Behind the Thinking: Andy Slater
From eBay hacks and Magento modules to building platforms and fixing fashion ops at scale
Welcome to Behind the Thinking - the series where we introduce the people behind Commerce Thinking and the not‑so‑typical routes that brought them here.
We’re featuring Andy Slater because his career isn’t linear. No neat LinkedIn arc. Just years of figuring things out - from automating eBay listings and building Magento add‑ons to co‑founding an integrations platform and, today, helping fast‑growing fashion brands untangle the messy middle of commerce.
If you’re looking for a neat origin story, you won’t find one. What you will find is someone who’s learned every layer the hard way - retail floors, codebases, product roadmaps, and the operational mess that lives between them. That mix is exactly why Andy is so effective today.
“I just kept building things until they worked”
Andy didn’t go to university. Sixth form wasn’t for him, so he taught himself to code, HTML/CGI first, then PHP. He landed a short agency stint as a PHP developer which proved he could ship real projects, but when a full‑time offer came, he surprised everyone by turning it down. Instead he threw himself into starting an e‑commerce business with a friend, convinced that selling collectables and in a bricks‑and‑mortar shop would make them millionaires.
It didn’t. But it did become a crash course in operations. Andy automated supplier spreadsheets, ingested tens of thousands of spare parts, synced availability to eBay (where at the time the eBay algorithm meant more listings = more sales), and learned the hard truths of margin, turnover, and systems that refuse to stay in line. Five years later he’d earned almost nothing, but he’d banked the instincts he still uses: automate the drudge, fix the data, and design for reality, not theory.
From Magento modules to product thinking
In 2010 Andy joined Juno as a Magento developer. There he churned out paid modules, payments, POS, niche add‑ons, and quickly discovered the hidden pain of keeping them alive. Every time Magento or a third‑party API changed, the modules broke. That relentless cycle of patching and re‑patching was frustrating in the moment, but it planted the seed of a bigger idea: integrations needed to live outside the store, in a managed service that could be maintained centrally and improved continuously.
It was at Juno that Andy first met Luke, who at the time was working at Barclaycard trying to drive adoption of their online payment service. Andy had built the Magento integration for Barclaycard, and the two were introduced to explore a potential partnership between Juno and the bank.
That connection proved pivotal. Their conversations around these brittle integrations became the spark for what would eventually become Patchworks. Luke soon stepped away from his role at Barclaycard to join Andy on the journey, and together, along with Dave from Juno, they turned the idea into a company. For Andy, it was the shift from agency developer to product co‑founder.
Patchworks wasn’t just another job. It was a rocket ride of four years: early investment, a growing team, and a product that clients genuinely needed. Andy often says it was the first time he felt he was building something the market was already waiting for. By late 2018, despite traction, leadership differences meant he and Luke stepped away. It was a difficult call, but without that chapter there would be no HighCohesion, and no Commerce Thinking.
Side note: in the middle of all this, life for Andy got about as fractious as it could get. He sold his flat before the keys to the new house were ready and spent three months technically homeless - an experience that reset his tolerance for noise and theatre.
HighCohesion & Commerce Thinking: version two
They didn’t walk away from Patchworks with a fortune, but there was just enough to buy themselves some time. Andy and Luke set out to build something better: HighCohesion. The philosophy was deliberate; stand still, build an amazing product, and only then ship it. To fund that build, they created Commerce Thinking as a consultancy arm.
This time the gamble paid off. Commerce Thinking grew quickly, winning projects that gave them the cashflow to keep HighCohesion moving without outside investment. One of the most memorable early trips was to Barcelona, chasing a potential client. It led to unusual gigs, including a fashion retailer and even a magazine, the kind of left‑field work that proved the model could work. Those projects weren’t glamorous, but they gave Andy and Luke what Patchworks never had: control of their own runway.
Then COVID hit. A major client pivoted suddenly, revenue disappeared almost overnight, and the team had to contract fast. Painful as it was, it became the inflection point: from then on both businesses would stay lean, expert, calm, and laser‑focused on outcomes.
Andy first met Aran via Luke in early 2019, when he was working on a venture in gas trading with his brother. They clicked quickly: Aran brought a different temperament, one focused on structure and process, which contrasted with Andy and Luke’s more experimental style. When HighCohesion began to grow, they knew Aran was the right person to take the reins, someone who could put order around the product and delivery engine while they concentrated on strategy and client work.
Under Aran’s leadership HighCohesion matured into a well‑oiled product and delivery organisation with strong clients and case studies. Commerce Thinking stayed intentionally tight, later bringing in Dom and Maxime from Gymshark to deepen the technical bench.
What Andy brings that’s different
Andy isn’t here for buzzwords or theatre. He’s here to make systems work.
Full‑stack ops instincts - from SKU logic and POS realities to integration patterns and data contracts.
Product pragmatism - ship the thing that removes risk, not the thing that looks clever in a deck.
Commercial nose - he’s lived low‑margin e‑com; he’ll tell you what moves the P&L.
Calm in storm - he’s done the 14‑hour fire drills and built the tooling to avoid them next time.
The through‑line: fashion, speed, and the messy middle
Each chapter in Andy’s career added another layer: the retail grind of Currys, the automation and tight margins of eBay, the constant patching of Magento, the scale‑up ride of Patchworks, and the deliberate rebuild with HighCohesion and Commerce Thinking. Together, those lessons mean he knows what breaks when brands grow fast - and more importantly, how to fix it. He sits in the middle ground between business and engineering, translating one into the other and turning fragile processes into resilient systems.
Andy’s advice for operators
Learn spreadsheets properly - the pay-off is huge when you become a spreadsheet wizard - it’s applicable to any industry, any vertical and almost any department.
Automate the button‑clicking - If you have to do this thing twice, you should probably be thinking “I don’t want to this a third time” - it’s time to automate it.
Say yes before you’re “ready” - you’ll figure it out faster than you think and then you’ll enhance your skills to “figuring it out”.
Bridge teams - be the person who speaks both commercial and technical, every company needs one.
What’s next
Simply put, just solving real problems for brands moving at speed. Whether it’s re‑platforming key flows, reconfiguring WMS and POS, or building integration patterns that won’t fall over on Black Friday, Andy’s focus is the same:
building automated tasks and process in a simple way that breeds confidence and reliability in the brands ability to grow.
If your post‑purchase ops are creaking, your integrations feel fragile, or your teams are compensating for broken logic, Andy’s the person you want in the room.