The Clearco Blog

Like a brick-and-mortar store, you can spend money on paid advertising to increase traffic. But another type of traffic, called organic search traffic...

Building a growing startup team is challenging in the best of times. In 2022, it’s even more difficult. 

Great ideas can appear out of nowhere. Others take longer to refine. Not long after being introduced to infrared technology...

Well, we’ve officially made it to 2022, and I’m not sure if congratulations or condolences are in order. Even though it might feel like we’re trudging...

Improving ROAS is easier said that done, so we've put together a guide to help. From choosing the right ad channels to optimizing your ads, we cover i...

How to successfully pitch your business to investors and walk away with funding.

Let’s face it; packaging returns are inevitable in the world of e-commerce. When you’re buying from a screen and not touching or trying on a product f...

As your business grows, you’ll be faced with many important decisions and challenges, one of them being when and how to fundraise. Talk to any entrepr...

You may have heard rumblings regarding Apple’s iOS 14.4 update, but its impact as it relates to your e-commerce advertising may only just be coming to...

For every high, there’s a low. 2021 brought fast and furious growth to the e-commerce space...

When it comes to Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM), planning is the name of the game

As a founder, you have so many things on your plate—making sure your product is perfect before launch, managing team members and finances, juggling ma...

Banks no longer have a monopoly in the lending market. More and more business owners are turning to bank loan alternatives because they simply don’t q...

True or false: You need a full business plan to successfully launch a brand.

Jordan Nodarse had built an impressive career for himself. He’d worked with several top DTC fashion brands and learned the ins and outs of the denim i...

When you’re poised to scale, but short on cash, there are few options: Sell assets. Sign for a high-interest loan. Give up equity in your business.

We all know the United Kingdom has a long tradition with tea. In recent decades, though, the drink’s popularity has seeped beyond its borders; in Nort...

Marketing moves fast. You hear your founder friends recommend TikTok, email marketing, and all kinds of complicated sales funnels, but when you go to ...

Which is more attractive to you: giving up control of your business or taking on some debt?

It’s a giant understatement to say entrepreneurship is hard.

Customer retention in e-commerce is becoming one of the most important things for brands to focus on.

The earliest banks can be traced back to Roman temples. Home to devout and honest monks, temples were thought to have an added level of security

For decades now, global supply chains have kept e-commerce going like a well-oiled machine.

We've all heard stories of companies running out of cash and having to close up shop.

It’s not always easy to ask for help. Pride and ego can get in the way, plus you just might not know where to look.

Humans need a sense of belonging to survive. We find it through connecting with others—our family, friends, and communities.

“Didn’t Black Friday 2020 just happen?!” A founder, probably

It takes a village to help businesses grow. Imagine all the businesses that could grow, but due to lack of support, decided to give up based on lack o...

There’s no way around it—when founders need funding, they need it fast.

Our partners at Omnisend analyzed over 10 billion email and SMS messages in their Ecommerce Statistics Report 2020, to show that lifecycle automation ...

There many forms of equity financing but it's not for every type of business. It's important to consider the pros and cons of each type before diving ...

Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) is an exciting time for e-commerce businesses. For one, consumers are primed to make big purchases and discover the b...

After the inevitable craziness of Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend, what should you focus on next? Let's talk about customer retention!

With a large number of brick-and-mortar retailers shifting to e-commerce, the stage is set for one of the largest online sales periods in history. So ...

Now that the entire Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend is digital, the online shopping space will not only be home to the existing e-commerce brands, b...

If you’ve ever researched traditional loans, you’ve likely come across a much faster alternative: merchant cash advances.

When most people think about business funding, banks come to mind. And there’s a reason for that: banks remain a major source of funding for businesse...

It’s 2021, and after a whirlwind of a decade it’s safe to say that social media has dominated the online space and taken society by storm. Social medi...

As a founder, there will be lots of bumps along the road. After all, no one said business ownership was going to be easy! One of the first challenges ...

Okay, so last year’s Black Friday season was one for the books: supply chain issues, consumers flocking to stores earlier than usual, and the explosio...

When you started your business, you likely first thought about what you were going to sell—be it a new product or service, or an improvement upon some...

When Catharine Arnston’s sister developed breast cancer, an oncologist recommended an alkaline diet as the best way to build her immune system. At t...

E-commerce brands compete for customers’ attention throughout the entire holiday season. Forward-thinking brands are adopting new marketing channels l...

I tried Google but it didn’t “work”. I hear this a lot. Advertising is seen as a fundamental need for all businesses, yet at the same time, it progres...

In the business world, cash is still king. Businesses need it more than ever to scale, expand, and change the world for the better.

From bootstrapping and crowdfunding, to VC's and banks - here are the 6 most common ways that e-commerce founders secure funding for their online busi...

Conni Zafiris, founder of online womenswear brand Zafira, was unsure of the best way to capitalize on her early growth. After signing up with ClearAng...

You’re browsing a website and start adding some items to your cart. You eventually get distracted and leave the site without making a purchase. Then, ...

The countdown to Black Friday is well underway, and consumers are already thinking about their holiday wish lists. Let's look at 5 deals that you can ...

You already know that you have a game-changing SaaS product. You were proactive in working out initial bugs and listening carefully to the feedback fr...

Shopify is a dream for business founders—it’s easy to set up and a great way to quickly get your product(s) on the market to start bringing in revenue...

If you ask an e-commerce business owner about their online sales and marketing strategy, you can expect them to mention Amazon at least once. In fact,...

With an increasing number of brands competing for shoppers on online and offline channels, investing in a customer retention strategy is now more impo...

When you hear “fail fast, fail often”, are you inspired or do you cringe?

When Amazon first introduced their patented 1 click buy system back in 2000 to circumvent shopping cart forms—so that you no longer had to enter your ...

Gone are the days where a business founder had only one option to get funding: the bank. In fact, we often talk about the different funding models ava...

The past 10 years have seen a boom in business startups. Much of the growth has occurred within the last five years with female entrepreneurs at the f...

So you want to start an online business, huh? With e-commerce platforms like Shopify and Amazon, starting a new business is a piece of cake. That be...

If you’re a small business owner, you’re probably already aware that traditional lending institutions aren’t known for rolling out the welcome mat to ...

There are many reasons why, as a startup business founder, you might turn to merchant cash advance (MCA) providers for funding. They offer a straightf...

Working capital, also known as net working capital, is a company's total assets minus total liabilities. Working capital indicates both the long- and ...

When some people think of direct response marketing, they conjure up the image of an infomercial presenter urging them to “call the number on your scr...

Ad platforms may have powerful targeting tools, prominent ad placements, and performance tracking tools, but they’re all mere novelties if you don’t h...

If you’re a small business owner, you may have come across the term merchant cash advance (MCA) and wondered whether it is a funding option for you. F...

You may have heard the buzz about creator marketing recently, and wondered to yourself how it differs from influencer marketing. Well, if that’s the c...

A lot of direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands share the ambition of going global. You’ve worked hard to scale from a local business to one with a national ...

Nowadays, inventory management systems seem to be working increasingly against founders, much to their chagrin. If you’ve ever spent over half of your...

Lorena Garciahad always been a busy entrepreneur, working in digital branding and running her own digital agency. After traveling the world empowering...

Even when all else is constant, forecasting demand can be a struggle even for the most experienced business founder. Throw in the uncertainty of the e...

Virtually all businesses, regardless of industry and size, benefit from a business credit card. They allow you to build a credit history, increase cas...

If you’ve read many of the pieces on the blog lately, you’ll notice a theme here: a lot of them have to do with alternative sources of funding. But tr...

As a business founder, it shouldn’t matter if your expertise lies in marketing or not—performance marketing is a concept you should grasp. After all, ...

If you’re a founder, you’re no stranger to cash flow problems. Anything from unexpected expenses and increased liabilities to downright emergencies ca...

Marketers can all attest to the rush experienced when a campaign is successful. All those long hours crafting bespoke content that speaks to an audien...

If you’re a founder looking to secure funding, chances are you’ve come across the term “invoice financing”. Also known as “accounts receivable financi...

In marketing circles, attribution is an infamously tricky beast to tackle. Prospects can take weeks, months, or even years to convert, and conversion ...

If only we had a nickel for every time we’d been asked this question! While in a dream world a one-size-fits-all marketing attribution model would wor...

As your business grows, you’ll want to “pull the lever” on different marketing channels. At its inception, you’ll likely start your marketing efforts ...

The terms “crowdfunding” and “peer-to-peer lending” often get confused as one and the same—and there’s a good reason for that. Both involve groups of ...

So you’ve gone to bank after bank for a small business loan, and they’ve all said “no”—for a multitude of reasons, such as a poor credit score or a la...

Entering a new market can be an incredibly lucrative and rewarding opportunity—if done correctly. Founders who identify a previously untapped market w...

Social media has evolved significantly from its inception roughly two decades ago. It’s no longer just a place to share photos and captions

As a founder, securing funding isn’t something to look forward to—it’s a necessary step to take when scaling your business.

Only about a third of new businesses survive their first decade. The way startup e-commerce businesses secure funding has changed drastically over rec...

In the hundreds — maybe thousands — of hours Michele, my team, and I spent both preparing for and meeting with potential investors for our Series C fu...

Google Analytics provides a wealth of information about your eCommerce site, visitors, and where they came from. This guide will teach you how to leve...

Accounting software for eCommerce differs to run-of-the-mill software, so choosing the right solution will come down to comparing a handful of key fea...

Not seeing results with your e-commerce conversion rate? You could have amazing content, but if your UX design isn’t up to par, you could fall flat. F...

With the pandemic accelerating the adoption of online shopping and throwing finances out of whack across the globe, we’ve seen a considerable surge of...

Lead nurturing campaigns are a cheap and efficient way to grow your business. Start by building one drip marketing campaign and monitoring results to ...

Build your email marketing program from the ground up. From how to choose an email platform to building an email list to and A/B testing for constant ...

The idea behind this budget-friendly, highly targeted strategy is to create hyperlocal content for a niche audience. Here’s 5 strategies to help you g...

The ultimate guide for e-commerce founders looking to secure funding for their business. From loans and credit cards, to venture capital, grants, and ...

All Jeremy Redman wanted was to build an app, but he didn’t know how to code. No matter who he asked, everyone said he needed a technical cofounder as...

We sat down with our partners to pick their brains by asking what they believe will be the coming year’s biggest, most influential trends. Here’s what...

Everything you need to know about pitching to VC's, securing bank loans, and revenue-share financing for your e-commerce business.

CEO Andrew D'Souza discusses Clearco and Silicon Valley Banks' new partnership: a powerful capital program for pre-venture startups.

Today, we’re celebrating our new capital program for Klarna, the leading global payments and shopping service for eCommerce companies. We’ll help Klar...