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237 | Off-The-Shelf, Custom, or Composable? | with Andrei Rebrov

Honest Ecommerce
Honest Ecommerce
Episode • Aug 7, 2023 • 23m

Andrei Rebrov has worked in the technology field for more than 15 years. 

He is the CTO and Co-Founder of Scentbird, a subscription service for perfumes and colognes, and has helped it grow to more than 500,000 active subscribers. 

At Scentbird, Andrei was responsible for building early versions of the platform, growing a remote engineering team and making sure that the company has technology advantages in every department, from marketing to operations. 

He is also a startup adviser in various industries, from aerospace to video games. 

Prior to Scentbird Andrei worked as an agile engineering coach, helping various companies with their technology. 

Prior to that he worked as a software engineer for UBS Investment Bank and Avis UK.

In This Conversation We Discuss: 

  • [00:00] Intro
  • [00:59] What is Scentbird?
  • [01:41] Where the idea of Scentbird came from
  • [02:54] Implementing a trial run of a subscription
  • [03:47] The initial batch of shipments
  • [04:35] Andrei’s background before being a startup founder
  • [05:55] Learning agile late in the career
  • [06:21] When you should focus on agile
  • [07:38] Knowing when you are onto something
  • [08:37] The growing pains that Scentbird experienced
  • [09:56] Sponsor: Electric Eye electriceye.io/connect
  • [10:53] Sponsor: Sendlane sendlane.com/honest
  • [12:27] Build vs buy: Where Andrei draws the line
  • [13:51] What is composable commerce?
  • [14:55] Only go headless when you really need it
  • [16:20] Start small and don’t make unnecessary changes
  • [17:10] Traditional Ecom vs Subscriptions
  • [19:30] Where to support Scentbird
  • [19:57] Working with 2 different tech stacks
  • [20:53] Look for things to complement your business
  • [21:55] The advantages of acquiring an additional business

Resources:

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