Building a Cross-Border e-Commerce Success Selling to Russia: Bay.Ru CEO Aaron Block (Part 6)

Sramana: Would you say that your shipping algorithm is one of your core competencies? Aaron Block: Our proprietary shipping algorithm is something we think is very special and we covet it. Another interesting aspect of our business is that we have the majority of our operation is in Chicago even though we focus on the

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Building a Cross-Border e-Commerce Success Selling to Russia: Bay.Ru CEO Aaron Block (Part 5)

Sramana: How did the Bay.ru business get off the ground? Did the founders bootstrap or take financing? Aaron Block: They took some loans from friends and family as well as some personal loans. They really bootstrapped the business, and that culture persists today. We consider ourselves a frugal organization. We just reached profitability in March,

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Building a Cross-Border e-Commerce Success Selling to Russia: Bay.Ru CEO Aaron Block (Part 4)

Sramana: When you are buying wholesale, you have enough margin on the sale price to make a decent profit. If you are buying from other retailers, the margins tend to be less interesting. Is your margin with eBay or Amazon acceptable? Aaron Block: There is a market for international goods in Russia. The markup above

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Building a Cross-Border e-Commerce Success Selling to Russia: Bay.Ru CEO Aaron Block (Part 3)

Sramana: It sounds like one of the innovations you have accomplished was creating a wide range of payment options for Russian consumers. Is that a fair statement? Aaron Block: Yes, definitely. It took a significant amount of work to create all of the payment touch points in a way that resounded with the Russian consumer.

Building a Cross-Border e-Commerce Success Selling to Russia: Bay.Ru CEO Aaron Block (Part 2)

Sramana: How does the sales cycle work? Is delivery fulfillment happening in Russia with merchandise stored in Russian warehouses? Aaron Block: We are a middleman in Russia, but in the U.S. we are known as a cross-border e-commerce company. There are a number of players in the cross-border space. The cross-border space means that you

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Building a Cross-Border e-Commerce Success Selling to Russia: Bay.Ru CEO Aaron Block (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  Aaron Block is the CEO of Bay.ru, the first cross-border e-commerce business in Russia and the fastest growing shopping site in Russia. Bay.ru’s growth has been powered by affiliate partnerships with eBay and Amazon which provides Bay.ru an integrated product catalog in a wide range of

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Gaps in Analytics: Jon Kondo, CEO of Host Analytics (Part 7)

Sramana: In the pre-SaaS era, a lot of software got bought and sold that just stayed on the shelf. Siebel was notorious for being shelfware. As a category, is SaaS significantly better in terms of utilization rates? Jon Kondo: The beauty of SaaS is that if a company is not using the software, then they

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Gaps in Analytics: Jon Kondo, CEO of Host Analytics (Part 6)

Sramana: What is the current financing market like for enterprise software? Silicon Valley has tipped heavily in favor of B2C. Having said that, a lot of cloud computing companies are doing well and raising financing. Can you comment about the lay of the land in general? Jon Kondo: It is a very good time for

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