ben Marks [00:06:45]: I still encounter people who describe it themselves as still suffering from PTSD from those days. It was as the industry was getting more and more advanced to where it is today, which I'll ask you about in a minute. There was arguably a worldwide bloodbath around Magento two. And, I mean, I certainly have a little culpability there because I was at the developer betas, we kind of knew, we heard the complaints, but we. Yeah, we didn't, we didn't steer things. I'm sure there was a decision in the end, not my decision, but I could have yelled more. I could have yelled more.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:07:25]: Yeah, those were. I mean, it was definitely rough. And I think as an agency owner, what it did for me was shined a light on how important it was for us as we scaled our business to have diversification in our portfolio, because being solely dependent on any one platform, which we were magento specific for the first nine years. And so it really showed a light to me that we really needed to have some other platforms that we would work with. And so we brought in demandware, which became Salesforce commerce cloud and that became a great partnership for us as well. But yeah, those Magento two days and I won't even say the early Magento two days, I'd say the Magento two days for years. Pretty rad.
Ben Marks [00:08:07]: Yeah, pretty brutal. I mean it wasn't, it probably wasn't until 2018, 2019 that the product matured into the release quality product that it should have been in years prior. But challenge was, of course, there weren't a lot of other alternatives that did what it did in that space. I mean, and that I think if we take it away from Magento and just talk about the quote, not to be self aggrandizing, but the open commerce approach, you know, you even see some of the SaaS companies like Bigcommerce have branded themselves in that way. So I guess it was a deliberate decision to branch out into other technologies, sort of start spreading the eggs out of one basket. Among, into being in many commerce famous.
Female Narrator [00:08:55]: Is proudly presented by Shopware, the leading open source e commerce platform for mid market and lower enterprise merchants. More than 50,000 clients already process over $25 billion in annual GMV through Shopware. Find out more about Shopware and the best value in e commerce@shopware.com. Dot.
Ben Marks [00:09:15]: You know, did you how readily, so I was, I was more or less, I think I was pretty much gone by then. Was, you know, how was that, how was that taken inside the company when you made that, when you made the decisions, hey, we're going to take on this project and it's going to use this as the platform. And I think pretty much everything was probably a different language, certainly different set of skills.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:09:36]: That team was highly supportive of it. I think everyone was thirsty for learning new technology. A lot of engineers are really always interested in what's new, what's different, and learning something new. And you work with any platform for any number of years, you kind of get thirsty for some variety. So I think the team was really ready for it and open to it and supportive of it, which was great, and it was the right business move to make. As I think back, I actually think we did it right before Magento two came out. But the hardest part was demandware held their annual user conference a week before Magento's, both in Vegas. And we announced our demandware partnership one week before Magento imagine.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:10:19]: And at that Magento Imagine, we were awarded the north american partner of the year and the flames that were being fanned inside of Magento because of that announcement and the timing of that announcement in particular, there was a lot of damage control we had to do inside of Magento because obviously we're happy about us being Magento only for so long. And then our announcement of adding a highly competitive platform for them a week before we were announced as the partner of the year was tough.
Ben Marks [00:10:52]: Well, from my platform perspective, I would say, well, you know, if you guys built a better platform, wouldn't need to branch out. Right. And then as time goes on, you know, you've actually, you've called together. Was it, you know, avengers gather tomorrow. We're having a blue acorn alum get together, you know, happy hour here at, here at Mandalay Bay. Looking forward to that. Looking forward to seeing, seeing Tedric, who's gone on to have just one hell of a career after his start there and the journey that the team has been on. So you're fully out of the business now, but there was, after a little while, you eventually, I think, had the wise decision to lock in some of the value that you'd created there, and that got you involved into a consortium of businesses that you had to go and organize.
Ben Marks [00:11:49]: What was that decision like? Was it taken. Of course, it wasn't taken lightly, but was it a challenge in those days just to sort of split your attention among several companies, or was it just kind of an interesting reprieve and everything at blue Acorn was just sailing along smoothly?
Kevin Eichelberger [00:12:06]: Yeah, well, I think a lot of entrepreneurs get. There's been some research that says by about year eight, they get an itch to do something else. I don't know why it's year eight, but that's kind of the average. Some people might be year one, they want to do something different. Some people, maybe they'll do it for 20 years and never look back. And I think for me, it was around year nine or ten where I was like, I'm just ready for a new challenge, something different. I'm building the agency, scaling it, but it's a lot of the same stuff over and over again. And so when we partnered with private equity and acquired a couple other companies and merged them all together, you know, when you think about it from an entrepreneur standpoint, something different could mean I leave and go do something else or start another business.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:12:49]: But this was the equivalent for me. This was a totally new, different thing. Going through mergers and acquisitions, going through the integration process, you've got four different businesses with four different sets of processes and internal systems that they use and different ways to approach their p and ls and trying to unify all that. When, you know, everyone rightfully thinks their approach is the best. How do you break down those walls to get people to be open to trying? Hey, at least four systems, we're going to use this one. Everyone's got to go along with that. So getting buy in and change management was a new skill set that really had to be sharpened during that period, but it was a lot of fun. And building what we built at Blue Acorn Ici, which is what it's known as now and then selling that to Infosys was quite a remarkable journey.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:13:37]: And mistakes along the way, for sure, but it wouldn't change the thing, looking back.
Ben Marks [00:13:41]: Yeah. How did the infosys deal come up? Infosys is what? The biggest tech firm in the world. Was it a surprise? Did they approach you? Did you approach them?
Kevin Eichelberger [00:13:55]: We had a process, so we hired an investment banker and went to the market, and they did a great job of packaging up the business, and we had a lot of interested parties, which was really amazing to me to see the biggest players in the ecosystem and beyond the infosys of the world all interested in what we had built and what we had put together and wanted to take it forward. Infosys was a great home for the team. Everybody loves it there. Mostly. Executive team is still there, and I really see them thriving in a new environment. And, you know, it's got its own challenges, like anything. And, you know, you're part of a much bigger company and lots of layers of bureaucracy. The decision making can be slow and hard, but, you know, the team's been treated well.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:14:39]: They enjoy working with Infosys people, and I'm really happy to have found a great home for them because I knew my time was up, ready for someone else to kind of take over. And fortunately, I had Chris there, who worked with me side by side for so long, and, you know, he was ready for a new challenge, too. And so for him to step into my shoes and take over from there, and I knew Chris always treated the business like it was his own. I always treated the employees so well, and his team, and, you know, I was really happy to see him kind of carry the baton forward, and still to this day. So it's been amazing to watch it happen from the sidelines. Yeah, for the stands, I guess.
Ben Marks [00:15:17]: Now, now from the stand, you get to cheer from the stands. And we've seen, of course, tons of consolidation in the space. Definitely these transactions happen at a good time. In the history of e commerce agencies, when you look around the landscape today. So you're here visiting shop talk. Officially, unofficially, we don't comment on these things. But it was great seeing you last year and then seeing you this year, you know, and you. So you still have plenty of friends in the space and the kind of conversations you're having.
Ben Marks [00:15:51]: I mean, it's, this, this started off interesting for me after I picked up my badge yesterday. It was chatting with the team from, from view Storefront, who actually are now, they're announcing a rebrand today because. Yeah, I can go ahead and drop it.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:16:06]: Former blue Acorn employee Jay works there.
Ben Marks [00:16:08]: Yep, yep. I actually was. He was, he was there. And in fact, it was Jay who, who we got into this discussion and they're talking about their, by the time this podcast airs, the news will be out that they are actually sort of expanding. It's not storefront anymore. So they're just, they're basically going to be a, you know, a technology, I'm guessing a front end tech, but we'll know more later today. But they kind of see the e commerce space as pretty tilled over. And Jay was just saying, you know, just looked at me and said, man, we're all farmers.
Ben Marks [00:16:37]: Like, this is just, it's, everything is such, this is such a well developed commodity at this point that the people who are in position to extract the most value, they're there. Those rails are locked down. So you have to look at and look for new things to do. Are you happening to have any of these kind of conversations with other people?
Kevin Eichelberger [00:17:00]: Yeah, I mean, I like, as I've thought, a lot about the e commerce ecosystem, and I came to the realization fairly recently that it's an entrepreneur's playground.
Ben Marks [00:17:12]: Yeah.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:17:13]: No other industry that I can think of has. It's relatively new industry, right? 30 years maybe, but no, not even fully mature yet. And this is ripe for entrepreneurs to build businesses, software, technology, services, brands. You know, all of these things have been developed by entrepreneurs over the last 30 years, and it's such a unique ecosystem to be a part of because of that opportunity. And I think that's why you see so much energy, that's why you see a lot of collaboration. That's why you see a lot of excitement and energy in the space still to this day. But the conversations I have with people, there's still tons of opportunity, there's still a lot of growth ahead of it. I don't see anyone thinking it's slowing down, but the farming mentality is for sure but I like to think of us as like 49 ers in the, in the Wild west.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:18:02]: We were out digging for gold. Now, a lot of people have been in the same places digging for the same gold. And so the gold is maybe harder to find now, but there's still plenty out there.
Ben Marks [00:18:11]: It's a perfect metaphor to invoke one of the classic stories of Levi Strauss. You got the people running out to find the gold in the hills, and then you have the really smart people who are like, well, I'm going to supply those people. And it's actually, it's a pretty apt metaphor because we businesses built on that, and the whole thing basically got kicked off. And it's been going, it changes quite a lot over time. Are there anything, any businesses or technologies out there that are blowing your mustache back?
Kevin Eichelberger [00:18:48]: The mustache reference? The thing that always intrigues me is, and I try to avoid using the buzzwords, the social commerce aspect of things and what TikTok has done with the TikTok shop.
Ben Marks [00:19:01]: Yeah.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:19:01]: And because we've, I mean, I know, I've heard about social commerce for like 15 years. And you think of social media as a gathering place of people to talk, to engage with each other. And it's, you know what I mean? You think about it like, not virtually, but physically. Like, you're in a room full of people talking to each other, having a good time, you know, and then someone walks up with some tupperware to try to sell you. And it's like, it's an odd place to be selling in that environment. But I just kind of always knew inevitably, at some point that will change, that will start to become more integrated and more fluid in the conversation instead of standing out like a sore thumb. And so that's probably the most intriguing thing for me, is where that goes. Outside of the obvious AI stuff and everything else that's going on.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:19:50]: That to me, is something that I've always been wondering who and when are going to figure that out, because I see that as a huge opportunity. Because if you just think about how commerce has evolved, the whole reason e commerce exists is because of how people shop and how to make it easier for them to buy the things that they want and to be where they are when they are at the moment that they think about buying something. And a lot of that happens on social media. The influencers are just one step away from selling things themselves. And I think you see the flattening of the supply chain. And as that happens, the tmus of the world and everything else. People are buying direct from manufacturer now overseas and getting even products shipped directly from overseas. That, to me, is probably more fascinating because it's just the entire shift from a consumer behavior standpoint that, to me, e commerce is all about how do we use digital technologies to meet that shift in consumer behavior.
Ben Marks [00:20:49]: Yeah, it's funny, when I was here at shop talk last year and found out about the white out party, and I'm like, wow. Oh, man, I need to get something to wear. Cause I don't really travel with a lot of white clothes. I'm a very messy person. And, yeah, it was like, I went from, I think, three days. I ordered a white suit. Now, this is not, this is not nice material. It's not particularly well made, but it was from Shein.
Ben Marks [00:21:16]: Right? So, and then, and that. That sucker, I ordered it. I didn't expect it to get here in time. Three days from China in three days. Damn, that is, that is interesting because, you know, I, we still see the classic, the classic real world model applied to, you know, online store space. You know, you have, you have effectively, you have product categories, virtual aisles. You place things into a cart and you have these experiences, but then you do have these moments on social media in the Facebook stream, especially if you're, like, flipping through videos, which is. I do that kind of mindlessly when I want to just take a little mental break.
Ben Marks [00:21:56]: But then you have these ads pop up and Facebook seems to be pretty good at understanding what it is that I want or understanding a problem that I didn't know I had. And so now I have to have this product to solve it. And, yes, and I see the same on TikTok. And even Facebook, I think, is now forcing, in fact, you're basically not even going to be able to go off site. They're really forcing everything from a Facebook storefront to sell through, right through their own, the browser port that they're owning at the moment or the app. And it does seem like we are seeing this iteration. And this is on the back of. I was hanging out, playing some music with one of my old bandmates a few nights ago, and he had just gotten back from a trip to New York with his middle son, who I think is probably about 1516 at this point.
Ben Marks [00:22:47]: And he was telling me about how they were navigating New York for the few days that they were there. He was like, yeah, we love pizza. We want to stop. So we, you know, we're just looking on TikTok for where to find the pizza.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:22:59]: Just follow Dave Portnoy's recommendations, you know?
Ben Marks [00:23:01]: Yeah. Dave, the obvious, in fact, I think they ended up at one of his restaurants in somewhere. Somewhere in New York. And then it was. And there was a similar thing for, like, dive bars, you know, so he's looking up dive bars to go hang out, and. But it was all on TikTok. And I'm, like, looking at this guy who is, you know, he's not a Luddite, but it was interesting that I would think in that moment, I would always go to Google, and I would, like. I would try and find address map reviews all put together, but it was just natural for him to.
Ben Marks [00:23:33]: Having the kid around. They just hop into TikTok and look at this. That, for me, was a strong indication that we really are starting to see this shift, that maybe those of us in the industry were always trying to jump on and claim the new hot thing, but it. Maybe it's taken a little bit longer. Like, I remember social commerce being, you know, being the hot topic several years ago, but it just turns out that, you know, it's. It's. It's sort of an aggregate. It's an aggregate space, and you have to.
Ben Marks [00:24:02]: You have to get people into that mindset. And now we just have kids who have always had, you know, the Internet, and, well, they grew up with their.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:24:09]: Phone in their face, and, you know, for them to see a product to buy by in stream of a social media platform is not foreign to them where it might be unnatural to us. So they're developing around this world that it's native and natural and normal now. And so as those become the major consumer base, you'll see a lot more of that behavior happening. And I think that's when social commerce will start to really take hold.
Ben Marks [00:24:36]: Man, that's.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:24:37]: I didn't come here today expecting to talk about social commerce.
Ben Marks [00:24:40]: This is weird. You know, it's what I do, man. I just pull the truths out of my guests sometimes. I really think I help the guests really meet themselves, or maybe not at all. Well, that actually takes us to the end of the end of the recording session. But it was a pleasure watching you play craps last night. It was a pleasure of me not playing. So I didn't lose any money.
Ben Marks [00:25:04]: We'll see if I can continue this trend of not handing Vegas too much more money.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:25:09]: I try the same thing.
Ben Marks [00:25:10]: I just, you know, I could give you. I'll stake you, and then I don't.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:25:15]: Gamble with other people's money.
Ben Marks [00:25:17]: Well, all right. Looks like I'm gonna have to stay employed and recording podcasts for the near future so we can pay off my house one day. Kevin, man, thank you for everything. And. And thanks for taking time to jump on the podcast with me.
Kevin Eichelberger [00:25:32]: Always a pleasure, Ben. Thanks.
