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Making Your First $10K in Ecommerce · The Ecommerce Revolution Podcast

0:01
Welcome to today's episode of the e-commerce revolution podcast
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where we dive into
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the dynamic world of e-commerce and uncover the tools and
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tactics that empower
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SPEAKER_01: today's emerging entrepreneurs.
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SPEAKER_01: Our podcast is part of our community with the same name.
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The community is geared to providing emerging e-commerce
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entrepreneurs with courses,
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content and coaching to help you all launch and grow successful businesses.
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SPEAKER_01: Check us out at ecomrevolution.co.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: Let's get things started.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of the e-commerce revolution podcast.
0:42
Today we have a special guest who's no stranger to the world of
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e-commerce and innovation.
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SPEAKER_01: Alex Back is the founder and CEO of Couch.com,
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a company dedicated to showcasing unique furniture brands and
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the incredible people
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SPEAKER_01: behind them.
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SPEAKER_01: But that's not where Alex got his journey.
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SPEAKER_01: He previously founded Apartment 2B.
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SPEAKER_01: What a great name.
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SPEAKER_01: I love Apartment 2B.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: It's such a cool name.
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I feel like I need to know what Apartment 2B is and where it was,
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where that name came from.
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A direct-to-consumer furniture brand that grew from zero to get
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this a $40 million
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SPEAKER_01: business over 13 years.
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SPEAKER_01: Wow.
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All while bootstrapping and navigating the rapidly evolving
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e-commerce landscape.
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SPEAKER_01: And it is always rapidly moving.
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SPEAKER_01: But I assure you,
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Alex is going to have some great stories about how he got to
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navigate those waters.
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Alex's superpower,
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and I love this,
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I connect with this perfectly,
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is communication.
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SPEAKER_01: His innate curiosity about people,
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SPEAKER_01: his ability to get them talking has played a huge role in his success.
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SPEAKER_01: Maybe he's going to even get me talking today.
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SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
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SPEAKER_01: In today's episode,
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we'll dive deep into Alex's strategies for helping emerging
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e-commerce entrepreneurs,
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SPEAKER_01: making that first 10,000.
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SPEAKER_01: We know how important that is in leveraging content creation,
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SPEAKER_01: organic and paid traffic,
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SPEAKER_01: and even,
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SPEAKER_01: yes,
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SPEAKER_01: even AI,
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SPEAKER_01: right?
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SPEAKER_01: Whether you're just starting out or looking to scale,
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SPEAKER_01: this conversation is going to be packed with valuable insights.
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SPEAKER_01: that you won't want to miss.
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So without any further ado,
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let's welcome Alex back to the e-commerce revolution podcast.
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SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Alex.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks, Ramin.
2:25
SPEAKER_02: Nice to be here.
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SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: Love having you on.
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SPEAKER_01: We had a chance to chat before the show.
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SPEAKER_01: And as I mentioned to you, you are in my LinkedIn feed.
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SPEAKER_01: You are in it every day.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm everywhere, baby.
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SPEAKER_02: You can't escape me.
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SPEAKER_01: Everywhere talking about couches, right?
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SPEAKER_01: And we'll get into the couch.com side in a little bit.
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But I really was excited to have you on because you've taken a
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business from zero to
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to $40 million,
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and that is something that every e-commerce entrepreneur dreams of.
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SPEAKER_01: Some of us get there, and some of us will not ever get there.
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SPEAKER_01: They'll get to a certain point,
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SPEAKER_01: but there's always an amazing journey along the way,
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and I really want you to take your time today and kind of help
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those emerging
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SPEAKER_01: e-commerce entrepreneurs navigate the waters of e-commerce,
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SPEAKER_01: right?
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SPEAKER_01: And it's gotten a little more complicated, so great to have you on.
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SPEAKER_01: Before we get started,
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let's just look back real quickly and just tell us about that
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tremendous success
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SPEAKER_01: that you had with Apartment2B,
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SPEAKER_01: taking it from that $0 all the way to $40 million.
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SPEAKER_01: And just share those insights that you had along the way.
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SPEAKER_01: And maybe you've journaled.
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SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
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SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've captured all that.
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SPEAKER_01: I'd love to hear some key lessons that you took away from that journey.
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SPEAKER_02: Well, Ramin, I got to say it was easy.
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SPEAKER_02: It was very, no, I'm just kidding.
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SPEAKER_02: I'm on the edge.
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SPEAKER_02: I'm like, please, all right, hold on.
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SPEAKER_02: I got to take notes now.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was a journey.
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SPEAKER_02: What's the phrase?
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SPEAKER_02: I can't think of it.
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SPEAKER_02: The overnight sensation that takes whatever.
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SPEAKER_01: Yes, I don't know it exactly, but I know what you, yes, yes.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was one of those in the sense that,
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SPEAKER_02: you know, going from $0 to $40 million, it doesn't happen overnight.
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SPEAKER_02: And you sort of don't realize that it's happening
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When you're in the weeds,
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you don't see the overall trajectory of a business.
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SPEAKER_02: It's the small milestones and progress that fuel you forward.
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SPEAKER_02: The year-over-year growth,
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SPEAKER_02: the month-over-month growth,
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SPEAKER_02: the first sale,
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SPEAKER_02: the big days,
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SPEAKER_02: the email campaign that went really well.
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SPEAKER_02: And it's so interesting because now I'm back in that.
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seat again with my new business and experiencing a lot of those
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feelings all over again.
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So I'm sort of uniquely poised to discuss this now because I
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just connected with
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SPEAKER_02: affiliate networks on my new site and I just got my first affiliate sale.
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SPEAKER_02: So I'm in a season of firsts.
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SPEAKER_02: for couch.com at the moment.
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SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, it was, yeah, it's great.
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SPEAKER_02: I'm really excited.
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Do you remember,
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uh,
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with apartment to be,
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do you remember that first sale?
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SPEAKER_01: Did it like,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: a lot of people put that first,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: if they have a physical store,
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they put that first dollar on the wall or they put that first a
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hundred dollars on
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SPEAKER_01: the wall.
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SPEAKER_01: Do you remember that first sale coming through?
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SPEAKER_02: I remember it.
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SPEAKER_02: I remember it vaguely.
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It was like,
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what was special about it was we're doing no advertising,
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by the way,
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at this time.
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SPEAKER_02: So this was back in 2011.
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We just put up a site on the internet,
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popped the bottle of champagne,
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went live,
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quote unquote.
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SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
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SPEAKER_02: And I think it was the next day,
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SPEAKER_02: it was a friend of a friend,
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SPEAKER_02: like someone that we sort of knew,
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SPEAKER_02: but didn't know personally,
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SPEAKER_02: someone that trusted us enough to buy something when truthfully,
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SPEAKER_02: we had no effing idea what we were doing.
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SPEAKER_02: But...
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SPEAKER_02: But they trusted us enough.
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SPEAKER_02: What was special about that is that it was a relative stranger.
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SPEAKER_02: It wasn't a friend.
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SPEAKER_02: It wasn't our mom.
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SPEAKER_02: It wasn't someone who needed to do it to make us feel better.
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SPEAKER_02: It was a real customer and they expected real service.
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SPEAKER_02: So we kind of got right off the
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to the races um with that first sale but it was very special oh
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that's that's
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fantastic well let's let's go backwards and and just maybe kind
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of think about uh
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that that journey maybe just to the first 10 000 because right
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this is this is kind
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of the the number that we want to work with uh tell me you know
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just you know some
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some just quick essential steps that got you to that you may
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not remember exactly
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SPEAKER_01: when that first 10k hit but
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SPEAKER_01: What did you do in the beginning?
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SPEAKER_01: Was everything organic?
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SPEAKER_01: Did you start jumping into paid right away?
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SPEAKER_01: How did you play that?
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SPEAKER_02: Great question.
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SPEAKER_02: So early on,
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we didn't really do any sort of measurable paid advertising for
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the first few years
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SPEAKER_02: of our business.
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SPEAKER_02: Now, the landscape was quite different at the time.
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SPEAKER_02: There were very few independent furniture retailers online out there.
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SPEAKER_02: That was one big thing.
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So we sort of had an organic presence just even before we
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understood what SEO was.
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SPEAKER_02: Not that we were complete novices,
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SPEAKER_02: but it just wasn't...
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SPEAKER_02: These terms weren't as commonplace as they are today.
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SPEAKER_02: We were all learning.
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We were sort of pioneers in this mysterious industry that had
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been around for a while,
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SPEAKER_02: but not in the furniture space.
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So initially,
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our advertising and marketing plans were sort of guerrilla style.
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SPEAKER_02: Like we're going out to apartment complexes and saying,
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SPEAKER_02: hey,
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we have this great site that you can use to furnish your
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tenants can use to furnish
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SPEAKER_02: their entire apartments.
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SPEAKER_02: Can we give you a flyer to put in your apartment?
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SPEAKER_02: in your welcome packet.
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SPEAKER_02: And maybe we spiff or commission the rental agents or whatever.
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SPEAKER_02: That was an example of something that we did early on.
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We started collaborating with other brands right away and other
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local stores and
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SPEAKER_02: things like that.
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SPEAKER_02: Put a couch in a retail clothing store.
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SPEAKER_02: Did a pop-up event in the back of a holiday market.
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SPEAKER_02: These were things that cost us very, very little money upfront.
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SPEAKER_02: And with a little bit of hustle and our own personal time,
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SPEAKER_02: we were able to get a little momentum going and spread the word.
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SPEAKER_02: Was it the smartest use of our time?
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SPEAKER_02: Looking back, no, I wouldn't do that today.
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But I think the sort of 2024 version of that may look different
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for whatever
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SPEAKER_02: business or whatever individual,
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SPEAKER_02: right?
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SPEAKER_02: I mean, we have social media.
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There's a lot of tools at the ready that are organic in nature
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that can...
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SPEAKER_02: You can use your own time,
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SPEAKER_02: a little bit of hustle,
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and you don't have to start advertising on Meta and Google Ads
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right away.
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You can use these other tools to sort of propel at least the
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initial momentum of your business.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I love that.
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SPEAKER_01: And,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: I always try to,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: with education,
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SPEAKER_01: I try to,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: explain that,
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SPEAKER_01: that yes,
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you always need to look to those low to no cost marketing
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initiatives in big game,
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SPEAKER_01: because obviously most of,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: you don't have money,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: unless you've gone out and raised money.
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SPEAKER_01: You know,
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SPEAKER_01: one thing that always comes to mind,
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SPEAKER_01: I come across entrepreneurs,
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SPEAKER_01: e-commerce entrepreneurs that,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: also go to events,
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SPEAKER_01: maybe they're doing,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: a local event,
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SPEAKER_01: or they're doing,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: even a farmer's market,
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SPEAKER_01: or they're doing something to get out there to learn
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SPEAKER_01: and talk to people.
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SPEAKER_01: I'm like, are you capturing an email?
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Do you have a QR code that goes to your website where you can
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put an email address in?
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SPEAKER_01: Because you want to start building.
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SPEAKER_01: Don't just go to the event and say, oh, cool.
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SPEAKER_01: I sold some things.
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SPEAKER_01: But look at how do you leverage it for future growth in there?
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SPEAKER_01: And it sounds like everything you did was,
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SPEAKER_01: how does it turn into future growth for the business,
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SPEAKER_01: right?
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SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
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And I think there's an intention behind what you do,
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or there should be an intention.
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SPEAKER_02: behind everything you do.
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I often go to farmers markets and I look around and it's like
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quite clear who's
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SPEAKER_02: there just because they feel like they should be there.
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SPEAKER_02: And they're just sort of like twiddling their thumbs.
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And then there's other people,
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there's other stands that are busy kind of for no reason.
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SPEAKER_02: And I think the reason is
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that the people are hustling and they're going there with a
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goal in mind.
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SPEAKER_02: I think setting goals is extremely important.
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And that goal doesn't have to be like sell a million dollars of
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juice that day.
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SPEAKER_02: It can be get 30 emails.
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SPEAKER_02: I'm going to get 30 emails because I know that in the online space,
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it takes me three weeks to get three emails or it takes me $400
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to get three emails
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SPEAKER_02: or
10:47
SPEAKER_02: cost me $200 to be part of the farmer's market.
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SPEAKER_02: So let me hustle today and get the 30 emails.
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SPEAKER_02: And then you have a goal and an intention behind what you're doing.
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SPEAKER_02: Hey, how you doing?
10:55
SPEAKER_02: This is our juice.
10:55
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to buy anything,
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but would you like to sign up for email just to see where we're
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going to be next?
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, it's great.
11:02
And I think that we always have to remember that it's very easy
11:04
to get enamored by
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SPEAKER_01: the sexy, quote unquote, sexy marketing initiatives that are out there.
11:10
But sometimes,
11:11
you know,
11:11
just looking back old school,
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you know,
11:13
it's a very good way.
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SPEAKER_01: And it sounds like that's what you were doing.
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SPEAKER_01: You know,
11:16
SPEAKER_01: you were literally going door to door,
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SPEAKER_01: speaking to apartment owners,
11:20
SPEAKER_01: trying to get into the
11:21
you know,
11:21
into their mind and get the brand ingrained in their,
11:24
you know,
11:25
everyday lives.
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SPEAKER_01: So I think that's an amazing.
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SPEAKER_01: One thing I find is,
11:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:30
SPEAKER_01: so that's,
11:30
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:31
SPEAKER_01: you get things going,
11:32
SPEAKER_01: but how do you build momentum?
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SPEAKER_01: That's what I want to know.
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I mean,
11:35
you did this for 13 years before you eventually sold the business.
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SPEAKER_01: Momentum is hard to keep going.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: What did you do to build that momentum?
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Did you look at every sale and say,
11:46
okay,
11:47
I can do two more than I did last week?
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SPEAKER_01: What tactics do you have around momentum that would be helpful?
11:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:54
SPEAKER_02: Well,
11:54
SPEAKER_02: first of all,
11:55
SPEAKER_02: I think at a core level,
11:58
SPEAKER_02: appreciating the small wins and appreciating the progress every day,
12:02
whether you're just checking things off your own list or you're
12:05
actually making sales,
12:08
SPEAKER_02: is very important.
12:09
And it's very difficult to do this because if you're
12:13
goal-oriented and your mind is
12:15
SPEAKER_02: on the prize...
12:17
Or if you're focused on some of your worries and concerns,
12:21
am I doing this right?
12:22
SPEAKER_02: Is this business going to succeed?
12:23
SPEAKER_02: It can really stunt your growth.
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SPEAKER_02: If instead you focus on smaller milestones, okay, we got one sale today.
12:31
SPEAKER_02: Can we get two tomorrow?
12:33
SPEAKER_02: That's basically what you just said.
12:35
Or even just crossing things off your to-do list that were
12:39
really difficult to do.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: I think most people will find that you're making a lot of progress.
12:46
SPEAKER_02: So I think if you see it less,
12:48
if you see it more as a game of inches where you're sort of
12:52
moving towards,
12:54
SPEAKER_02: you know,
12:54
moving towards the goal line to use a football reference and
12:58
every inch sometimes
12:59
SPEAKER_02: or a first down or yardage,
13:01
SPEAKER_02: whatever,
13:01
SPEAKER_02: all of that stuff really matters.
13:04
SPEAKER_02: So,
13:05
SPEAKER_02: you know,
13:06
you just have to make sure you set yourself up to keep moving
13:09
forward and keep
13:10
SPEAKER_02: achieving things,
13:11
SPEAKER_02: which is to say,
13:12
SPEAKER_02: keep putting things on your list,
13:13
SPEAKER_02: keep trying to cross things off.
13:16
SPEAKER_02: I think, yeah, but I think in the beginning, it's okay to start small.
13:22
SPEAKER_02: This is a very, very important thing that I think about.
13:26
SPEAKER_02: And I remind myself right now that you can scale a good business.
13:33
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't have to be huge right away.
13:35
SPEAKER_02: It just has to be good.
13:38
SPEAKER_02: So making it good on a very small scale,
13:41
going in that farmer's market and selling a few juices could be
13:45
representative of a
13:46
larger plan where you have a thousand farmer's markets because
13:48
there are in this
13:49
country every weekend with selling juices and each one of them
13:53
is doing four to 10
13:54
SPEAKER_02: juices or whatever.
13:55
SPEAKER_02: My point is...
13:57
There's smaller microcosmic ways to look at a business and
14:00
appreciate the progress
14:01
SPEAKER_02: on a day-to-day basis.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: And we won't keep talking about farmers markets,
14:10
SPEAKER_01: even though I think they're very,
14:12
SPEAKER_01: very beneficial.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: I just listened to a podcast,
14:15
SPEAKER_01: one of my favorites,
14:15
SPEAKER_01: How I Built This,
14:16
SPEAKER_01: and they were interviewing the founders of Banana Republic.
14:20
SPEAKER_01: And they got started,
14:21
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:21
going to a flea market and they had a strategy and the first
14:26
strategy didn't work.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: And then they added,
14:27
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
14:28
SPEAKER_01: so everybody,
14:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:30
SPEAKER_01: you have to find that place,
14:31
SPEAKER_01: I think is really what you're saying and continue to build.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: I love building the wins, you know, because
14:37
SPEAKER_01: It gets, you know, listen, we all have ego in this, right?
14:40
SPEAKER_01: We're all invested in this and wins help us get up in the morning.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: Wins help us get to the next one and build that momentum that is so,
14:47
SPEAKER_01: so important to ultimately building a strong brand.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: Now,
14:51
SPEAKER_01: I want to switch gears and ask you about,
14:53
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:54
SPEAKER_01: one of the other low cost initiatives out there,
14:56
SPEAKER_01: especially has become a very big thing right now,
14:59
SPEAKER_01: and that's content creation.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: I almost feel like e-commerce entrepreneurs today need to be,
15:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
15:05
SPEAKER_01: they need to be content producers day in and day out.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: What is your,
15:10
and did you guys use content creation back then as the early
15:13
days of really the SEO
15:15
SPEAKER_01: side of things,
15:15
but how important is content creation in the early stage of a
15:18
e-commerce business?
15:20
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think it's important for two reasons.
15:22
SPEAKER_02: One,
15:23
SPEAKER_02: the sort of the more technical reason,
15:24
SPEAKER_02: which is SEO and building a strong foundation for your business.
15:30
SPEAKER_02: If we invested more heavily in SEO,
15:32
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
15:34
SPEAKER_02: hindsight is always 20-20,
15:35
SPEAKER_02: but if we had invested in SEO early on more,
15:41
SPEAKER_02: and built more actually written content,
15:43
SPEAKER_02: keyword research focused stuff that had a long tail life cycle.
15:52
10 years later,
15:53
we would have literally saved millions of dollars in
15:56
advertising a year.
15:58
SPEAKER_02: Why?
15:59
Because all the money that we spent bringing people to the site
16:02
on paid advertising,
16:03
SPEAKER_02: we could have had a much larger organic reach at my former company.
16:09
SPEAKER_02: So that's something I'll say.
16:11
SPEAKER_02: Just SEO, it does work.
16:14
SPEAKER_02: I'm living proof.
16:15
SPEAKER_02: It's literally my life right now is writing and making content.
16:21
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's really important.
16:22
SPEAKER_02: It can be very beneficial.
16:24
SPEAKER_02: And you can hit on something.
16:25
SPEAKER_02: You can get lucky kind of too.
16:28
SPEAKER_02: Something can really hit.
16:30
If a Google or other search engine likes what you're doing,
16:34
they could really favor it.
16:35
SPEAKER_02: There's also other search engines emerging right now.
16:37
We're in a time of great volatility with Google for many
16:41
reasons and a great
16:42
SPEAKER_02: emergence of AI tools that are giving...
16:46
SPEAKER_02: A lot of people, a lot of search results and information.
16:50
SPEAKER_02: Who's to say that you have a great brand?
16:54
SPEAKER_02: He writes some awesome content and ChatGPT, you become ChatGPT's darling.
16:59
SPEAKER_02: It's certainly possible.
17:00
SPEAKER_02: No one's saying it's not.
17:03
SPEAKER_02: But on the other side of it, it's also about creating a brand.
17:06
SPEAKER_02: And I think in e-commerce,
17:08
SPEAKER_02: a lot of people overlook this importance,
17:12
SPEAKER_02: especially in the higher average order value tiers.
17:18
SPEAKER_02: And the reason I say that is because it still takes a lot of trust,
17:21
SPEAKER_02: and it's a hard decision to make to buy something online,
17:25
SPEAKER_02: sight unseen.
17:25
SPEAKER_02: We just have to remember that.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: As much as it's common...
17:29
There's a reason why only single digit percentage of people
17:33
convert on anybody's website.
17:35
It's because it's really hard to make a purchasing decision
17:39
versus people who walk
17:40
SPEAKER_02: into Banana Republic.
17:41
SPEAKER_02: It's a much higher conversion rate.
17:43
SPEAKER_02: So all that to say, having a brand is one of those things.
17:48
SPEAKER_02: Having some personality, some content, some fun stuff.
17:52
SPEAKER_02: fun content, interesting, engaging content, personality, people.
17:58
These things can really help create customer confidence and
18:02
ultimately convert sales.
18:04
It doesn't have to be like some crazy thought out,
18:09
$400,000 branding strategy.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: It can just be like, hey, I'm Alex.
18:12
SPEAKER_02: This is my brand.
18:13
SPEAKER_02: And I want to tell you about why it's awesome.
18:15
And that sometimes can really resonate with people and start
18:19
moving that conversion
18:19
SPEAKER_02: rate up and up.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: And video, I think, plays into this as well.
18:23
I mean,
18:24
the second biggest search engine out there is YouTube and
18:27
creating that content.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: And I think that it can be hard,
18:31
SPEAKER_01: especially video,
18:32
SPEAKER_01: can be hard for people to get up in front of the camera.
18:34
I happen to,
18:35
you mentioned in your bio that you have a performing arts background.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: So maybe getting in front of the camera is something you enjoy doing,
18:43
SPEAKER_01: but there are a lot of people who don't.
18:44
But then I guess I would say then it doesn't have to be in
18:47
front of the camera.
18:48
SPEAKER_01: just write,
18:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:49
SPEAKER_01: write content,
18:50
create something around your brand that your buyer persona
18:55
would want to read,
18:56
SPEAKER_01: your buyer persona would be interested in,
18:58
SPEAKER_01: it would attract them,
18:59
SPEAKER_01: right?
18:59
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you would agree with that?
19:00
SPEAKER_01: 100%.
19:03
SPEAKER_02: You know, and there's so many ways to do it.
19:06
SPEAKER_02: But you mentioned video.
19:07
SPEAKER_02: And I like, you know, video doesn't have to be
19:11
SPEAKER_02: these produced,
19:13
SPEAKER_02: you know,
19:13
SPEAKER_02: behemoths that we see on,
19:15
SPEAKER_02: on YouTube and I'm creating content and you're creating content.
19:18
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
19:18
SPEAKER_02: that's,
19:19
SPEAKER_02: you know,
19:19
SPEAKER_02: meant for a niche audience and it's just a little,
19:22
SPEAKER_02: it's just different.
19:22
SPEAKER_02: So you can't hold yourself to like the Jake Paul standards or Logan,
19:26
SPEAKER_02: whatever,
19:26
SPEAKER_02: one of the Paul brothers out there.
19:30
SPEAKER_02: It's okay to make content and invest that sort of
19:33
SPEAKER_02: invest in your business and your brand by doing that.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: And one thing I do a little tip is I have a lot to say about furniture.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: I've been in the industry for a long time.
19:43
It takes me a long time to sit down and write because I self
19:45
edit as I write and I
19:46
SPEAKER_02: just like things to be perfect.
19:49
But when I find that if I just turn a camera on or voice notes
19:54
and I just start to talk,
19:55
There are so many tools now that will just literally clean up
19:58
everything that you
19:59
said and transcribe it and put it into a format that can be
20:03
turned into a blog post,
20:05
SPEAKER_02: into an article,
20:07
SPEAKER_02: whatever.
20:09
SPEAKER_02: So if you have something to say,
20:10
start recording yourself and maybe find the medium that works
20:14
best for it.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like that.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: And that's a good,
20:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:18
SPEAKER_01: repurposing your content,
20:19
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:20
SPEAKER_01: because you have to create so much,
20:22
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:23
taking that recording and turning it into a blog or snipping it
20:26
up and turning it
20:27
SPEAKER_01: into social media posts becomes,
20:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:29
SPEAKER_01: really,
20:30
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
20:31
SPEAKER_01: it's a time saver more than,
20:32
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:32
SPEAKER_01: anything else and gets you there a lot faster.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: But let's go back to,
20:37
and this is an area where a lot of emerging e-commerce
20:39
entrepreneurs get tripped up.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: They're fine with social,
20:43
SPEAKER_01: they'll build out a social media calendar and they'll start posting and
20:47
experimenting and they can write some content and get those low
20:50
to no cost.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: But what happens when it's time, when is it time to do paid advertising?
20:55
SPEAKER_01: When is it time to pay Google and pay Meta and pay Pinterest potentially?
21:01
SPEAKER_01: and TikTok to drive traffic to your site?
21:04
Is there a number out there that e-commerce entrepreneurs
21:07
should be looking for?
21:08
SPEAKER_01: Or is it, you know what?
21:09
SPEAKER_01: I just want to take it to the next level.
21:11
SPEAKER_01: And now's that time.
21:13
SPEAKER_02: Well,
21:13
SPEAKER_02: I have an interesting take on this,
21:15
SPEAKER_02: which is that it's sort of,
21:18
SPEAKER_02: these days,
21:18
SPEAKER_02: it's so easy to start.
21:21
SPEAKER_02: It's so easy and self-serve to start advertising on Meta or Google.
21:27
And if you don't want to take the time to learn the platforms yourself,
21:31
which is
21:31
SPEAKER_02: It's quite difficult.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: In fact, I wouldn't recommend it.
21:33
I would say find a friend who has done it before or an
21:38
independent person.
21:39
SPEAKER_02: There's so many people who have a lot of experience in these areas.
21:42
Where I'm going with this is you can do a very small scale test
21:46
and it can be very
21:47
telling of the current state of your business and your future
21:52
potential with paid advertising.
21:55
SPEAKER_02: For instance, take a few thousand dollars or even a few hundred dollars.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Clicks don't cost that much money, man.
22:02
It certainly depends on which medium you're using and what
22:06
audiences and what you're targeting.
22:08
But generally speaking,
22:09
each one can cost anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars.
22:13
SPEAKER_02: So if you think about it,
22:14
SPEAKER_02: if you just want to bring 100 people to your site and see what they do,
22:18
SPEAKER_02: it could cost anywhere from $30 to,
22:19
SPEAKER_02: let's say,
22:20
SPEAKER_02: $500.
22:23
which is not a major investment to get 100 strangers on paid
22:28
advertising to your site.
22:30
If 3% of them do this and 18% of them do that,
22:34
you're going to start learning things.
22:36
So I wouldn't necessarily see paid advertising as a means to
22:40
immediate conversion
22:41
SPEAKER_02: so much as I would see it as a means to immediate user testing.
22:45
SPEAKER_02: There are other ways to use your test too,
22:46
but I just think that it's a much easier entry point these days
22:51
than it used to be
22:52
SPEAKER_02: to get into these platforms and start messing around.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: And maybe you can unlock some gold there,
22:57
SPEAKER_02: either for your own business or your website,
22:59
SPEAKER_02: or some paid advertising strategy that works out of the gate.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: And once you get them there,
23:05
you've got email marketing set up and you've got a pop up in
23:08
there and hopefully
23:09
SPEAKER_01: get them on your list,
23:10
SPEAKER_01: entice them.
23:10
SPEAKER_01: And now they become your customer, right?
23:12
SPEAKER_01: They're no longer,
23:13
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:13
SPEAKER_01: they're no longer metas,
23:15
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:15
SPEAKER_01: property of meta and you can't,
23:17
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:17
SPEAKER_01: you only way to communicate with them is on meta.
23:20
uh now they're yours and you can continue to build and nurture
23:23
that relationship so
23:24
i like that small you know again everybody tends to think and
23:27
not everybody i
23:28
should say that i'm not going to generalize here but a lot of
23:30
people tend to think
23:31
oh it's got to be big it's got to be grandiose um but starting
23:35
out small as you
23:36
just mentioned and just taking a little to start learning
23:38
what's working what's not
23:40
SPEAKER_01: but i'll agree with you 100 that i think has gotten
23:43
SPEAKER_01: so complicated that it is very difficult for,
23:45
SPEAKER_01: especially emerging e-commerce brands who don't know how to do it,
23:49
SPEAKER_01: to get in there and do it.
23:50
So yes,
23:51
finding that person,
23:52
that freelancer using Upwork,
23:54
Fiverr Pro,
23:56
Friend,
23:57
anybody you know,
23:58
to get to help you learn it because then,
24:01
you know,
24:01
you could be a student,
24:02
um,
24:03
out there.
24:03
And I know a lot of people,
24:05
um,
24:05
Ben Heath is a big meta guy out there on,
24:08
uh,
24:09
on,
24:09
on YouTube.
24:10
And a lot of people go to him to just learn and he's teaching
24:12
all the time.
24:13
SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, there's content everywhere, right?
24:16
So you can try to learn it yourself or find somebody who can
24:19
help you get there faster.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: Um,
24:21
SPEAKER_01: So tell me just,
24:22
SPEAKER_01: you know,
24:23
I want to talk about AI in a moment because I know this is an
24:25
area that obviously
24:26
SPEAKER_01: is very important to the world of e-commerce and,
24:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
24:30
SPEAKER_01: you can definitely speak to it.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: But let's just talk real quickly about some obstacles.
24:33
SPEAKER_01: Along those 13 years that you went from zero to 40 million,
24:39
SPEAKER_01: what kind of obstacles,
24:41
SPEAKER_01: what obstacles do you remember?
24:43
SPEAKER_01: And you would share and say, you know, be aware of this.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: This could be a pitfall for you.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so many.
24:55
SPEAKER_02: You know, I think, God, where do I begin?
25:01
The one major obstacle that comes to mind that every business
25:08
will deal with at
25:09
SPEAKER_02: some point is cash flow.
25:11
SPEAKER_02: Now,
25:11
SPEAKER_02: e-commerce,
25:12
SPEAKER_02: if you set it up right,
25:14
SPEAKER_02: can be a cash flow positive business,
25:17
meaning you take money from customers before you have to buy
25:20
product or really do
25:22
SPEAKER_02: anything else.
25:24
Not anything else,
25:25
but anything operationally or focused on the fulfillment.
25:28
SPEAKER_02: So you can run a pretty lean organization.
25:31
SPEAKER_02: That being said,
25:32
it's often that you may find yourself in the position of having
25:36
to buy inventory.
25:38
or work with a marketplace partner that doesn't pay you until
25:42
after something is delivered,
25:44
in which case you find yourself fronting money for things sort
25:50
of on the if-come,
25:51
SPEAKER_02: taking a risk of some sort,
25:53
whether you made an Amazon sale or whether you are buying
25:58
t-shirts so that you can
25:59
SPEAKER_02: sell them,
26:00
SPEAKER_02: ship them next day.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: So I think cash flow is a thing that can be crippling to some people.
26:09
SPEAKER_02: But I think staying ahead,
26:11
keeping your head above water and realizing that cash flow is
26:15
not necessarily a
26:17
SPEAKER_02: critical error in your business.
26:20
Most big businesses have to leverage cash and money in ways
26:27
that we would never understand.
26:29
SPEAKER_02: They have loans,
26:30
SPEAKER_02: they have creditors,
26:31
SPEAKER_02: they have everybody,
26:33
SPEAKER_02: every big business that I can think of has some version of
26:38
Leveraging,
26:39
you know,
26:40
robbing Peter to pay Paul,
26:41
so to speak,
26:41
is a common term.
26:42
So all that to say,
26:45
you know,
26:45
at one point,
26:45
I think we were just like really,
26:47
really down.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: And we had this deal with Costco.
26:51
SPEAKER_02: And so Costco was an early partner for us.
26:54
SPEAKER_02: And we can talk about that more if you'd like.
26:56
SPEAKER_02: But Costco was fantastic.
26:59
SPEAKER_02: They helped us get our brand on the map.
27:01
SPEAKER_02: We put a lot of revenue through Costco's system,
27:06
but it was fundamentally completely different than our
27:09
e-commerce business in that
27:12
SPEAKER_02: we did not take customer deposits.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: In fact, we had to...
27:16
SPEAKER_02: We had to make the sale,
27:18
SPEAKER_02: do the marketing,
27:19
SPEAKER_02: pay the people,
27:20
SPEAKER_02: pay our people,
27:20
SPEAKER_02: make the sale,
27:22
SPEAKER_02: buy the product,
27:23
SPEAKER_02: ship the product,
27:24
SPEAKER_02: deliver the product to all the customer service.
27:25
SPEAKER_02: And then 15 days after the product was delivered,
27:28
SPEAKER_02: we invoice Costco and then we get paid 30 days after.
27:31
SPEAKER_02: So it was almost this sort of very cashflow negative situation.
27:37
SPEAKER_02: We had to borrow 30 grand from a friend.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: So that was a low point for us mentally.
27:44
SPEAKER_02: But in thinking back to it,
27:46
SPEAKER_02: really all it was,
27:46
it was just we hadn't thought it through ahead of time and we
27:50
didn't have access to cash.
27:52
SPEAKER_02: So if we had,
27:54
SPEAKER_02: and we have this deal with Costco,
27:56
there are plenty of people out there who would be willing to
27:59
give us a short-term
28:00
SPEAKER_02: loan that wasn't just a friend who was helping us out.
28:05
SPEAKER_02: All this,
28:05
the reason I'm mentioning this crazy story is because I think
28:08
it's representative
28:09
of these problems that seem like mission critical errors that
28:13
are actually just
28:14
SPEAKER_02: temporary fixes or things you just hadn't anticipated.
28:18
It's not necessarily that your business is broken if you have
28:22
to go borrow money
28:23
SPEAKER_02: from a bank or from a friend or some other loan provider.
28:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:29
SPEAKER_02: And that's just one example.
28:31
SPEAKER_02: There are plenty of other examples of these issues,
28:33
SPEAKER_02: these things that happen that are fixable and are sort of,
28:38
SPEAKER_02: once you know what they are,
28:39
SPEAKER_02: you can really address them properly.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
28:42
I love that because I think a lot of people get stuck into the
28:45
obstacles of
28:45
SPEAKER_01: marketing and cash.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: Money,
28:49
SPEAKER_01: the revenue,
28:50
SPEAKER_01: the profit,
28:51
SPEAKER_01: all of this is incredibly important on that road to 10K and above.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: You have to understand.
28:57
And here you were presented with a situation that was outside
29:00
the norm of your business model.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: And
29:05
SPEAKER_01: Obviously,
29:05
SPEAKER_01: Costco sounds like a phenomenal partnership to have,
29:09
SPEAKER_01: but it comes with a different model and you have to adapt.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: And it sounds like you guys adapted.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it sounds like a wonderful, I love that story.
29:19
SPEAKER_01: So were you eventually in every single Costco?
29:21
SPEAKER_01: Is that how it ended up playing out or was it very regionalized?
29:26
SPEAKER_02: This is a regional thing.
29:27
SPEAKER_02: So if anybody's listening out there and goes to Costco,
29:31
I think you know that sometimes you walk through and there's
29:33
this sort of,
29:34
SPEAKER_02: they're called roadshows,
29:35
SPEAKER_02: right?
29:36
SPEAKER_02: There's this sort of marketplace,
29:37
SPEAKER_02: bizarre,
29:38
whether it's a guy selling hummus or the guy selling the knives
29:41
or the woman giving
29:42
SPEAKER_00: you the- Vitamix.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: Vitamix, perfect.
29:44
SPEAKER_02: Perfect example.
29:45
SPEAKER_02: They have the headset.
29:47
SPEAKER_02: And they've done it for years.
29:48
In the furniture space,
29:49
Lovesac has a tremendous Costco roadshow operation nationally.
29:56
SPEAKER_02: They do a ton of business with Costco.
29:59
SPEAKER_02: What's great about this and great about working with Costco,
30:03
SPEAKER_02: there are a lot of things that aren't great about working with Costco.
30:05
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that is,
30:07
SPEAKER_02: is that for their roadshow operations,
30:10
SPEAKER_02: they don't charge any upfront fees.
30:12
SPEAKER_02: They just take a cut of business.
30:14
SPEAKER_02: So they're buyers.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: There's a buying team for their special events.
30:17
SPEAKER_02: And if they like you, they're betting on you.
30:20
SPEAKER_02: They're giving you floor space,
30:22
SPEAKER_02: you know,
30:22
SPEAKER_02: where they're literally,
30:24
SPEAKER_02: you go into the Costco to set up your roadshow event.
30:26
SPEAKER_02: We put, you know, six to eight couches on the ground.
30:30
SPEAKER_02: They will, they have their pallet.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: They have their forklifts and they're moving the pillows out of the way,
30:35
SPEAKER_02: the rugs,
30:35
SPEAKER_02: the plants,
30:36
SPEAKER_02: the hummus,
30:38
SPEAKER_02: whatever it is,
30:39
SPEAKER_02: they're moving it out of the way to put this.
30:40
SPEAKER_02: So they're betting on us.
30:43
SPEAKER_02: to do better than some of their inline products.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: And they take a 14% cut, or they did traditionally.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: So for us, we just saw that as a marketing expense.
30:55
SPEAKER_02: And 14%
30:58
SPEAKER_02: Marketing expense these days,
31:00
especially today in 2024 for an e-commerce business is a pretty
31:04
good number,
31:06
SPEAKER_02: I think,
31:06
SPEAKER_02: depending on your business model.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: It certainly is for furniture.
31:10
SPEAKER_02: So for us, it was a very, very positive business.
31:13
SPEAKER_02: But as you said, we did have to pivot.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: a lot of things and change and hire staff and do in-person events.
31:21
We never thought we were going to do that when we started an
31:23
e-commerce business in
31:24
SPEAKER_02: our apartment.
31:25
SPEAKER_02: That wasn't really part of the plan.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: But being nimble,
31:28
SPEAKER_02: being able to pivot,
31:30
seize opportunities and see your business as an iterative
31:33
process is vital to early success,
31:36
SPEAKER_02: I think.
31:37
SPEAKER_02: Just don't get stuck on one idea.
31:38
If you need to go to Costco and sell next to the Vitamix guy,
31:42
do it if it makes sense.
31:44
yeah no i love that i love looking looking at all these
31:47
opportunities and making
31:48
decisions but you know getting some some planning in there so
31:51
you're not caught you
31:52
know you're going to be caught off guard at some point um but
31:55
you know you'll have
31:56
at least some information to work with and understand and maybe
31:59
even talking to
32:00
other people who are on road shows or other people who have
32:02
sold into costco and
32:03
how does that work and how do you do this you know as one
32:06
example wherever you go
32:07
SPEAKER_01: in your business in the early days
32:10
SPEAKER_01: I like to also say systemize it too, if you can.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: Start to document how does this work?
32:16
SPEAKER_01: How does this side of the business work?
32:18
SPEAKER_01: And who do I need to put on that team?
32:20
SPEAKER_01: And who do I need to hire, et cetera?
32:22
SPEAKER_01: And now you've got yourself an SOP,
32:24
SPEAKER_01: a standard operating procedure for how to do that,
32:27
but be ready to change that operating procedure all the time
32:31
because things will
32:31
SPEAKER_01: happen regularly.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: Let's dive into AI, because this is obviously a hot topic.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: Probably every single podcast out there is going to tap into AI somehow.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: But I think in the world of e-commerce,
32:46
SPEAKER_01: and especially with emerging brands,
32:48
SPEAKER_01: those with small teams,
32:51
SPEAKER_01: maybe a team of one and a couple of freelancers,
32:53
SPEAKER_01: AI has almost become a saving grace,
32:57
SPEAKER_01: a writing partner,
32:59
SPEAKER_01: a content creating partner,
33:01
SPEAKER_01: all this.
33:01
SPEAKER_01: What is your take?
33:02
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
33:03
SPEAKER_01: when you built Apartment 2B,
33:05
I'm assuming there was no glimpse of AI anywhere in there and
33:09
you weren't able to
33:10
SPEAKER_01: use it.
33:11
If you could go back in time,
33:13
how would you leverage AI to help scale Apartment 2B?
33:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, in so many ways.
33:25
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
33:26
there's the obvious sort of elephant in the room in this
33:30
conversation when it comes
33:31
SPEAKER_02: to its content creation.
33:34
SPEAKER_02: And that's a big one.
33:35
But there's also all of these AI tools that I use every single
33:39
day now to run my business,
33:42
SPEAKER_02: to get information,
33:43
SPEAKER_02: to
33:46
SPEAKER_02: you know, to create things, to organize thoughts.
33:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
33:55
there are AI tools within Excel that you can create
34:00
spreadsheets and VLOOKUPs
34:03
SPEAKER_02: without understanding how to set up a VLOOKUP.
34:06
SPEAKER_02: There's so many things you can do.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: So I just think we would have probably been a lot more efficient.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: I also ran a very big customer service team for many years.
34:17
SPEAKER_02: I think that's an area that we can really, if you take the time to
34:22
SPEAKER_02: to set up a AI chat bot to answer questions and,
34:26
SPEAKER_02: and have it,
34:27
SPEAKER_02: have it have a really good personalized feel.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: I think that's an area that really,
34:33
SPEAKER_02: especially in a high touch,
34:35
SPEAKER_02: high consideration purchase realm,
34:37
SPEAKER_02: like furniture,
34:38
SPEAKER_02: really helpful.
34:43
SPEAKER_02: But ultimately, yes, content creation.
34:45
I mean,
34:46
there's a lot of sort of doom and gloom news content out there
34:51
about using AI.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: Everyone's going to crack down on it.
35:00
And,
35:01
you know,
35:01
I think we have to be sort of,
35:03
we have to be aware of that stuff.
35:05
SPEAKER_02: But at the same time,
35:07
SPEAKER_02: like I used an example before a few minutes ago of,
35:10
SPEAKER_02: you know,
35:10
just speaking into a camera or speaking into my voice notes and
35:15
letting AI sort of
35:16
SPEAKER_02: organize my thoughts.
35:18
SPEAKER_02: Um,
35:19
SPEAKER_02: and that could be used for,
35:21
SPEAKER_02: for anything,
35:21
SPEAKER_02: whether I'm creating an article or a blog post,
35:24
SPEAKER_02: or if I'm preparing for a meeting and I'm just like getting all my,
35:27
SPEAKER_02: my thoughts together.
35:29
SPEAKER_02: Um,
35:30
SPEAKER_02: but in content creation,
35:31
SPEAKER_02: I think we can accelerate,
35:33
SPEAKER_02: um,
35:34
SPEAKER_02: you know,
35:34
SPEAKER_02: things using AI pretty quickly.
35:36
SPEAKER_02: There's really no excuse not to do written content for SEO.
35:40
SPEAKER_02: Now that we have all these AI tools,
35:41
SPEAKER_02: my,
35:42
SPEAKER_02: my recommendation would be to pay for a good tool that,
35:46
SPEAKER_02: um,
35:47
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's a hundred bucks a month.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: I have a great one called Surfer SEO, like Surfer.
35:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, love that company.
35:56
SPEAKER_02: Are you doing it good?
35:56
SPEAKER_02: So it's, yeah, I mean, we use it to write articles.
36:00
It gives us drafts and versions and we will go back in and I
36:05
have a writer that edits them.
36:08
SPEAKER_02: But using tools that are smart,
36:11
that understand and are just being optimized with the current
36:14
sort of trends of
36:15
SPEAKER_02: Google and other search engines,
36:17
SPEAKER_02: is very, very good thing to do.
36:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I love it.
36:21
SPEAKER_01: Just the other day,
36:21
I was working with a client and we were taking a look at their
36:25
Shopify reports.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: When you go,
36:27
SPEAKER_01: not in the analytics section,
36:28
but below there's detailed reports and you can just click on
36:32
each one of them and
36:33
SPEAKER_01: run a time period and there are maybe 20,
36:35
SPEAKER_01: 30 reports in there.
36:37
SPEAKER_01: You can look at them all day long,
36:38
SPEAKER_01: and if you don't know what you're looking at,
36:39
SPEAKER_01: it means great.
36:41
SPEAKER_01: There's a bunch of graphs.
36:42
SPEAKER_01: Things are going up and down and all over the place.
36:45
SPEAKER_01: But to export them out,
36:46
feed them into the paid version of ChatGPT and ask ChatGPT to
36:51
analyze the data and
36:51
then bring it back and give you an executive summary of what
36:56
they see in the data
36:56
SPEAKER_01: and what kind of recommendations it would have.
36:58
SPEAKER_01: I got to say, I was once again blown away
37:03
SPEAKER_01: by the ability of this.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: And now all of a sudden,
37:06
SPEAKER_01: as an emerging e-commerce entrepreneur,
37:09
SPEAKER_01: I can look at this data and say,
37:10
SPEAKER_01: oh,
37:11
SPEAKER_01: that's what that means.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: And you talked about making sure cash flow is important.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: You roll your financials.
37:18
So many people don't know how to read a P&L and don't know how
37:21
to read a balance
37:21
SPEAKER_01: sheet or don't know how to export that data out and test it.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: It's not going to always be perfect.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: And we're in the early days.
37:28
So always take it with a grain of salt,
37:31
cross-check it against something else.
37:33
But that's something that wasn't available to you or I back in
37:36
the day when we were
37:37
SPEAKER_01: starting e-commerce brands.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: So much so that I've never even thought of that, that specific thing.
37:44
Like I'm consulting for a brand right now on Shopify and I've
37:48
been in the report
37:49
SPEAKER_02: section and doing,
37:49
SPEAKER_02: you know,
37:50
SPEAKER_02: doing my own thing.
37:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
37:53
SPEAKER_02: And I'm literally going to do what you just suggested.
37:56
SPEAKER_02: And the reason I haven't thought of it is simply because this is so new.
37:59
SPEAKER_02: We just haven't even wrapped our minds around the capabilities yet.
38:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
38:06
SPEAKER_00: And there's something new every day.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
38:09
SPEAKER_02: I know.
38:10
SPEAKER_02: It's insane.
38:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:11
SPEAKER_01: We'll try that out.
38:12
SPEAKER_01: See if it works.
38:12
SPEAKER_01: See if it gives you the right kind of information.
38:15
SPEAKER_01: I always do believe that still,
38:16
SPEAKER_01: yes,
38:16
SPEAKER_01: because we're in the early days,
38:18
SPEAKER_01: it's good to cross-check that data.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: But as it gets smarter and smarter, just imagine your whole business.
38:24
And I'm assuming Shopify will continue to integrate AI into all
38:28
of these features
38:29
because most of their audience or most of their clients are
38:32
emerging e-commerce brands.
38:34
They're starting out for the first time,
38:35
and they don't know how to read this information.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: They don't know what to do with it, and how do you make it better?
38:41
SPEAKER_01: So I love that.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: And those are some very good examples.
38:44
And again,
38:46
I think you probably wish that AI was around when you were
38:49
building Apartment 2B.
38:51
SPEAKER_01: I wish it was around when I was doing,
38:52
SPEAKER_01: but it's now here and you're using it with your own brand.
38:55
Before we talk about cash.com and some of the lessons you've
38:58
learned in the early
38:59
SPEAKER_01: stages of this brand,
39:01
SPEAKER_01: just tell me about customer retention.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: So much is spent on acquisition in the early days, right?
39:07
SPEAKER_01: We are spending either money
39:10
SPEAKER_01: time, effort, acquire, acquire, acquire.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about retention in the early stages of a business.
39:16
How important is retention for the long-term success of an
39:21
e-commerce brand?
39:24
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think it's extremely important.
39:27
SPEAKER_02: So if you think about an e-commerce site as a retail store, right?
39:35
SPEAKER_02: Let's just picture it.
39:36
SPEAKER_02: It's like a brick and mortar store in a strip mall.
39:40
SPEAKER_02: Um, those stores have traffic counters.
39:43
SPEAKER_02: They count how many people walk into their store every day.
39:46
SPEAKER_02: So if your goal is to get a certain amount,
39:49
SPEAKER_02: let's say it's,
39:49
SPEAKER_02: you know,
39:50
SPEAKER_02: you want to get a thousand people in,
39:51
SPEAKER_02: in your shop every day.
39:53
SPEAKER_02: Um, you want to get a thousand people to your e-commerce store every day.
39:56
SPEAKER_02: How are you going to do it?
39:57
SPEAKER_02: Well, you can pay for those users.
40:00
SPEAKER_02: Let's say it's a buck a click.
40:01
SPEAKER_02: That'll cost you a thousand dollars.
40:02
SPEAKER_02: And maybe you can convert a certain percentage and maybe it makes sense.
40:07
But if you have an email list and you send customers who
40:13
already have shown
40:14
SPEAKER_02: interest in your brand or have already purchased,
40:16
you can maybe get those 1,000 people in the store for very
40:20
little to free.
40:23
SPEAKER_02: Whenever I send an email for...
40:25
couch.com these days,
40:28
um,
40:28
I'll basically,
40:29
you know,
40:29
double or triple my traffic for that day.
40:33
SPEAKER_02: And it's,
40:34
SPEAKER_02: it's,
40:35
SPEAKER_02: it's kind of,
40:35
SPEAKER_02: it's plain to see that having customers,
40:39
SPEAKER_02: having their first party data,
40:40
SPEAKER_02: being able to communicate with them is vital.
40:44
SPEAKER_02: Um,
40:45
SPEAKER_02: there is,
40:46
SPEAKER_02: you know,
40:47
SPEAKER_02: there is sort of sometimes this,
40:49
SPEAKER_02: uh,
40:50
overemphasis on customer attention sometimes on the other end
40:53
of it though,
40:53
SPEAKER_02: like in furniture,
40:54
SPEAKER_02: um,
40:55
There's,
40:56
you can spend a lot of time and money chasing a second time purchase.
41:02
SPEAKER_02: for a product that people are likely not going to buy again.
41:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean, people buy couches every average six to seven years.
41:09
SPEAKER_02: That's an average.
41:09
I mean,
41:10
some people buy it every three years,
41:11
but some people buy it every 20 years.
41:14
SPEAKER_02: So it's not necessarily worth going all in on it.
41:20
I think you have to be smart about it and think,
41:22
just really take a good look in the mirror.
41:24
SPEAKER_02: What kind of product do I have?
41:25
SPEAKER_02: Is this a recurring product?
41:26
SPEAKER_02: If so, customer retention is vital.
41:31
If this is a subscription product or if this is a consumable
41:35
product or apparel,
41:38
SPEAKER_02: things that people will buy on a regular basis.
41:41
SPEAKER_02: If it's refrigerators that you're selling,
41:43
SPEAKER_02: maybe you're focusing more of your time on acquisition.
41:48
SPEAKER_02: And the retention is more of like a short-term retention.
41:51
I just think understanding what your version of customer
41:54
retention is is very important.
41:55
And I'm living proof of that because I talk about it every day
41:58
in furniture because
41:59
SPEAKER_02: it's quite different.
42:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, that's good.
42:01
Know your business and know where retention fits in because it
42:04
may not be the same
42:05
SPEAKER_01: for every single business.
42:06
And a lot of times in the community,
42:09
I like to teach people,
42:11
get your email marketing set up.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: Let's get your pop-up set up.
42:14
SPEAKER_01: Let's get your automation sequences set up.
42:18
SPEAKER_01: Let's get your campaigns mapped out and how are you going to do it?
42:22
And the question I was going,
42:23
well,
42:23
I don't really have a lot of traffic yet.
42:25
SPEAKER_01: Why am I doing this?
42:26
SPEAKER_01: Well,
42:27
SPEAKER_01: you're doing this because the minute you start to work on acquisition,
42:31
the goal is that people are going to start joining that list if
42:34
we've inspired them
42:35
SPEAKER_01: to join.
42:35
SPEAKER_01: And your automations are going to kick in.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: And I don't care if you have five people on your list or 10 people.
42:41
SPEAKER_01: Start getting in the habit of sending out emails.
42:43
SPEAKER_01: And email marketing is just one of several retention strategies.
42:47
SPEAKER_01: But it happens to be probably the one that most people are used to,
42:51
SPEAKER_01: maybe feel more comfortable with.
42:52
SPEAKER_01: And it's been around forever.
42:54
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think, uh, I, I, I love what you just said about that.
42:59
Know your business because it may not fit perfectly as it does
43:03
with somebody else's business.
43:04
SPEAKER_01: Their retention strategy will be different than yours.
43:07
SPEAKER_01: So understand that.
43:08
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
43:09
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
43:10
SPEAKER_01: Love that.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about couch.com.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: You know, this is, uh, where, uh,
43:17
SPEAKER_01: Where did the inspiration come from?
43:18
SPEAKER_01: You obviously were in the industry before.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: You know the furniture world.
43:22
SPEAKER_01: And how did you get the name?
43:25
Was that a pricey investment or was that something that
43:30
somebody just missed out
43:32
SPEAKER_01: there and you found it?
43:33
SPEAKER_02: I doubt it's the latter.
43:34
SPEAKER_02: Nobody misses single word domains anymore, sadly.
43:37
SPEAKER_02: I know.
43:39
SPEAKER_02: It cost me a lot of money.
43:41
Whatever my ex-wife didn't take him in divorce,
43:43
this was pretty much the rest of it.
43:46
But it honestly,
43:48
the idea for couch.com came together because of the name.
43:55
SPEAKER_02: Somebody told me that it was available.
43:58
SPEAKER_02: I can't remember who.
44:01
SPEAKER_02: Someone in my network told me,
44:03
SPEAKER_02: hey,
44:03
SPEAKER_02: couch.com is available and I know you're looking for an opportunity.
44:06
SPEAKER_02: So I left my last company.
44:09
I was traveling and finding myself and going through a lot of
44:12
personal transitions.
44:15
SPEAKER_02: And I wasn't really interested in being in the furniture space.
44:19
I was reading business books and just trying to,
44:22
I don't know,
44:23
broaden my scope.
44:24
SPEAKER_02: And then someone told me about couch.com being available for sale.
44:29
SPEAKER_02: And then I started to think about it.
44:30
I'm like,
44:30
well,
44:31
you know,
44:31
at first I thought this could be like the Mecca of couches.
44:37
SPEAKER_02: I could sell so many couches off of the URL couch.com.
44:41
I could build a brand called couch around this and no one could
44:45
challenge me.
44:46
SPEAKER_02: I could be the brand called couch and we could sell our own couches.
44:52
But in thinking about running a direct-to-consumer operation again,
44:56
I was a little hesitant.
44:58
I didn't really want to do it again and start from scratch and
45:04
kind of do the exact
45:05
SPEAKER_02: same thing that I had just done.
45:07
Um,
45:08
and then I had this aha moment when I was on a solo trip in
45:11
Europe by myself.
45:12
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, wait a second, this can be a lot more scalable.
45:16
Now,
45:16
something I have a lot of experience in is the affiliate
45:19
marketing space.
45:20
And I see how important it has been to the furniture industry
45:23
and how,
45:24
how it is emerged.
45:25
SPEAKER_02: Um,
45:26
SPEAKER_02: so much.
45:26
SPEAKER_02: And it's still like the Wild West out there.
45:29
SPEAKER_02: So it's a whole other podcast about affiliate marketing.
45:33
But this sort of being a publisher and being an entity in the
45:39
furniture industry
45:40
SPEAKER_02: that helps users find their couches,
45:45
SPEAKER_02: because customers have no idea where to go to shop for furniture,
45:49
SPEAKER_02: since it's something we do every five to 10 years.
45:52
SPEAKER_02: And there are many other reasons too.
45:54
SPEAKER_02: And then on the retailer side,
45:56
retailers have no idea where to find people who are shopping
45:59
for furniture because
46:00
SPEAKER_02: they only shop for it every five to 10 years.
46:02
There are very few signs as a marketer in furniture to know
46:06
where to find users.
46:08
We basically go out to Meta and Google and say,
46:10
would you like some furniture?
46:12
SPEAKER_02: How about you, sir?
46:14
SPEAKER_02: It's almost ridiculous how much money is wasted.
46:17
So I am building and have built this platform that helps the
46:22
retailers of the
46:23
SPEAKER_02: furniture industry market themselves.
46:26
SPEAKER_02: It's a marketing platform for couch retailers out there.
46:31
SPEAKER_02: We write articles, we have content, we have interviews with founders.
46:35
SPEAKER_02: And ultimately, we're putting up this portal, this portal of
46:42
information and education and access to these brands that are
46:47
fairly personality lists,
46:49
SPEAKER_02: generally speaking,
46:50
SPEAKER_02: in the furniture space.
46:52
SPEAKER_02: And users and customers really like that.
46:54
And they need that to feel comfortable making a purchase of $2,000,
46:57
$3,000,
46:57
$4,000.
46:59
So I see couch.com as being this content driven marketplace is
47:03
that's what we're
47:04
building to sort of connect customers with their perfect
47:08
couches and by doing so by
47:10
SPEAKER_02: connecting them with the retailers that fit their needs the best.
47:14
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
47:14
SPEAKER_01: That's well, first of all, great explanation of the brand and, and,
47:19
SPEAKER_01: How you got there.
47:20
And I love,
47:20
you know,
47:20
you took your time to find this and in some ways it found you too.
47:24
SPEAKER_01: I think, you know, at least the domain found you through somebody else.
47:28
And,
47:29
you know,
47:29
building a business around a domain is an interesting model.
47:33
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, you iterated.
47:35
SPEAKER_01: You had one vision initially and then you moved there.
47:37
And I think that's a great lesson for every e-commerce brand
47:40
that's starting out.
47:41
SPEAKER_01: It may not be exactly what you think it is on day one.
47:45
It may evolve and I will absolutely use it because that number
47:49
is interesting.
47:50
SPEAKER_01: The statistic on how often people buy couches,
47:53
SPEAKER_01: at least in my head,
47:54
SPEAKER_01: we're in the market for a new couch.
47:57
Whether my wife agrees with me or not,
47:58
that'll be another discussion for another time.
48:01
SPEAKER_01: But to be able to learn more and figure out more and find the right...
48:07
SPEAKER_01: It's a hard decision,
48:08
SPEAKER_01: right?
48:08
SPEAKER_01: Because you're going to literally sit on this thing for a long time.
48:12
You better get it right because that's the last thing you want
48:15
that thing in your
48:16
SPEAKER_01: house and you're sitting...
48:17
SPEAKER_01: Why?
48:19
SPEAKER_01: Why does this feel like this?
48:20
SPEAKER_01: This is not right.
48:23
SPEAKER_01: We can probably all remember the great couch in our life, in our lives.
48:27
So I love that you're essentially bringing those two worlds together,
48:32
bringing them together.
48:33
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a phenomenal.
48:35
And you don't have to sit on any inventory,
48:38
which is another great part of this,
48:40
right?
48:40
SPEAKER_01: This model.
48:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:42
SPEAKER_02: And no, I have clients, but not customers.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: Right.
48:46
SPEAKER_02: Clients are the retailers in the furniture industry.
48:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:49
SPEAKER_02: And they've been fairly demanding a little bit here and there,
48:54
SPEAKER_02: but I'm not managing a national furniture logistics operation,
48:57
SPEAKER_02: which is quite difficult to do.
48:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:59
SPEAKER_02: I can imagine.
49:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
49:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:02
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, that's just the path that I've chosen.
49:03
SPEAKER_02: I think there's a lot of opportunity in the furniture space.
49:06
SPEAKER_02: So who knows where we'll end up in a year or two.
49:08
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we might pivot again.
49:10
SPEAKER_02: Well, I love that.
49:11
SPEAKER_01: Well, as we wrap up, I've got two final questions for you.
49:14
SPEAKER_01: One,
49:15
SPEAKER_01: I just would love for you to think about,
49:16
SPEAKER_01: you know,
49:17
SPEAKER_01: your days at apartment to be and now your current,
49:20
SPEAKER_01: you know,
49:21
SPEAKER_01: couch.com.
49:22
SPEAKER_01: Is there one lesson?
49:23
SPEAKER_01: Is there one thing you could just share?
49:26
SPEAKER_01: You've shared a lot, a lot of great information.
49:28
Is there one thing that stands out where you would say,
49:32
you've got to know this.
49:33
This is one piece of advice I want you to know as you're
49:35
starting your e-commerce brand.
49:40
SPEAKER_02: I want to say something different just to be different,
49:43
but I really want to accentuate something that we've talked
49:46
about today and I just mentioned.
49:49
SPEAKER_02: I think seeing... Because it was an unlock for me to learn this.
49:54
SPEAKER_02: Seeing your business as an iterative process is very, very important.
50:02
SPEAKER_02: Now, you want to go in with a plan.
50:03
SPEAKER_02: You want to go in with multiple plans.
50:06
SPEAKER_02: But having some mental flexibility to change and restructure things,
50:11
SPEAKER_02: do whatever it takes to succeed,
50:13
SPEAKER_02: is so important in my view.
50:17
SPEAKER_02: There is a quote...
50:19
SPEAKER_02: I'm terrible at remembering specific quotes,
50:21
SPEAKER_02: but it's something like,
50:22
SPEAKER_02: when the market is gargantuan and the opportunity is really large,
50:28
SPEAKER_02: then you can't really fail as long as you stay nimble,
50:33
SPEAKER_02: which is to say,
50:34
SPEAKER_02: I know couch.com is going to do something.
50:38
SPEAKER_02: It's too big to fail.
50:39
SPEAKER_02: The furniture market is multi,
50:41
SPEAKER_02: multi,
50:41
SPEAKER_02: multi,
50:41
SPEAKER_02: multi,
50:41
SPEAKER_02: multi billions of dollars every year in America.
50:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
50:44
So whether you're selling juices at a farmer's market or you're
50:47
selling couches on
50:48
SPEAKER_02: the internet,
50:50
SPEAKER_02: just recognize that there's something you like about this business.
50:53
SPEAKER_02: There's an opportunity.
50:54
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't have to be exactly what you initially thought it was.
50:57
SPEAKER_02: That's sort of a little bit attached to one's ego, I believe.
51:00
SPEAKER_02: And I think if you see it as an iterative process,
51:02
you can set yourself up better for success because when
51:05
opportunities come along,
51:06
SPEAKER_02: you might want to seize them,
51:07
SPEAKER_02: whether it was what you expected or not.
51:10
I am so happy you doubled down on that and came at it from a
51:14
slightly different
51:14
SPEAKER_01: angle and really honed in on it.
51:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
51:18
SPEAKER_01: I was listening and taking it in too,
51:19
SPEAKER_01: because it's very hard,
51:21
SPEAKER_01: or I should say,
51:23
SPEAKER_01: actually,
51:23
SPEAKER_01: it's very easy to forget
51:26
SPEAKER_01: That it is an iterative process.
51:28
SPEAKER_01: Things will change.
51:29
SPEAKER_01: You know,
51:30
SPEAKER_01: we tend to,
51:30
SPEAKER_01: as you said,
51:31
SPEAKER_01: our ego gets in there and gets connected with one little nuance and,
51:35
SPEAKER_01: oh,
51:35
SPEAKER_01: this is,
51:36
SPEAKER_01: it has to be this.
51:37
SPEAKER_01: But I love the big, you know, the big market, big idea, big opportunity.
51:44
SPEAKER_01: Why wouldn't you be able to make it work?
51:45
You just need to be okay letting it evolve and changing and
51:49
adjusting as you go in there.
51:51
SPEAKER_01: Phenomenal, Alex.
51:52
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
51:53
SPEAKER_01: That is spoken like a true entrepreneur.
51:56
SPEAKER_01: And thank you.
51:57
SPEAKER_01: You helped me, honestly.
51:59
SPEAKER_01: I took it in.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: Very, very important.
52:02
SPEAKER_01: So my last question for you, and we'll circle back to AI really quickly.
52:06
SPEAKER_01: What's one thing you've done recently on AI that
52:11
SPEAKER_01: You had that moment like I had the other day.
52:14
SPEAKER_01: You're like, wow, I did not know that you could do that.
52:18
SPEAKER_01: And I love that.
52:20
And that has changed maybe your process for what you were
52:25
trying to accomplish.
52:29
SPEAKER_02: Well, overall in the last year, there's been so many of those moments.
52:36
SPEAKER_02: It's hard to pinpoint one.
52:38
SPEAKER_02: One big one for me,
52:40
If I take the last year as a time period,
52:43
just creating visual,
52:46
creating anything visual is...
52:49
SPEAKER_02: It's unbelievably easy.
52:51
SPEAKER_02: Now,
52:51
I feel terrible for the graphic designers that I've worked with
52:54
and friends that
52:54
SPEAKER_02: I've had in the past,
52:55
SPEAKER_02: but they're just simply not needed in the exact same way anymore.
52:59
SPEAKER_02: They're not.
53:00
All that to say,
53:02
tools like Canva,
53:04
I use MidJourney to make images of furniture.
53:09
SPEAKER_02: First of all,
53:10
SPEAKER_02: getting lifestyle images,
53:11
SPEAKER_02: meaning furniture images in a person's home or with people on it,
53:16
SPEAKER_02: is incredibly important.
53:18
SPEAKER_02: expensive and cost prohibitive.
53:20
And sometimes you need to do it because you need to show the
53:23
actual furniture.
53:24
But if you're just writing an article about how to enjoy a
53:28
sectional sofa in your
53:29
SPEAKER_02: living room or whatever it is,
53:31
SPEAKER_02: you don't need the real couch and the real people.
53:34
SPEAKER_02: You can use AI.
53:35
SPEAKER_02: So that was a huge,
53:37
SPEAKER_02: just visual assets,
53:39
how fast we're able to create them and how many great templates
53:41
there are and
53:42
SPEAKER_02: things like that.
53:43
SPEAKER_02: That's one.
53:44
But the other thing is,
53:45
yeah,
53:46
in keyword research,
53:47
I mean,
53:48
man,
53:49
there's all these tools.
53:52
There used to be so much manual effort in keyword research and
53:55
figuring out what
53:56
SPEAKER_02: people are searching for,
53:58
SPEAKER_02: what kind of customers you might be able to acquire.
54:01
SPEAKER_02: There are tools on a smaller scale like this Surfer SEO,
54:07
SPEAKER_02: where you can just kind of type in the word furniture,
54:10
SPEAKER_02: let's say,
54:10
SPEAKER_02: or juice.
54:12
SPEAKER_02: and get the top ranked term,
54:16
SPEAKER_02: meaning,
54:16
SPEAKER_02: excuse me,
54:16
SPEAKER_02: the top searched terms that are related to that.
54:20
And it can create an entire outline of an article or even a
54:23
full article for you
54:25
SPEAKER_02: Based on that,
54:28
SPEAKER_02: on a larger scale,
54:29
tools like SparkToro is this awesome one that can give you so
54:34
many insights about
54:36
SPEAKER_02: your industry that you're trying to target,
54:40
SPEAKER_02: the audience,
54:41
SPEAKER_02: the competitors,
54:41
SPEAKER_02: the people,
54:42
SPEAKER_02: the keywords,
54:43
SPEAKER_02: literally everything.
54:44
SPEAKER_02: And it's all AI powered.
54:46
SPEAKER_02: So there's just so much access to information out there.
54:49
I just think it's a matter of figuring out what you want to
54:52
look for and you'll
54:53
SPEAKER_02: find it with some AI tool.
54:55
SPEAKER_01: That's, yes, the imagery is amazing.
54:58
SPEAKER_01: It's getting better every day.
54:59
SPEAKER_01: You know,
55:00
SPEAKER_01: sometimes you still see maybe a person with,
55:02
SPEAKER_01: you know,
55:02
SPEAKER_01: an extra finger or two in there.
55:04
SPEAKER_01: Just be aware of that.
55:05
SPEAKER_02: Hey, what's an extra finger?
55:06
SPEAKER_01: Come on, Rubin.
55:07
SPEAKER_01: Take it, yeah, lop it off and, you know, you'll be fine.
55:10
SPEAKER_01: But you're right.
55:11
I mean,
55:12
these are,
55:13
and maybe,
55:13
you know,
55:13
you mentioned the graphic designers.
55:15
SPEAKER_01: They have to be
55:16
They have to be ready to pivot in their business now and adapt
55:20
to the fact that a
55:22
lot of people are going to AI to get their imagery rather than
55:26
maybe going to the
55:27
graphic designer who's up on Upwork or on Fiverr or wherever
55:32
they are to try to
55:34
SPEAKER_01: create it.
55:34
SPEAKER_01: I always think what I love is content creators.
55:37
I also think content creators are in an awkward situation right
55:41
now because of AI.
55:42
What I love is if a content creator pivots their business,
55:45
they should pivot it towards
55:46
this is just my opinion towards taking that AI based
55:51
information and tweaking it
55:52
SPEAKER_01: and adjusting it and making it,
55:54
SPEAKER_01: you know,
55:55
SPEAKER_01: adding a human element to it.
55:56
SPEAKER_01: That's a good,
55:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
55:57
that's a good combination of those two worlds working well
56:01
together because yeah,
56:02
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
56:02
SPEAKER_01: everybody's going there to get their content,
56:04
SPEAKER_01: but you know,
56:04
SPEAKER_01: and I don't think you should copy it word for word,
56:07
SPEAKER_01: but there are plenty of times where I even see the content.
56:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, why would I change that?
56:10
SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
56:12
SPEAKER_01: What just came out of there is absolutely amazing.
56:14
SPEAKER_01: So many industries are being affected.
56:17
SPEAKER_01: by this.
56:18
But I think our goal here is to help emerging e-commerce
56:20
entrepreneurs use tools to
56:23
SPEAKER_01: help build successful businesses.
56:25
SPEAKER_01: And you've just,
56:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
56:26
SPEAKER_01: identified several opportunities here just in the AI side,
56:30
SPEAKER_01: not to mention everything else you talked about.
56:32
SPEAKER_01: Well, Alex, this has been an absolute pleasure having you on.
56:36
SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad that I kept that email,
56:38
that original pitch that came my way and that I reached out and
56:43
your information
56:44
SPEAKER_01: has been incredibly valuable.
56:46
I've learned and I know that our audience will continue to,
56:50
you know,
56:51
learn.
56:52
SPEAKER_01: And it's all about learning,
56:53
SPEAKER_01: adjusting,
56:54
SPEAKER_01: making changes along the way,
56:55
SPEAKER_01: but building successful brands.
56:58
SPEAKER_01: And,
56:58
SPEAKER_01: you know,
56:59
SPEAKER_01: first work on that first hundred,
57:00
SPEAKER_01: then work on the next thousand and then work on 10 and then continue on.
57:04
SPEAKER_01: And it's all a big, long journey.
57:06
SPEAKER_01: And I appreciate you and
57:09
SPEAKER_01: Greatly appreciate it.
57:09
SPEAKER_01: Maybe take a few minutes and tell people where they can find you.
57:11
SPEAKER_01: I know they can find you on LinkedIn.
57:13
SPEAKER_01: Cause that's your, you're there.
57:14
SPEAKER_01: Where else can they find you?
57:17
SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, I'm very communicative person.
57:19
SPEAKER_02: I love when people reach out.
57:21
SPEAKER_02: Um, I found a lot of opportunities have come from just, uh,
57:26
SPEAKER_02: Just networking.
57:27
SPEAKER_02: And I've done a lot of it the past couple of years.
57:30
SPEAKER_02: It's been very fruitful.
57:30
SPEAKER_02: So my email is alexatcouch.com.
57:32
SPEAKER_02: Pretty difficult, right?
57:35
SPEAKER_02: I encourage anybody listening to please,
57:37
SPEAKER_02: if you have a question or an opportunity or anything,
57:41
SPEAKER_02: really just reach out.
57:42
SPEAKER_02: I'm happy to discuss at any time.
57:44
SPEAKER_01: Great.
57:45
SPEAKER_01: Well, I appreciate that.
57:45
SPEAKER_01: And maybe at some point we'll have you come into the community.
57:48
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
57:49
SPEAKER_01: we do a little live,
57:50
SPEAKER_01: you know,
57:51
SPEAKER_01: tell us,
57:51
tell us what you learn concept and let people ask you some
57:55
questions because you're
57:56
SPEAKER_01: a wealth of knowledge.
57:57
SPEAKER_01: So thank you very much.
57:58
SPEAKER_01: And I hope you continue to have a wonderful rest of your week.
58:02
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
58:02
SPEAKER_01: And hang tight here as we wrap up.
58:05
SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much, everybody, for joining us on today's podcast.
58:09
You know,
58:10
we try to bring as much information to the community to help
58:13
them grow.
58:14
SPEAKER_01: And hopefully today's episode just has done just that for you.
58:19
So continue to work hard and continue to grow your business and
58:23
know that,
58:24
SPEAKER_01: as Alex said,
58:26
things will change and you better be ready for those changes
58:28
and make adjustments
58:29
SPEAKER_01: along the way.
58:30
SPEAKER_01: Thank you again.
58:31
SPEAKER_01: Have a great day.
58:33
All right,
58:34
that brings us to the end of another episode of the e-commerce
58:37
revolution podcast.
58:39
SPEAKER_01: Don't forget to check out past episodes,
58:41
which are all available on demand on YouTube and wherever you
58:45
listen to your podcast.
58:47
SPEAKER_01: Ready to join the revolution?
58:48
SPEAKER_01: Become an exclusive part of our growing community of emerging e-commerce
58:52
SPEAKER_01: entrepreneurs at ecomrevolution.co.
58:56
SPEAKER_01: Until next time, see ya.