How BÆRskin built a composable stack with CTO Gus Fune
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Get the full episode here
TL;DR - What you'll learn:
- Why BÆRskin ditched monolithic ecommerce for a composable stack
- What it’s like to scale with 40+ microservices across markets
- How AI is helping push code to production (no dev handoff needed)
- How to approach build vs. buy for speed, ROI, and safety
- Why small experiments matter more than perfect migrations
“You’re going to make mistakes—just make them small and make sure you learn from them.”
— Gus Fune, CTO at BÆRskin Tactical
In this episode of Ecommerce Toolbox: Expert Perspectives, host Kailin Noivo speaks with Gus Fune, CTO of BÆRskin Tactical, about the journey from legacy tech to a fully composable MACH stack.
From surviving a failed replatform to building a multi-market ecommerce system with just four engineers, Gus shares lessons on scaling smarter, experimenting faster, and using AI to build like a team 10x your size.
🎧 Listen to the full conversation on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube
From chaos to composable: Replatforming the hard way
Gus didn’t just replatform BÆRskin—he rescued it.
“It wasn’t a monolith—it was a single PHP file maintained in Notepad.”
— Gus Fune, CTO at BÆRskin Tactical
After a failed migration to a SaaS platform with frequent outages, the team rebuilt their own ecommerce engine from scratch—in just 3 months. Why?
- Faster than scoping another enterprise vendor
- Too many critical needs (multi-market, multi-language, speed)
- MACH-style architecture offered flexibility without bloat
Why composable architecture was worth it
BÆRskin now runs over 40 microservices. That may sound heavy, but Gus says modular design made the stack more stable—not less.
“One night, we forgot to turn the database back on. Sales still came in. That’s the power of modular, event-driven design.”
— Gus Fune, CTO at BÆRskin Tactical
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Their system recovered without data loss, proving the value of:
- Decoupled services
- Event-based processing
- Self-healing infrastructure
Build vs buy: When to write it yourself
In a margin-sensitive business like apparel, Gus evaluates every tool based on:
- Cost
- Productivity
- Risk
“If we get it right, we only need to do it once. If a vendor gets it wrong, we have no idea how many times they’ll break it.”
— Gus Fune, CTO at BÆRskin Tactical
BÆRskin builds where they want control (like their 2-second checkout), and buys where risk is too high (like payments or compliance).
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Global ecommerce with local optimization
PopSockets doesn’t wait for virality—they build for it.
“Our product is a canvas. We tap into any niche online and drop designs that speak directly to those communities.”
— Gus Fune, CTO at BÆRskin Tactical
With a presence in over 70 countries and retail giants like Target and Best Buy, they’re turning everyday objects into micro-billboards for self-expression—and selling them everywhere people already shop.Supporting 40+ markets means dealing with:
- Local tax and fraud rules
- Market-specific payment methods
- Different customer expectations
Rather than custom-code for each country, Gus’s team:
- Uses orchestration layers across Stripe and PSPs
- Minimizes friction by limiting unnecessary payment options
- Tests each stack for conversion lift per market
Frontend strategy: React + Next.js + relentless refactoring
BÆRskin uses Next.js and React, not because it’s trendy—but because it lets them build and iterate fast.
“Most of our experiments fail. So we build fast, validate quickly, and revisit everything.”
— Gus Fune, CTO at BÆRskin Tactical
Their dev culture values:
- Out-of-the-box speed for MVPs
- Internal rebuilds for stability and performance
- Continuous re-architecture in response to real test data
AI-driven dev culture
Gus doesn’t just talk about AI—he’s deploying code with it.
“I’m pushing production code without touching it. The AI pulls the ticket, writes the code, creates a PR, gets reviewed, and ships.”
— Gus Fune, CTO at BÆRskin Tactical
His team uses AI for:
- Internal tools
- Engineering productivity
- Creative experimentation
- Even code review and delivery
Data integrity = experimentation confidence
With over 70% of tests failing (by design), Gus sees clean, aligned data as essential.
“The Data Team lives on the line between engineering and marketing. If two teams pull two numbers and disagree, you lose trust.”
— Gus Fune, CTO at BÆRskin Tactical
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BÆRskin's data team ensures:
- Consistency across dashboards
- Clean backfills when events are missed
- Transparent cross-team definitions of metrics
Advice to teams on legacy stacks: Start small
“Big turnkey migrations fail. Always.”
— Gus Fune, CTO at BÆRskin Tactical
Instead of planning for years, Gus recommends:
- Replacing high-impact components first (e.g., the cart)
- Parallel testing with rollback options
- Building internal confidence before touching checkout
“Get small wins. Learn from small losses. Fear kills momentum—experimentation drives it.”
— Gus Fune, CTO at BÆRskin Tactical
Final takeaway: Modern ecommerce requires modular thinking
Whether it’s microservices, AI-enhanced dev workflows, or testing marketing bundles on the fly, Gus Fune shows how even small teams can scale big—if they build smart and stay agile.
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