My group and I had an opportunity to interview the founder of a student start up business here at BYU-Hawaii called Shaka Tribe. My questions are focused on finances as I was assigned as a CFO of our group. My first question was “what are some of your strategies to drive performance that can result in profitability?” I’m personally interested in learning their strategies as I am hoping in creating an online/e-commerce store in the near future. The founder of Shaka Tribe shared that they utilized the reach and followers of social media influencers that shares the same niche as theirs. I think that what they are doing is very effectively especially in today’s digital world. I have read an article about the importance of social media influencer in getting customers to buy your product. “Influencers are here to stay but how the world of influencer marketing looks and operates has changed a great deal in a short time, and in five years may be drastically different from today. Still, while there are some unique considerations to working with influencers, setting up a campaign is the same as most marketing campaigns: research, set a budget, determine goals, find your influencers and review and revise. Once you’ve gotten the rhythm down, you might find yourself creating additional types of influencer marketing campaigns. Success varies between brands so don’t give up if your first one is a failure. You might find that incorporating influencers into your marketing strategy is wildly beneficial to everyone.” Influencers shaped the digital space we have today. They are one of the strategies any company should alway look at in order to get great results in their businesses. I am pretty sure that Shaka Tribe will continue thrive and see success as they have great strategy they implement in their business. My second question was “How do you measure financial growth? What are the drivers you look at to measure it?” The founder of Shaka Tribe answered that they use an e-commerce platform called Shopify where it has a native analytics feature. The analytics feature of Shopify can tell you your sales, conversion rate, web visits and a lot more. These data can be helpful to any company to make decisions that benefit the overall trajectory of the company. Shopify's analytics and reports give you the means to review your store's recent activity, get insight into your visitors, analyze your online store speed, and analyze your store's transactions. Everyone can access the Overview dashboard and key financial reports. If you have an online store, then you can access Live View. If your store is on the Basic Shopify plan or higher, then you can access more reports.” The founder of Shaka Tribe shared that because of this feature they are able to know the things they need to focus and things they need to improve on their business. I was inspired by the interview we had with the founder of Shaka Tribe. I hope that I’ll be able to incorporate the things they do in their company to a e-commerce company I want to start in the near future.