Building a Fashion E-commerce Business and Surviving Covid: Go Dash Dot CEO Hannah Fastov (Part 1)

Excellent story of a fashion e-commerce entrepreneur bringing to market a range of new bags.
Positioning, customer acquisition, business development, partnerships – many topics are dealt with in great detail in this conversation. Enjoy!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background?

Best of Bootstrapping: Entrepreneurial Couple Bootstrapped an E-commerce Business

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Nomad Lane Co-Founders Kish Vasnani and Vanessa Jeswani bootstrapped to multi-million dollars in revenue selling a private label product before quitting their jobs. In this story, you also get to see the nuances of running successful (and not so successful) crowdfunding campaigns. Very interesting journey and insights.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back to the very beginning. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in background?

Kish Vasnani: I was born in Jaipur, India and moved to the US when I was about one year old. I grew up around the Atlanta area and finished school there. I moved to New York to help a friend of a friend start a software company, which was also bootstrapped. We were able to sell that to Thomson Reuters. I had the itch again to go out on my own. Very candidly, I was also fired from a couple of other jobs over the course of two years.

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1Mby1M Udemy Courses with Sramana Mitra: Domain Knowledge

At 1Mby1M, we believe in learning from case studies of successful entrepreneurs. These case studies involve discussions on opportunities and challenges specific to the domain such as Generative AI, E-Commerce, Digital Health, Cyber Security, and FinTech. 

Digital Nomad Building a $5M+ E-Commerce Business: IntelligentLabs CEO Rus Hughes (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: The bulk of the business is based on doctor recommendations?

Rus Hughes: I would say word of mouth. When we started, it was heavily weighted to doctors. Brand reputation is the crux of the business. More and more brands are doing it now. When we started in 2014, there was a scandal with a few of the larger brands in America. All of the supplements they were selling had to be pulled off from the shelves.

Digital Nomad Building a $5M+ E-Commerce Business: IntelligentLabs CEO Rus Hughes (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How long did it take you to get to a million dollars in revenue?

Rus Hughes: Two and a half years.

Sramana Mitra: What was your inventory strategy during this period? Did you have to finance inventory?

Rus Hughes: We were doing it organically. I kept my cost of living super low. We didn’t take money from the company until 2017.

Digital Nomad Building a $5M+ E-Commerce Business: IntelligentLabs CEO Rus Hughes (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Who was this business partner? How did you become business partners?

Rus Hughes: I knew him when I was living in Brighton. He discovered a business model of how to market products online. He wasn’t sure what product to market. Given that we were both into health and fitness, we thought we’d start a supplement brand to launch supplements for athletes and weightlifters.

Sramana Mitra: What happens next? What form does this take?

Best of Bootstrapping: Solopreneur Bootstrapped a Niche E-commerce Venture to $12M

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

It is very difficult to find gaps in e-commerce these days. Sawyer Twain Founder Chris Turner found one and executed the hell out of it.

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?

Chris Turner: I was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. I graduated from Arizona State University back in 2004.

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Digital Nomad Building a $5M+ E-Commerce Business: IntelligentLabs CEO Rus Hughes (Part 1)

Rus lives the life of a digital nomad. He started life as a techie, and with a very small team and a cofounder, has built a $5M+ niche e-commerce business selling supplements. Excellent story full of lessons and nuances.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Tell me about where you grew up. What is the beginning of the story?