The Great Australian Hustle - Ruslan Kogan, Co-Founder and CEO, Kogan.com [S6.E7]

Ruslan Kogan, the CEO and co-founder of Kogan.com (ASX:KGN) is
the guest on this episode of 'Scaling Up'. Kogan.com is
Australia’s largest pure play online retailer with over $1b in
sales. Many listeners over the years would have no doubt been
introduced to Kogan.com via their incredibly successful own brand
electronics business that catapulted the business to a size and
scale that has allowed them to enact a phenomenal e-commerce
playbook. Aside from expanding their direct to consumer product
offering, Kogan.com has also been able to drive greater
efficiencies and value to customers across a range of service
verticals.

Ruslan’s story in many respects mirrors Kogan.com’s story –
bootstrapped and always thinking entrepreneurially as to what is
required to succeed in any given moment.

This episode also dives into all the big ticket decisions that
any e-tailer has to face - from how to acquire customers cheaply,
as well as the importance of best in class logistics and what
that looks like,  be it warehousing, fulfillment or
freight.

Ruslan is character, a true entrepreneur in every sense, and
someone who has changed the retailing landscape in Australia for
the better.

We are also now releasing transcripts of each episode, to find
them, you can click through the show notes, or find all episodes
on our website. https://www.tdmgrowthpartners.com/insight/

Show Notes:

Ruslan’s upbringing in Belarus and the formative nature of
immigration guiding his entrepreneurial spirit (3:10)


Kogan founding story (7:08)


The early years of Kogan with a bootstrapped and presale funded
business model (8:43)


Ruslan’s unique strategy to create customer attention by engaging
with the enemy (12:32)


Kogan’s diversification across new verticals through partnership
with service adjacencies (18:11)


Success of the Marketplace and Kogan First program, transforming
Kogan into a platform business (22:10)


Maintaining best in class in bound logistics in the e-commerce
industry (26:51)


Proliferation and efficiency of robotics and automation in
warehousing (30:21)


Launching a last mile logistic service in the pandemic and the
transition back to external courier services (33:14)


Understanding and optimising for your unique core position and
competitive advantage (36:16)


Initial hiring tactics e.g., only accepting CVs from Gmail
accounts to filter for logical and analytical competencies
(38:30)


Expectation to ‘reply all’ in work email chains, building a
culture of transparency and accountability (44:11)


How Kogan’s cultural values have scaled from the company’s
inception (45:48)





This podcast is created and published for informational and
entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice.
Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.