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Tony Nash

Tony Nash

Founder & CEO of Booktopia

1 episodeFeb 2020

About Tony

Tony Nash - Founder & CEO of Booktopia

Tony founded online book retailer Booktopia and Booktopia Publisher Services.

Booktopia was established in Australia in 2004. Now, turning over more than $130 million a year, Booktopia has been listed in the BRW's Fast 100 eight times and has been a finalist 7 times in the Telstra Business Awards for the Medium-Sized Business Category, winning in 2014 and 2018.

Booktopia was ranked as the 15th e-Commerce website in Australia in the 2020 Power Retail All-Star Bash. Tony personally won the Industry Legend Award alongside Kate Morris from Adore Beauty.

Tony Nash: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nashtony/

Booktopia: https://www.booktopia.com.au/

In Tony’s words

Verbatim from the transcripts — each quote links to the moment.

“Booktopia, they're the Amazon of Australia.”
Ep 618▶ 1:27
“For every dollar that we spend, we must measurably be able to get $10 of revenue. And if you can't measure it, we don't do it.”
Ep 618▶ 29:01
“knowledge is indestructible and the most— the biggest return on investment you can get is by investing in yourself.”
Ep 618▶ 30:51
“You are not your car. You are not your girlfriend. You're not your boyfriend, your wife. You're not your kids. You are not your sports team.”
Ep 618▶ 37:39
“Booktopia needs to win, our customer needs to win, our supplier needs to win, and our employees need to win. If you can have everyone winning, then you've got a sustainable model.”
Ep 618▶ 49:00

Tony’s advice on the show

How fast should a growing company scale?

Nash recommends managed, controlled growth (Booktopia targeted roughly 30% annual growth for over a decade) rather than chasing every opportunity, to avoid overextending on orders and damaging customer trust.

How should a business approach marketing spend?

Nash recommends a strict rule: for every dollar spent on marketing you must be able to measurably generate $10 of revenue; if a marketing activity's return can't be measured, don't do it.

How can a business owner avoid tying their self-worth to their company's success or failure?

Nash advises founders to mentally separate themselves from their business the way you'd separate yourself from a car, relationship, or sports team allegiance—recognizing 'you are not your business' so that wins and losses don't trigger self-sabotage.

What makes a business model sustainable long-term?

Nash argues a business needs a 'win-win-win-win' structure where the company, its customers, its suppliers and its employees all benefit; models that squeeze any one group (as he claims Amazon and supermarkets do to suppliers/workers) are not sustainable.

How should authors approach preorders and bestseller lists?

Nash advises authors to create added-value incentives for preorders (bonus content, sessions, PDFs) and route sales through retailers rather than self-fulfilling, since only retailer-reported sales count toward bestseller lists like Nielsen BookScan.

Stories Tony told

The $10-a-day Google Ads origin of Booktopia

Ep 618▶ 11:27

Tony Nash recounts how his cheap brother gave him $10 a day to run Google Ads at night after discovering a white-label bookstore platform, leading to rapid revenue growth from a few thousand dollars in month one to $100,000/month within a year.

Cornering the market on a sold-out cookbook

Ep 618▶ 18:47

Nash describes buying all 200 remaining US copies of Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook (after an Oprah appearance sold out the print run) so Booktopia was the only Australian retailer with stock, illustrating their early stockless/opportunistic buying strategy.

Dropping out, traveling, and discovering personal development

Ep 618▶ 30:06

Nash describes scoring poorly in school, dropping out of university, working as a mailboy, then traveling the world for 3.5 years where he discovered personal development workshops including The Forum (now Landmark) and later Kiyosaki's Money and You course.

The Maserati and the loaner Fiat

Ep 618▶ 35:06

Nash tells an extended parable about a Maserati owner forced to drive a shabby loaner Fiat to an important meeting, using it to illustrate that you should not identify yourself with your possessions, relationships, or business.

The Jeff Bezos Kindle epiphany at Book Expo America

Ep 618▶ 43:33

Nash recalls watching Jeff Bezos discuss the Kindle at a 2008 industry event, feeling 'shattered' about the implications for physical booksellers, then working through the strategic reality over a walk and deciding ebooks would take years to meaningfully disrupt the market.

Gaming the bestseller list with the Barefoot Investor

Ep 618▶ 1:04:14

Nash tells how Scott Pape's direct-to-list preorder campaign for The Barefoot Investor generated 23,000 orders through Booktopia in one weekend, giving them 98.5% market share and making the book an instant bestseller by funneling sales through a retailer that reports to Nielsen BookScan.

Questions these interviews answer

Drawn from the episode transcripts.

How did Tony Nash start Booktopia?

In 2004, after discovering a white-label bookstore platform used by other Australian booksellers, Nash's brother gave him $10 a day to run Google Ads at night (9pm-2am) under the name Booktopia, selling books via a white-label site before the company eventually broke away to build its own platform.

From episode 618→
What is Tony Nash's philosophy on separating yourself from your business?

Nash uses a Maserati/loaner-Fiat metaphor to argue you are not your business, car, relationships, or sports team; maintaining that separation, he says, prevents entrepreneurs from self-sabotaging as their identity gets tied to their company's success or failure.

From episode 618→

Episodes with Tony

Every episode featuring Tony Nash on The Daily Talk Show.