When Beck Williams took the CEO job at Seed & Sprout in 2022, she inherited a Byron Bay sustainability brand in decline. Covid had drained the tank, the Northern Rivers floods had rattled the team, and there was a warehouse quietly filling up with bread boxes nobody wanted. Four years on, the plastic-free lifestyle brand founded by Sophie Kovic turns over $30 million. This episode is how she pulled it off.

Beck didn't arrive from another sustainability startup. She came up through corporate, with an apprenticeship at GM Holden, a transformation role at Mercedes-Benz and a stint at Thermomix, and that background shaped everything about how she rebuilt the business.

In this episode, Beck sits down with Nathan Bush for a masterclass in turnaround discipline. We get into why she started with people instead of spreadsheets, running a one-on-one with every single person in the business in her first 48 hours. She breaks down "bread box gate" and how 18 months of dead stock cleared in six weeks without slashing prices, why the team tests new products in pilot runs of just 500 units, and how they separate a quality customer from a cheap one using AOV, second-purchase timing and cross-category buying. Plus the science behind those deliberately odd 8, 9 and 11 percent discounts, why owning a $2 fuel surcharge out loud built more trust than hiding it, and how the founder-CEO partnership with Sophie actually survives when most don't.

Brands and tools mentioned: Seed & Sprout, Thermomix, Mercedes-Benz, GM Holden, Frank Green, KeepCup, Lifetimely, Klaviyo, Shopify

This episode is brought to you with thanks to our partners:
🛍️ Shopify → https://www.shopify.com/au
📧 Klaviyo → https://www.klaviyo.com/au/
Connect with us on LinkedIn:
👤 Beck Williams → https://au.linkedin.com/in/beckwilliams
👤 Nathan Bush → https://au.linkedin.com/in/nathbush
👤 Rosa Willis → https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosa-clara-willis-23761066/
🎙️ Want to be a guest or sponsor on Add To Cart? → https://www.addtocart.com.au/contact
📩 Sign up for the free Add To Cart newsletter → https://newsletter.addtocart.com.au/subscribe
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Their stores are gorgeous. Their emails? "Bread and butter."

Lachi Agnew on the gap most brands miss.

Retail got elevated. Email didn't. Same brand, two standards.

The fix: first-party data. 80% of luggage buyers are buying for a trip.

So a week before you travel: "so excited for your trip," + packing add-ons.

Your emails should feel like your best store.

🎙️ More like this at addtocart.com.au

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"Every brand fakes heritage. You actually have it."
Jess Hatzis on winning Gen Z with a 134-year-old brand.
They love nostalgia for a time they never lived through. They're chasing meaning.
So don't hide the age. Lean in.
"Your great-great-grandmother wore these." Not old. Vintage.
🎙️ More like this at addtocart.com.au

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Loyalty and a loyalty program aren't the same thing.
Nathan Bush:
Discounts are fine. Until the discount becomes the hero.
Find every reflex discount in your flows. Anywhere a code is doing the relationship's job. The program is just the container. Fill it with what your brand stands for, not what you can afford to discount.

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