and their unusual career paths

ecommerce

legends ecommerce

legends 22PRESENTS

Ever wondered what the founders of your

favorite ecommerce businesses were doing

before that FATEFUL spark of inspiration?

We did too, so We Compiled

a list of 12 founders with

the coolest CAREER transitions:

NASTYGAL

Sophia Amoruso has been a Subway Sandwich Artist, seller of stolen books and art school security guard. She dove into dumpsters and haggled at thrift stores, selling her finds on eBay under the name “Nasty Gal Vintage”. The author of "#GIRLBOSS" has since turned her eBay store into a $100 million fashion business.

DUMPSTER DIVing sandwich artist

BLACK MILK CLOTHING

James Lillis lived in a little yellow house in Brisbane surrounded by mango trees, working odd jobs to cover his rent. Overcome by a sudden urge to sew, he pawned his CD player and bought a sewing machine. Subsisting on mangoes to fund his passion, Lillis soon found himself selling leggings at flea markets. The business went online and became Black Milk Clothing.

extreme SEWING ENTHUSIAST

TATCHIESMarkus Andersson grew up in a family who encouraged his creative side. He started out as a freelance designer while working on various startups. For additional

income, Andersson worked as a nightclub photographer, image retoucher, sound engineer, event manager and a DJ. He went on to become the Digital Art Director at Stockholm's The ViralCompany, where he founded Tatchies.

The man of a 1000 odd jobs

Diapers.com

Executive Vice President of Sanwa International Bank, Marc Lore and Wall Street Lawyer Vinit Bharara co-founded The Pit, an avenue to trade sports memorabilia as you would stocks. Toy maker The Topps Company acquired The Pit and appointed Lore as Chief Operating Officer while Bharara became their General Counsel. The duo went on to create Diapers.com,the world's largest online retailer of baby products.

THE Titans

of the

Toy industry

ZAPPOS

While at Harvard, Tony Hsieh managedthe Quincy House Grille selling pizza to the students

in his dorm. Post Harvard, Hsieh worked for Oracle Corporation then co-founded and sold internet advertising network Link Exchange to

Microsoft in 1999 for $265 Million. Tony Hsieh joined Zappos and his number one customer from his days selling pizza, Alfred Lin,

became his CFO and COO.

HARVARD's PIZZA PEDDLER

BEARDBRAND

Eric Bandholz worked as an Account Executive at Sunset Direct and Boingo Graphics before moving on to become a graphic designer at Wakomo. He spent a year as a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch then did marketing at Sovrnty, a graphic design firm. Inspired by feedback from the beard community, Bandholz founded BeardBrand in 2013.

MULTI-CAREER-Man

ZULILY

Darrell Cavens developed large web properties at starwave during the internet boom such as ESPN.com, NBC.com and ABCNews.com. Cavens met eventual business partner Mark Vadon while the pair served as CTO and CEO respectively at Blue Nile, the largest online

diamond and fine jewellery retailer. Cavens spenta year at Microsoft working on the BizTalk Server product before the pair Co-founded Zulily.

DYNAMIC DIAMONDDEALING DUO

SHOPIFY

OPEN SOURCE SUPERHERO

The year was 2004, and Tobias Lütke was tired of developing financial backend software. He wanted to sell snowboards, but was frustrated by the existing ecommerce platforms.

Then he discovered Ruby on Rails, and with newfound enthusiasm, built the software he wished

existed. That software is called Shopify, and now powers

100,000 stores worldwide.

THE DOLLAR SHAVE CLUB

Professional Funny man

Fresh out of college, Michael Dubin moved to New York City and worked as a page at NBC. For about a decade, Dubin was a student and performer of sketch comedy and improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade. His experience undoubtedly contributed to the success of The Dollar Shave Club, which exploded in popularity after its hilarious promotional video went viral.

GREATS

TALENT AGENT + MANAGER

Ryan Babenzien embarked on his curvy career path as an agent and manager in the entertainment business,

during which he also consulted for streetwear brands. He burst into the sneaker industry as the Head of Entertainment Marketing at PUMA before lending his talents to K-Swiss. Babenzien staged a revival of sportswear brand Boast USA before teamingup with Jon Buscemi to bring beautiful, reasonably sneakers to the masses through GREATS.

we love

ecommerce success stories.

check out

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to see how we can

help you write yours!

SOURCES:

http://www.nicekicks.com/2014/06/03/industry-interview-ryan-babenzien-talks-greats-brand-the-bab/https://www.linkedin.com/pub/mark-vadon/4b/563/913https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrellcavenshttp://tobi.lutke.com/pages/abouthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hsiehhttp://www.crunchbase.com/person/marc-lorehttp://www.crunchbase.com/person/vinit-bhararahttp://www.inc.com/tom-foster/how-nasty-gal-sophia-amoruso-went-from-shoplifter-to-ceo.htmlhttps://onepagetheme.com/brain-picking-with-markus-andersson-the-creative-behind-tatchies/http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-12/dollar-shave-clubs-founder-yes-i-am-a-funny-guyhttps://blackmilkclothing.com/pages/about-us

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