1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Felix Hartmann, Hartmann Capital (Part 1)

Felix Hartmann, Managing Partner at Hartmann Capital, discusses his firm’s investment thesis. This segment triggered an excellent discussion on Human Augmentation.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: AfterShip CEO Andrew Chan (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: When you look at the app stores of Shopify and BigCommerce, do you see opportunities for new apps or new services that new entrepreneurs could build?

Andrew Chan: Definitely. We’ve extended into after and before shipping. E-commerce merchants these days are using so many different solutions. Many SaaS solutions for e-commerce are not designed for e-commerce. I’ll give you an example. MailChimp is a great solution but is not really designed for e-commerce brands. Many solutions start to go back to email marketing solutions for brands. That’s an opportunity.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: AfterShip CEO Andrew Chan (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Which platform was the first one that you started getting traction on?

Andrew Chan: Shopify and eBay as well.

Sramana Mitra: Just to get a feel for this strategy, what you’re describing is a strategy that we have picked up on from various case studies that we have covered. We call it Bootstrapping by Piggybacking on Platforms. It’s a strategy of going to market that is working very well for a lot of small startups. As you pointed out, you’re going to market without a sales team. You are able to go to market by riding on somebody else’s marketing channel.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: AfterShip CEO Andrew Chan (Part 1)

Andrew has built AfterShip by heavily leveraging the e-commerce Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) Marketplaces. Read on for more.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as AfterShip.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Homeroots CEO Gil Bar-Lev (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You operated in a zero-logistics mode with domestic manufacturers. Since 2018, how long did you operate in that mode before introducing the logistics operation?

Gil Bar-Lev: We started the logistics operation in the last quarter of 2020. We started with just one warehouse in California. Then we expanded and now have two. We’re working on a partnership with UPS. Through that, we’ll be able to launch multiple warehouses across the nation.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Homeroots CEO Gil Bar-Lev (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You took a handful of manufacturers who were willing to give you the data and were willing to drop ship on your behalf and you started off with them.

Gil Bar-Lev: Yes, we created a new portal where we listed those products. We provided our manufacturers a backend login for them to manage their orders and inventory levels. We gave all this information to them so they have more visibility into what’s going on in the platform.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Homeroots CEO Gil Bar-Lev (Part 1)

Gil discusses wholesale e-commerce and its complexities. This is an important interview to read for e-commerce retailers who’re looking to buy efficiently, as well as run their businesses in a zero-logistics mode.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as Homeroots.

Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapping an E-Commerce Business Using a Paycheck and Crowdfunding: Nomad Lane Co-Founders Kish Vasnani and Vanessa Jeswani (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Did this come to a complete standstill or was there still a business?

Kish Vasnani: In 2020, we did just under a million. Of that, about 70% came from the first three months of the year. The rest of the year was really tough.

Sramana Mitra: Are you still in Bali?

Kish Vasnani: No, we moved to Miami in August 2020.