Episode index
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277 episodes
You started a business to buy your freedom and built a prison instead. A deep dive into Steve’s Founders Bootcamp material on using your why as a filter and building systems that run without you.
Wire $50,000 overseas, open the container, find rags. A deep dive into Steve’s 2026 sourcing guide: exact specs, samples, fair quote comparisons, and brutal financial reality checks.
What if the bottleneck strangling your growth is you? The reluctant-leader trap, and why the order is always strategy, then systems, then scale — from the Founder to Founder Bootcamp.
Are you leading, or did you build a job you can never clock out of? The founder’s burden, working on the business instead of in it, and turning a vague vision into a strategic objective.
Yahoo could have bought Google for $1M and Facebook for $1.1B, then turned down $45B. A deep dive on how founder ego becomes the bottleneck — and the 15-minute weekly habit that fixes your filter.
Google’s founders were told to hire an adult or lose their funding. Why the lone-wolf founder is an expensive myth, and why every great builder from Alexander to Jobs had a mentor.
You spend twelve hours putting out fires and build nothing. How to go from chief firefighter to strategic engineer: systems, position agreements, and why mistakes are intellectual equity.
What does it mean to be mentored by Steve? A deep dive into his 2011 Gallup strengths leadership report, and what that mix of traits demands from a founder being coached.
A revisit of Paul Midler's Poorly Made in China, filtered through a reviewer with 15-plus years of on-the-ground China sourcing experience, covering quality fade and classic price-hike tactics.
A recap of Steve's very first Awesomers episode: his "awesomers versus normies" framework, and how Symo Global, Parsimony, and Empoweri fit together as free support for entrepreneurs.
A deep dive into Parsimony.com's business operating system, covering how it blends classic ERP tools like inventory and CRM with AI, plus a look at Steve Simonson's approach to building the platform.
Steve launches a new series on his Chairman's Circle advisory work, then argues that lean, disciplined founders should welcome a downturn instead of fearing it.
Steve explains why he's taking a small group of sellers to source in Vietnam instead of China, and why Vietnam is a supplement to Chinese manufacturing, not a replacement.
Steve kicks off a 31-day series distilling how he trains executives, starting with the core idea that a founder's job is to hand the vision to a real leadership team, not carry it alone.
Steve announces a second attempt at retirement: cutting back to 25-35 hours a week to focus on Parsimony, Empowery, and knowledge-sharing over direct selling.
Steve shares two decades of negotiation lessons from buying in China, covering FX rate protection, trading cash for better terms, and why cutting corners on customs paperwork isn't worth the risk.
Steve runs through the top mistakes Amazon FBA sellers make sourcing in Vietnam, from skipping third-party testing to underestimating labor shifts in the region.
Steve walks through how to build a company origin story that resonates, using examples like Tom's Shoes and Warby Parker, for any founder building a real brand rather than reselling.
Steve walks through his standard product sourcing process step by step, from supplier prospecting to factory audits, built to work with any country of origin.
Steve responds to a Facebook post on quality control, explaining why demanding 100 percent inspection misses the point, and how sampling plus real production fixes protect quality.
Steve previews Festivus 2022, an intimate December event in Ketchum, Idaho for e-commerce entrepreneurs, powered by Elevate Brands with sessions from Avask, PPC Ninja's Kevin King, and Parsimony.
Steve previews the 2022 Festivus event in Sun Valley, Idaho: the schedule, sponsors, and why he's deliberately keeping it small instead of scaling it up.
Steve breaks down how SinoSure, China's state-backed export credit insurer, lets factories offer real payment terms, and why more sellers should be asking their suppliers to use it.
Steve walks through the order-to-cash process for e-commerce businesses, using Parsimony's "Doc Walk" as the model. A process-first look at getting a real financial scoreboard.
Steve compares two same-week e-commerce headlines: Hero Cosmetics' $630M acquisition versus PharmaPacks' bankruptcy despite $500M+ in sales, to explain why revenue without margin discipline is a trap.
Returning guest Chelsea Cohen and Steve dig into inventory forecasting, cash flow, and why 'passive income' doesn't really exist once an Amazon business gets any size.
Steve reacts to news of an SEC investigation into Amazon, arguing the real issue is Amazon's access to third-party seller data and what a level playing field would look like.
Steve looks at two shifts in e-commerce: China lockdowns disrupting supply chains and aggregators pausing acquisitions, plus what that means for sellers planning to sell their business.
Steve reacts to news of an SEC investigation into Amazon, and lays out where he thinks the platform treats third-party sellers fairly and where it clearly doesn't.
Steve talks through reading inflation, commodity prices, and geopolitics into supplier negotiations, and previews an executive masterclass on systemic thinking and finding your company's why.