Nicole Vanderbilt on how Bookshop.org is taking on Amazon through recommendations, not algorithms

Nicole, welcome to Always Take Notes.

It's fantastic to have you on the show.

We'd like to start with Bookshop.

You've been there since the beginning, so November 2020, I think.

What was the pitch to you then about the company and what appealed to you about the enterprise?

Well, first of all, thanks for having me.

It's great to be here.

Actually, I would turn that question around a little bit because I sought out Bookshop.

I'd had this career where I had spent a lot of time helping American internet companies expand overseas in the UK and around the world.

And I had just left a job at Etsy where I'd been there for eight years doing just that.

And I loved what we did at Etsy with small business.

But at my heart, I'm much more of a reader than I am a cushion cover lover, if I'm being really honest.

And so and as you can probably tell from my accent, I am originally American, although I've lived here for about 20 years.

I was watching what bookshop.org was doing in the U.S.

So they had started in January 2020.

And I got the kind of butterflies excitement in my stomach that I had not had in a really long time in my career because I thought it was finally a place where I could work with books and have really something to add.

Having been, you know, had this Internet career and having helped small businesses figure out how to work.

do well on the internet.

And so I actually reached out to the founder, who is a guy called Andy Hunter, who's based in New York, and said to him, I really love what you're doing.

When the time is right, I would love to play a role in helping the company expand overseas, particularly in the UK.

So it was really kind of the opposite.

I sought them out.

And at first he said to me, you are absolutely crazy.

We have our hands so full trying to help U.S. booksellers.

There's no way we have any time or space to expand overseas.