Bootstrapping a Niche E-Commerce Company: Modded Euros CEO Sean Dawes (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What are the key inflection points? What strategic moves have you made that led to this?

Sean Dawes: For us, it was being able to offer similar content generation that we were used to working with when we worked in-house. We launched our own content video series where we’d purchase vehicles and show the customer what they could do to the vehicle.

Bootstrapping a Niche E-Commerce Company: Modded Euros CEO Sean Dawes (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: The transition from dropship to inventory, how far did you get to dropshipping in terms of gross merchandise volume?

Sean Dawes: We did over a million in annual sales before we had to inventory anything.

Sramana Mitra: That’s terrific. What did you learn about the customer base? Were they auto shops or were they consumers?

Bootstrapping a Niche E-Commerce Company: Modded Euros CEO Sean Dawes (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How long did you do the marketing services before you were able to switch full-time to the online retail car purchasing?

Sean Dawes: About two years. We spent some time investigating markets because we weren’t sure if we were going to go in the automotive market. We were exploring a lot of different verticals. We looked at everything from baby stores and sporting goods.

We started with things that were of interest to us. I’ve played hockey for the longest time. I had interest there. We said to ourselves, “If our background is automotive, we would be foolish not to enter the automotive market, especially if we needed to go down the route of investment capital.”

Bootstrapping a Niche E-Commerce Company: Modded Euros CEO Sean Dawes (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: I try to trace the journey chronologically. Tell me what you did after coming out?

Sean Dawes: Towards my senior year, panic set in about what I was going to do. I realized that I was going to be making $12 an hour and have student loan debt. I ended up working in real estate because my aunt was running a real estate firm. I ended up getting my real estate license just to have a backup in terms of cash. In 2008, the real estate market was still not great. I was brand new in the industry. It was hard to generate business.

Bootstrapping a Niche E-Commerce Company: Modded Euros CEO Sean Dawes (Part 1)

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This conversation is a comprehensive discussion on how to bootstrap a niche e-commerce venture with a lean team and effective use of inventory financing.

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?

Sean Dawes: I was born and raised in Philadelphia. I haven’t gone too far away from my hometown as my company is based out of West Chester, Pennsylvania, which is 20 or 30 minutes outside of Philadelphia.

Building an Online Travel Company From Barcelona: Guillermo Gaspart, CEO of ByHours (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: To open America, you don’t want US investors?

Guiller Gaspart: The main problem that I found last month when we were talking with some investors from the States is that they want to invest in the companies that they already are working in the States.

Once we open the States, we’ll talk again with this venture capital firm. But right now, they realize that they would prefer to invest once we are up and working in the US.

Building an Online Travel Company From Barcelona: Guillermo Gaspart, CEO of ByHours (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about what happens after you’ve covered all of Spain. Is there any other strategic move that you made that is worth discussing?

Guillermo Gaspart: Yes. At the beginning, we were really focused on the product and on the technology. We were investing a lot of money just to improve this technology both from the user side and from the hotel side.

But after that, in 2015, we did another fund raising process with international investors. The challenge at that time was to go out outside of Spain. The first country that we moved outside of Spain was Germany.

Building an Online Travel Company From Barcelona: Guillermo Gaspart, CEO of ByHours (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How long did it take you to reach $1 million in revenue?

Guillermo Gaspart: It was the second year or third year that allowed us to reach this amount.

Sramana Mitra: Clearly, your first point of call is Barcelona. You had contact and friends there. So that was an easy start. How many hotels were you able to get from Barcelona before you moved out to other places?