How A Travel Brand Survived the Pandemic | Brendan Kennedy | NxTSTOP

Prior to the NxTSTOP Brendan spent his career working in enterprise technology with Accenture and then VMware. In 2015 he founded his first startup Fathomd to bring interactive business games into MBA coursework. In 2020 Brendan launched NxTSTOP to outfit world explorers with functional sustainable travel apparel and scaled it to a multimillion dollar business in just one year. He is a graduate of Stanford and received his MBA from MIT Sloan.In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:00] Intro[01:17] Travleisure® and the IPs of NxTSTOP[01:45] What is NxTSTOP[02:07] Coming up with the idea of NxTSTOP[03:26] What made NxTSTOP explode[05:20] Pivoting to face masks saved the business[06:57] Dealing with non ideal customers[08:52] Acquiring “new” customers[11:52] Customer feedback is valuable[13:36] Sponsor: Electric Eye electriceye.io[13:56] Sponsor: Mesa apps.shopify.com/mesa[14:39] Sponsor: Gorgias gorgias.grsm.io/honest[16:06] Sponsor: BeProfit beprofit.co[17:37] Sponsor: Klaviyo klaviyo.com/honest[18:24] Being on Shopify vs being on Amazon[22:04] Did Amazon produce economies of scale?[23:15] Other channels that NxTSTOP uses[24:38] The importance of domain authority[25:38] NxTSTOP’s SEO play[26:40] SEO for D2C Brands[27:46] SEO has great ROI[28:06] Brendan warns against agencies[29:48] Chase’s perspective on Brendan’s statement[30:09] Brendan clarifies to be careful of big agencies[30:57] Chase’s restaurant analogy[31:12] Build a “dream team”[32:44] Dealing with the iOS 14 update[35:22] How Chase analyzes brands for Electric Eye[36:25] Brendan tries out Chase’s technique[37:00] Triple Whale and other first party pixels[38:33] Where to find NxTSTOPResources:Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on YoutubeFunctional, eco-friendly, stylish travel clothing and accessories thenxtstop.comConnect with Brendan linkedin.com/in/brendanmkennedyThe central source of truth for your Ecommerce store trytriplewhale.comHonest Ecommerce Bonus Episode with Triple Whale youtube.com/watch?v=W4Ant6ytppgEmail Chase [email protected] and ask for the Triple Whale discount codeScale your business with electriceye.ioDownload Mesa at the Shopify App Store apps.shopify.com/mesaLevel up your customer support gorgias.grsm.io/honestRespond to any of Rewind’s welcome emails and mention HONEST ECOMMERCE to get 1 month free rewind.io/honestGet started with a free account at klaviyo.com/honestIf you’re enjoying the show, we’d love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!