Podcast Summary: The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan

Episode 619: Airline Charged Me $65 – So I Built a $250M Competitor | Adam Ewart

Date: January 1, 2026
Guest: Adam Ewart, Founder of Send My Bag
Host: Nathan Chan

Overview

In this episode of The Foundr Podcast, host Nathan Chan sits down with Adam Ewart, the founder of Send My Bag—a global luggage shipping startup now valued at $250 million and operating in 145 countries. Originating from a frustrating excess baggage charge, Adam shares how he grew Send My Bag from a $100 DIY website to an international logistics business, all while staying profitable and bootstrapped. The conversation is a masterclass in scrappy PR, automation, surviving crises (Brexit, COVID, regulatory shocks), and scaling a service business on sheer resilience and resourcefulness.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Origin Story: From Pain Point to Startup

• Adam’s Motivation:
  • “We were a couple of kilos overweight and get charged 50 quid as you said. Couldn't really believe it. … I saw other people in the queue for the check in also paying extra amounts and lots of people feeling annoyed about it.” (03:00)
• First Steps:
  • Adam saw an opportunity while leveraging experience from his previous musical instrument distribution business, knowing he could ship luggage much cheaper using freight networks.
  • Registered “sendmybag.com” and invested around £100 in a simple website with no coding skills.
  • Landed a spot on local TV via cold-calling journalists, which led to the first few dozen customers.
    • “100 quid, me blagging a bit of a TV interview and then onwards and upwards.” (06:51)

PR-Driven Bootstrapping and Early Growth

• PR as a Growth Weapon:
  • Leveraged local press contacts, young entrepreneur stories, and even Dragon’s Den (UK’s Shark Tank) not for investment but for exposure:
    • “My hope was that … I would get one of the 10 minute slots on the show, that would … give me the opportunity to talk about Send My Bag, just say Send My Bag as much as possible…” (10:06)
  • Used “failures” for further PR: “The day after the show aired, we were able to put out a bit of PR saying Dragon’s Den failure. But this investor has stepped in and sees the, the potential in Send My Bag.” (11:49)
• PR Advice for Founders:
  • “You have to try and find something which is interesting to … what the news or whatever program or newspaper may be, what they’re trying to achieve.” (13:04)
  • Crazy ideas (like an angry leprechaun costume) sometimes work, sometimes don’t, but “you just have to put yourself out there.” (15:47)

Scaling: Automation, Lean Ops, International Logistics

• Automation as a Key to Profitability:
  • Heavily invested in proprietary systems from 2014 onwards—customs processing, tracking, admin tools—that allowed scaling with a lean team:
    • “We have a customer service team of around 30 people and that team operates seven days a week … by just this constant drive to automate has, has really worked very well for us.” (22:20)
• Global Expansion Tactics:
  • Grew incrementally by piggybacking on existing international freight carriers, inserting themselves as value-added intermediaries (“we make it look like a very neat little package”) (25:10)
  • Most logistics remain outsourced to major carrier networks; Send My Bag specializes in the complex, ‘messy’ documentation and customer-facing support that major logistics firms avoid.
• Marketing Evolution:
  • Early days: “The most important thing to do is to get as much attention as possible for as little cost as possible. That’s where PR was great.” (17:32)
  • Now spends millions yearly on Google ads (much to defend against competitors bidding on branded keywords), TV, in-airport banners, and creative large-scale placements (“we took over the entire immigration hall at JFK”).
  • “The media owners will work with you and you just have to … I will go to the airport, meet the people who are selling the media so they know … we make these things happen.” (19:55)

Surviving Black Swans: Brexit, COVID, Regulatory Shocks

• Brexit:
  • Lost 40,000 annual shipments due to customs chaos between UK and EU.
  • “That destroyed a large part of our business. … But we have grown, even if only fractionally, every single year since Send My Bag was started. And we’ve made a profit every single year since.” (29:07)
• COVID:
  • Initially spiked as people rushed belongings home, then a six-week lull, then pivoted to helping repatriate personal goods—sometimes whole performing troupes (e.g., Cirque du Soleil).
  • Suffered years of profit-eroding air freight surcharges (“at one point it was costing us about 6 Aussie dollars a kilo … there was then another 180 odd dollars in surcharges, you know, so it was absolutely crazy”). (35:27)
  • Maintained full staff, survived by squeezing margins (“willing to go down to very slim margins … because we know that 42% of our customers tomorrow are customers who have used us before in the last five years”). (38:08)
• Unexpected Regulatory Changes:
  • U.S. customs changes and pauses on student visas (vital customer base) led to sudden drops in demand, but diversified markets buffered impact.

Founder Psychology: Focus, Resilience, and Opportunity

• On Serial Entrepreneurship and Focus:
  • Early years: chased many “hustles” (selling records, music books, importing, etc.).
  • The global nature of Send My Bag keeps things fresh and provides enough scope for “fun stuff” (e.g., sports sponsorships) without the distraction of totally new ventures.
  • “It’s nice that Send My Bag has this kind of global opportunity that allows me to do the fun stuff in different places without getting bored.” (43:37)
• On Overcoming Setbacks:
  • “Every experience that you have, every minor failure or major failure, it’s all a learning experience. … The harder you work, the luckier you’ll be in the sense that if you just keep plugging away…” (45:05)
  • Experiences compound, providing the “toolkit” for future opportunities.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Launching with Nothing:
  • “I had no skills when it comes to, you know, building, coding, anything like that. So done from a book basically. And yeah, we had a website, got a few customers, away we went.” (03:57)
• On the Power of PR:
  • “If you’re not going to put yourself out there, what can you do? So I just went for it.” (15:47)
• On Surviving COVID:
  • “During COVID we didn’t lay off one, one employee. So yeah, there’s definitely tough times, but you just gotta, you just gotta do what you gotta do to keep pushing through.” (31:54)
• On Pricing Challenges:
  • “We passed it on at cost, so we didn’t mark it up in any way. And in fact, we absorbed some of it as well. … Even if we don’t make any money tomorrow, that customer will be back to use us again.” (38:08)
• On Experience & Luck:
  • “You build up this piece of knowledge … and then it means that when you have the idea, when you see the opportunity, you have the ability now to execute on it.” (45:32)

Key Timestamps

• 03:00 – The “Excess Baggage” Incident and Initial Spark
• 06:51 – Launching with £100 and PR-Driven Customer Acquisition
• 10:06 – Dragon’s Den, Using TV for Brand Awareness vs. Investment
• 13:04 – Strategic Approach to PR
• 17:03 – Transition From PR to Scalable Paid Media
• 21:11 – Automation: Building Custom Systems for Lean Growth
• 25:10 – How Send My Bag Integrates with Major Logistics Networks
• 27:22 – 32:50 – Adapting to Crises: Brexit, COVID, US Regulatory Changes
• 38:08 – Managing Costs and Margins in Turbulent Markets
• 43:37 – Staying Focused as a Serial Founder
• 45:05 – Parting Advice on Resilience and Learning from Failure

Final Words of Wisdom

“You just have to keep pushing … every minor failure or major failure, it’s all a learning experience. … The harder you work, the luckier you’ll be.”
— Adam Ewart (45:05)

Summary Takeaway:
Adam Ewart’s journey shows that with grit, resourcefulness, and relentless pursuit of low-cost attention (PR), it’s possible to bootstrap a multi-national business—even in an operationally complex, crisis-prone sector. Founders should focus on customer experience, disciplined automation, and seize every learning, as the compounding effect of persistence and adaptability is invaluable.