EP280 - Anker Innovations Head of Global Communications Eric Villines Eric Villines is the Global Head of Communications for Anker Innovations. Anker is one of the most successful brands to be started on the Amazon platform. In this broad ranging interview, we discuss the origin story of Anker, their evolution from early Amazon FBA seller to Global Omni-channel brand. Eric covers their incubator, Anker Innovation, and their Amazon FBA consulting service OceanWing. We also discuss his recent book, Get Funded!: The Startup Entrepreneur’s Guide to Seriously Successful Fundraising. Episode 280 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday. November 17th, 2021. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:00] Welcome to the Jason and Scot show this is episode 280 being recorded on Wednesday November 17th 2021 I’m your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I’m here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:15] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners Jason is a fellow Gadget addict one of our favorite brands that we love from consumer perspective is Anchor and then we also spend a lot of time here on the show talking about anchor because it’s a very interesting brand that is one of the few that we call kind of digitally native Amazon born so today on the show we are very excited to welcome Eric villines he is the head of Global Communications at anchor and is based out of Sunny Seattle Eric welcome to the show. Eric: [0:50] Thanks for having me we’ve also been having about two months of rain so we’re living up to our our cliche. Jason: [0:59] That for the last two months that might have sounded bad but being here in Chicago I have a feeling that rain is about to start looking pretty good to me. Eric: [1:07] Yeah means known cold and wind. Jason: [1:09] Exactly all of the above although it’s been pretty mild so far. Eric before we jump into all the anchor discussions we always like to get sort of a brief background about our guests and maybe you could tell us what your role is an anchor. Eric: [1:25] Sure so I run Global Communications at anchor Innovations which is essentially a fancy way of saying public relations. Which in time it’s sort of corporate Communications you could be crisis Corporate social responsibility and then obviously the most exciting part of what I do which would be product PR dealing with the media on reviews and, I’m getting the word out of on the cool gadgets we. Jason: [1:51] That’s awesome so does that mean you have one of everything. Eric: [1:55] I have two of everything. It’s a funny story I’ve worked in consumer electronics for a long time and I remember Steven Yang who hired me personally for the role, I remember I was in China and I said I want to make sure that I’ve got budget to give everyone on my team, you know one of the products and he giggled and I’m absolutely serious, we all have to you know live it and breathe it and love it and know the good and the bad aspects of all of our products because we’re talking with the media all the time so I kind of. I’m kind of insistent that everyone on my team has the products and then the other part is we all we can never run out of battery that’s like that’s like a major faux pas here, if I ever hear the words even coming out of my own mouth that my phone is almost out of juice that’s super bad as a charging company. Jason: [2:45] That does seem off brand I am I have a little bit of a fetish for your products and the thing I’ve noticed is every time I have a family gathering I get completely cleaned out. Eric: [2:57] Oh yeah there is. Jason: [2:58] So I yeah I didn’t realize you were in such a replenishment category but it’s ended up being one for me. Eric: [3:04] It’s funny because I