Sramana: Are your distributors well equipped to handle the fulfillment directly to consumers? Michael Dash: Yes, they have large warehouses that stock these auto part inventories. Those warehouses are set up as shipment and fulfillment warehouses. When somebody orders a part from me, I electronically transmit that to them. They pick that part and put
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. We maintain that one of the best ways to identify complex problems worth solving inside enterprises is by offering services to them, thereby gaining exposure to the domain. Datasong is yet another case in point. Related reading: Bootstrapping Using Services. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the
Sramana Mitra: You were doing college level courses? Andrew Grauer: Yes, we focused on US colleges. Then, we expanded internationally as well and now we’re just starting to go into high school. Sramana Mitra: Within those colleges, was there any bias in terms of courses?
Sramana: Let’s double down on the evolution of your business. Can you talk more about the progression of the business chronologically? When did you actually start the business? Michael Dash: We started it in September of 2011. We had sold our equity in our previous company in July of 2011. We started brainstorming our next
Sramana Mitra: That’s actually great. We love these stories of student entrepreneurs who didn’t drop out. Going back to the subscription model, how did the revenue ramp? Andrew Grauer: It ramped really well in terms of growth rate but we were starting on a really small figure. I don’t remember the specifics. I do know
Sramana: What was your team building process like? Michael Dash: We started very small with just David and I and then slowly started to add additional employees. We started with a database and network engineer. Then we hired a couple of PHP engineers and Magento developers. We also hired some designers and customer service members.
Sramana Mitra: Explain to me the value proposition of your concept. Andrew Grauer: The best way to understand it is to think about tutoring. The first version of this was a content version of tutoring – getting supplemental help for people to learn and succeed effectively in their specific course at their school. We really
Sramana: When did you start Car Part Kings? Michael Dash: We started it in late 2011. We incorporated and had the idea. We approached some different people about products that we were interested in. We launched in September of 2011. Sramana: What were you going to sell? Michael Dash: We talked to a number of