Ben Fisher✨

Founder @ Rodeo and Fractional CTO to 8-figure DTC brands, sharing learnings as a Full-stack Coder, Designer and Shopify Expert

My friend Paul says I'm a "Human Zapier." That checks out. 

I'm a solid programmer and a decent designer, but they're really a means to an end: I love to build things and solve business problems. 

I'm a product person, a technologist, and an entrepreneur at heart. 

My superpower is at the intersection of tech + design + automation/optimization. And I love dtc ecomm.

I get a DISGUSTING amount of satisfaction by eliminating inefficiency. And I do it through building software tools.

I am obsessed with Systems Thinking and love to experiment with new ways to connect disparate systems.

I won't stop until we've got a deceptively simple solution that's damn fun to use.

**

For the past 10 years, I've built "commerce enablement" tools in the Shopify ecosystem that help DTC brands make more $$$.

With CartHook, we brought post-purchase upsells to the Shopify ecosystem and worked directly w/ Shopify to add it natively. 

CartHook processed > $1B GMV and added $250MM/year in revenue through its post-purchase upsell tech. It was acquired by Pantastic in 2022.

At Rodeo, we released one of the first native Shopify subscription apps (acquired by Recharge) and pivoted to a LTV Growth platform that originated as a small feature. Ultimately, wound it down as Shopify actively started building a solution themselves.

I'm on a mission to build damn good tools that help you make more money and have fun doing it.

Co-founder, Technical CEO

Ben Fisher 🏴‍☠️

Playing w/ AI + Automation | Prev @Rodeo, @CartHook (trusted by AG1, Four Sigmatic)

Deeply researched product, growth, and career advice

My biggest takeaways from Stewart Butterfield:

1. Product design is about creating understanding, not removing friction. Teams obsess over reducing friction and removing steps, but 70% to 80% of product design challenges are actually about helping people *understand* what your product does and what to do next. Users arrive barely interested and confused about what you offer. If they can’t quickly grasp what they’re looking at, they’ll leave. Making it easier to do confusing things just gets users to the exit quicker. The mantra should be “Don’t make me think,” not “reduce friction.”

2. You’re not selling features—you’re selling outcomes. Nobody wants a saddle; they want to go horseback riding. Nobody wants a hammer; they want something built. People understand cars and beer without explanation, but new software needs an explanation of both what it is and why they should want it. Slack wasn’t selling messaging features—it was selling better team coordination and reduced email chaos. If you can’t articulate the transformation your product creates in people’s lives, you’re just listing features.

3. Organizations naturally fill with fake work that looks exactly like real work, what Stewart calls “hyper-realistic work-like activities.” Meetings to preview deck slides, analysis of tiny feature differences, elaborate processes around insignificant decisions. People aren’t lazy; they’re responding to having more time than valuable work to do. Leaders must continuously ensure there’s enough valuable work and explicitly say no to projects that can’t possibly generate meaningful impact.

4. Small conveniences create emotional connections that drive word-of-mouth growth. No one switches products because of a good time-zone picker or smooth password recovery, but these details make users love or hate your product. Slack grew largely because people who used it at one company would join a new company and advocate strongly for adopting it. That advocacy came from accumulated small delights, not major features.

5. The “owner’s delusion” explains why bad experiences persist everywhere. Restaurant owners create terrible websites even though they’ve experienced the frustration of visiting other terrible restaurant websites. Business owners assume visitors care deeply about their product, when in reality people arrive distracted, in a hurry, just above the threshold of caring at all. The solution is to regularly step back, be a normal person with limited time and patience, and honestly evaluate if your product makes sense.

6. Only pivot after exhausting all reasonable ideas. The right time to pivot isn’t when things get hard—it’s when you’ve genuinely tried every non-ridiculous approach and can coldly, rationally assess that the expected value has dropped below alternatives. Pivoting is humiliating because you’ve convinced investors, employees, and users of a vision you’re now abandoning. That emotional cost means most people pivot too quickly or too late.

StackedSP

We help tech startups achieve audacious goals by stacking their teams with champions.

Founder & CEO

FounderProject

FounderProject is a new type of venture fund run by students investing in student startups.

Real Ventures

Real Ventures is Canada's largest, and most active seed stage venture fund.

Venture Capital

Ex-VC of early stage startups. Then founded FounderProject, a venture fund run by students investing in student startups. 

The problem? The fund didn’t materialize as I’d hoped, and that hit hard. 

Yet, amidst the disappointment there was real impact. Hundreds of startups took flight, thousands of startup jobs were created, and the VC world took notice.

It became clear to me: while the right funding matters, the right talent can make or break a startup. That insight led me to create StackedSP, a talent firm for venture backed startups.

Fast forward a decade, StackedSP has helped founders and their startups hire thousands - from founding employees, to leaders. Today, those startups are industry leaders and have raised billions from top investors.

But it's not just about the hires. I actively invest in tech startups, and am a limited partner in venture funds. And, building community is crucial. 

Enter Unstacked Startups – a hub for startup founders and talent. There's a podcast, live events, and a newsletter called FounderMail.

My mission? Empower founders, and startups to build a better future.

Ilan Saks

Startups don’t run on process — they run on people.

One of my favorite moments with Ruchi Varshney (ex-Dropbox eng leader, now co-founder of Maple) was when she broke down what talent actually means inside a high-velocity startup:

“Talent is the lifeblood of the company."

She also said something that every founder or leader should consider:

“Assume a default position of trust and rule by exception.”

Her take on early hires?
Generalists. High-grit operators. People who “flow like water” and fill gaps you weren't aware of.

Very insightful from someone who has scaled both a 200-person org and an early stage startup.

Full episode is live.
#UnstackedStartupsPodcast #HighAgencyTalent

Unstacked Startups & StackedSP | Backing founders & helping them hire elite talent ⚡

Hiring for raw attitude beats chasing nice resumes—every. single. time.

Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of acquire.com), nails it: “Attitude → Motivation → Skill —in that order.” You can train craft; you can’t teach optimism or intrinsic drive. 

Master the art of spotting high-potential talent—people who spike in curiosity, soak up ambiguity, and drive the room’s energy. 

Next time you’re interviewing, flip the script:

Does this person light up talking about solving gnarly problems?

Would I want to be stuck in a six-hour flight delay with them?

Could they teach me something new, tomorrow?

What's the most underrated hiring signal you’ve ever used? Give the clip below a listen!

Most startups don’t have a hiring problem.
They have a clarity problem.

In the last month, I’ve met dozens of founders who are trying to hire their first 5–10 team members.
Brilliant people building real products…
but struggling to attract the talent they need.

Every time, I ask the same question:
“Why would a top engineer or go-to-market hire choose your startup over the other 200 hiring this month?”

And that’s where things fall apart.

Great candidates aren’t just looking for a job.
They’re looking for a reason to bet their career on you.

If you can’t articulate:
• What you’re building
• Why now
• Why it matters
• And why the right person should care

…you’ll lose the talent you need before the process even starts.

At StackedSP, we keep seeing the same truth:
Top people don’t chase titles.
They chase conviction.

If your startup can communicate that clearly, hiring stops being a bottleneck—and becomes a competitive advantage.

Founders: What’s the one thing you wish more candidates understood about your vision?

#StartupHiring #Founders #EarlyStage #TechRecruiting #TeamBuilding

Loved this conversation with Ruchi Varshney — one of the sharpest minds in SaaS infrastructure and someone I genuinely enjoy learning from.

Billing isn’t glamorous, but it is critical to a SaaS company.

Ruchi breaks down pricing, AI in finance, and how to build trust-first teams in a way only she can.

Huge shoutout to Ruchi for making the time — grateful to have her on the Unstacked Startups Podcast.
🎧 Full episode: https://lnkd.in/eR8w5k3Y

 #UnstackedPod

“Billing is the heartbeat of SaaS.”

On this episode of Unstacked Startups, we sit down with Ruchi Varshney, co-founder of Maple and former Dropbox engineering leader, to talk about:

• Innovative pricing models
• AI’s role in finance
• Building trust-first startup teams
• What early-stage founders get wrong

This one’s for SaaS leaders, CFOs, and product minds rethinking what billing can (and should) do.

🎧 Listen now: https://lnkd.in/eR8w5k3Y

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Ilan Saks

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The Battle

Ben Fisher✨

Ilan Saks

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Ben Fisher✨'s LinkedIn Performance

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