I'm Liam Byrne,
The condensed version: I'm a person obsessed social worker who found a passion helping people in business to make a positive impact. After understanding a products life starts before you sell/buy it, and after it is wasted. A brands responsibility is not just increasing $, it is using the power to make positive change.
The longer version:
Based in Melbourne, and growing up on the sunny Gold coast, Australia.
I started off my unconventional resume and adventure as a social worker with a lot of care for people which quickly turned into a passion for motivating those people to reach their own goals.
To help get through the carer fatigue (very real burnout) I found my passion for design and decided to start a side hustle (thesundayco.com) selling enamel pins with my designs. In brief it went really well and as I built confidence, I went full-time, hired a small team and toured with my fellow geek community at conventions. Connecting with a community and finding my permission to be my normal weird self really changed me for the better.
I will always remember my first stand and how nervous I was... I literally told myself that I was never going to get back my convention money or try something so silly.
After some success offline I made myself a very basic website online through Shopify after a lot of research and with a belief it was going to work, at least for all the customers who said they "would buy later". I was surprised to see most customers did buy online (never doubted you haha) and they would share it with their community.
My little Shopify website after a lot of hard work and learning quickly became a big part of my side hustle (now more a small business) and I was hooked to make it better. I remember getting travellers fatigue (I was gone 30 weekends a year... Why did I even pay rent anymore? haha) thinking what if my online really took off and I didn't have to travel so much?
I went to work and thankfully it grew!
Fast forward a few years and I was looking for a new adventure and a way to use everything I had learnt and far too frequently gave everyone free help with :). I sold my first business, moved to Melbourne (my version of "the big city") and got ready to explore what else was out there.
Through looking for my next adventure, Shopify Plus (Shopify enterprise customers) reached out to me, they just decided to grow into Australia and they wanted someone "merchant obsessed" who could help companies grow and improve. I was nervous and almost declined but one of the "Shopifolk" (internal name for Shopify employees) who become one of my best friends, said he saw my potential and really wanted my passion for merchants to drive the team, so I said yes!
Shopify Plus was an amazing opportunity and I grew so much, taking my merchant obsession to help seriously large customers just added more interest and problem solving. After almost 3 great years I was ready to take what I learnt and my passion to the world, but where to start?... I had a lot of great relationships across the world from travelling and had worked hard on creating an ethical manufacturing process for my company, maybe I should start there? What if I could help connect businesses and artists with ethical production and a big company buying power to actually bring down their costs, while also improving their impact? (so many questions)
Through my time at Shopify I noticed a huge shift in large brands focusing on upgrading to an ethical approach, experiencing massive growth and their customers rewarding their efforts, but also seeing other businesses which did not always have the resource of big companies, stuck in finding the cheapest option, often spending more, receiving the wrong products, facing long delays and being stuck with hidden costs.
The answer to solve this problem was the launch of Yourstuffmade.com, which started simply to help enamel pin lovers to make their designs, before growing into all products that I could develop ethically. Goodbandmerch.com came soon after this to specialise in band merchandise and events products, an important focus area due to the huge amount of waste.
Through focusing on our merchants and being merchant obsessed meant we grew fast. Talking with our merchants it was amazing to hear of the growth stories and customers feeling better about supporting them. To help merchants communicate their ethical awareness, I launched ethicallyproduced.org, a NFP dedicated to auditing ethical production and providing merchants certification.
The future is looking ethical and I am set on a positive impact, join, follow and great involved if this has inspired you :)
Thank you for making it this far, my story is now yours, and I would love to hear form you,
Liam Byrne
Founder, Linkedin
