The Great Australian Hustle - Ruslan Kogan, Co-Founder and CEO, Kogan.com [S6.E7]

Scaling Up: Lessons From The World's Best CEOs and Founders

Ruslan Kogan, the CEO and co-founder of Kogan.com (ASX:KGN) is the guest on this episode of 'Scaling Up'. Kogan.com is Australia’s largest pure play online retailer with over $1b in sales. Many listeners over the years would have no doubt been introduced to Kogan.com via their incredibly successful own brand electronics business that catapulted the business to a size and scale that has allowed them to enact a phenomenal e-commerce playbook. Aside from expanding their direct to consumer product offering, Kogan.com has also been able to drive greater efficiencies and value to customers across a range of service verticals.
Ruslan’s story in many respects mirrors Kogan.com’s story – bootstrapped and always thinking entrepreneurially as to what is required to succeed in any given moment.
This episode also dives into all the big ticket decisions that any e-tailer has to face - from how to acquire customers cheaply, as well as the importance of best in class logistics and what that looks like, be it warehousing, fulfillment or freight.
Ruslan is character, a true entrepreneur in every sense, and someone who has changed the retailing landscape in Australia for the better.
We are also now releasing transcripts of each episode, to find them, you can click through the show notes, or find all episodes on our website. https://www.tdmgrowthpartners.com/insight/
Show Notes:
Ruslan’s upbringing in Belarus and the formative nature of immigration guiding his entrepreneurial spirit (3:10)

Kogan founding story (7:08)

The early years of Kogan with a bootstrapped and presale funded business model (8:43)

Ruslan’s unique strategy to create customer attention by engaging with the enemy (12:32)

Kogan’s diversification across new verticals through partnership with service adjacencies (18:11)

Success of the Marketplace and Kogan First program, transforming Kogan into a platform business (22:10)

Maintaining best in class in bound logistics in the e-commerce industry (26:51)

Proliferation and efficiency of robotics and automation in warehousing (30:21)

Launching a last mile logistic service in the pandemic and the transition back to external courier services (33:14)

Understanding and optimising for your unique core position and competitive advantage (36:16)

Initial hiring tactics e.g., only accepting CVs from Gmail accounts to filter for logical and analytical competencies (38:30)

Expectation to ‘reply all’ in work email chains, building a culture of transparency and accountability (44:11)

How Kogan’s cultural values have scaled from the company’s inception (45:48)

This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.