Sam Gastro's guest appearances

Sam Gastro

Nerd Marketing Ecommerce Podcast

Ecommerce Excellence

Emmanuel Eleyae

Michael Anderson

Rachel Johnson

Shep Hyken

Scott Bintz

Steven Sashen

Edward Wimmer

Michael Jackness

Adam Lean

Joris Bryon

David Hoffmann

Sisun Lee

Austin Brawner

Bill D'Alessandro

Linda Bustos

OwlTail

Sam Gastro sold a gift card on eBay several years ago and made a few bucks. But that one transaction inspired an ecommerce business that today is in the seven figures.It’s a great example of seeing a problem in the market (that, in this case, nobody else had recognized), understanding the solution, and then seizing that opportunity. Since his startup days, Sam says a lot has changed in ecommerce… but a lot has stayed the same, too.We talk about the tactics he uses to boost retention, and why he doesn’t worry as much about acquisition. He also reveals why he radically changed his business and product offering early on… and accelerated growth as a result.Tune in to find out…  The biggest mistake he made with his company’s finances (and how you can avoid it) The way follow-up email campaigns can go wrong How giving away things for “free” pays off in the end Ways to cut through the clutter of a packed inbox And more 

Sam Gastro sold a gift card on eBay several years ago and made a few bucks. But that one transaction inspired an ecommerce business that today is in the seven figures. It’s a great example of seeing a problem in the market (that, in this case, nobody else had recognized), understanding the solution, and then seizing that opportunity. Since his startup days, Sam says a lot has changed in ecommerce… but a lot has stayed the same, too. We talk about the tactics he uses to boost retention, and why he doesn’t worry as much about acquisition. He also reveals why he radically changed his business and product offering early on… and accelerated growth as a result. Tune in to find out… <ul> <li>The biggest mistake he made with his company’s finances (and how you can avoid it)</li> <li>The way follow-up email campaigns can go wrong</li> <li>How giving away things for “free” pays off in the end</li> <li>Ways to cut through the clutter of a packed inbox</li> <li>And more</li> </ul>

Sam Gastro | The Power of Upfront Value

How Sam Gastro, founder of MyGiftCardSupply.com about how he grew his $1 million dollar retailer. Tons of insights on how to use retention (not acquisition) to grow...EXCLUSIVE RESOURCE: Get my Million Dollar Cheat Sheet + the Episode 12 text transcribe. Click Here to download the PDF.Subscribe: iTunes | StitcherI've been fascinated by e-commerce retailers that are able to bootstrap to 7-figures within a short period of time.Highlights	How Sam acquired his first 100 customers	Using retention/word of mouth to grow to 7 figures	How to treat your best customers differently	Sam’s one actionable tip on how to grow your ecommerce businessLinks / Resources	The Nerd Marketing newsletter (sign up to unlock freebies)	Mygiftcardsupply.comTranscriptPrefer to read rather than listen to the podcast episode? No problem, you'll find a text transcribe below, and you can also download it for later.→ Read the Transcript Drew:  Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Nerd Marketing Podcast. This is Drew Sanocki and we are talking about growing a company to seven figures, which is a really popular topic on my blog, and today I am joined by Sam Gastro. Sam, among many things he works on, one is Mygiftcardsupply.com, which is a business that he took from zero to over a million in revenue in a short amount of time. Sam, welcome.Sam: Hey, Drew. Thanks for having me.Want to save this transcribe to read later? CLICK HERE to download it as a PDF.Drew:  Sure. Thanks for being here. Sam is in Boulder, Colorado. Congratulations on the Super Bowl.Sam: Thank you, thank you.Drew:  Yeah, I was a little bit bummed because I was a New England Patriots fan. I'm from Boston, and I've got to say that was ... the Patriots gave them a better game both games than they had in the Super Bowl.Sam: Agreed, agreed. Yeah, I can't complain. It was a great ... it was a really fun year to watch football.Drew: Yeah, because everybody was sort of counting out, you know, the Broncos, because they weren't winning by ... they weren't dominating, you know, but they were winning by like a field goal, and Manning was like ... you know, he kind of was like me. He's like 40-something, like falling down, right, like slowly get up, injured all the time, right, like me trying to throw 50 yards. It was a good way to go out, right?Sam:  Incredible, absolutely insane. Yeah, during the middle of the season there, it was kind of wild with him like getting replaced, and it was like ... just a wild, wild year, but completely fun.Drew:  Congratulations. It would be great to talk about the Super Bowl for like 90 percent of this podcast and then we'll just touch on your retailer.Sam: Yeah, let's do that, essentially because I don't know a whole lot about football. I like it. I like to watch it. Usually I'm in it for the guacamole and the home team.Drew: Well, let's see. I don't know what the transition is from Super Bowl to Mygiftcardsupply.com, but did you see a spike in revenue during the Super Bowl? How about that?Sam: No, we did not. There isn't ... not a whole lot of football and gift card correlation, unfortunately.Drew:  For those who don't know Mygiftcardsupply.com, could you give a little bit of a background on the site, how you decided to start it, how long ago did you start it?Sam: Absolutely, yeah. I started it about four years ago, and I kind of stumbled upon the idea by selling a gift card on eBay. Basically when I sold it, it went to a guy in France, and I was a little intrigued because with the currency conversion, it went over what the actual value of the gift card was. I won't get into the numbers of it, but basically what I found after talking to him ... because I was first suspicious and I messaged him ... he explained that there's a large demand for United States gift cards, because people like to buy U.S. content and there's kind of a barrier. You have to use a U.S.

How Sam Gastro, founder of <a href="http://MyGiftCardSupply.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">MyGiftCardSupply.com</a> about how he grew his $1 million dollar retailer. Tons of insights on how to use retention (not acquisition) to grow... EXCLUSIVE RESOURCE: Get my Million Dollar Cheat Sheet + the Episode 12 text transcribe. Click Here to download the PDF. Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher I've been fascinated by e-commerce retailers that are able to bootstrap to 7-figures within a short period of time. Highlights 	How Sam acquired his first 100 customers 	Using retention/word of mouth to grow to 7 figures 	How to treat your best customers differently 	Sam’s one actionable tip on how to grow your ecommerce business Links / Resources 	The Nerd Marketing newsletter (sign up to unlock freebies) 	<a href="http://Mygiftcardsupply.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mygiftcardsupply.com</a> Transcript Prefer to read rather than listen to the podcast episode? No problem, you'll find a text transcribe below, and you can also download it for later. → Read the Transcript Drew:  Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Nerd Marketing Podcast. This is Drew Sanocki and we are talking about growing a company to seven figures, which is a really popular topic on my blog, and today I am joined by Sam Gastro. Sam, among many things he works on, one is <a href="http://Mygiftcardsupply.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mygiftcardsupply.com</a>, which is a business that he took from zero to over a million in revenue in a short amount of time. Sam, welcome. Sam: Hey, Drew. Thanks for having me. Want to save this transcribe to read later? CLICK HERE to download it as a PDF. Drew:  Sure. Thanks for being here. Sam is in Boulder, Colorado. Congratulations on the Super Bowl. Sam: Thank you, thank you. Drew:  Yeah, I was a little bit bummed because I was a New England Patriots fan. I'm from Boston, and I've got to say that was ... the Patriots gave them a better game both games than they had in the Super Bowl. Sam: Agreed, agreed. Yeah, I can't complain. It was a great ... it was a really fun year to watch football. Drew: Yeah, because everybody was sort of counting out, you know, the Broncos, because they weren't winning by ... they weren't dominating, you know, but they were winning by like a field goal, and Manning was like ... you know, he kind of was like me. He's like 40-something, like falling down, right, like slowly get up, injured all the time, right, like me trying to throw 50 yards. It was a good way to go out, right? Sam:  Incredible, absolutely insane. Yeah, during the middle of the season there, it was kind of wild with him like getting replaced, and it was like ... just a wild, wild year, but completely fun. Drew:  Congratulations. It would be great to talk about the Super Bowl for like 90 percent of this podcast and then we'll just touch on your retailer. Sam: Yeah, let's do that, essentially because I don't know a whole lot about football. I like it. I like to watch it. Usually I'm in it for the guacamole and the home team. Drew: Well, let's see. I don't know what the transition is from Super Bowl to <a href="http://Mygiftcardsupply.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mygiftcardsupply.com</a>, but did you see a spike in revenue during the Super Bowl? How about that? Sam: No, we did not. There isn't ... not a whole lot of football and gift card correlation, unfortunately. Drew:  For those who don't know <a href="http://Mygiftcardsupply.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mygiftcardsupply.com</a>, could you give a little bit of a background on the site, how you decided to start it, how long ago did you start it? Sam: Absolutely, yeah. I started it about four years ago, and I kind of stumbled upon the idea by selling a gift card on eBay. Basically when I sold it, it went to a guy in France, and I was a little intrigued because with the currency conversion, it went over what the actual value of the gift card was. I won't get into the numbers of it, but basically what I found after talking to him ... because I was first suspicious and I messaged him ... he explained that there's a large demand for United States gift cards, because people like to buy U.S. content and there's kind of a barrier. You have to use a U.S.

Podcast 12: Sam Gastro and MyGiftCardSupply.com — A Million Dollar Retailer Case Study