Bootstrapping a Niche e-Commerce Business to$10 Million: iHeartRaves CEO Brian Lim (Part 2) Posted on Tuesday, Aug 7th 2018
Sramana Mitra: Is it a glove that you’re offering? I’m aiming to understand the type factor of the item that you’re offering here.Brian Lim: They’re white stretch gloves with LED lights at their fingertips. The technology is much more innovative than what we had in the past. Today you can program these lights using a Bluetooth phone and you can customize through millions of colors and flashing colors.Sramana Mitra: How do you get this off the ground as a service? I understand the genesis from how it came about. You had this passion. How did business side came about?Brian Lim: My better half had acquired a glove set for over$150. It took about 6 weeks to receive the item. She got me
included. I was aiming to get the item or get reimbursed. The service was so bad. I was like,”I can’t think there is no maintenance this market.”We took$100 and bought our own product off-the-shelf. We started selling the lights out of the trunk of my automobile at an event called Friday Night Ligths that we created. The very first week, it was at an In-N-Out parking lot.
We would have 5 people the first week, 20 the next week, 30 the next week. Then, prior to it got to a hundred plus individuals, In-N-Out resembled,”Get out of here. You are loitering on our residential or commercial property for a lot of hours.”We had to do parking-lot hopping.Sramana Mitra: From an income viewpoint, what does it cost? were you making and how were you financing this?Brian Lim: We have actually always 100%bootstrapped, even today. We would have a 50%to 60%margin.
All the earnings went back right into the business to feed future growth.Sramana Mitra: However you needed to fund the inventory if you’re taking these
items into car park to sell.Brian Lim: All with just$100 to begin. We started selling at Friday Night Lights. We sold on Craigslist.Sramana Mitra: Did you spend for the inventory yourself?Brian Lim: I paid for the stock starting with$100. I offered that, took the profits, and just reinvested.Sramana Mitra: How much does one product cost?Brian Lim: The glove sets variety anywhere from$25 all the method up until$
100. Sramana Mitra: If you invested $100, how many units did you need to sell?Brian Lim: At that time, the cost per glove was at $10.
Sramana Mitra: You were taking$ 10 products and selling it
at$25. Brian Lim: A Few Of these would go all the way up to $100 depending upon the configuration.Sramana Mitra: However the expense would still be$10
. Sramana Mitra: This was in 2010? Sramana Mitra: How
much revenue did you make in 2010? Brian Lim: I think it was $245,000. The following year, we got it to$3million.Sramana Mitra: In the very first year, you got close to a million simply
by going from parking area to parking lot?Brian Lim: Yes, and selling on eBay and
Craigslist. We opened our own store in California.This sector is part 2 in
the series: Bootstrapping a Specific niche e-Commerce Business to$10 Million: iHeartRaves CEO Brian Lim 1
Leave a Reply