Mark Smith
Escala is on a mission to professionalize the eCommerce space.
We work with eCommerce founders to help them build robust, sophisticated operations for scale or sale.
Think of us as the Mckinseys of eCommerce.
Tell us about yourself?
I grew up in Australia and moved to Israel when I was 19 years old.
I served 4 years in the military in Israel as a combat officer, and brought that level of systems and process to my first job, an eCommerce brand.
After joining the brand and scaling it to $7M, we exited the brand at its peak and started Escala.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
The plane will never be 100% ready. You will always be building the plane while flying, so don’t ever wait for perfection.
What problem does your business solve?
Most eCommerce founders started their businesses as side-hustles, and very often, become extremely successful very quickly.
They inevitably run into glass ceilings, with too much to do, not enough expertise, and no knowledge on how to build a robust business system.
Escala helps these companies transition from bedroom hustles to sophisticated operations that are ready for scale.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
Escala firmly believes that eCommerce businesses should be extremely scalable operations, and enable the founder to enjoy the work/life balance that they dreamed of when they left their corporate jobs.
In too many cases, extremely successful business owners are inundated with urgent tasks, to the extent that they can’t even take a vacation.
We are on a mission to change this, and help founders work ON their business, not IN it.
What is your magic sauce?
Escala places the same level of attention to detail in our consulting projects as Mckinseys, Bane, or Accenture.
However, all of our consultants are from the Philippines, making our projects affordable for million dollar companies, not only billion dollar companies.
Our consultants are all ex-Big 4/3 consultants, who have developed expertise in eCommerce through Escala.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
Our aim is to totally democratize the knowledge required to professionalize an eCommerce business, through course, consulting engagements, masterminds, events etc.
We will have achieved success if eCommerce founders in 2027 don’t want to scale without first speaking to Escala.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
Escala is bringing an existing industry (Business Systemization) to a new industry. Most founders require expansive education just to understand what it is we do, before they even decide if they want to engage.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
We’d love to speak to anyone in the Amazon/eCommerce space who feels that they work too much IN their business, and not enough ON their business.
They can reach out to us through our website, or through LinkedIn.
