Stock, Story, Store, Strategy. Get them in that order and growth stops feeling like a fight.
01 · The story
My first business had a stupid goal.
A warehouse with stock in it, cool people, motorbikes and an infinity wall down the back.
Computer games every afternoon.
Millions a year, and fifteen grand a month for me.
That was the entire plan.
I was 17, it was 1998, and the business was called Warcom.
I hit the goal.
There was no clever strategy behind it.
I turned up every day and sold a lot of stuff.
In 2014 I sold Warcom to an ASX-listed company (opens in a new tab) and stayed on to see it through.
I also spent years running marketing for other people’s brands, in their offices every week.
Many of those clients became close friends.
Then one of the hardest days of my life put my wife in hospital, and I stopped answering my phone.
When I picked up, one of them told me he didn’t care, and asked when I’d be back at work.
He got a goodbye email the next morning.
Another one, years in, told me I’d got slow on email since our son arrived and it was getting annoying.
It was a baby.
I told him he didn’t have a marketing manager anymore.
That was the last brand I built for someone else.
Insiteful came next, in 2015.
Then eCommerce Circle, with Chris McLean.
I won’t pretend running your own store is easier.
But you choose the customers, and the hours around the people you love.
I’ve been in the room with Aussie founders every day since.
02 · The record
Paul Warren is a Melbourne ecommerce founder. He started Warcom at 17 in 1998 and sold it to ASX-listed Shoply Limited in June 2014. He founded Insiteful, a Shopify agency, in 2015, and co-founded eCommerce Circle with Chris McLean in late 2023, where he has coached 400+ Aussie Shopify founders. He co-wrote the book More Orders.
For the record. Melbourne, Victoria.
Read the ASX announcement, 12 June 2014 (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
Every line on the tape is linked to its source. Nothing on it is an estimate.
SubtotalSince 1998. Still open.
Receipt attached: ASX announcement, 12 June 2014 (PDF). Source: ASX announcement 42q51zz9jyqk18, 12 June 2014, checked 3 September 2026 (opens in a new tab)
Doc 42q51zz9jyqk18 · asx.com.au. Source: asx.com.au, the original release (opens in a new tab)
Codes are links to the source.
paulwarren.com.au
03 · What I believe
You don’t have a traffic problem. You have a conversion problem.
Growth is a structure problem before it’s a marketing problem.
Know what’s actually stuck before you spend a dollar fixing it.
Sequence matters. Don’t strengthen a layer that’s sitting on something unstable.
Fewer things done properly compound faster than everything done at once.
Strategy without execution is just a vision board.
If the plan needs your health or your marriage to fund it, it isn’t a growth plan.
Running an ecommerce business can be the loneliest thing in the world. Get in a room with people who are doing it too.
04 · What I’d fix first
Four questions, one per foundation. Answer them straight and I’ll tell you where I’d start.
In order.
Answer the four and I’ll tell you where I’d start.
That’s the twenty second version. The More Orders Scorecard™ is 200+ considerations and names the one thing capping the rest.
What I’d say about that on a call
Answer the four and I’ll play you what I’d say about it.
Start with Stock. Not ads.
If you don’t know your true margin, every dollar of ad spend is a guess. Get margin, cash and fulfilment honest first. Everything else sits on it.
Start with Story. Not ads.
If your team can’t describe the customer the way you do, the ads can’t either. Nail who it’s for before you pay to reach them.
Start with Store. Not ads.
You don’t have a traffic problem. You have a conversion problem. Test the mobile checkout this week, then buy traffic.
Start with Strategy. Not another channel.
If you can’t name the one channel you’d keep, you’re spread across all of them. Pick it, prove it with the numbers, then add the next.
The structure’s holding.
Four straight yeses on the twenty second version. The four foundations sit on ten engines, and that’s where I’d look next.
05 · The work
Get Aussie Shopify founders more orders. The book was written for family-founded brands, and so is everything here. Not for you if you want someone to run the store for you, or you’re shopping for a hack instead of a system.
Start here
Start here. The More Orders Scorecard scores your store against 200+ considerations and names the one thing capping the rest. A free live workshop on Zoom, where I teach first and you decide. The Command Centre, 200+ GPTs and tools. And the Australian Shopify Group on Facebook, moderated by the Insiteful and eCommerce Circle team.
Seven-day trial
Daily live coaching, Monday to Friday, plus a private Slack. Seven-day trial. No application.
Most weeks.
Application only
For Aussie Shopify founders doing $40K to $500K a month, typically. One call a week with me and the coaching team, plus a private Slack. Application and invitation only. It’s a table you can sit at for years.
Sits on top of a Connect membership.
Done for you
The Shopify agency I founded in 2015. If you want the store designed, built and optimised for you by a team that has done it 200 times, this is the door.
06 · The book
How Family-Founded eCommerce Brands Are Growing Profitably From $500k a Year to $500k a Month (Without Losing Their Minds or Marriages)
Chris McLean and I wrote it in 2026. It’s the whole operating system in one place.
Plus the More Orders Scorecard, the More Orders Operating System™, the More Orders Command Centre™ and the More Orders Flywheel™.
07 · Watch
Cut from live coaching calls. No scripts.
08 · Start here
If you’re not sure what’s stuck, take the Scorecard. If you already know and you want the room, start in Connect. If you want it built for you, talk to Insiteful.
Nothing here is a course. It’s a room, a system, and people who do this every day.