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Transcript

Why eCommerce Founders Stay Stuck Chasing the Wrong Wins · Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Selling on Giants.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is the show where we break down what is actually happening across e-commerce, marketplaces, and leadership, and more importantly, what it means when you are the one responsible for building something that has to last.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is a little different because we are not talking about a platform update, a fee change, or another AI tool that promises to make everyone more efficient by next Tuesday.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: We are talking about a concept from game theory called the stag hunt and why it explains one of the most common traps I see in e-commerce founders, agency owners, and operators trying to scale.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: The idea is simple.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: You can hunt a rabbit alone and eat tonight, or you can hunt a stag with a group and eat much better.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that the stag requires trust, coordination, and patience because if one person defects and runs after a rabbit, the whole hunt falls apart.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: That is the tension every founder eventually faces.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do I keep chasing the thing I can control right now, or do I build the system that creates a much bigger outcome later?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Most e-commerce businesses start as rabbit hunts, and honestly, that is not wrong.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: In the beginning, cash is tight, time is limited, and survival matters more than elegance.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: You run the ads yourself, answer the customer service tickets, refresh dashboards, chase invoices, fix listings, ship samples, and handle whatever is on fire that day.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Rabbits keep the lights on, and when you are early, you need rabbits.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is not hunting rabbits, the problem is staying there too long.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: That is where founders get stuck.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: They build a company around urgency, and then they wonder why the business never becomes strategic.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: They hire people, but every important decision still routes through them.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: They want leverage, but they do not create enough trust for others to make decisions.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: They want scale, but they keep rewarding short-term survival behavior.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: This shows up everywhere in e-commerce.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: A brand chases a quick promotion instead of building a pricing strategy.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: A founder launches more products instead of fixing the core catalog.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: A team keeps pushing spend into ads because it is easier to see immediate activity than to build retention, content, or operational discipline.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone is busy, but nothing compounds.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: That is rabbit hunting.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: It feels productive because there is movement, but movement is not the same as progress.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: The stag hunt asks for something harder.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: It asks people to coordinate around a bigger outcome, even when the short-term incentive is to protect themselves.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: That is where leadership gets real because cooperation is not something you demand.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is something you design.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Watching Beast Games made this idea feel very obvious.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: The show is not really about kindness or ruthlessness, it is about credible commitment.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: The people who could align others around a bigger outcome had access to opportunities that pure self-interest could not reach.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: The people who played only for themselves could survive longer in moments, but eventually they capped their upside because no one could fully trust them when the stakes got higher.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: That is the same dynamic inside a company.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: A founder can be the smartest person in the room and still become the bottleneck.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: A team can have talented people and still fail to scale if everyone is optimizing for personal safety instead of shared outcomes.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: A brand can have great products and still stay small if every decision is designed around avoiding short-term discomfort.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: At Bellivix, we learned this the hard way.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: In the early days, we were absolutely hunting rabbits.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: We took every project that came our way, priced work incorrectly, stretched the team too thin, and built a machine that was optimized around getting things done instead of building something durable.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: It worked until it didn't.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: The uncomfortable part was realizing that being busy was hiding the real issue.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: We were executing but not compounding.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: We had a team, but not enough shared decision making.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: We had growth, but the structure underneath it needed to mature.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: The shift towards stag thinking did not happen in one meeting.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: It meant giving people room to bring new ideas, trusting team members before they felt completely ready, and backing that trust with time, resources, and shared learning.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: It meant resisting easy revenue when it did not fit the direction of the company.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: It meant accepting short-term messiness in exchange for long-term leverage.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: That is not easy for founders because control feels safe.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Control feels responsible.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Control feels like leadership, but at a certain point, control becomes the ceiling.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: If every decision has to run through you, you do not own a company, you own a complicated job with employees.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Stag leadership is different because it requires sacrificing some control so the group can create a larger outcome.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: That does not mean being passive.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: It means building the environment where cooperation is rational, trust is rewarded, and people understand the mission clearly enough to make better decisions without waiting for permission.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: This matters a lot in e-commerce because the industry trains founders to chase rabbits.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Amazon gives you daily sales numbers, ads give you immediate feedback, rankings move, inventory turns, reviews come in.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Every part of the business creates urgency, and if you are not careful, the platform teaches you to become reactive.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: That is why some brands get stuck.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: They do not lack effort, they lack coordination around a bigger game.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: They chase the next product, the next promotion, the next channel, the next agency, the next tactic, and all of it feels reasonable in isolation.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the business never gets simpler, the team never gets stronger, the founder never gets less central, the company never really compounds.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: The better question is not what rabbit can we catch this week?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: The better question is what stag are we actually hunting?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is it building a brand with durable retention?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Is it creating a team that can operate without the founder touching every detail?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Is it moving from one marketplace into a real omnichannel business?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Is it improving margin structure instead of chasing top-line sales?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Is it building infrastructure that lets the business scale without breaking every time volume increases?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Those are bigger hunts and they require a different kind of leadership.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is where I want to pause for a second, because this connects directly to how we think at Bellovics.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of brands come to us because they are busy, but the business is not getting easier.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: They have sales, but not enough clarity.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: They have products but not enough structure.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: They have people working hard, but the operating system underneath the brand is not built for the next stage.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Bellovic has helped brands generate over$500 million on Amazon, and the pattern we see over and over again is that scale does not come from chasing more tactics.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: It comes from getting the right people aligned around the right priorities and executing consistently.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you are trying to grow on Amazon, Walmart, or across marketplaces, the question is not just what should we do next.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: The better question is what are we building that makes the next stage easier to manage?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: That is where strategy, operations, advertising, catalog structure, and leadership all start to connect.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: If that is the kind of support you need, you can learn more at bellovics.com.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now the hard part about stag thinking is that it usually looks slower at first.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Training someone takes longer than doing it yourself.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Building a process takes longer than fixing the issue manually.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Saying no to bad revenue feels uncomfortable when cash is available.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Letting a team member lead can feel risky when you know you could move faster on your own.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: But that is the trade.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Rabbit hunting optimizes certainty.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Stag hunting optimizes outcomes.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want a real company, eventually you have to stop optimizing only for the thing that feels safe today.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: This applies to founders, but it also applies to teams.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: If every person is protecting their own lane, the company never becomes truly strong.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Account managers protect themselves from client conflict.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Operators avoid ownership because they do not want to be wrong.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Advertisers optimize for campaign metrics instead of business outcomes.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Designers create what was requested instead of asking what the customer needs to understand.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone does their job, but no one hunts the stag.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: That is why the best teams need shared context.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: They need to understand the bigger outcome, not just the task in front of them.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: When people know the stag, they can make better trade-offs.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: They can sacrifice the easy win for the better win.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: They can push back, they can coordinate, they can build trust, and that is when the business changes.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Leadership in this frame is not standing at the top of the mountain telling everyone to climb faster.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: It is standing close enough to the bottom to understand where people are slipping, what weight is rolling downhill, and what support the team actually needs to keep moving.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: It is being willing to go back into the valley, rebuild context, and help people climb.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: That is not weakness, that is strategic patience.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: The more I think about it, the more I believe this is one of the biggest gaps between companies that survive and companies that scale.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Surviving companies are full of rabbit hunters.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Scaling companies know how to coordinate around a stag.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And to be fair, you need both.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: You need rabbit hunters when the business is young, when cash is tight, and when the next sale matters.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: But if you never graduate from that stage, the business becomes trapped inside its own survival instincts.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: That is why so many e-commerce founders feel stuck even when the company is technically growing.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Revenue is up, but complexity is up faster.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: The team is bigger, but the founder is still the bottleneck.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: The brand is more visible, but decision making is slower.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: The business is alive, but it is not free.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: The way out is not another tactic, it is a different game.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you want a lifestyle business, hunting rabbits forever might be fine.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing wrong with that if it is intentional.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to build something bigger, something more durable, and something that can keep growing without everything depending on you, then you have to build a stag hunt.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: You need credible commitment, you need trust, you need shared upside, you need people who understand the mission well enough to act without waiting for permission.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you need the discipline to stop chasing every easy win that distracts from the bigger one.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: That is how e-commerce brands scale.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: That is how teams mature, and that is how founders stop playing not to lose and start building something that can actually win.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: If this episode gave you something to think about, share it with a founder, operator, or team member who is stuck chasing rabbits.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have not already, leave a review so more e commerce operators can find the show.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Mr.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Will here, signing off from selling on giants.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Let's keep building.