Sramana Mitra: How much business are you doing in China? What percentage of your revenue comes from China right now? Peter Mann: This year, we’re planning to do $10 million. I would say 40% would be in China this year.
Sramana Mitra: Where is your contract manufacturer in the US? Peter Mann: They’re in Connecticut. Sramana Mitra: Are you selling the new product in the US only? Peter Mann: We sell in the US, Canada, and China.
Sramana Mitra: It’s mostly paid search-based customer acquisition – PPC? Peter Mann: That’s how we started. We have a brand that no one has ever heard before. It’s hard to get started and so PPC is the quick way to get up and going. It’s expensive, though. We’re trying to have PR and some other
Peter Mann: Initially, I started with a couple of factories in China and started with those products to get the business started. These were mostly Chinese developed products that I adjusted and branded. It wasn’t really manufactured from the ground-up by us. Shortly thereafter, I started looking at air purifiers. In its simplest form, it’s
Sramana Mitra: What happened after Dell? Peter Mann: When I was at Dell, I learned pretty quickly that the culture wasn’t what I was expecting. At the same time, the Internet bubble burst. Dell started going through round after round of layoffs. The morale was low. It was a difficult environment from a cultural perspective.
Peter Mann: Shortly after that, the Gulf War began and so we were sent over the Red Sea for about six months. That was a changing event for me. I got married a year out of college. We got married very young. I missed the last six months of the pregnancy and I missed the