When we spoke in 2018, SmartBuyGlasses Co-CEO David Menning had bootstrapped a global e-commerce venture from Hong Kong to $50M. Splendid execution! Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? David Menning: I grew up in Sydney. I’ve
If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. When we spoke in 2018, SmartBuyGlasses Co-CEO David Menning had bootstrapped a global e-commerce venture from Hong Kong to $50M. Splendid execution! Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. SmartBuyGlasses Co-CEO David Menning has bootstrapped a global e-commerce venture from Hong Kong. Splendid execution! Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? David Menning: I grew up in
David has bootstrapped a global e-commerce venture from Hong Kong. Splendid execution! Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? David Menning: I grew up in Sydney. I’ve been educated in Australia. In my later years, I studied
Sramana Mitra: How big is your team now? David Menning: 150. Sramana Mitra: What percentage of that is in Australia? David Menning: We actually don’t have any staff in Australia at the present time. Sramana Mitra: That’s interesting. How did that happen?
Sramana Mitra: In terms of customer acquisition, what has been the driving narrative? What strategies worked for you? David Menning: It really comes down to the discipline of how one runs the business and how one runs a marketing team. There’s discipline and then as a result of that, how you apply marketing efforts to
Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back a little bit to the chronological story. In 2007, did you open up all of these English-speaking markets? David Menning: It was a step-by-step approach. In 2007, we were still trying to improve the Australian market. We were trying to improve the experience of the customer. Eyeglasses is quite a
Sramana Mitra: Google AdWords did exist already. Google AdWords was easier because it wasn’t as competitive and the prices of keywords was lower. David Menning: That was the main marketing channel in that initial period. There were also a few marketing channels that existed. You may recall comparison shopping was also a big thing back