Earlier this year Zack Kanter introduced me to Andrew Youderian who is, among other things, the founder of Ecommerce Fuel. Later in the summer, at the tail end of my summer working from rural NW Montana, I drove to Bozeman to hang out with Andrew and do a podcast interview with him.
We drove to a wilderness area a few hours outside of Bozeman in his VW camper van, camped, fly fished and talked how I see retail, the misuse of venture capital in retail and many other things. Andrew is a wicked fly fisherman. I am a terrible fly fisherman.
My views on the future of retail and the use venture capital are very different than those of the larger venture market. Second perhaps only to conversations with my partners, this interview is the place I’ve been most authentically clear about how I see the industry and why.
This is likely thanks to a combination of factors namely, the outdoors is my element and I’d spent over a month before this interview mostly in the outdoors. Also Andrew is just a great guy to talk to.
Here’s the interview which is also presented as a transcript.
If you are an ecommerce or retail entreprenuer building a company to last, you should check out Ecommerce Fuel. The members I know say it’s very powerful. And Andrew is a really great guy.
I took the photo while we were fly fishing in a protected wilderness before the interview. I’m pretty sure the cows were owned by a land squatter. They did not like me. You can see the beginnings of the smoke from the fires that ravaged Montana starting in August.
First published on November 8, 2017