Posts Tagged ‘e-commerce’

Small Business Spotlight of the Week: EpicThrills

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

I have a friend who subscribes to the belief that every experience you have in life is a “story for your storybook.”  It’s become a kind of mantra in our group of friends, used in jest and in all seriousness.  To credit Rob, though, it can be a pretty powerful reminder to be constantly seeking adventure and fun in everything you do.

So today, in honor of him, I bring the crowdSPRING community EpicThrills.  Partnered with elite adventure outfitters and guides around the world, EpicThrills offers its members exclusive deals on extreme adventure.  We’re talking hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro or boating down the Amazon– not stuff for the faint of heart.   If you think you’ve got the right stuff, you can request an invitation to join here.  Deals are offered each week, with the end goal of empowering members to live full lives of epic adventure.

EpicThrills founder, Allen Burt, talked to me a little bit about creating stories for your storybook:

How would you explain what you do to somebody’s grandmother?

EpicThrills inspires people to live a life of adventure by offering them exclusive deals on epic trips around the world.   Whether it’s heli-skiing in Alaska, surfing in Costa Rica, or whitewater rafting in Patagonia, we drop an unbelievable sale on an adventure in your email inbox each week.

What are some industry specific challenges you faced?  

The travel industry is chalk full of challenges.  Communication is tough, as most of the travel companies and adventure outfitters we work with would rather be outside guiding tours than sitting behind a computer emailing with us!  Plus, many of our partners are located in remote destinations around the world.  Maintaining consistent communication with our suppliers has been the biggest challenge.

What was your biggest learning curve/experience?

I’m neither a developer nor a designer.  Building a technical e-commerce booking product that places a heavy focus on design was a large learning curve.  I quickly realized that I needed to leverage outside experts.

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Small Business Spotlight of the Week: BookTurtle

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

Buying books might be one of the guiltiest pleasures, ever.  The smell of the ink, the feel of the paper and, of course, the question of what to do when you’re done reading it.  Some are worth keeping and showing off on your book shelf.  But most do not make the cut. There’s few option to get rid of excess novels, too, either hauling them to a used book store and hope to score some decent dough or selling them for $.10 apiece in your mother’s best friend’s cousin’s garage sale.

Jamie Beckland founded BookTurtle to provide a third option: selling your books online for a fair price.  Tired of only getting a few dollars back for expensive text books in college, he tapped into the entrepreneurial spirit and started an online platform that pays top dollars for books people don’t want. While it started out with just textbooks, BookTurtle has expanded to include all used books.  The average family could potentially make over $300 using BookTurtle.  It’s as simple as typing in the ISBN number and clicking “Shell Out The Cash.”

Book buying extraordinaire, Jamie, answered some questions:

How would you explain what you do to somebody’s grandmother?

We pay top dollar for books from people who are done with their books – college students at the end of semester, families cleaning out their closets, or people who used to sell books at yard sales.

What are some industry specific challenges you faced?

When people think of books online, most people think of buying books at an online bookstore. We had to build an awareness of the idea of selling your books online. People used to give their books to Goodwill or sell them for $0.10 at a yard sale. So, we have been working hard to change that behavior. The average household could make over $300 with BookTurtle right now. People don’t see the stuff that is cluttering up their lives as a potential way for them to make money.

That’s why the logo and design of the BookTurtle website had to communicate the experience of BookTurtle right away. The designer came up with the idea of a turtle carting his books off, and thinking about all the money he was going to make. That is the entire business in one single image. Communicating that message was the essential first step in helping people understand the value proposition.

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Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Voguette

Wednesday, June 15th, 2011

Keeping up with fashion trends is hard work, for those who are serious about it.  While Chanel and Prada are mainstays, it can be more rewarding to find smaller, boutique designers to buy from.  However, for most people, travelling around the world looking for unique designs is just not feasible.

Luckily, Voguette.com exists to help people search for the next big thing.  Voguette gathers clothing designs and accessories from around the world and sells them, bringing fashionistas and boutiques together.  They also are one of the few clothing companies with a green initiative, taking into consideration everything from organic cotton to textile manufacturing.

Valerie, the founder of Voguette, took a minute from trend hunting the globe to answer a few questions:

 

1. How would you explain what you do to somebody’s grandmother?

Next time you want to find an exotic and exclusive souvenir, you don’t have to endure jetlag. Instead of exhausting your budget in travel, enter the realm of Voguette.com for beautiful one-of-a-kind gifts from around the world. Whether you are looking for the perfect bag, jewelry, beachwear, or clothing, Voguette.com is the ultimate fashion forward destination.

 

2. What made you use crowdSPRING?

We learned about crowdSPRING from an article we read on a plane while traveling to a trade show. The idea seemed fascinating and we wanted to explore what it would be like to give full freedom to a Global Team of sleepless creatives working on projects they were passionate about.

 

3. What’s the craziest story you have from starting your own business?

Working with many designers across the world, there are always hiccups – especially when it comes to travel! Last year, we had a very uncomfortable experience and almost got stranded in Colombia when at an airport the police did full body scans thinking we were transporting was contraband.. when in fact it was only gorgeous jewelry for Voguette.com!

 

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Small Business Spotlight of the Week: PVPower

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011

Being from the Midwest, I’m pretty familiar with wind mills.  Driving through Iowa, Indiana or southern Illinois, they’re pretty hard to miss towering and turning on the horizon. In contrast, the only solar panel I’ve seen in real life was in Forest City, Iowa, a town I’d be hard-pressed to find a handful of people who have heard of it.

The folks over at PVPower are trying to change this disparity. Founded in 2009 by three long-time renewable energy supporters, PVPower functions as an e-commerce distributor of solar components– including solar panels.  From 2009 – 2010, the company grew 750%, a testament to both rising consumer interest and company vision. With green technology becoming more and more in demand, many homeowners are struggling to connect with companies that sell products like solar panels, but also contractors who can design and install the systems. Recognizing the need for connecting contractors with buyers, the founders of PVPower recently embarked on SolarBear, a web platform for bringing the two together.

PVPower co-founder Nick Yecke answered some questions I had:

1.  How would you explain what you do to somebody’s grandmother?

PVPower sells solar panels to contractors and homeowners across the U.S. through our website at pvpower.com. We’re also building a website that’s going to make it as easy to plan and buy a home solar system as it is to plan a trip on Kayak.com.

 

2.  What are some industry specific challenges you faced?

Residential solar installations are much more prevalent in other parts of the country, not necessarily Chicago or the Midwest. This has been something that has definitely challenged us as we’ve grown, especially as we’ve networked and raised money predominantly in and around the Midwest.

Solar is also growing at an alarming pace, something that most in the Midwest probably don’t realize. Today it’s growing at nearly 40% year over year, that’s faster than mobile phones ever did in the U.S. – now that’s staggering. So keeping up with demand, pricing, inventory, customers… you name it is both challenging and also a lot of fun. We’re literally in the eye of the storm as this new energy infrastructure is being created. Exciting times.

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Small Business Spotlight of the Week: DormStormer

Friday, March 25th, 2011

There are those who think and those who do.  Current University of Southern California students Adam Gausepohl and Bryant Laitipaya definitely fall into the latter category.

As college room mates and fraternity brothers, they both knew they wanted to eventually start a business, but like many entrepreneurs, struggled to find an idea they were both equally confident in.  Finally, frustrated with the lack of flash sales websites that cared about what college kids need, they came up with DormStormer.

DormStormer takes extra inventory from top brands and sells it to students at around 50% off.  These sales take place in 72 hour events.  In order to buy off of DormStormer, a person has to have a .edu email address, making it exclusive to the coveted and valuable 18 – 25 demographic.

Adam took the time to answer a few questions I had regarding DormStormer and using crowdSPRING to help them develop a website:

1.  How did you get things designed before crowdSPRING? Or if this is your first project, what other options were you considering?

Before crowdSPRING, we tried to design our own website on Wix. Wix is a very easy to use website that allows you to create your own custom flash site. We found it easy to start making something that looked pretty good, but it was hard to customize it to the point that we needed to. Also, flash sites take longer to load and we did not want this problem for our customers who may have slower connections.

2. Why in the world did you decide to use crowdSPRING?

We decided to use crowdSPRING because it was a relatively cheap option to obtain high quality results. We are extremely pleased with the outcome of our competition, and the designer emadz has provided us with the exact type of website we were looking for. We browsed crowdSPRING’s competitors, but decided to choose crowdSPRING as we thought we could obtain the highest results. Also, we loved how much information crowdSPRING requested of us, as we thought this would give the creatives the best possible chance at fully understanding what we were looking for.

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