Building, scaling and selling an e-commerce business
Entrepreneurship was the most complete product role I have held. There was nowhere to hand off the problem: every customer promise eventually became my operational and commercial responsibility.
Building from zero
I co-founded Zach's Pet Shop and built the website, digital experience, product catalogue, payments, marketing, sourcing, finance, fulfilment and service operations. Across the life of the business, we managed approximately 7,500 SKUs.
Designing for scale
Growth exposed every weak connection in the system. I created integrations and automation, introduced external fulfilment, led a small offshore team and progressively reduced manual effort while protecting the customer experience.
Commercial discipline
The business generated more than $2 million in revenue across 25,000 orders and 20,000 customers. Unlike a corporate initiative, every roadmap decision affected cash, inventory, margin and the ability to fulfil the next order.
The exit and the lesson
I scaled the business to break-even and negotiated its sale in November 2022. The experience permanently changed how I lead product: customer value, operational feasibility and commercial consequence cannot be separated.