Overcoming the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs

hey people welcome to ecommerce 360 today we have rebecca ceo of rain city agency a leading shopify design and development agency hey rebecca welcome to the show hi thank you for having me Yeah. So Rebecca, before we get into what got you onto this journey, that is a bit about yourself. Yeah, so I started the agency back in 2017. We only work on the Shopify platform and we spend our focus looking at user experience, design, all things development, front and back end.

and a lot of the merchants that we tend to help are typically doing website redesigns or platform migrations over to Shopify. Amazing so let's go back to when it all started right so how did you come upon this idea of starting an agency for Shopify platforms? Were you trying to scratch your own itch or were you trying to help out a friend? How did you land on this idea?

So I was actually a merchant myself and we kind of got started in the dropshipping boom and we had our own brand selling all-american t-shirts and that was dropshipped from a supplier based out of New Jersey and that's kind of where it all started so it was completely new to Shopify then had never really worked with it had a freelance developer that built the site for us and as we started to kind of get into Shopify a little bit more and playing around with it I really liked working with it and wanted to start redesigning my own site and and kind of work through different business models in in the dropshipping space and got to a point where I started a skincare brand and to pay for the skincare brand I was part of this like brand builder boot camp style and built my own website and then started helping out other people in the same like workshop as me create their own Shopify sites and it got to the point where I was getting really really busy with the Shopify work and the skincare business was kind of sitting a bit stagnant and I made that decision there and then on which did I enjoy more and which did I want to work on and that was kind of how rainy that you started we sold the skincare brand and then since then have just been totally focused on on Shopify and agency life so completely different but I love it must have been a very tough decision so you know taking a decision is one thing but then carrying through with the decision is whole another challenge so what were your tearing problems what were the challenges that you faced when running your business, especially as a woman owned business, did you have any challenges specific to your gender or was it just all challenges that any e-commerce businesses or agencies that start in the era of the beginning of their business?

I think a little bit of a mix I think this industry is is very male dominated and there not that many female um Shopify agency owners out there there a handful I would say in the UK and obviously probably more across America and other areas but you still kind of do stand out a little bit because it is so male dominated and when you go to events and conferences you will notice there is not that many women in there and especially women that own their own agencies so it does feel kind of special and it's so it's a rewarding thing to do as well like it's really nice when you do see other female founders because you do tend to have the same struggles in a way I think one of the main ones for me was having confidence in decision making on a business level and really figuring out what my next steps were I've never worked in an agency before I'm not trained in UX I'm not trained in development so kind of navigating my way through that space and figuring out what what I should be doing next I would say that has always been the biggest challenge and I think also looking at how you grow like we've grown completely organically like we've never had any investment or any funding it's all been self-funded and doing that in a natural way like obviously there's always going to be a time where you need more staff and things are getting bigger and it's looking at pre-planning and forward planning on on when those hires should be next and I think that's the toughest thing to think about as you are growing and scaling because you need to be be able to service the clients that you've sold to and you also want to maintain that same level of standard as you're working through each project and yeah and I think just keep pushing the boundaries I think that's always something that's exciting and and when you are like a business owner like there's always something new out there that you can learn from and and introducing to your your company as well.

That's amazing right when you stated that you know your all your growth was mainly organic that is fantastic especially for for any business that just goes on at the starting stages. That's amazing. So when you say that most of your growth is organic, I'm assuming that, you know, you did a great job with one and then they pass on the word to another, that's how it spread. What would be your core differentiator as a business, as an agency for e-commerce businesses that makes you stand out?

So I always say, and this is like one of the main reasons why I kind of built the agency after having my own brands as well like I really kind of learned what the frustrations were from the merchant side and the main main point is always communication like having someone that replies to you you know with a minimum within the day like you shouldn't be waiting days to get a response from someone it's it's so frustrating especially when you're working on a big project you're excited about getting the site live like you want to know where everything's up to and making sure that you know we can be relied on as well which I think is really important like we always say like communication reliability and trust like we a more boutique sized agency so every client will get that same like personalized experience when they do work with us and it not something that you know we don it not just a number to us like we really actually care about each of the brands and businesses that we choose to work with and and just making sure that they're always at the forefront of what we do because that's how we've got a business at the end of the day.

Absolutely. And, you know, you started in 2017, right? And since then you've grown and you've become popular and you've probably learned a lot of lessons. And what are the things that have changed since 2017 from e-commerce businesses, demands per se, right?

I'm sure, you know, the channels have changed, the settings of these channels have changed uh the kind of businesses that you built in 2017 was this now has gone through a tremendous change but what do you think has been the most has seen the most changes in terms of the demands from e-commerce businesses yeah i think this also like happens as you grow as an agency as well because the bigger you get as an agency the more client demands change so you're kind of keeping up with each other in terms of the level and growth that you're scaling up is like kind of on par with the types of brands that you're attracting to work with and there's definitely and there always will be like a really core focus and things like how can we improve conversion rates how can we improve average order value and but then there's also things thinking about different ways and unique ways of capturing audiences whether that comes through live shopping whether it comes through creating quizzes on your site to help people find what they're looking for pre-sell landing pages for sending traffic to how can we improve customer attention you know through the use of subscriptions or memberships um and then you've got like now which is the biggest kind of buzzword at the minute I would say is like going headless um and it's all about like where the brands are at um in terms of their kind of growth what they see that they want to achieve and how can we match up with that and and still keep bringing them fresh ideas and you know as with everything the industry is always changing there's always going to be new ideas for user experience and the user journey and how customers are shopping and you know obviously the main one years and years ago was mobile first and it's still the case but it's more about like adapting it even further and keep on developing those those targets that people have the first time around constantly reinventing yourself within times i think um so uh let's take a short detour and talk about uh women on e-commerce businesses right you were speaking earlier about women on agencies they were far and few and um i'm assuming it was the case uh in 2017 as well women on e-commerce businesses were far and few and now that has changed uh what are your thoughts about the growth in you know the position of women who are owning businesses or starting their own businesses yeah I think there definitely we definitely seeing like a higher number of female brands coming through I think there still needs to be like more I think there always going to be like you know we want to work with more women that have their own businesses and that are looking to kind of take it to the next level We've got a really, really great couple of clients that we've been working with for, I'd say, like the past three years or so.

and they're both like women founded women powered women run and it's it's really really great to see that and it's something that you know should be celebrated as you know more and more keep keep joining but yeah I think there's always going to be more space for women to join join the commerce industry and world yeah the future looks great so um any parting advice to young women entrepreneurs any mistakes or any places where they can turn to advice when it starts to you know beginning or starting their own business what are your suggestions yeah I've got quite a few I would say number one like don't run before you can walk and I know it's like really really cliche but it is still so true when you grow in a business like take things a little bit slower take a step back try and look at like the bigger picture you know where is the direction you want to go in and what are the steps that you need to achieve to get there and I think one of the main lessons I learned quite early on was make sure that you're working on the business and not in the business and I think really separating those two out help you see things from that bigger picture it's really easy to get caught up in the day-to-day run-ins that could be handed off to someone else to do and when your time should be spent in like the strategy and the growth and the scale of things and always looking at hiring people who are better at what they do than what you could do I think that's really important because control as a business owner is something that's really difficult to let go of and the more that you can learn like you know hiring those people that have trained in something that really really got it there's so much better than you will help you do that step back and look at things on, you know, working on it and not in it.

And yeah, have trust and faith in your employees and your staff because they're the ones that are the driving force behind the business every day. And the more investment and time that you can put into them will help you in the long run. Absolutely. So women business owners stick to the big picture.

Yeah, definitely. So this has been great. Thank you so much for coming on my show and giving us deep insights about how to run a business, how to start a business, how to scale a business, and how do you behave as a leader in any business that you are owning or running. So this has been great.

Thank you so much. I hope our listeners or watchers or viewers are able to glean some real deep insights from the conversation that we had. Thank you, Rebecca. Yeah, thank you for having me.

Bye.