Ben Fisher✨

Founder @ Rodeo and Fractional CTO to 8-figure DTC brands, sharing learnings as a Full-stack Coder, Designer and Shopify Expert

My friend Paul says I'm a "Human Zapier." That checks out. 

I'm a solid programmer and a decent designer, but they're really a means to an end: I love to build things and solve business problems. 

I'm a product person, a technologist, and an entrepreneur at heart. 

My superpower is at the intersection of tech + design + automation/optimization. And I love dtc ecomm.

I get a DISGUSTING amount of satisfaction by eliminating inefficiency. And I do it through building software tools.

I am obsessed with Systems Thinking and love to experiment with new ways to connect disparate systems.

I won't stop until we've got a deceptively simple solution that's damn fun to use.

**

For the past 10 years, I've built "commerce enablement" tools in the Shopify ecosystem that help DTC brands make more $$$.

With CartHook, we brought post-purchase upsells to the Shopify ecosystem and worked directly w/ Shopify to add it natively. 

CartHook processed > $1B GMV and added $250MM/year in revenue through its post-purchase upsell tech. It was acquired by Pantastic in 2022.

At Rodeo, we released one of the first native Shopify subscription apps (acquired by Recharge) and pivoted to a LTV Growth platform that originated as a small feature. Ultimately, wound it down as Shopify actively started building a solution themselves.

I'm on a mission to build damn good tools that help you make more money and have fun doing it.

Co-founder, Technical CEO

Ben Fisher 🏴‍☠️

Playing w/ AI + Automation | Prev @Rodeo, @CartHook (trusted by AG1, Four Sigmatic)

Deeply researched product, growth, and career advice

My biggest takeaways from Stewart Butterfield:

1. Product design is about creating understanding, not removing friction. Teams obsess over reducing friction and removing steps, but 70% to 80% of product design challenges are actually about helping people *understand* what your product does and what to do next. Users arrive barely interested and confused about what you offer. If they can’t quickly grasp what they’re looking at, they’ll leave. Making it easier to do confusing things just gets users to the exit quicker. The mantra should be “Don’t make me think,” not “reduce friction.”

2. You’re not selling features—you’re selling outcomes. Nobody wants a saddle; they want to go horseback riding. Nobody wants a hammer; they want something built. People understand cars and beer without explanation, but new software needs an explanation of both what it is and why they should want it. Slack wasn’t selling messaging features—it was selling better team coordination and reduced email chaos. If you can’t articulate the transformation your product creates in people’s lives, you’re just listing features.

3. Organizations naturally fill with fake work that looks exactly like real work, what Stewart calls “hyper-realistic work-like activities.” Meetings to preview deck slides, analysis of tiny feature differences, elaborate processes around insignificant decisions. People aren’t lazy; they’re responding to having more time than valuable work to do. Leaders must continuously ensure there’s enough valuable work and explicitly say no to projects that can’t possibly generate meaningful impact.

4. Small conveniences create emotional connections that drive word-of-mouth growth. No one switches products because of a good time-zone picker or smooth password recovery, but these details make users love or hate your product. Slack grew largely because people who used it at one company would join a new company and advocate strongly for adopting it. That advocacy came from accumulated small delights, not major features.

5. The “owner’s delusion” explains why bad experiences persist everywhere. Restaurant owners create terrible websites even though they’ve experienced the frustration of visiting other terrible restaurant websites. Business owners assume visitors care deeply about their product, when in reality people arrive distracted, in a hurry, just above the threshold of caring at all. The solution is to regularly step back, be a normal person with limited time and patience, and honestly evaluate if your product makes sense.

6. Only pivot after exhausting all reasonable ideas. The right time to pivot isn’t when things get hard—it’s when you’ve genuinely tried every non-ridiculous approach and can coldly, rationally assess that the expected value has dropped below alternatives. Pivoting is humiliating because you’ve convinced investors, employees, and users of a vision you’re now abandoning. That emotional cost means most people pivot too quickly or too late.

Work with Words LLC

In case the name doesn't give it away, I like words. A lot. However, I'm not just a writer for hire. I'm a collaborator.

I help my clients share their passion with the world. Sometimes, that means writing website copy and blog posts. Other times, we're crafting books, standalone essays, and video scripts. The common theme isn't what we write, but how. We work together to find the best words and then send them out into the world.

Writer | Editor | Book Coach

Remdal Painting & Restoration Inc.

As Remdal grew, I was selected to pioneer this Painting Operations Manager role. I was tasked with building out this division: documenting departmental best practices, promoting alignment with company objectives, developing weekly meeting rhythms, and building relationships with my direct reports and on-site foremen.

• Designed departmental scorecards that clearly and thoroughly reported our lead and lag measures
• Served on Remdal's board of directors, contributing to annual and quarterly strategic planning
• Spearheaded the upgrade of Remdal’s proprietary project management software

Painting Operations Manager

I accepted this full-time customer-facing role as my time at Anselm was winding down. Initially hired to be an assistant project manager, I was handed the responsibilities of a full-time PM before the end of my first summer. In this position I primarily provided on-site assessments / proposals for painting projects and supervised our site foremen as they completed approved work.

• Successfully landed and managed over 500 projects of varying scopes and sizes 
• Revamped proposal layout to deliver enhanced clarity and comprehension to our clients
• Established Remdal's training and coaching program for new assistant project manager hires

Project Estimator / Manager

Trinity Western University

I completed this summer internship in the middle of my M.A. studies. I prepared news releases and wrote short magazine articles, gaining valuable experience conducting interviews and performing background research.

University Communications Student Intern

Anselm Academy

After earning my B.A., I returned to Canada to take on this leadership role. My responsibilities included curriculum development, in-class instruction, and day-to-day oversight of school activities.

• Expanded weekly programming to strengthen existing classes and introduce new course offerings
• Led monthly board meetings, advancing organizational alignment as we navigated key changes

Headmaster & Instructor

Remdal Painting & Restoration

Since my role at Anselm Academy was initially part-time, I supplemented my income with this part-time position in Remdal’s single-family residential division. It provided valuable sales and operations experience. I staffed trade show booths on a regular basis, while also quoting and managing small projects throughout Greater Vancouver.

Project Manager

Canon Press

As a college sophomore, I joined Canon's order fulfillment department to collect orders and pack boxes. On slow days, I seized the opportunity to grow sales by calling previous clients and expanding our relationship with nationwide distributors. I stepped into a management role in 2007, overseeing Order Fulfillment and contributing to product development.

• Spearheaded sales initiatives to move stagnant stock and create space for more compelling products
• Developed key distributor partnerships to promote awareness of our catalog and drive new business
• Collaborated with authors to produce high-quality products that met our customer's needs

Sales & Order Fulfillment Manager

I'm a storysharer.

That's not a real word, but I think it's the best description of who I am and what I do.

As a creative writer, I'm blessed to collaborate with clients who have something exciting to share with the world. I help them tell their own stories, whether they're advancing their business, launching an online course, or writing a memoir.

As a data storyteller, I help clients understand the story behind their numbers. In some cases, that means interrogating their current data to figure out what's going on. In others, that means identifying new data points that can help drive their business.

To put it simply, I'm here to notice the stories around me and put them into words, both for myself and others.

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Ben Fisher✨

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Engagements

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