Joe McFerrin is the CEO of IWD Agency, a full-service e-commerce agency specializing in building & optimizing amazing eCommerce brands on Adobe Commerce (Magento), Shopify, Woocommerce & Bigcommerce. After spending a number of years growing in Baton Rouge, Joe took his company to Austin, TX, as he believes it’s Silicon Valley 2.0. For the past 6 years, the agency has been among the 100 fastest-growing LSU graduate-owned companies.
In this episode, Joe shares his journey from being a young kid interested in tech to starting a company as a hobby and then growing that company to 50 employees in the past 12 years. He also shares the greatest contributor to their growth, why he chooses to promote internally and train them to be leaders of their own teams, and something he wished he knew back when his agency was just starting out and achieving its first million.
This Cast Covers:
- What Joe McFerrin was like as a 12–year-old rugrat working a bunch of jobs until college and starting the agency as a hobby (04:50)
- The moment Joe decided IWD Agency was gonna niche down to just e-commerce brands and companies (06:54)
- How Joe applies the 80:20 principle in the business, but also in his role as a founder and CEO (08:42)
- You really start progressing in business when you do multiple levels of the 80:20 principle (09:45)
- How IWD Agency has grown through organic, word of mouth, and referrals (13:20)
- The next goals for IWD Agency in the coming years and how Joe plans to reverse engineer those goals (16:36)
- How to combat shrinking profit margins as your agency grows (18:19)
- Why you should take care of your people and get better at managing them, keeping them engaged, motivated and happy (22:33)
- Joe shares some things he wants to improve in the coming months or years (26:03)
- One of the largest challenges in running businesses is leading and cultivating leaders (27:15)
- How it feels to see your team grow into leaders in their own right (28:46)
- What advice would Joe give himself five years ago after cracking the first millionth mark or mid-six figures (29:57)
- How to recruit and retain your employees especially with everyone working in a remote environment (32:32)