I've Been In eCommerce Long Enough To Know Who(m?) To Ask

About I've Been In eCommerce Long Enough To Know Who(m?) To Ask

Each week, I'm sitting down with the most interesting people in eCommerce - founders, investors, marketers, and agency leaders who are actually doing the work. We're skipping past the highlight reels and getting into the real stories that shaped their success.

Publisher

Aaron Schwartz

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

26 Feb 2025

Latest episode

16 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

110 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   16 Oct 2026

   No Pitch, Just Peers: Debbie Kemunto Pearce on the Network Vendors Have to Earn

   In this episode of The Orita Podcast, Aaron Schwartz sits down with Debbie Kemunto Pearce, Founder at CartStars. Debbie spent years selling software she had never actually used, then built an invitation-only network where vendors can't buy their way in. • How one honest conversation with peers during a software purchase exposed her blind spot and sparked the idea for CartStars • Why members called the first dinners "first dates," and what that taught Debbie about trust • The strict rules that keep CartStars honest: brand leaders contribute or leave, and vendors only enter by recommendation • Why operators across CartStars have shifted from vendor ROI claims to retention, contribution margin, and incremental lift • The traits Debbie sees in the most effective operators: constant learning, no ego, and caring you can't fake • Why building is meant to be hard, and how giving your team "the bones" means letting them fail 👥 Meet the guest Debbie Kemunto Pearce, Founder at CartStars 👥 Meet the guest Aaron Schwartz, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Orita.ai 🎧 Chapters [00:00:00] A Dollar, No Jacket: Debbie's Origin Story [00:02:40] Not the Expert: Aaron's Founder Advantage [00:06:29] Street Canvassing Taught Her to Love No [00:12:09] Mutual Growth: Why Partnerships Felt Like Home [00:14:05] The Software Purchase That Sparked CartStars [00:17:17] Dinners vs Platforms: Trust Takes Time [00:20:37] Executives, Introverts, and the Contribution Rule [00:23:46] Retention, Margin, and the Incrementality Shift [00:30:10] Golden Cart Awards: Making Great Operators Visible [00:33:00] Too Many Rules? Why Trust Needs Guardrails [00:36:21] You Can't Fake Caring: Traits of Top Operators [00:41:57] Lean Team, Big Reach: Building Is Meant to Be Hard [00:49:11] Aaron on Sharing Problems and Letting Go [00:53:18] Give Your Team the Bones, Then Let Them Fail 🌐 Check out Orita.ai for more episodes of The Orita Podcast, where we sit down with the most interesting operators, marketers, and founders in e-commerce to talk about what’s working right now. Hosted by the Orita team. Orita uses machine learning to help brands send smarter, more profitable marketing, by figuring out who actually wants to hear from you and when. 🚀 Get your free email audit from Orita, turn segments into superpowers: https://orita.ai 🎧 Listen on Spotify & Apple 📩 Subscribe for more founder‑grade retention intel

2. 

   16 Oct 2026

   BYLT to Last: Protecting Premium, Breaking the Discount Habit, and Growing Beyond the Meta Click

   In this episode of The Orita Podcast, Aaron Schwartz sits down with Jeremy Whisnant, Senior Director Ecommerce and Growth at BYLT Basics. Jeremy got his first purchase order from Amazon as an email attachment in 2002, and he's been figuring out how channels actually work together ever since. At BYLT Basics he's doing something most apparel brands haven't tried: building a real brand instead of just running a better ad. • What Jeremy learned shutting down a $300M Sony DTC business and why that scale perspective still shapes how he thinks about channel decisions at BYLT today • Why BYLT ran almost entirely on Instagram ads until 2021 and never spent a dollar on Google, and what that origin story means for where growth has to go next • How BYLT uses differentiated UPCs and limited assortments to sell on Amazon without creating channel conflict against their own DTC site • The shift from measuring every ad unit by the hour to brand storytelling with reach and frequency, and why that pivot requires a different kind of patience from the whole team • Why Jeremy argues that if your brand is not actively controlling its Amazon presence, Debbie's desert shop from TJ Maxx is controlling it for you • How BYLT is expanding to 22 stores in premium malls while keeping wholesale deliberately narrow and building toward golf specialty and experiential retail 👥 Meet the guest Jeremy Whisnant, Senior Director Ecommerce and Growth at BYLT Basics 🎙 Hosted by Aaron Schwartz, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Orita.ai 🎧 Chapters [00:00:00] From Gateway to BYLT: 25 Years in Digital Commerce [00:02:39] Getting the First Amazon PO in 2002 Before Anyone Cared [00:04:06] Small Companies Teach What Big Ones Cannot [00:08:24] Experience Gives Perspective: The Sony Shutdown Story [00:16:12] Landing at BYLT and What Made the Opportunity Worth the Commute [00:17:57] Why Not Knowing Apparel Was Actually an Advantage [00:20:06] How to Win the Internal Argument Against Discounting [00:25:19] Amazon Is a System Not a Partner: How to Work It [00:29:03] Which Channels to Prioritize When You Start a New Brand [00:31:17] BYLT's Channel Map: DTC, 22 Stores, Wholesale, and Amazon [00:35:30] Preventing Channel Conflict With Differentiated SKUs [00:39:17] Short-Term Revenue vs Long-Term Brand: The Pivot BYLT Is Making [00:43:20] Brand Storytelling at Scale: Gronk, Surf Photography, and Earned Credibility [00:48:39] Going Robotic: The Grand Prairie Warehouse Move 🌐 Check out Orita.ai for more episodes of The Orita Podcast, where we sit down with the most interesting operators, marketers, and founders in e-commerce to talk about what’s working right now. Hosted by the Orita team. Orita uses machine learning to help brands send smarter, more profitable marketing, by figuring out who actually wants to hear from you and when. 🚀 Get your free email audit from Orita, turn segments into superpowers: https://orita.ai 🎧 Listen on Spotify & Apple 📩 Subscribe for more founder‑grade retention intel

3. 

   14 Oct 2026

   From Reviews to Robots: Hansen Liang on Internal Founding, AI Agents, and What Comes After Klaviyo

   In this episode of The Orita Podcast, Aaron Schwartz sits down with Hansen Liang, Founder Stealth Startup. Hansen spent seven years inside Klaviyo building new products like a startup founder, reporting straight to the CPO, pitching the founders like investors, and earning headcount by traction. Now he's left to do it for real, building AI agents in stealth. • How Klaviyo structured its New Products team as a startup inside a startup with Andrew and Ed acting as the board • Why you can't subsidize your way out of bad product-market fit, no matter how strong your sales org is • The two battles every internal founder fights and why the internal one is often harder than finding PMF • Why product leaders should have more customer exposure than anyone in the org, salespeople included • How Hansen ships 1,000 PRs a month with two AI models adversarially reviewing each other's code • His spicy take on Google and Meta and why the biggest ad platforms may be brands' biggest problem 👥 Meet the guest Hansen Liang, Founder Stealth Startup; previously New Products, Klaviyo 🎙 Hosted by Aaron Schwartz, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Orita.ai 🎧 Chapters [00:00:00] Meet Hansen: Seven Years Building Klaviyo's New Products [00:02:04] A Kid in China Dreaming About the iPhone [00:04:00] The Co-op Binder That Changed Everything [00:07:23] You Have to Just Care: What Great Product Takes [00:09:26] Klaviyo's Accidental First Growth PM [00:14:13] A Startup Inside a Startup: How New Products Ran [00:19:32] Two Battles: External PMF vs Internal Buy-In [00:22:32] You Can't Subsidize Bad Product-Market Fit [00:25:39] Where the Buck Stops: Customer Exposure [00:27:37] The Launch Is a Milestone, Not the Endpoint [00:31:25] What's Next: AI Agents for Creator Marketing [00:37:41] 1,000 PRs a Month: The Two-Model Workflow [00:44:06] The Spicy Take: Google, Meta, and What Breaks [00:46:47] After Party: Aaron on Authenticity and AI Humility 🌐 Check out Orita.ai for more episodes of The Orita Podcast, where we sit down with the most interesting operators, marketers, and founders in e-commerce to talk about what’s working right now. Hosted by the Orita team. Orita uses machine learning to help brands send smarter, more profitable marketing, by figuring out who actually wants to hear from you and when. 🚀 Get your free email audit from Orita, turn segments into superpowers: https://orita.ai 🎧 Listen on Spotify & Apple 📩 Subscribe for more founder‑grade retention intel

Who has been a guest on I've Been In eCommerce Long Enough To Know Who(m?) To Ask

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Gabrielle Pitman
• Josh Behr
• Amanda Vogt Peer
• Jamie Schreter
• Ed Hallen

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

4 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 35 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

71

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

0