Sramana Mitra: From a macro perspective, what’s happening? Is the industry seeing a tremendous shift from Shopify to Amazon? Ethan McAfee: Market share of Amazon has been growing. Right now, Amazon has over 50% online commerce. Amazon’s market share growth is coming from two eBay and Walmart. I think they’re also taking market share from
Sramana Mitra: Let’s take SaaS for a moment. If you were to look at a SaaS company, what would you look for? Would you look for MRR metrics? Would you look for just a proof, just a minimum viable product? What is your comfort zone to get into a company? Bill Bice: I’m often working
Sramana Mitra: What about other channels like eBay? Ethan McAfee: We’ve always focused on the Amazon channel because Amazon is 12 times the size of Walmart and Jet combined. A lot of the products on eBay are oftentimes used or collectible products. It’s not as much new products. The main issue with eBay is, it’s
Sramana Mitra: Before we get into that, let’s get the fund specifics. How big is your fund? What is your preferred investment criteria. Bill Bice: We’re an early-stage fund. My partner was the first VC in the state of New Mexico. He really took a different approach in building the firm. He brought together a
Entrepreneurs are invited to the 446th FREE online 1Mby1M mentoring roundtable on Thursday, June 13, 2019, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST. If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to “pitch” and sell your business idea. You’ll receive straightforward feedback, advice on next steps, and answers to any of your
Sramana Mitra: How big a role does the backend fulfillment play in this particular case study that we are discussing. Does Amazon fulfillment also kick in gear in this kind of a situation? Ethan McAfee: To be successful in selling online or on Amazon, you really need to use what’s called Fulfillment by Amazon, which
Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Bill Bice was recorded in April 2019. Bill Bice, Partner at Verge Fund, discusses New Mexico’s startup ecosystem and his fund’s activities in that region. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by getting acquainted
E-commerce strategy for small merchants is becoming quite complicated with Amazon becoming a giant player in the space. This interview cuts through a lot of that complexity. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to Amify. Ethan McAfee: I’m the Co-Founder and CEO of Amify. We help brands maximize