At the age of 16, you have already owned multiple ecommerce businesses all whilst staying in school. Tell us a little bit about what sparked this drive for entrepreneurship?

I have such a strong passion for ecommerce and growing businesses, when you love something to the degree where it doesn’t feel like work, managing six e-commerce stores at just 16 and still in high school finally starts to make sense! I started my first business at the age of 12 which was an experience in itself. Ever since then I have been trying plenty of different things and have found ecommerce to be something I have loved since day one. Growing up in a generation where technology has been all around us, it has definitely given me a head start and have found that to a traditional business owner who wants to innovate, the idea of an online process is incredibly daunting, so having the ability to help these small to large business use social media, click funnels, online advertising etc to a level where they can see results and potential in the online space has been something incredibly inspiring and rewarding. It definitely wasn’t easy starting out, especially right at the beginning. I was brought up to be ambitious and incredibly driven but I found ecommerce an area of business that was especially hard to crack. I didn’t have much money starting out so I had to teach myself everything which did involve hundreds of hours of free online tutorials trying to hone my skills. Although the start was hard, it has definitely payed off now.

What is BloomVentures?

So BloomVentures is the parent company that I run all my ecommerce stores and businesses under. It helps simplify legalities since I’m under the age of 18. Being under 18 and managing taxes and formal accounts is quite a headache and something I am constant having to comply with and figure out. Ecommerce is only one aspect of what I do though, there are a wide variety of other industries that I am involved in and plenty in the pipe line. There are a lot of exciting things coming up in the next few months. All my consulting work is also done under this name which further helps to simplify everything.

How do go about sourcing the best platforms and technologies to complement your ecommerce businesses?

One of my most valuable assets of which have enabled me to reach such massively levels of success, have been virtual assistants. Managing 6 ecommerce whilst still being in Grade 11 is quite a unique challenge and by having these virtual assistants, it takes a lot of the headaches and grunt work off my plate. I currently have 6 of these assistants working for me full time and seeing they are based overseas, it reduces costs and doesn’t present the challenges that a traditional workplace formally would. On the backend side, I run all my stores through various different platforms and all things considered, have found that Shopify tends to work and integrate the best. It isn’t always the best platform for everything but for someone that wants to start out, is definitely the way to go. The model that I use, drop-shipping, essentially eliminates majority of the drawbacks associated with traditional ecommerce. Whenever you receive an order from a customer, you can just place that request with your supplier and they will ship that product directly to the customer. This eliminates the need for physical inventory to be stored whilst also drastically reducing the start up capital required. For businesses that are moving into the online retail space, drop-shipping is a model that I have seen many ecommerce businesses take up within the last few years.

What is the biggest learning you have taken from your experiences so far?

I would say the biggest learning curve for me has been time management. Not only have I optimised every minute of every day but I have learnt how to manage a 7 figure ecommerce store whilst still achieving some sort of grade in year 11 at school. When I got started, I didn’t have much money to invest into self-education and that is something I would consider to be my biggest mistake. Not having anyone to mentor me or learn from left me spending hundreds of hours soaking up half-baked free content online. I found a lot of this content to be incredibly confusing even though computers have been something I have always clicked with. It was frustrating as I had so many questions after each video and nobody to turn to. I never have regrets but having a mentor and getting the essential upfront education would have made my journey so much easier.

What are some things you foresee for the future of ecommerce? And how do you see yourself playing a key role in this industry?

Ecommerce itself it such a large market and unfortunately, so many businesses haven’t even cracked the surface of it. I have helped and seen many incredible businesses achieve massive results through properly utilising of the online retail space. For many businesses, the transition to online may seem daunting but seeing that majority of these businesses already have built up products/services and an established database which is one of the hardest things to acquire in the online world. For businesses to get a piece of this rapidly expanding ‘online retail pie’ they just need to know how to apply this data and use it to their advantage.