Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapping an E-Commerce Business Using a Paycheck and Crowdfunding: Nomad Lane Co-Founders Kish Vasnani and Vanessa Jeswani (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: This email list where you got pre-orders from, was that just your email list from before or did that include Indiegogo crowdfunding email list?

Kish Vasnani: It was a combination of all. We were able to segment the list. We also had a segment of people who were very interested in the bag but had a bad experience. A huge segment wanted to buy directly from our website when we had a formal return policy in place.

Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapping an E-Commerce Business Using a Paycheck and Crowdfunding: Nomad Lane Co-Founders Kish Vasnani and Vanessa Jeswani (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Could you summarize what you learned? What were the wins and what were the mistakes?

Kish Vasnani: On the wins side, we figured out product-market fit. It reached a critical mass of people. As soon as people saw the product and imaging, they resonated with it. That is thanks to Vanessa’s background. That part was great. It was our first time going deep into the manufacturing process. That’s where we did have some slip-ups. Our samples looked great, but when it came to mass production, we had bags that were defective.

Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapping an E-Commerce Business Using a Paycheck and Crowdfunding: Nomad Lane Co-Founders Kish Vasnani and Vanessa Jeswani (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Crowdfunding campaigns, in general, work well when you have an email list or a community to promote your campaign to. It sounds like you already had an email list. How large was that community that you had brought together?

Kish Vasnani: It was around 5,000.

Sramana Mitra: How much revenue had you brought in from the previous accessories business?

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Tipser CEO Marcus Jacobsson (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: I’m just stunned at how poorly monetized some of these media companies are. They’re sitting on the gold, but they’re unable to do anything with the gold. 

Marcus Jacobsson: That’s our mission.

Sramana Mitra: Where do you see open opportunities in this space?

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Tipser CEO Marcus Jacobsson (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What are the numbers? Typically, affiliate fees tend to be 10% to 25%. And how do you split between the media company?

Marcus Jacobsson: Our average commission is more than double the average affiliate commissions. The reason for that is we move the power from the merchants to the media. It’s the media that decides which products to showcase. The traffic stays with the media company. That means we can negotiate higher commissions if you’re selected by the media companies. If you want that endorsement, you need to pay slightly higher commissions.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Tipser CEO Marcus Jacobsson (Part 1)

Tipser is a Swedish company that is turning affiliate marketing on its head!

Super interesting conversation.

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

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Solid Commerce CEO Eran Pick (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: At which point does it make sense for merchants to start working with a player like you? 

Eran Pick: I think it’s a matter of your role and the type of seller you are. If you are a professional seller, this being your full-time job, then you need a solution like Solid Commerce to manage the business so that it will enable you to grow.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Solid Commerce CEO Eran Pick (Part 1)

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

Solid Commerce sits in the middle of the multi-channel e-commerce ecosystem. Read on to learn more about the segment.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning and introduce Solid Commerce as well as your own background.