 | Episode Cheat Sheet |
EP650
03 AUGUST 2026
57 MIN LISTEN
Rebecca Williams
Chief Executive Officer, Seed & Sprout
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THE TL;DR
A brand in decline, a warehouse full of unsold bread boxes, and a team trying to recover from the Northern Rivers floods.
Enter Rebecca Williams in 2022: a turnaround specialist fresh from the corporate world of Holden and Mercedes-Benz.
Her first move wasn't interrogating the numbers. She started with people and rebuilt from there.
Four years on, Seed & Sprout turns over $30 million. Here's how she did it.
| Watch the Full Episode |
| From Bushy |
There are two kinds of leaders in ecommerce. The ones who see a business on fire and run a mile, and the ones who run at it. Rebecca Williams runs at it. She came up through turnarounds and transformations at Holden, then Mercedes-Benz, before she walked into Seed & Sprout in 2022 when the Northern Rivers were underwater and the business was in decline. Four years on, it turns over $30 million. This one is about what it actually takes to rescue a business and then grow it, alongside founder Sophie Kovic.
CHEERS, BUSHY
| 01 Skip to the good bits |
Tap any time code anywhere in this cheat sheet and the episode opens on YouTube at that exact moment.
Walking into a turnaround as the new CEO 05:06 The one-on-ones she ran in her first 48 hours 08:49 Bread box gate and unlocking the product team 14:11 Testing new product at just 500 units 19:01 Defining a quality customer in four layers 30:45 Empowering the team with AI, guardrails and all 35:37 Why the lifestyle shoots stay human, not AI 42:49 The fuel surcharge and radical transparency 46:16“There were certainly moments where Sophie and I thought we might not make it.”
— REBECCA WILLIAMS | Seed & Sprout 06:12
| 02 The Big Lesson |
STOP COUNTING CUSTOMERS, START GRADING THEM
The turnaround wasn't about getting more people in. It was about knowing which people were worth acquiring.
RULE 01 30:41
Define quality in layers, not headcount
A quality customer clears four hurdles: a healthy first-order AOV, a second purchase, a fast second purchase, and crossing into another category.
“You have customers who buy once and never come back, and you’re still paying the same CAC. Not a good unit economic stack.”
RULE 02 31:45
Find the products that create repeat customers
Using Lifetimely alongside Klaviyo, map which first purchases lead to a second, then funnel acquisition spend and bundles toward those, not whatever sells most today.
“We have a propensity model. It maps that first to second purchase, the intention to buy.”
RULE 03 24:15
De-risk by staying broad, not deep
Spread across lunchware, kitchen, travel and home means no single trend can sink you, the exact opposite of the bread-box problem that left a warehouse full of dead stock.
“We live in a problem-rich environment.”
Put the three together, and you’ll find your best customers to launch you into growth. Don't chase volume. Build a definition of a customer worth having and let it steer everything. Which products earn a second order, which bundles pull people across categories, and which trends you stay broad enough to survive. Get that right and a warehouse full of bread boxes never happens again.
300%
Growth in new customers since FY22. That is the engine behind the turnaround to $30M.
| 03 Steal These Tactics |
1
Run one-on-ones, never group sessions, when you inherit a team. Ask what they need, how you can help, and what success looks like. 09:22
2
Renegotiate MOQs with long-standing suppliers. Put products on pre-order first, then commit to volume once you have read the SKU and colour mix. 19:11
3
Engineer your discounts, don't randomise them. Those odd 8, 9 and 11% offers are a product walk-up from Beck's Mercedes-Benz days, built to guide customers through the range. 32:56
4
Frame AI to your team as empowerment, not replacement, and set clear data guardrails so nobody pastes customer lists or named plans in. 36:49
5
Get ahead of cost increases. Seed & Sprout added the fuel surcharge to the product page and had the founder explain it on social media. 46:16
| 04 The Stack |
The analytics tool Seed & Sprout runs alongside Klaviyo to map first-to-second purchase and identify which products create repeat customers.
Powers the brand's email and retention flows, optimised by season and by which bundles convert.
The store platform, with the team having moved to Shopify 2.0 while deliberately keeping their lifestyle imagery front and centre.
The team's preferred AI tool for stress-testing assumptions and building scenarios ahead of their monthly S&OP meeting.
| 05 If This One Landed |
EP587
Proud Poppy's Growth Breaking Point: The Decisions That Saved the Business
Beck's honesty about the moments they thought they might not make it echoes here. A refreshingly candid look at what scaling a sustainable fashion brand to $20M really costs in stock, cash flow, and pressure, and why the community pulled it back.
EP507
Roger Lee from Brand Collective
Beck talks constantly about getting the team set up correctly for success. This one lands the same truth from a multi-brand perspective: scaling isn't about doing more; it's about smart, efficient growth with the right tools in place.
EP202
A Good Sleep Guaranteed: The Eva Story
The fuel-surcharge transparency play is really about trust. This B Corp homewares brand built its entire proposition on a bold, trust-first customer promise: a 365-day money-back guarantee and the confidence to stand behind it.
| Pass It On |
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| Continue the Conversation |
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