Ep220 – Adam Ewart (Co-founder & CEO – Send My Bag) on bootstrapping Send My Bag from a uni side project to global service

The Startup Playbook Podcast Insights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep220 – Adam Ewart (Co-founder & CEO – Send My Bag) on bootstrapping Send My Bag from a uni side project to global service September 25, 2025 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep220 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Adam Ewart, the Co-founder & CEO of Send My Bag. Send My Bag is the international luggage shipping and relocation platform used by travellers and businesses around the world. Adam’s story is a fascinating one. From building a global company out of a small town in Northern Ireland, to turning PR into a powerful growth engine, to deliberately bootstrapping even when VCs came knocking, his journey is full of practical lessons and hard-earned insights. In this episode we dive into: How he turned PR into one of his biggest growth drivers Why he chose to bootstrap despite inbound investor interest The challenges and opportunities of building a large global business out of Belfast Timestamps: 00:02:15 Adam’s early entrepreneurial roots and family business influences 00:07:00 Why Adam never wanted a traditional job 00:08:10 Using part-time wages and student loan to fund ventures 00:10:45 First experiments: Middleman Mobiles and FillAJob.com 00:13:30 The idea for Send My Bag 00:18:20 First customers: student shipping during summer holidays 00:27:00 From domestic student shipping to international expansion 00:29:00 Spotting the airline baggage fee opportunity and PR growth 00:34:00 Leveraging free publicity: Dragons’ Den appearance 00:40:15 Expanding into the U.S. market and securing media coverage 00:45:30 Building Send My Bag into a relocation and global logistics service 00:52:00 Lessons learned on scaling, growth and resilience Our partners: A big shout out to our long-term partners for the show: Scendar Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com Vanta Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on. Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time. The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount. Links mentioned: The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator Adam’s links: Send My Bag Adam on Twitter/X People mentioned: Grant Carmichael Companies mentioned: FillAJob.com (no longer active) Dragons’ Den (BBC) American Airlines Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected] @RohitBhargava7 (Twitter) /rohbhargava (LinkedIn) @rohit_bhargava (Instagram) My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep220_-_Adam_Ewart.mp3 Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed Subscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep220 – Adam Ewart (Co-founder & CEO – Send My Bag) on bootstrapping Send My Bag from a uni side project to global service appeared first on Startup Playbook.