Timothy Erdman

Why this persona fits the audience

He runs a small direct-to-consumer home goods brand with two part-time helpers and keeps most growth tasks in-house. The site is on a custom Shopify theme, and he already experiments with basic popups, discount bars, and abandoned-cart messaging while watching ad spend closely and avoiding tools that add recurring overhead without a clear use case.

• Age: 37
• Location: Chicago, Illinois, US
• Occupation: Founder of a small e-commerce brand
• Income: $126,000/year
• Education: Bachelor's degree
• Company size: self + 2 part-time assistants
• Years in role: 4

“‘I’m not a ‘lifestyle brand’ founder. I’m a guy who figured out how to turn a hobby into a paycheck, and now I’m terrified to screw it up.’”

Timothy Erdman didn’t set out to be an e-commerce entrepreneur. At 33, after a layoff from a mid-tier advertising job, he built a wooden coffee table to pass the time. A cousin’s Instagram post about it led to three custom orders, then a Shopify store, and suddenly he was ‘a founder.’ Four years in, *Hollow & Grain* is his life—both the revenue and the identity. He prides himself on never taking outside investment (‘I don’t want to explain my numbers to anyone but my accountant’), but the grind is showing. His morning gym sessions are as much about energy management as fitness, and his apartment is cluttered with half-finished projects (a 3D printer he uses twice a year, a stack of branding books he ‘will get to’). Recently, he cut his ad spend by 30% after realizing his lifetime value wasn’t sustaining it, but the sales drop has him questioning positioning. He’s considering a newsletter to build a ‘real’ audience, but his last attempt fizzled after three issues. The one luxury he allows himself? His ‘founder uniform’: bespoke shoes from a Michigan cobbler that he justifies as ‘a write-off.’ At heart, he’s still the guy who rigged a pontoon boat to his apartment’s balcony to see if he could sell ‘float-ready’ home decor—it didn’t work, but he learned photoshop in the process. Now, his biggest challenge isn’t growth; it’s figuring out how to grow without becoming the thing he left behind.

Background & daily life

A day in their life

Timothy’s routine starts with brewing coffee using a pour-over set he designed but hasn’t sold. He checks *Hollow & Grain*’s dashboard (Sales? 2 overnight, both in the U.S. Good) while scrolling through e-commerce groups for ‘pop-up notification’ discussions. At 8:30 AM, he reviews the day’s tasks—top priority is tweaking the ‘Limited Stock’ popup copy (test 3 vs. the current 1). His part-timer messages about a customer complaint; he drafts a reply but sends it only after 20 minutes of filtering out any emotion. Lunch is a microwaved *Trader Joe’s* bowl eaten while watching a Shopify webinar. Afternoon is ‘admin hell’—lining up UPS pickups, updating inventory spreadsheets, and responding to a potential wholesale inquiry (he’ll research their site before replying). By 6 PM, he’s drained but forces in 30 minutes of woodworking practice (his current project: a ‘perfect’ sawtooth joint). Dinner is DoorDash; he watches *The Office* to decompress, then reads a chapter of *The Lean Startup* before bed. Every 10 days or so, he has a ‘deep work’ Saturday where he tackles big projects—last month, that meant finally fixing that broken megamenu in his Shopify theme.

Lifestyle

Timothy lives in a no-frills two-bedroom apartment in Lincoln Park that doubles as his office. His mornings are rigid: 5:30 AM wake-up, 30 minutes of resistance training, black coffee, and 10 minutes of email triage before diving into work. Weekends are for 'low-effort hobbies'—he buys furniture kits from IKEA but never follows instructions, and his attempts at gardening on the balcony are half-serious. He’s dating a marketing consultant in NYC they met at a Shopify meetup, but neither pushes for commitment. Money habits: He keeps 6 months of runway in a high-yield savings account, avoids credit card debt, and spends yearly bonuses on one ‘experience’ (last year was a solo trip to Japan). Social life is mostly virtual—in-person meetups are only for potential collaborators—though he hosts a monthly game night with other e-commerce founders where they critique each other’s sites over craft beer.

Work life

Timothy’s brand, *Hollow & Grain*, sells handcrafted wooden home goods with a focus on understated functionality. His two part-timers handle customer service and shipping while he manages everything else: ad creative (he’s learned to use Canva well enough to avoid Adobe), email flows (he built five A/B test templates he rotates quarterly), and inventory forecasting (spreadsheet-based, with color-coded alerts). His workday is split: mornings for tactical tasks (pausing underperforming ads, tweaking product descriptions), afternoons for strategic experiments (testing new popup copy or transplanting a high-converting Facebook ad to Google). He’s resisted hiring a designer—‘If I need a mockup, I sketch it myself’—but just caved and bought a second-hand Wacom tablet. Pressure points: His biggest cost is ads, where he’s obsessive about ROI, and he’s frustrated by Shopify’s recent API rate limits. His ‘big win’ was automating receipt emails but his ‘big regret’ was spending $20/month for two years on a CRM he barely used.

Relationships

Timothy’s parents, both retired teachers, still ask when he’ll get a ‘real job,’ though they admire his independence. His sister, a nurse, is his only close family member—she’s the one he rents out his old bedroom air mattresses to. His girlfriend pushes him to delegate more, but he dismisses it as ‘not understanding bootstrapping.’ He trusts a small circle of founders online, especially a fellow Shopify store owner from Toronto who vetted his supplier. His greatest influence right now? A YouTube channel called ‘Lennon, Laptop, & a Loophole’ that demystifies e-commerce hacks without the aspiration porn.

How they decide

Uncomfortably cautious. He’ll A/B test framework colors for a week but impulsively buy a $500 tool if it promises to save him 5 hours/month. Research-heavy on everything but personal indulgences (like his latest splurge, a vintage Rolex ‘to celebrate hitting $100K’). Avoids cold DMs but will respond to public tweets with meticulous feedback.

How they sound

Speaks in short, precise sentences with a midwestern affect. Avoids jargon unless it’s acronyms (LTV, ROI). Uses ‘quoted air quotes’ sarcastically. Hates corporate language (‘synergy’ makes him cringe). Occasionally lapses into e-commerce shorthand (‘We’re dipping into our acquisition costs’) but will clarify if he senses confusion. His humor is dry, delivered with a deadpan ‘Well…’ when something’s absurd. Never says ‘I’m busy’—it’s ‘I’m spread thin.’