40 Million Dollar Company, Paying Dividends, Growing Steadily: 3CInteractive CEO John Duffy (Part 2)

Sramana: How did you move from MCI to join your mentor’s company? What was the sequence of events? John Duffy: In 1993, when I was at MCI, I had a customer call me and tell me that he had developed a bulletin board system for Star Trek fans. It was a computer program that people

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40 Million Dollar Company, Paying Dividends, Growing Steadily: 3CInteractive CEO John Duffy (Part 1)

John Duffy is a serial entrepreneur with extensive experience in communications and payment processing. At 3Cinteractive, John is responsible for setting corporate strategy, driving revenue, and helping to maintain the company’s key relationships with customers and vendors. Prior to co-founding 3Ci, John built several successful companies in various industries. John lives in Delray Beach, Florida,

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Zero To 17 Million Using SEO And PPC, No External Financing: E-Commerce Entrepreneur Mercia Tapping, CEO Of Boston Green Goods (Part 7)

Sramana: How do consumers find out that you have this consultative phone selling option when they visit your website? Mercia Tapping: When consumers go to the product page and they press an expert review tab or scroll down, they will find that information. We also get a lot of word-of-mouth advertising at this time. People

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Zero To 17 Million Using SEO And PPC, No External Financing: E-Commerce Entrepreneur Mercia Tapping, CEO Of Boston Green Goods (Part 6)

Sramana: It is a daunting task to compete against a Best Buy or Amazon.com, both of which sell products in your category. It seems you have taken innovative approaches to let you keep momentum. Mercia Tapping: The better manufacturers do not sell on either BestBuy.com or Amazon.com.

Zero To 17 Million Using SEO And PPC, No External Financing: E-Commerce Entrepreneur Mercia Tapping, CEO Of Boston Green Goods (Part 5)

Sramana: Where did you turn to obtain subscribers for your print catalogue? Mercia Tapping: In terms of marketing the catalogue, we used our own customer database, which was substantial. Sramana: How many customers do you have? Mercia Tapping: In theory, we had over 50,000 new customers a year.

Zero To 17 Million Using SEO And PPC, No External Financing: E-Commerce Entrepreneur Mercia Tapping, CEO Of Boston Green Goods (Part 4)

Sramana: Search engines picked up your product descriptions, and users found your site when they were using search engines to search for things like steam cleaners and air purifiers. Is that an accurate description of your customer acquisition model when you started? Mercia Tapping: That is exactly it. In January 2000, our first month’s sales

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Zero To 17 Million Using SEO And PPC, No External Financing: E-Commerce Entrepreneur Mercia Tapping, CEO Of Boston Green Goods (Part 3)

Sramana: Essentially, you positioned yourself as an expert voice over a certain class of products, and your priority was to build trust with consumers. Did you find that consumers were willing to trust you? Mercia Tapping: Consumers have always trusted our opinion and the strength of our evaluation. We actually find that other e-commerce stores

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Zero To 17 Million Using SEO And PPC, No External Financing: E-Commerce Entrepreneur Mercia Tapping, CEO Of Boston Green Goods (Part 2)

Sramana: In 1998, when you were ready to start your company, what did you do to start it? What were your strategy and offering? Mercia Tapping: What I wanted to do is not very original now, but it was in 1998. I wanted to offer people a place where they could buy a product from

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