My guest for Ep220 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Adam Ewart, the Co-founder & CEO of Send My Bag.

Send My Bag is the international luggage shipping and relocation platform used by travellers and businesses around the world.

Adam’s story is a fascinating one. From building a global company out of a small town in Northern Ireland, to turning PR into a powerful growth engine, to deliberately bootstrapping even when VCs came knocking, his journey is full of practical lessons and hard-earned insights.

In this episode we dive into:

• How he turned PR into one of his biggest growth drivers





• Why he chose to bootstrap despite inbound investor interest





• The challenges and opportunities of building a large global business out of Belfast

Timestamps:

• 00:02:15 Adam’s early entrepreneurial roots and family business influences





• 00:07:00 Why Adam never wanted a traditional job





• 00:08:10 Using part-time wages and student loan to fund ventures





• 00:10:45 First experiments: Middleman Mobiles and FillAJob.com





• 00:13:30 The idea for Send My Bag





• 00:18:20 First customers: student shipping during summer holidays





• 00:27:00 From domestic student shipping to international expansion





• 00:29:00 Spotting the airline baggage fee opportunity and PR growth





• 00:34:00 Leveraging free publicity: Dragons’ Den appearance





• 00:40:15 Expanding into the U.S. market and securing media coverage





• 00:45:30 Building Send My Bag into a relocation and global logistics service





• 00:52:00 Lessons learned on scaling, growth and resilience

Our partners:

A big shout out to our long-term partners for the show:

Scendar 

Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com

Vanta

Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount.

Links mentioned:

• The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator

Adam’s links:

• Send My Bag





• Adam on Twitter/X

People mentioned:

• Grant Carmichael

Companies mentioned:

• FillAJob.com (no longer active)





• Dragons’ Den (BBC)





• American Airlines

Feedback/connect/say hello:

• Rohit@startupplaybook.co





• @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)





• /rohbhargava (LinkedIn)





• @rohit_bhargava (Instagram)





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