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Jon Armstrong never intended to create the booming live-commerce platform Stacked Golf. All he wanted was to join the local golf club, but his wife, Ashley, gave him an ultimatum: Yes, he could join, but only if he could find a way to pay for it himself. His solution? Start a YouTube channel reviewing golf balls. The problem was that he didnt even have the money to buy balls to review, so he scoured the woods at his Daytona Beach golf club for lost balls and started making videos comparing the Titleist Pro V1 balls he plays to whatever he found in the rough. Zero budget. Zero business plan. Just a guy with a phone and a hunch that people might search for golf ball reviews. That was in 2019. Within two months, his channel garnered enough traffic to monetize. Within six months, it became the Armstrongs full-time income. Today, the Stacked Golf YouTube channel has 325,000 subscribers, and earlier this year, the Armstrongs launched a multi-seller marketplace by the same name, which generates $150,000 in weekly sales and is approaching $3 million in total sales after just six months. With a community of 26,000 members and more than 1,000 active sellers, the Armstrongs have accidentally built a case study for the booming live shopping economya market projected to explode from $128 billion in 2024 to $2.5 trillion by 2033. “We got super lucky, Armstrong says. With everything we were doingfilming the golf ball reviews and thrifting golf clubswe were basically filming ourselves making money. American Pickers, but for golf The channel’s real trajectory shift came when Armstrong’s wife, Ashley, added her passion and expertise in thrifting to the equation. What emerged, by their own description, was “American Pickers, but for golf clubs,” which entails them driving for hours through Central Florida hoping to find a $400 putter sitting in a Goodwill for $3. The polished videos hide an unglamorous reality. “For every one thrift store we show you in a video, we’ve probably been to like 15,” Armstrong admits. “There were a lot of days where we wore the same clothes back to back to try and figure out how to fill out one 10-minute video.” They occasionally sold items on eBay and other platforms, but tired quickly of the tedious product-by-product selling process and fees that ate into profits. Mostly, they hoarded inventory, waiting for a better solution. Meanwhile, over the next three years, their community grew organically. “We really wanted to create a platform where we make buying golf clubs online as exciting as it is in our videos,” Armstrong explains. “It’s kind of a soulless transaction when you’re buying from eBay. The thrill of the hunt didn’t really exist.” A million-dollar tech shortcut The technical breakthrough came throughof all thingsa golf game. Armstrong played a round with Commonwealth Picker, another YouTuber who had built a marketplace on District, a platform that provides the infrastructure for custom shopping platforms with livestreaming and multi-seller marketplaces. Armstrong, who previously ran an app development company, recognized the value of District immediately. “The technology stack that they give you is millions of dollars,” he says. “So it was kind of a no-brainer. They handle support, they handle the whole tech side, and all we have to do is focus on growing the user base and selling as much as possible. Founded in 2022 by three former Snapchat product builders (and backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Kindred Ventures, and Greylock Partners), the Los Angelesbased company has 12 employees, a lean operation compared to competitor and live-shopping giant Whatnot. The Armstrongs timing couldn’t have been better. While Whatnot has reached an $11.5 billion valuation, proving massive investor appetite for the category, District is democratizing access. Where Whatnot built a centralized marketplace, District enables creators to build their own branded ecosystems. By using District, Stacked Golf isn’t selling on someone else’s platform, such as eBay or Craigslist: Its more like theyre building their own golf-focused, mini-eBay right on District. They control their own marketplace, set their own rules, and earn commission fees from their 1,000-plus sellers. Stacked Golf’s Timed auctions Here’s how it works: Sellers schedule livestreams that generally last anywhere from 45 minutes to four hours, or longer. They hold up a productsay, a Nike Method Core puttergive a brief pitch, and start the countdown timer, which is typically 10 seconds. Last person to bid wins. It’s simple, fast-paced, and wildly effective. Stacked Golf also features standard marketplace and buy-it-now listings, as well as seven-day auctions, but 98% of sales come from livestreams, with clubs selling from $5 to several hundred dollars. One seller recently hosted a marathon nine-and-a-half-hour livestream, which generated nearly $20,000 in sales, according to Armstrong. Some of the biggest sellers on Stacked Golf ae golf stores, like Play It Again Sports which recently made $17,000 in two hours, more than that seller normally does in a week of non-livestream selling. The format taps into why live commerce conversion rates run up to 10 times higher than conventional e-commerce: urgency, entertainment, and real-time interaction that traditional online shopping lacks. But Armstrong’s secret weapon isn’t the format. It’s curation. Community over commerce Stacked Golf preapproves every seller, verifies product legitimacy, and rejects gambling gimmicks and NSFW content that plague some live-selling competitors. “We really wanted to create an atmosphere where people want to buy and sell on our platform just because it’s the best place to do it,” Armstrong says. The philosophy extends to seller selection. Armstrong prefers passionate collectors over spreadsheet arbitrageurs. “The ones that have the most people in their chats are the ones that know what they’re selling because they like it,” he says, citing sellers who specialize in Nike golf clubsdiscontinued since 2016 but beloved by collectors. The strategy is working. Since launching earlier this year, the marketplace grew from zero to 15,000 members in just three months and has since reached 26,000 after six months. Multiple individual sellers have generated more than $150,000 in personal sales on the platform. The business itself now employs three full-time staff and operates from a 2,500-square-foot Ocala, Florida, warehouse, which it has already outgrown. It has also attracted brand partnerships with golf apparel company Pins & Aces and hosts sellers who have relationships with Adidas North America, Titleist, and Mizuno, among others. But Armstrong is cautious about diluting the community with corporate sellers. “We wanted to create a marketplace that we would both want to buy and sell on and not feel ashamed of marketing it,” he says. “As soon as you start getting too corporate in terms of the sellers on there, you kind of kill the vibe.” Right idea, right time In the U.S., the live commerce market accounts for approximately 5% of e-commerce salesfar less than China’s 60%suggesting an enormous runway for companies like Stacked Golf as American consumers embrace the format. The U.S. market is expected to grow at 37.2% annually through 2033, fueled by platforms like TikTok Shop and stand-alone marketplaces like Whatnot. TikTok Shopwhich blends livestream shopping with traditional product listingshosted over eight million hours of live sessions in the U.S. in 2024. Whatnot, focused on collectibles and resale, recently surpassed $2 billion in annual livestream sales, while Amazon Live and eBay Live are expanding their live commerce offerings. The trend is driven by the urgency and entertainment that Armstrong has built into Stacked Golf’s model. District’s infrastructure democratizes this opportunity. Where building live commerce tech might require millions in investment, creators can now launch sophisticated marketplaces overnight and focus on what, according to Armstrong, matters most: building authentic communities. “It’s still kind of surreal, he says. Just thinking about how we started with finding golf balls in the woods, and now we’re here. The business he built with his wife”the CEO of everything,” as he calls herdemonstrates something fundamental about modern commerce: Authentic community-building trumps traditional business planning. They didn’t start with a pitch deck. They started with a bet, a phone, and a genuine love for the hunt. And that authenticity might be the companys most valuable asset. “It just grew naturally, which I think people appreciated,” Armstrong says. “Even to this day, it’s kind of clear that it ain’t all about the money.”
Category:
E-Commerce
How can you tell if someone is a great leader? They always want to know more. Theyre interested in mastery of a subject or skill. They ask great questions. And, as they find out more, they sometimes change their mind. Theyre a learner. But these days, most CEOs and other leaders take the opposite approach. They think of themselves as knowers. They appear to have all the answers. Thats bad for them, their direct reports, and the organizations they lead. That insight comes from researcher and author Brené Brown and Wharton professor and author Adam Grant. The two behavior experts had an open-ended discussion about the nature of courageous leadership during a recent episode of Grants ReThinking podcast. Being a learner seems to have fallen out of favor in recent years, Brown observed. Thats not going to serve us right now, she said. When I talk to senior leaders all over the world, theyre saying, Boy, its really problematic when people come in and they act like they know everything. What Im looking for are candidates who have exquisite questions and are really hungry to solve the problem. And so I think we have to shift the thinking there a lot. Great leaders ask great questions Both Brown and Grant believe that asking the right questions is a powerful leadership skill thats much more important than knowing all the answers. If I go into an organization, Ill spend three weeks just asking questions, Brown said. Ill look at a CEO and say, Whats on your heart and mind? If you sit up straight in bed at 4 oclock in the morning, what are you worried about?’ Its important to ask these sorts of questions when dealing with your employees, as well as your potential customers, investors, or company leadership, Grant added. So many people, when they try to motivate someone, they project their own motivations onto them, as opposed to saying, If I want to motivate you, Ive got to know what you value,’ he said. Once you get answers to your questions, the most important next step is what Brown calls the playback. You repeat back the answer you heard and ask if you have it right. Its vital for two reasons. First, you may not have heard everything correctly. This gives you a chance to correct anything you misunderstood and catch anything you may have left out. Just as important, that question lets you build a connection with the other person. Research shows that in hostage situations, whether people live or die often comes down to two words, she explained. The goal is for the hostage negotiator to repeat back what the hostage taker says, and for the hostage taker to say, Thats right. ‘Hardwired to Be Seen and Heard’ If it happens, that simple exchange improves the odds of survival for both the hostages and the hostage taker, Brown said. As human beings, we are neurobiologically hardwired to be seen and heard. Its another reason why asking the right questions, and being willing to listen, learn new information, and even change your mind are some of the most important skills a leader can have. Theres a growing audience of Inc.com readers who receive a daily text from me with a self-care or motivational microchallenge or tip. Often, they text me back and we wind up in a conversation. (Want to know more? Its easy to try it out and you can easily cancel anytime. Heres some information about the texts and a special invitation to a two-month free trial.) Many of my subscribers are entrepreneurs or business leaders. They know how important it is to always keep learning throughout their careers. Knowing how to ask the right questions and then repeat back the answers is a good place to start. Minda Zetlin This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister publication, Inc. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
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E-Commerce
As Sesame Streets 56th season gets underway, Elmo, Big Bird, and the Sesame organization are navigating a volatile chapter in the shows historymarked by government funding cuts, evolving new media habits, and AIs impact on education. Sherrie Westin, CEO of Sesame Workshop, discusses balancing risk-taking with brand trust, partnering with Netflix, and why emotional well-being and kindness are the skills that matter most in todays world. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. Sesame Streets new season appears on Netflix on the same day as it goes live on PBS Kids. Last year at this time you were on HBO or Max or whatever they were calling it at that point. Right. At that time, yes. HBO dropped the show. Netflix came in. It’s a head-spinning situation. Was this all by design on your end? Well, listen, I mean it all worked out really well. . . . We announced it as a public-private partnership between Netflix and PBS because it was so important that we not only got the incredible reach that Netflix offers, but also that we were still available for all children across the U.S. on PBS. And it’s fantastic that it’s the same time, day, and date, but that part was by design, for sure. And listen, we had a long partnership with HBO. We still have a library deal so that there are still some seasons on HBO Max, but HBO Max was clear that children’s was not their priority. So we don’t take it personally, and we still have a great relationship, but Netflix is such a great place for us to be. As of today, we are reaching children in 190 countries. That’s 330 million households in over 30 languages, and it’s the first time in 56 years that we’re reaching this many children all over the world. So that is something to celebrate. And so even though Netflix, as I understand this, maybe paying you a little less than that HBO deal. Yes. It’s a good trade-off because your reach is so much broader? Well, listen, most people don’t understand that we’re a nonprofit mission-driven organization, so while we desperately need the funding, at the same time the most important thing is our reach because we have to reach to teach. Did you consider moving everything to Netflix? I mean, I imagine you might get a more lucrative deal from Netflix if it was exclusive and the financing being what it is. No . . . Netflix was great. They understood how important it was for us to be on PBS, to reach all children across the country, whether or not they can afford a streaming platform. So that’s just part of our mission and our DNA. You mentioned your long relationship with PBS. It’s been a wild year, this wave of government funding cuts. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS, you had to lay off 20% of your staff. How hard has it become this year? I don’t ever remember a more difficult, more challenging year than this past year. There were some really difficult decisions and periods. No one ever wants to have to lay off 20% of their staff. That’s one of the hardest things. Any organization, whether it’s for-profit or nonprofit. And again, a lot of organizations have had to deal with downsizing, or rightsizing, if you will. But it has been a really challenging year. I’ve talked to someone about this, how, in some ways, public media has just become media because the support from the public sector isn’t quite there anymore. At the same time, there was that Congressional hearing back in the spring with PBS with this title, like, Anti-American Airwaves. I mean, I’m curious how you address that mood, that climate, with your team when your partner is being, I don’t know, politicized in that way? (Safian is referring to the House subcommittee on government efficiency hearing in March titled Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the Heads of NPR and PBS Accountable, chaired by Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.) The hardest thing is there is such value in public broadcasting, and we find it so painful to have lost the CPB. I think the biggest tragedy is to see some children no longer have access to public broadcasting or the quality early education that PBS has always brought, of course including Sesame Street. You don’t feel like any of this has hampered Sesame Streets own brand by its relationship with these [Congressional hearings]? No. I think, if anything, that it’s clear that the need for Sesame is greater than ever. And it’s true that we are part and parcel public broadcasting. So if you’re attacking PBS, you’re attacking Sesame Street. It’s true. But at the same time, I think that if there’s one silver lining to some of the negative press we’ve had throughout the year, it’s that so many people have stepped up to say, “We love Sesame.” We’ve actually gotten a wonderful outpouring of support from new donors and from people who just want to see Sesame Street remain. Think about what we teach. Our mission is to help children everywhere grow smarter, stronger, and kinder. And that may sound like a clever tagline, but it’s not. It’s a whole child curriculum that’s baked into everything we do. Smarter: ABCs and 123s, the academic basics. Stronger: resilience, health. Kinder: empathy, understanding. . . . Our whole new season is about building community. It’s about kindness. If you use the vernacular of child development, it would be called a compassionate mindset. And that means helping children see themselves and others with kindness, with understanding, with non-judgment. So quite frankly, I think we are rising to meet the needs of the day. I mean, Sesames never been shy about addressing tough topics, from diversity in the early days, the first HIV positive puppet, to Big Bird getting vaccinated during COVID. But things have become so polarized now, especially in the U.S. What kind of conversations do you have about where you can and can’t go and how you decide? Well, we are a nonpartisan organization, but you are correct that there are an awful lot of issues today that one would never have thought of as being political that are political. And while we would never weigh in on very specific partisan politics, we have to stay true to our values. And are some things more controversial? Yes. But if you look at what we all have in common, it’s so interesting because we just did a road tour through the summer and the fall to visit children and families all across the country. But during this road trip, in all these various states, we had a couple f researchers on the ground. And after the events, with everything from state fairs to Minor League Baseball, farm corn mazes, we would have staff saying, “Hello, I’m with Sesame Street. I’m asking parents of young children, would you be willing to talk to us a little bit about your children, about Sesame Street, about who do you trust most? What do you want for your children?” And one of the things I just love about this is regardless of where we were, there was such a clear commonality. What do parents want for their children? They want them to be safe, healthy, and they want them to be kind and get along with others. I mean, that was so consistent. It came up again and again. To me, it’s hopeful and reassuring because when it does feel more divided than ever, you do realize that the one thing that unifies us is hope for our children and what we want for our children. And that’s where, I think, Sesame can play a powerful role. There has been this decline in trust across everything. Absolutely. Media, public officials, business. Sesame remains still pretty well trusted. We are still, if you do brand surveys, we are the No. 1 trusted brand in children’s properties. And that’s something we really cherish. I mean that’s very important to us. Everything we do is based on research. We are always listening to parents and experts. We have a whole team of child development experts, but any project we do, we’re also bringing in advisers and learning from the community. We did an incredible amount of work around parental addiction because of the opioid crisis, working with partners on the ground to distribute those resources. Our emotional well-being work, again, we partner with organizations that are serving children and families, and often it’s the only content you’ll have that looks at those tough issues through the lens of a young child. And that’s something, again, that I think sets Sesame apart.
Category:
E-Commerce
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