A Serial Entrepreneur Who Understands ‘Work’: WorkMarket CEO Jeff Leventhal (Part 2)

Sramana: What did you do after you sold LANSafe in 1995? Jeff Leventhal: As an entrepreneur, I have built my companies based on what I have learned in previous companies. This led me to launch a business called Remote Lojix. What I had discovered while running my previous software business is that companies were having

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A Serial Entrepreneur Who Understands ‘Work’: WorkMarket CEO Jeff Leventhal (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  Jeff Leventhal has built four businesses in the domain of ‘work’ and has created a blue-print of managing distributed workforces on behalf of companies. All four businesses have monetized well for this serial entrepreneur who really has the magic touch! Sramana: Jeff, let’s start with a

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Comment-Selling on Facebook: Smocked Auctions Founders Amy Laws and Nicole Brewer (Part 7)

Sramana: On the surface, Facebook advertising does not seem all that complicated. A lot of people also believe that fans don’t turn into leads. You are getting leads and transactions out of Facebook. What have you learned that is worth sharing? Amy Laws: Once that fan likes your page, you have to put your best

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Comment-Selling on Facebook: Smocked Auctions Founders Amy Laws and Nicole Brewer (Part 6)

Sramana: So now in addition to your auctions, you are also offering traditional e-commerce on your website? Nicole Brewer: Yes. We still have our auctions as well. Sramana: What infrastructure do you use to complete your auctions? Is that still custom software? Nicole Brewer: We have a partner that we are using. We post a

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Comment-Selling on Facebook: Smocked Auctions Founders Amy Laws and Nicole Brewer (Part 5)

Sramana: What percentage of the business is girls clothing versus boys clothing? Nicole Brewer: About 70% to 30%. Girl moms definitely shop more than the boy moms. You can do a lot more with a girl. Sramana: When you decided to move to a more automated payment process, how did you manage that decision process?

Comment-Selling on Facebook: Smocked Auctions Founders Amy Laws and Nicole Brewer (Part 4)

Sramana: How much overstock inventory did you have to buy in terms of dollars? Amy Laws: We probably bought $30,000 of inventory. Sramana: What kind of markups were you getting on that $30,000 overstock inventory?

Comment-Selling on Facebook: Smocked Auctions Founders Amy Laws and Nicole Brewer (Part 3)

Sramana: What volume of merchandise were you able to push during that first sale? Nicole Brewer: We sold 700 units during our first sample sale. That amounted to around $20,000 of business. Once that sale was over we realized we had a lot of fun and we wanted to do it again, but without having

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Comment-Selling on Facebook: Smocked Auctions Founders Amy Laws and Nicole Brewer (Part 2)

Sramana: At what point in the friendship did the idea of doing a business together start coming into the foreground? Amy Laws: That was in the summer of 2010. We had attended a sample sale. The wholesale showrooms in places like Dallas, New York, and Atlanta purchase sample sets from their manufacturers. That is what

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