It happens rarely, but somehow Linda (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindabustos/) was able to change Shiva's mind this podcast. And we got it ON THE RECORD.

What did she change his mind on? Linda "The Winna" Bustos brought some compelling conversation to the fact that company CAN differentiate in 'cookie cutter' websites (e.g. Shopify) in really, really creative ways.

We got into:

- The importance of copy when you're using a generic 'cookie cutter site' (e.g. Shopify templates)

- Letting your brand shine through to help you differentiate (including some hilarious examples of how some brands have accomplished this)

- Cool trends Linda has been seeing in ecom space

Featured Clip from Episode: Palace Skateboards has AMAZING copy

I have not laughed harder at website copy than Palace Skateboards. Whoever writes the copy for this site deserves a raise - holy shit they’re killing it. Maybe I DO need to skip rent this month to buy some of their shirts…

Check out the clip, and go check out their website:

https://shop-usa.palaceskateboards.com/

Latest Skit

People always conflate “Experimentation” and “CRO”. Shit, I do like all the time too. BUT if you had to force me to answer ‘what’s the difference’, here’s what I’d say:

• CRO: Filled with hacks. CAN work, but often times it’s people who think CRO is ‘best practices’ at scale.

• Experimentation: It takes the mindset of ‘optimization’ but applies more rigid scientific principles in place. Use data to inform on problems to then test and measure if that shit works.

The homie Paul Randall (https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulrandall/) acted in this one - make sure you’re giving him a follow!

Latest Meme

Thing on my mind

Diversity.

We know diversity in tech is something which needs a lot of work. And there are amazing people pushing for more of this over at Experiment Nation (https://www.experimentnation.com/), TLC (https://testandlearn.community/), and CRAP talks (https://craptalks.com/)

The ladies over at Women in Experimentation are doing something amazing - running an Experimentation Summit, which furthers this mission for diversity. I hope all of y’all go sign up for a ticket. It’s free. (https://www.convert.com/events/wie-summit/)

Bonus: I’m gonna be giving away some merch at random to attendees!

Bonus bonus: Shoutout to Alex Smolin for buying merch and promoting his love of losers on his car. Want merch? I still have a few Larges and XLs for the “I Test Button Colors” tees!!!

Things to go subscribe to:

• Podcast:

  • https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/from-a-to-b

• YouTube:

  • https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTYa5tWmFA9cvr_BSMSYyJw

• LinkedIn(s):

  • https://www.linkedin.com/in/shiva-manjunath/

  • https://www.linkedin.com/company/from-a-to-b-podcast/

• This newsletter, yo!