[Fully Managed] David Conforti and Nick Teters of Varfaj Ep 49

Introduction

Shannon (Host): Hello everyone and welcome to the Fully Managed by Penji Podcast, the podcast where we discuss marketing and business tips to help assist you on your business journey. I’m your host Shannon, Penji’s partnership coordinator, and I’m joined here today with very special guests, David Conforti and Nick Teters of Varfaj editing team. Thank you guys so much for being with me today. I really appreciate it.

David: Yeah, of course, of course. Happy to be here.

Shannon: Could you tell me a little bit about both of you, your business and how it kind of started and how’s it going right now?

The Origins of Varfaj

David: For sure. So, Varfaj actually was founded when a couple of friends and I were at NYU. We started by wanting to make some money on the side in between college classes back in 2019. And then so we started doing web design, website development, creating logos, you name it, we did it. And then really once Covid started to hit, we took a hard look as to where we saw the industry going and what services they needed. And that’s when we double down and solely focused on e-commerce, specifically Shopify. And so then I reached out to Nick actually through Twitter. I think that was 2020, 2021 I think. I shot him a DM and then I’ll let Nick give his background, but he was a developer, a Shopify developer for better part of 10 years. So brought a lot of experience to the table and that’s when we just really focused on this pure e-comm niche since 2021.

Nick: Yeah. I mean Dave covered it very nicely there. But, you know, essentially building a Shopify focused freelance business as a developer, you know, a lot of people needed help building up their Shopify stores. They saw the value in it. And it was pretty apparent to me also that Shopify was going to take over, you know, the WordPresses and the smaller content management systems of the time. So just started doing development and when Dave reached out to me for the opportunity, I thought I’ll let him handle the business side of it and I’ll keep doing the development side of it and it’ll be a perfect partnership. And I’d say it’s worked out well so far.

Shannon: That’s fantastic. Twitter is definitely a very interesting way of reaching out. I’d say I do not get great responses for that. Maybe it’s because my Twitter isn’t built up for the business side of things, but that’s kind of incredible that you even responded. Could have been like a phishing scheme. It’s good that it worked out.

Nick: Pre-X, I was getting most of my lead generation from Twitter, actually, so I was pretty responsive on Twitter.

The Shift to E-Commerce

Shannon: Okay. I’d love to hear more about that. I might ask about that in a second. But I was curious, did you guys get more involved in e-commerce? Because, David, you might be better at answering this because it might have been beforehand, but did you get more involved in the e-commerce side of things? You said 2021, was this a COVID response or was this kind of just something that kind of happened naturally?

David: Yeah, I think that the really important thing that we did was some soul searching and figured out what do we want to be really good at? And there’s so many agencies that are like a mile wide and an inch deep, and it makes it really hard to create processes, repeat them, build a good client base. And so we were like, okay, no, we should go really narrow and be very specific in a few things and what do we think has the most traction. And that was e-comm, specifically Shopify, like Nick was saying. And we were just really kind of fortunate, like tapped into our network. And our big first Shopify client, I actually knew them from high school – guys that started a big CBD company that had blown up and taking on a good amount of venture capital. And a friend of mine from high school worked for them. That’s how we got hooked up, started doing their site and then that’s when we reached out to Nick and was like, “Hey, we really need to bring on more expertise.” That’s kinda how we got going on the e-comm side.

Becoming a Shopify Expert

Shannon: Awesome. So how does one become a Shopify expert? This might be a loaded question, but I’m sure that Nick, being with the expertise that you’ve had for so long, you might be able to answer this, but what does this entail? What does this involve? Like, what are the steps that you kind of take normally throughout your day?

Nick: I’ve always been somewhat of a self-paced learner, so teaching myself things through online courses or just combing through documentation, those kinds of things. It’s really just about being passionate about whatever it is you’re trying to learn about and trying to obtain as much knowledge as you possibly can. So I subscribe to newsletters, anything that is Shopify related in terms of like newsletters or courses or even like some of the business development side that’s for merchants. I’ll look at it because then I can take that information and pass it along to the merchants and it just builds your expertise on the platform. So knowing how the ins and outs of it work from my side of things, which is like a development technical side and learning about it from running a store as a Shopify merchant who’s actually selling stuff. I think if you get good at both of those, then you’re in a good spot to really help people grow using Shopify.

Finding Clients and Partners

Shannon: So how are you kind of able to find these partners and clients to get involved in doing this kind of work? You did mention Twitter, which I’m sure after X, that kind of imploded a little bit. So I’m assuming that’s not where you’re generating most of your leads now, but what do you think is the most effective way of finding these people?

Nick: Definitely if you’re starting out, word of mouth hitting forums, Shopify has like a help forum that people are constantly asking for help on. So just as a way to get your foot in the door, answering some of those questions. You could probably generate some work, some regular work from people who are on there asking questions. They figure, “Hey, you know how to fix this. Maybe you know how to fix these other problems.” And the big first step is going from that to the Shopify experts platform. So Shopify has an experts catalog where they put all of their people who they believe are experts in their platform and are servicing merchants across all different kinds of things. Marketing, email design development, biz dev, all of those things, you can be a Shopify expert in on their platform. And once you kind of get your foot in the door there, then the leads really start to roll in. I mean, if you have fair prices, even when I was on my own, I was getting probably 15 to 20 inquiries a day from clients, potential clients. So it’s definitely the Shopify experts platform is a huge unlock. And then the next step, which is much tougher to obtain, is the Shopify Plus partner status, which is sort of the upper echelon of agencies that have a proven track record of working with large businesses and delivering on those types of projects. Once you get there, then you’re in a really good spot.

Shannon: Are you guys there at this moment?

David: Yes, yes.

Shannon: Awesome.

David: We became a Plus partner status at the end of 2022.

Shannon: Congratulations.

David: Thank you.

Shannon: Is that something that you have to maintain? Like, can you go down a status? This is something that I’m not well versed in.

David: Yeah, you can regress. I think the main thing is that you have to, it’s very tough to break into. There’s, I don’t even know how many digital marketing agencies there are in the country, but call it thousands, 10,000 and there are 115 Shopify Plus agencies.

Shannon: Wow. Well then a huge congratulations.

Maintaining Shopify Plus Partner Status

Shannon: So, how do you maintain the status then, if it’s something that can regress? I’m sure that, you know, while you’re one of 115 and then you get bumped out by someone else. How do you keep this?

David: I think it’s really by being great partners, like being good people, good people to work with. And then if you do that and deliver results, it’s pretty straightforward. People like to work with people they enjoy talking to that they can trust. That’s really been like the key to our success in the program.

Nick: Dave and I decided very early on, we’ve had a very symbiotic relationship. And we decided very early on that we were gonna treat every business that we worked with like it was our own business. So building a partnership with them that is built to last, not just to go in, do a couple meaningless tasks, help them with any one particular problem. We wanted to build a true partnership that we saw us adding value and them adding value to us because we can learn a lot from these merchants, especially at the enterprise level. They built these huge businesses, so they must be doing something right. So, we learn from them as much as they learn from us and we really create a long lasting partnership and it makes us what we call stickier when they’re evaluating where they’re gonna allocate their budget for the year.

Shannon: I think that’s a really good relationship. I think that when people learn from their clients just as much as their clients can learn from them, I think that’s a really good dynamic to have. I think a lot of people think that they might know best and they don’t really listen to their clients. And I think that’s kind of at a detriment to them as an agency. So that’s good to hear and that’s probably why you’re now your top Shopify. That’s important.

Communication and Transparency

Shannon: So, you discussed kind of maintaining this relationship with your clients and to keep them happy and being easy to deal with. What do you think sets you apart from other agencies in communication in this way?

David: I think that on the development side, our talent is top notch. Several of our employees are actually ex-Shopify employees, so they really know the platform well. But I think that you’re hitting on an important note here, which is that a lot of people can do the technical side, but really the communication and the project management and the relationship is something that I think takes you up a notch. And that’s where we just focus on transparency. So shared slack channels, shared Asana boards, everything is very clear and in that way, you feel like you have more so another member of the team as a merchant than you have this agency that’s like a black box that you don’t understand. That’s what we really focused on. It’s something that seems pretty obvious to us, but we’re surprised sometimes when we go into some of the new merchants we onboard and they talk about how they’ve been working with agencies in the past. It’s like a very opaque and difficult process.

Shannon: I do think transparency is something that comes up a lot with agencies and I think it’s probably one of the most important things, if not the most important thing. I don’t think customers ever wanna not know what’s going on. I think throughout the process, especially, even if you do, like, everyone’s not perfect and people do make mistakes. Being able to be transparent with the fact that that happened and then being able to see how you can fix it is something that’s really great. Instead of them finding out later down the line that you made a mistake and tried to cover it up. I don’t think people really like that.

David: Totally. No one wants to see mistakes, but you know, at least they know that you’re being proactive about it, and that’s one of the biggest things.

Nick: Totally. I mean, I think we all learn this back in school, right? Like you, they give you a math problem and you just give them the answer. They’re like, well, how did you get there? And if you can’t explain how you got there, then how do they know that you actually know what you’re talking about? And it works both ways, right? So we walk the clients through the process of how we arrived at a recommendation or how we fix the technical problem. So they know that strategically and technically we know our stuff. So that strengthens our position as the experts on Shopify. And also gives us the leeway to, if we go down a path and it turns out to be the wrong path, then we say, this is the evidence that we use to support going down this path. It didn’t work out, but now we know, hey, that’s the wrong way to go. Let’s go this way now based on what we’ve learned from this other path. So it works both ways in success and failure.

Learning from Mistakes

Shannon: Can you kind of give an example of a time where this has happened and kind of how you adjusted and moved down a different path if possible? I know you don’t, maybe don’t wanna go over any of your mistakes that might hurt a little bit, but you know, we all do. So it’d be nice to be able to get some insight on that.

David: I think I have one. And then Nick, if you have a different one, let me know. But we were doing this very large multinational migration for a merchant this past year. And we started, the timeline was super condensed. Trying to get the first site up for Black Friday, cyber Monday, and at some point it just became untenable, it was clear that we weren’t gonna hit it. And so I think that, we talked about transparency. The first thing we did is just basically own up to it. Be like, “Listen, we probably overpromised on this timeline. We don’t think that it’s going to be in our best interest or yours to try to hit this, but here’s the new recommended approach.” And we laid out a plan that made sense where we waterfalled all of the international markets from one into another. And that project ended up going great, a merchant that we still have a relationship with to this day. And I think that all in, it maybe came about a month behind schedule. So when all said and done, it built a lot of trust and I think that the outcome justifies the approach that we took.

Shannon: I think people just want you to be honest with them. And so to be able to still deliver, but just in like a different amount of time, like you said, is not bad. At least you’re doing the work they asked for and you’re communicating with them throughout it.

David: Yeah, and we work hard. I mean, we work exceedingly hard and I think that’s one thing that sets us apart, is everybody that we hire, we have a very lean but capable team and we hire people that have a desire to work. So it’s not like you’re trying to run out the clock and kick things onto the next week, but it’s people that really want to get things done. I think it also stems from being founder led. So you have a lot of ownership at the top with like me and Nick. And if people ever have a problem, like in this example we gave, they’re not working with an account executive that doesn’t really have any authority, like they’re working directly with us that have the final say.

Shannon: That’s really helpful. It’s nice also to be able to talk to the founder of a company. Generally. I think a lot of agencies are even businesses in general, it’s impossible to reach. Like, they don’t, it’s like a phantom person figurehead that they have no concept of, or even maybe don’t even know what they look like. And I think that that’s troublesome for some people, especially when they have a problem and they’re not getting great support on that. So it’s really nice to be able to hear that they can get in touch with you.

David: Absolutely. Absolutely. The thing that we make sure it doesn’t happen is that you have one team for sales that’s trying to onboard you, and then when you actually sign up with us, it’s a whole new person. You know, like the Wizard of Oz comes from behind the curtain. Like, if you’re talking to Nick during the sales process, then when you start to go into implementation, Nick, you’re your guy. And I think that’s great just to build that continuity throughout the whole relationship.

Shannon: For sure. And it adds a personal ability to it as well because I think a lot of people get somewhat attached to someone that’s helping them and to be separated from that, it’s like, I don’t know, your pet. Like you leave home and they’re upset. I shouldn’t be comparing clients to pets, but it’s similar in the way that you can get good work from someone and they’re really helpful to you, and then you’re passed on to someone else and you’re like, “Oh, where’s this guy? What happened to him?”

Nick: And it works the other way too, if you over promise in the sales process. You now have to that chicken with that roo, so you have to deliver. So I think it helps keep everybody honest in that front.

Shannon: Nick, did you have another example as well? I didn’t wanna keep you from sharing something as well.

Tackling “Impossible” Problems

Nick: I don’t think we have a long enough show to go over all the use cases, but the biggest, the thing that we enjoy the most is whenever somebody comes to us and they say, “Other people told us this is impossible,” or “We’ve been working on trying to fix this for years,” or “Gone through multiple different agencies to try and get this problem fixed” and we’re like, “Bet. Give us a month and we’ll have multiple solutions, not just one solution.” So that’s where we thrive, is where other people say it’s impossible.

Shannon: What’s kind of the drafting period for doing something that you have never done before or seemingly is impossible? Like, what’s the game plan for something like that?

Nick: So the biggest thing is brainstorming together with all of the parties involved. So that’s the merchant and their stakeholders on their side, and then the technical team on our side. And in that way, again, we’re collaborating with the client to obtain as much knowledge about their business and what they’re trying to get to. And combining that with our knowledge of Shopify, and also the programming languages that we use – Rust, Liquid, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React. Just putting out all of our tools on the table and then seeing where we have done something maybe similar or parallel to what they’re trying to do and how we can apply that to get us closer to the goal. So essentially we’re just trying to progress it as much as we can in little chunks. And then eventually you take enough small steps and you’re at the end goal. So I think that’s really how we look at it, is we break it out into micro projects and execute against each one of those, and then that puts together a full solution.

Shannon: That makes sense to be able to kind of piece it together instead of creating an overarching plan that you don’t really have all the elements figured out to. I think that also provides a level of transparency to the client, to be able to kind of show them an outline of what you plan to do so that they know, they can look at it and be like, “I don’t really like that step of the process,” or “I don’t think that this makes sense,” or whatever, and you can kind of go from there, which I think is really nice.

David: For sure, especially with a lot of these projects we’re dealing with are multi-month implementations. And so it’s important to like walk them through, okay, what does this look like with month one? But then also when we’re in the middle of month three, what does this look like for me as a brand? And just like painting that picture for them the whole way through.

Building Business Through Referrals

Shannon: Do you guys have a referral program?

David: We do, but as not being like a software product, it’s more like word of mouth. But we do a ton of referral business, with either consultants or the different tech partners we work with. That’s a huge channel for us.

Shannon: I was wondering then how important that is for you. I’m sure that to a level it is because I think it is for every agency, but how do you kind of guarantee that you will get that? Because of course it is really important to agencies to be able to, I think that’s kind of the best clients that you can get – someone related to someone that you’ve already worked with before.

David: How do we guarantee it? That’s a good question. You can’t necessarily guarantee it. I think that you could give yourself the best possibility of achieving it, which comes back to the same things, you know, it’s like being good people delivering routinely. And that’s what I feel like is really that and time. If you’re doing those things, delivering routinely, being a good person, and then you expand the time horizon out far enough, then you see those returns come. Nick and I talked about this actually a lot, particularly recently. Just the timing compounds how.

Nick: It all kind of connects together everything that we talked about, the relationship building, the communication, and then most importantly, delivering on what we say we’re gonna deliver on. And over time you do that enough with any one person or persons, then eventually they’re gonna see you as the expert. And if somebody needs help, they know a guy, right? Which is us, hopefully in that case. So, you know, one of our best kept secrets is we spend $0 on marketing. And we put all of our time and money back into our business and building those relationships because those relationships are gonna pay far more dividends than what any kind of Meta ad or Google ad. Those drive business, but it’s a cold lead, essentially. So I’d rather get a warm lead from a client that’s already sort of talked us up. And we just come in and do our thing.

Shannon: I think that we all would rather get a warm lead for sure. It’s nice to be able to have a good recommendation from someone that had a good experience from you and be able to work with them other than someone that doesn’t know anything about you or knows very little. It’s always nice to get a nice introduction for sure.

Adding a Personal Touch

Shannon: Do you add any kind of special personability to this process? I know that you did mention that it’s founder centered, so it’s really nice that people are able to talk to you directly. But do you have any kind of – I hear different things from different agencies. Like, when a client is really happy, sometimes you send them like a handwritten note, which is crazy. I think that’s awesome. But I think it’s very hard for people with a lot of clients to be able to manage something like that. Do you guys have anything that you implement that’s kind of unique like that?

David: Yeah, we go in person a fair amount actually, which really cuts through all the noise, particularly in 2024. So I’m based in Miami, but a number of our clients are out on the west coast. So I’m in LA a really fair amount, going on site there, seeing people going to office, everything like that. And that’s been a really great touch, show people that we care.

Nick: One specific example is, we had a partnership with another agency that did consulting and they would bring us in for like the technical side and that their agency of the consulting agency won a Shopify award. They were basically recognized for their excellence in consulting on Shopify and they didn’t really get too much from it other than like the notoriety of Shopify, mentioning your name specifically. So Dave actually went above and beyond and sent that person like a physical award with their name and the award that they won in the year. So that’s the kind of stuff we like, you know, it was a cool thing for that partner and we thought, “Hey, they would, we know we would appreciate if somebody did it for us, so why don’t we do it for them?” And it was very, very well received.

Shannon: Of course. That’s so sweet to get an award. Everyone wants an award. That’s great.

David: Everybody wants an award, so you kind of like stop getting them after a certain age.

Shannon: Or you know, maybe you don’t. High achievers probably keep getting them, but you know, it’s always really nice to get an award, at least like a ribbon, but an award is a little better than a ribbon.

Nick: Oh no, this is way better. This is like a nice, you know, a nice vase has the inscription on it.

Shannon: You put it on your desk. Useful and aesthetic.

David: People can, you can use it as a paperweight. 

Shannon: It’s very versatile.

Favorite Client Stories

Shannon: Okay, so my last question is a fun one. What do you have a favorite client? Like, maybe you don’t have to name them, or like one that you’ve had in the past. You could just kind of talk about maybe the interactions were really great or maybe like the business itself was unique and you thought it was fun to work with, that would be really cool to learn.

David: I’ve got a good one actually. It’s one of the clients we’ve worked with for a really long time now, and they’re based out of LA and their head of growth, head of marketing, I suppose, was doing like a standup bootcamp. And so they were like doing once a week courses and then at the end they were doing a full standup set and everybody in the class was doing it. And I was in LA that week. So I actually went to their standup set and it was awesome.

Shannon: That sounds awesome.

David: It was just so fun to see someone that you work with in like a different setting. And like their whole team showed up too. And so that was super cool.

Shannon: That’s awesome to network and also laugh.

David: Yeah. I was, I mean, huge respect. I could not imagine getting up and doing a standup set. It was, I was nervous for them. That’s awesome though.

Nick: That’s been a really special one that Dave got to go and do that one. And I think really across multiple partners over this last three years where we’ve really been building the Shopify division and going back to really becoming a partner in their business where we feel like we’re almost a part of their business. It’s so cool to see our clients get recognition, get awards, be featured in Forbes or on Shark Tank or there’s many, many places that our clients have shown up, billboards and things like that. And whereas it’s a win for their business, it also feels like a win for our business too because we just built that strong relationships and it’s cool to see our work, helping them succeed and get to the goals that they want to get to. So I wouldn’t say any one particular client, but across multiple clients, we’ve had several opportunities to celebrate.

Shannon: It’s nice to see the fruit of your labors. You know, it’s nice to see that they’re doing well because of your work. And also just, it’s nice to see because you develop a relationship with these people, so it’s just nice to see that they’re also succeeding. So that’s really sweet.

David: Totally.

Conclusion

Shannon: That’s a very wholesome note to end on. Thank you guys so much for coming on. This was incredible and I learned a lot about Shopify that I didn’t know before. I did not know a lot to be completely transparent, so that’s incredible and I really love learning. So that’s my favorite part about the podcast. So thanks.

David: Yeah, thanks for having us on, Shannon.

Nick: Thanks Shannon.