Designing Exclusive Launches That Spark Real Market Pull | Andrew Lipp | EQL | Bonus Episode

Andrew is a self-proclaimed tragic sneaker fan and proven brand builder. After nearly a decade of leading multiple marketing functions at Google, Andrew and two of his colleagues embarked on a mission to build the world’s fairest hype commerce platform. 

As CEO, Andrew leverages his marketing expertise and first-hand fandom experience to drive this mission forward. After launching just over a year ago, EQL has managed more than 10,000 high-heat launches in 15 markets. 

When not helping culture-making brands get their goods into the hands of real fans, Andrew can be found spending time with his wife and three children, and dressing younger than he should.

In This Conversation We Discuss: 

• [00:00] Intro
• [03:51] Crafting launches that reward real customers
• [06:06] Callouts
• [06:16] Streamlining experiences through integrations
• [07:51] Adding connection where generic tools fall short
• [10:25] Designing pre, in, and post-launch strategies
• [13:29] Connecting with audiences in launch moments
• [19:32] Partnering with experts for better launches

Resources:

• Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube
• Better launches for in-demand products eql.com/ 
• Andrew Lipp au.linkedin.com/in/andrew-lipp-7b291722 

If 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!

Transcript

Andrew Lipp

Do you have a scarcity model? Are you actually short on infantry and you think the demand is going to be there? Two, are you trying to create a connection with a certain audience as well? Is it for loyalty members? Is it for VIPs? Is it for people that walk in stores? So know what you're trying to achieve. Know your audience. 

Chase Clymer

Honest Ecommerce is a weekly podcast where we interview direct-to-consumer brand founders and leaders to find out what it takes to start, grow and scale an online business today.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce. Joining me from the complete opposite side of the world, the CEO and co-founder of EQL, Andrew Lipp. Welcome to the show. 

Andrew Lipp

Chase, thanks for having me. 

Chase Clymer

Excited to be here. I'm excited to chat. I'm excited we found time to make this work for both of us. So I guess for those that don't know, what is EQL? What types of problems are you solving for folks? 

Andrew Lipp

Yeah, thanks, Chase. EQL [is] pronounced equal. So thank you for saying it right. Often people say E-Q-L. But EQL was born on this idea of fairness, getting products into the hands of real fans. So today we help brands create, control and convert the energy of their most in-demand launch moments. And we ambitiously try to turn that passion of fans into connection and connection into long-term value. But really, what does that mean? 

That means that running a launch for retailers is incredibly hard, operationally. It requires a whole bunch of apps and products and plugins and all this kind of stuff to get high heat products into the hands of real fans. What traditionally happens is, when you've got high demand, your infrastructure gets a bit shaky, you get all this load on your site. 

If the product is really hot, you get bot scams and bad actors trying to clear out stock. And then you ultimately get your real fans screaming from the top of the roofs that they weren't able to get fair access to the product. So, EQL allows for initially your infrastructure to manage the load.

It allows for real-time bot scan detection and it ultimately allows [you] to get products into the hands of real fans. That was originally what it was for. That was based on me being a miserable sneaker fan, not getting my hands on the products I liked and kind of breeding that idea. Today, that stuff is table stakes and we do a lot more as well. 

Loyalty ingestion, we can activate events in real time. We can geofence areas for launches. We can identify who your true fans are and sell to them in real time. We have little modules like Exclusive Access, Invite Only, Draws, and a whole bunch of ways to create these launch moments. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah, that's amazing. One of our first clients, when we started the agency, many, years ago, just always had the dopest sneakers. And without fail, every time they did a launch, they would, like you said, bad actors buying up stock. And we had some really backwards way of solving for it. 

Which [is] basically, you had to enter a raffle to get the chance to buy it, which isn't the best UX. But the goal was the same. We want these sneakers to go to actual human beings that actually like them. 

Andrew Lipp

Yeah. That's exactly right. And I'd love to know the sneakers that they were wearing because, one, I'm a sneaker fan. And so we now work with the biggest sneaker brands in the world. We work with Jordan Brand, Nike. We've done a lot of the hottest collaborations out there. We were just involved in an under-feeder Jordan launch and Nigel Sylvester launch. We did the Tiffany's x Nike collaboration. 

We worked with Asics and Kenzo. Or Asics pronounced in your neck of the world. So we work with a whole bunch of collaborating partners, sneaker brands to help them bring products to their fans. And that was the Nexus story for us, right? I was very similar to your friend. I was a miserable sneaker fan, not getting access to [the] product. And I was getting disenfranchised with [how] our commerce was being managed. 

Chase Clymer 

Yeah. So you were writing us emails about your experience and we're just like, “Ah.” So it's very funny. This problem exists. But it isn't just sneakers. It's... 

Andrew Lipp

No. 

Chase Clymer

Any in-demand product. I remember, didn't Kim K's website go down once and then she moved to Shopify and that was [a] whole big thing? 

Andrew Lipp

Exactly that. So sneakers were a proxy for us to prove the hypothesis that high demand Ecommerce, call it launch Ecommerce, is very hard to manage. And we realized that it's not actually sneakers, it's apparel, streetwear, collectibles, toys, art, coins. Anywhere where you've got this community who's really excited about getting access to things. 

I mean, we work with brands like the Royal Australian Mint, Stanley Cups. We work with Crocs. We work with Foot Locker, Nike in-store. We work with Labubu and Pop Mart. We work with Funko Pop. 

Chase Clymer

Can I make a suggestion? 

Andrew Lipp

Yeah.

Chase Clymer

Please reach out to Hasbro and about their secret layer, Magic the Gathering launches. It is the worst experience in the world. 

Andrew Lipp

Right. We work in Ravensburg and Locana launches. We do top collectible cards. So absolutely spot on. But the funny thing is, or the interesting part is, that's where we started really. We started in this high heat, high demand. Really, we believe that elite launch tools should be accessible for everyone of every size. 

Whether you're a solo creator or a growing direct to consumer brand, a multi store retailer, we're building tooling now that isn't just about the hottest things flying off the shelf. It's about creating moments for launch, right? It's about connecting to your fan base. And it's about optimizing and differentiating that experience. Commerce is, I mean, I'm sorry for saying it, but like standard commerce is very boring right now, right? 

You're optimizing for conversion rates, you're optimizing for site traffic, optimizing for checkouts. It's very undifferentiated to the connection you're trying to build with your fan. And so we're bringing these elite tools. They started with calling it the hot brands that have that demand and now they're going to the people, to the brands of all shapes and sizes. 

We really want to be efficient in launch, bring operational rigors to that launch. Have a one stop shop for tooling, and actually connect and create these moments and bring passion and energy to these launches.

Chase Clymer 

Hey everybody, just a quick reminder, please like this video and subscribe if you haven't. We're releasing interviews like this every week. So don't miss out. Now back to the interview. 

Absolutely. And we'd spoken briefly before and something I remember from our original conversation was EQL launched, [it] was kind of platform agnostic, almost a platform in and of itself. But as you have grown, now Shopify, you're leaning into that ecosystem and you just launched a Shopify app actually. 

Andrew Lipp

We did. Yeah, that's right. We actually launched just last week. 

Chase Clymer

Oh, congrats. 

Andrew Lipp

So if you want to play with the app, it's in the store. But what we realized… So initially, when we built our tooling, it sat next to your eCommerce stack. You still needed to log in. You still needed to create a product pop-up page. You still needed to connect some piping between your eCommerce stack today.

And whilst it did a good job at managing these moments, we saw that retailers want [to] launch where they are, right? In today's world, they want to actually go to the one place to the one thing embedded in their one experience. And so we realized, if we can bring launch to retailers. And as we all know, everyone's in Shopify, amazing tooling, incredible place to play, no good reason not to be there. It's a fantastic platform. 

So what we did is create embedded tooling. Allow retailers to actually embed launches into their product pages. Use Shopify payments instead of having to connect other payment gateways, and ingest orders really seamlessly into your order system in Shopify. So it's attempting to be a one-stop-shop embedded smooth experience right where you run your eCommerce data today. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. And I think that one thing Shopify does a really good job of, which was one of the unique solutions, I guess, that EQL was bringing to the table was managing that high demand and Shopify's infrastructure. Especially around Black Friday, they're in real time talking about how cool they are. Nothing's gone down. 

So was that? Once that was like a pillar for you guys, like all this demand stuff and now you're like, “Well, if you're on Shopify, this benefit is kind of mute.” Did that ever hit you?

Andrew Lipp 

We are, we are friends with Shopify. They're fantastic. They're a fantastic business. Call it years ago when we started Shopify was going down for the hottest launches. 

Chase Clymer 

Oh yeah, it was. 

Andrew Lipp

And we were an alternative, right? And we saw that happen. And it was very public, unfortunately. I think their platform infrastructure has gotten incredible, right? And it's a lot better. But you know, it's for generic checkout. It's for generic experiences. It doesn't bring magic. It doesn't bring the connection. It doesn't bring the bot scammer and bad actor detection. 

Chase Clymer

Oh yeah. No, absolutely. I wasn't downplaying any of the other feature sets of the product. I was just saying I could see the advantage of EQL on custom solutions. If you're still on a homebrewed tech stack, this is going to be infinitely better if you do have a high demand product. Anything where you're managing your own server. Like the WooCommerce of the world or similar things like that. If you're on Wix, just why? Why, why? Go somewhere else.

Andrew Lipp

You're spot on. Our original platform was exactly to solve that. You've got a funky back end. You may have Frankenstein something together. It might be a bit old school. Maybe your checkout's going out of sync when your inventory management [is] using a whole bunch of plugins and everything's cycling and nothing's connecting when it's a high heat moment. 

So that was the impetus for our initial product, right? Is that commerce is wild, nothing connects and is in sync and we can create a smooth experience for you. [It’s] kind of in a very simple way. We can onboard in minutes and we can write these launch pages for you. But to your point, Shopify is really great. And, you know, they now stand the test of time in certain parts, but we still add that creative experience, that connection for launch.

And we're trying to bring all the tooling under the one banner so you're capturing people's information, cutting and pasting from a CSV file, adding a timer from someone else, working out some loyalty ingestion. All of that is ambitiously going to be under the banner of EQL. 

Chase Clymer 

Yeah. Let's talk about the strategy element of doing an awesome launch. Obviously, a lot of these tools are going to exist within the EQL app. But you could DIY this if you really wanted to or just have it be done all in one place. Let's talk. 

How would you, if you were consulting with a brand on the release of a product that is going to have some velocity behind it. Maybe there's a celebrity partnership or it just... [It] always sells out. What would you, what's that playbook that you recommend following or just some good ideas? 

Andrew Lipp

Yeah. We work with a lot of retailers to actually guide them through the launch experience. Given we've seen some really fantastic launches go well. And on the flip side, we've seen some launches really fall over. I think the playbook is first understanding what you're trying to achieve. 

Do you have a scarcity model? Are you actually short on infantry and you think the demand is going to be there? Two, are you trying to create a connection with a certain audience as well? Is it for loyalty members? Is it for VIPs? Is it for people that walk in-store? Right? So kind of know what you're trying to achieve. Know your audience. Plan it out. 

What's your pre-launch ambition? Right? Are you going to capture interest? Are you going to hold a wait list? Are you going to do ‘Notify me’? When you launch, what are the mechanics you're thinking about? Is it going to be a draw where you capture all the demand and only sell an amount to a small selected group of people? 

Is it going to be exclusive access, where you're first going to make a whole bunch of your biggest fans feel amazing? But also [that] they're going to share that experience and make others feel FOMO and drive pent up demand in the market? So what is the tool? Is it exclusive access as invite only? 

Then you're going to do a draw. Then you're actually going to, if you have any leftover stock, you going to hold it and do a shock drop in a month's time? So to not show that any product kind of remained on the shelf maybe, right? What are you going to do when you understand who bought it and who missed out? Are you going to think about, “Actually, how do I act on the people that didn't get it? They were so interested.” 

That is as pure as a purchase intent as you can see. So what are you going to do? You're going to action them with an offer, a discount, a drive-in store, a cross-sell. How are you going to think about the data, the insights, and the impact? Maybe the question is, is it a collectible? 

Do you know who bought that before and are there people chasing that next collection in the set? Should you be selling 50 % of your stock to them first? So they feel great while 50 % to people who can continue to taste the collection. 

So you've really got this strategy of like pre-launch, who are you selling to? How are you going to understand the demand? And what is your strategy for who should get your hands on the product? Then you've got [the] in-launch. What are the mechanics you're thinking about to create demand and the perception in [the] market? Get people really excited. 

And then post-launch. [How] you're going to think about the data and the insights? What are going to do with the people that missed out? Or actually, what are you going to do with the people that got it? Have you got a plan to do something next with them? I think if you think about the strategy as pre-launch, in-launch, post-launch, who you're selling, how you're selling, and what you're selling, that's the way to really think about launch. 

Chase Clymer 

Yeah. Let's walk through those a little bit more. So pre-launch, with these events, I think to have the demand for it, you're probably going to be talking about it a lot and trying to build this exposure. So, outside of a solution like EQL, part of this planning is how are you going to be marketing it obviously to your loyal customers probably through your own channels like email or SMS or push notifications, etc. 

Andrew Lipp

That's right. 

Chase Clymer

But also, are you going to be talking about this to potential buyers through lookalike audiences, through Meta ads or TikTok. Whatever channels that are actually giving you a decent exposure for the right price point these days? And then those messages, driving them to, like you said, are people signing up in advance to capture all the demand for a notify me type thing? You have to think through all that stuff in that pre-launch phase. 

And obviously, the offer needs to already exist. The details about the features and benefits of the product and exclusivity or the rarity or the scarcity or whatnot. All that needs to be available because people are going to be making that decision before purchasing. Well before they're allowed to purchase. 

Andrew Lipp

That's right. mean, Chase, first of all, you should come. I'd love to work with you. [I] mean, you just nailed the launch strategy pretty quickly. So it feels like you've got your finger on the pulse of launch. You're totally right. It is strategic. I think the biggest misconception is [that] launch just happens. Right? There is a lot of work in it. 

Chase Clymer

Yeah. You don't just turn the product on and then people know about it.

Andrew Lipp

No, and we say this with a lot of the brands we work with. We go to launch meetings and we say there's 10, 12 people sitting there talking about what to do and how to plan. And you've got everyone from brands and social and strategy and comms, right? And granted, we work small business, mid-market and enterprise. So, we see different shades of that. 

And if I think about the human capital or the load on launch. That's one thing we're actually trying to reduce is [to] give you a launch copilot, a launch partner in our tooling. They can help you actually think about these things, right? They can reduce the load on your human capital. They can allow you to have the tooling to think about operationally, what am I trying to achieve? Pre-launch. How am I going to do that? 

And then understand, okay, well, if I'm trying to achieve that, where do I start? Right? What's my sequencing? What's my comms? When do I launch it? What should I say? What are my templates? You know, that's our ambition in the future. And then when you get to in-launch, our ambition is to actually help sequence that for you, you know?

You've gotten to the point where you've got the comms out there. You know, you're like, “I've got this product I want to sell. How should I sell it?” And ultimately, EQL says to you, “Well, this is the sequence. You should drop it this way. You should use these templates. You should use these tools.” Right. 

And then the ambition is, and I'm getting into the future, at the end of launch, we say to you, “Hey, there's an audience segment here. And you could do these things with them. Would you like to do them?” Yes. Right. There's a lookalike audience over here that looks like those folks that'll be higher LTV. So you need to send them an offer, “Here’s the offer, [you] should send them. Click Yes.” We ambitiously want to be, call it the launch copilot. 

The launch [the] copilot that says, “Hey, you've got a product. What do you want to achieve? And then we say, well, this is how you lead up to it. This is how you manage the moment. This is how you action the insights. And this is how you do it again. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely. Yeah. And that in-launch. And the reason I get this is because Black Friday is… We're recording this a little bit early. But Black Friday's 100 days from today, I think. Because I looked it up yesterday. I think it was 101. 

Andrew Lipp

Right. 

Chase Clymer

But so now that's top of mind, even though we're 3 months out. It's the same. What you're doing for these high demand things are also... You could create this same demand for not necessarily one product, but just for a moment in time, which most brands, it's their Black Friday, Cyber Monday. We have actually, we've got a client. They call it their open house. It's the one part of this one time a year where they discount their products. 

Andrew Lipp

Right. 

Chase Clymer

And it's not on Black Friday because ads are cheaper to build your own day. 

Andrew Lipp

Yes. 

Chase Clymer

That's why Prime Day exists, everybody. 

Andrew Lipp

Yes. 

Chase Clymer

So this whole concept. So you've got the messaging pre-launch and then in-launch, there's like a dozen messages that need to go out almost. It's tomorrow. It's now. A reminder, it's now. It's almost over. You know what [I] mean? There's so much to say. 

Andrew Lipp

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You touched on the right thing, which is that every band has a launch moment. And the definition of launch moment is there's breadth in that definition. It might be Black Friday. It might be Cyber Monday. It might be a timeboxed offer. It might be a promotion. It might be a capsule. It might be a seasonal launch. It might be a VIP offer. It might be online-to-install driving traffic. 

Every launch has a moment and you've got different intentions and objectives of managing that moment and you need the tooling to do it. And tooling is really hard, right? And if you can create moments and turn them into opportunities and deeply connect with your community, you're going to come out with not only more sales, bigger basket size, longer value customers who connect with you. 

I always think about our future or where we're heading, we want to control everything above the fold on any retail site. The campaign title. If there is a thing you're doing in that campaign title for a launch moment, that should be run using EQL. Because we're going to give the tools to make that really super simple. 

Everything below, call it the fold. It's a bit old school, but you know, and the product gallery, Shopify can own that. No worries at all. Right. That is your inline product catalog. That doesn't need a story, right? It needs eyeballs. It needs high conversion rates. It needs better conversion and checkout. What happens above that is the offer, the connection, is the attachment to your community. 

And every brand has that in different ways. And we fundamentally think that brands could do it so much better. They could do it so much better. 

Chase Clymer 

Absolutely. And I agree with you. Now, if a brand is out there and they're like, we've been dropping the ball on our launch strategy. And they're like, we should probably talk to someone that knows what they're talking about. How do they get hold of you, Andrew?

Andrew Lipp

Reach out. I'm on LinkedIn. So can reach me out there. You can jump onto our website, check out what we've been up to. We've got a great bunch of customer stories. We actually just got a really cool one up there. Just one last thought is, launches are a honeypot and it creates a whole bunch of eyeballs and intent. And you can really find other opportunities to sell things in those moments. 

We just did a case study with Many Realms, [a] hobby shop out of Vegas who ran a launch and actually saw, it was about a hundred percent increase in halo revenue and sales from running a launch. Because I had all these folks on their site. They wanted to capitalize on it. So they put offers and other things in front of them. 

So get in touch. I got sidetracked there because I was thinking about my website and filling out a contact form. And I remember that case study, but I'm available. I'm a launch nerd to be honest with you. I actually could talk about this all day. Right. We've seen some fantastic brands do it really well.

And love to share the insights, love to help you think about it. We've got a fantastic team. Even though I've got a funny accent based out of Australia. We've got a bunch of folks in the US as well that help some of the biggest brands and just amazing brands run launch. So we've got a team over there. You don't have to get up at a miserable time to speak to them either. And so we're available to chat. Happy to talk [about] launch at any time of the day. 

Chase Clymer

Absolutely Eql.com. We've been calling it equal this whole time, but it's stylized eql.com. Andrew, thank you so much for coming on the show today. 

Chase Clymer

Chase, thanks for having me. I appreciate your time.