See links in the bio for newsletter and substack content on organic eCommerce growth.

My career began at a startup SEO agency, where I was the first in-house employee and helped scale it to a team of 10 (as much as a graduate can help, that is). The agency expanded its services too rapidly with an undersized team, which led to its decline. I gained exposure to various digital marketing channels, including managing the paid account for our second-largest client.

This agency was sold to another agency. Here, I learned the importance of connecting all elements of SEO into an overall strategy. I also saw firsthand how toxic culture and poor leadership can cause an agency to fail—an experience that shaped my career. The agency's reputation was so damaged that it had to rebrand. However, I met my current business partner, Antonio, during this time (Although we only worked together for about 6–8 months, he stuck around like a pungent smell you can't un-smell). Five years later, this agency's ethics were called into question when they directly copied our NOVOS proposition (I know!).

MADE.com
I moved in-house to MADE.com during its peak growth period. As the sole SEO managing all five markets, I inherited a declining channel after a failed A/B test on a major product category. Over two years, I generated over £20 million in non-brand growth. I also supported MADE through what was, at the time, the largest headless migration in Europe (as far as I’m aware).

Despite this success, I was offered only a £1,500 pay rise. After speaking with all the leading SEO agencies at the time, I knew there was a gap in the SEO market for this niche eCom knowledge.

NOVOS
After a failed attempt at launching a men's accessories website, Antonio and I pivoted to statement.digital. In March 2019 we rebranded to NOVOS and hired our first employee. By the end of this first year, NOVOS had grown to a team of 8. The following year, we doubled to 16, and the year after that, we reached 40.

In early 2022, Antonio and I sold NOVOS to our staff through an Employee Ownership model.

The Living House
In 2023, I invested in The Living House, an interior design studio. I own 20% and support the business's marketing and operations.

NOVOS 2.0
At the beginning of 2024, we launched NOVOS 2.0—a new strategy and direction for the agency. We're still focused on eCommerce but leaning more into our "Organic" expertise. The eCommerce industry is far too focused on short-term paid media for growth, and this is a problem we're aiming to solve with NOVOS 2.0.

If you have made it this far, well done

Samuel Hurley

HighCohesion

Automating the ecommerce back-office. 

www.highcohesion.com

Co-Founder & Managing Director

Commerce Thinking

Non Executive Director

Dalwyn

Algorithmic Trading platforms for Natural Gas

Co-Founder

AKAP GROUP LTD

Digital strategy for household and high-growth brands, including RB, Bosch and Pure Electric.

Ecommerce Advisory

Product Manager

Cognizant Technology Solutions

Consultant within Cognizant Business Consulting - Strategic Services

Senior Consultant

The Velo Adventure Company

Ride leader, marketing and operations support.

Project Manager

Deloitte UK

Consultant

Centrica

Graduate Programme

CEO and Co-Founder at HighCohesion.

We make tricky integrations easy for the world’s fastest-growing brands.

By automating data through the HighCohesion platform, e-commerce businesses gain the confidence they need to scale their operations. They eliminate overselling, processing errors and manual interventions.

Working with some of the world's most exciting and high-growth brands, including Represent Clothing, New Era and LSKD, we're ready to help you take your business to the next level.

My day-to-day is spent with our Partners and Brands, making sure they have what they need to deliver excellent integrations.

Aran Kapila

Last week(s) at HighCohesion: 

𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 
• We wrapped our biggest year yet as a team of 16, and we've just had a proper end‑of‑year shutdown so people could actually rest, reset, and come back ready for what’s next. We've 'gifted' the Christmas week off as holiday every year for the last 5 and it makes a difference to rest and recovery before we go again.
• A lot of work in the background on FY27 - with Laura Black leading on prep work for an SLT offsite in early February.• First new starter of 2026 incoming on Monday, with a grand total of three people joining us this January! 
• José Córdova joined us as an Integrations Engineer with a solid background in the industry. Another HighCohesion team member in Barcelona 😎

𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀 
• We spent some time in person with team Represent in late December - reflecting on a year that got a LOT done. It was great to hear that operationally times like new drops, BFCM, Boxing Day sales etc are like any other day from an operational perspective. Looking forward to doing more with the great team there in 2026. Thank you 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸 𝗕𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗲𝘀 for having us!
• We've started a few new projects in late December with some really exciting brands. These are all encompassing ERP, internationalisation, new 3PL, PIMs big beastly projects. Watch this space for some cool names and case studies soon 👀
• Early January is already lining up with workshops and discovery sessions for new and existing customers, which is exactly how we like to start a year. 
• We'll be doing more and more pre-sales work in person - think day-long/half-day workshops where we will help you map out what integration means in your business. If this feels valuable, then let me know. 

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸?
• Maybe it sounds obvious, but with a much bigger customer base, managing support (at our usual level of quality) through the holiday season was challenging. As much as we'd like to slow down and shutdown, our customers customers are still as active as ever and issues do crop up. We stayed on top of it with our skeleton support crew, but we must plan for the demand to be even higher next time.
• December is a disturbed month, whichever way you try to play it. A mountain of year-end deadlines, new initiatives, hiring etc all drawn to the flashing light of 31st December just isn't realistic in amongst all the socialising, holiday and year-end must-haves that seem to come out of nowhere. Again, one to start thinking about how we do better without dropping the ball.

Have a great week!

CEO @ HighCohesion | Commerce Integrations

To the Venn Diagram overlap that is LinkedIn + Ecomm + Finance, I need your (paid) help 🙏

I'd like a CFO/FD/Senior Finance Team Member to come and deliver a short series of Ecommerce-focused finance 101s to our team. (Let's say 4x 90 min sessions).

At HighCohesion we are dealing with integrating a lot of financial data between systems: Revenue, Margin, COGs, Tax, Duties, Tax Rates, Discounts, Exchange Rates, MACs and a whole ton more. 

For a team without a single accounting head in it, I think we've done well and learned a hell of a lot over the past 6 years on what these terms mean, why they are important, how they are calculated and who/what consumes them.

But we could be better.

A fuller understanding would allow us to create better integrations, quicker. It would allow us to test faster and spot issues quicker. It would form our view on what is best practice and what isn't.

For our customers, it's going to mean improved time to value, even greater confidence in the data and a partner that just "gets it" like we do in many other areas.

Ideally, you'll have done something like this before, you've got the materials, you know what is important and the questions that are always asked. Perhaps you've delivered something internally like this. You can break this all down in laypersons terms.

If you're already a customer of ours, even better, but I am not precious. 

This will be a paid stint.

So, Finance Gurus, hit me up.

taplio

The Battle

Samuel Hurley

Aran Kapila

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The Battle

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Aran Kapila

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Aran Kapila's LinkedIn Performance

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