The Future of Furniture Retail: A Conversation with Alex Back, Founder of Couch.com - 92

In this episode, host Brandon Amoroso delves into the dynamic world of e-commerce with Alex Back, the founder of Couch.com. The conversation kicks off with Alex's journey, from the success of Apartments Hub to the inception of Couch.com, a platform aimed at simplifying furniture shopping in the digital age. Together, they explore the challenges faced by the furniture retail industry in its transition to the online space.

Alex provides a compelling glimpse into Couch.com's mission, which involves bridging the gap between furniture manufacturers and retailers to create a tailored marketplace for users. They delve into the intricacies of building a marketplace, tackling the "chicken and egg" dilemma, and the platform's strategy of platform development and organic growth through content and SEO.

The discussion takes a deep dive into marketing, examining the evolving landscape of influencer marketing and the impact of authenticity. The value of strategic partnerships, the build-versus-buy dilemma, and the future of comprehensive platforms like Shopify are also explored.

Join this insightful conversation to gain invaluable insights into the e-commerce and furniture retail landscape, discovering how Couch.com aims to revolutionize the way we shop for home furnishings.

Timestamps

🎙️ Introduction of Alex Back and Couch.com (00:00:02)

🤝 The gap between furniture manufacturers and retailers (00:01:50)

🛠️ Marketplace tech build versus buy decision (00:06:33)

🐣 The chicken and egg problem in building a marketplace (00:12:45)

📈 Leveraging content and SEO for organic growth (00:15:00)

🪑 Creating a furniture-first advertising platform (00:17:48)

💼 Couch.com's Business Model (00:18:17)

🎯 Niche Marketing vs. Broad Marketing (00:20:38)

🌍 The Challenge of Being Everywhere (00:21:48)

📚 Lessons from Previous Business (00:25:12)

📢 Focus on Marketing (00:30:02)

💼 Challenges of Multiple Apps in Shopify (00:33:57)

🤔 Pros and Cons of Specialization and Consolidation (00:35:27)

🚀 The Potential of Shopify and Market Dominance (00:37:53)

🌟 Alex's Journey to Starting Couch.com (00:38:11)

🚀 Launching Couch.com - A New Opportunity (00:43:06)

Alex Back:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-back-49784435/

Couch.com - https://couch.com/

Apt2B - https://www.apt2b.com/

Brandon Amoroso:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonamoroso/

Web - https://brandonamoroso.com/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bamoroso11/

X - https://twitter.com/AmorosoBrandon

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

I'm Brandon Amoroso and this is the D2Z podcast Building and growing your business from a Gen Z perspective. Hey, everyone thanks for tuning in to D2Z, a podcast about using the Gen Z mindset to grow your business. I'm Gen Z entrepreneur Brandon Amoroso, founder and president of Retention as a Service Agency, oletra, and today I'm talking with Alex Beck, the founder of Couchcom, which I think needs no explanation. So thank you so much for coming on, alex. My pleasure, brandon, nice to be with you here. So before we dive into some of the topics we want to cover today, can you give everybody just a brief background on yourself and Couchcom? Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 0:46

So I am an e-commerce guy. I started a brand called Apartment 2B APT2B back in 2010 with my business partner and that was ended up being a very popular and still is furniture brand online for in the D2C space. And when we started that brand, really we had no idea what we were doing. We were furniture guys and retail people and we just kind of thought to bring our furniture expertise online. There was very little representation at that time for furniture retail in the online space Like people weren't buying couches and dining tables online so we set out to sort of solve that problem. That was a simple one, and the other one which I believe still persists is the fact that nobody really knows where to buy furniture. Like where did you buy your last couch, brandon?

Speaker 1: 1:53

In my current place. It was already here, Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:57

That's convenient.

Speaker 1: 1:59

Which was like amazing, because I've heard nightmare stories from other people who have moved into a place that's unfurnished. Especially when I moved here, it was like early 2022 and they'd be waiting months for their furniture to arrive and dealing with the delivery and with the people and whatnot and just the whole process. But before that it was Bob's discount furniture in LA.

Speaker 2: 2:23

Yeah, oh, that's so interesting. Okay, so Bob's, you know, is a national retail chain and I'll use that as a jumping off point. Couchcom is a place to find a couch. Not everybody knows where to buy a couch In fact very few people do and there are stores and many retailers out there, like Bob's discount furniture that maybe younger generation people like yourself or me may not think is very cool or would not normally go there as a first stop.

Speaker 2: 2:56

But Bob's offers something that a lot of other places don't they have inventory, and if one of your main variables or concerns in buying a couch is getting something quickly, bob's has that in stock for you. And they have a fantastic distribution network so that you can literally pick something up from the store or go the next day or have it delivered the next day, whereas many other D to C brands, like the one I used to run, can have lead times of numerous weeks plus national delivery. So it's one of those things that is sort of accentuates the point of couchcom, which is get to the heart of what matters most to people, get information from them. We ask you, you know what are you looking for and if you need something right away, then you're going to see filtered results of stores and online retailers and brick and mortar retailers who can deliver that specific thing to you, versus dealing with everybody and asking questions of various retailers and stores. So narrowing the variables is really like cornerstone to our strategy at couchcom.

Speaker 1: 4:02

So are you taking the transaction on couchcom or is it essentially affiliate to all of these different, you know, furniture?

Speaker 2: 4:14

Yeah, in essence, great question. We are, we are going to have a marketplace, but we are not really going to do a lot of direct retailing. Now we do have some great partnerships with suppliers and manufacturers, so we're exploring the idea of retailing as well, but in essence it is an affiliate site. In essence it is a marketing platform for the furniture industry. So some prototypes to touch upon that are very similar.

Speaker 2: 4:44

Like the notcom, the not is sort of like the wedding powerhouse website. It's a place where you can go and get invitations and get make some mood boards and read all types of content about weddings. But it also has a registry slash marketplace where you can, you know, get all of your gifts or get that whole situation sorted. And it has a whole vendor database that's on a national level that hooks you up with DJs and florists and people that are not that easy to find on Google, and there's a little bit of a vetting process as well, for for those vendors essentially replace everything that the notcom offers in the wedding space with couches, and that's what couchcom is doing and we're building that platform right now. So this is a place for vendors and furniture retailers and marketers across the country to market to users and it's a place for users to discover places that are more relevant to them than a Google or Yelp search would illuminate.

Speaker 1: 5:49

When it comes to the build versus buy equation for the marketplace tech, it sounds like you're you're building it. What was, what were some of the like, the decision factors going into into that, because that's something that unrelated to know to the, to the Shopify agency, as we launch our, our new HR tech company that I've been building with my brother for like the last year and a half, One of the things that we are expanding into is ads, and we have the same sort of I guess not dilemma, but I guess you call it dilemma to face. Where do we, you know you leverage some sort of a licensed ad platform technology that can overlay on top of our ATS and job board, or do we actually go and build, you know, the ad platform itself? So what were some of the you know the key decision factors for you and deciding to build it versus not?

Speaker 2: 6:47

Yeah, that's, that's a great question.

Speaker 2: 6:49

Well, our, our platform, like it's, it's going to be very marketplace driven and product driven, so that was sort of the most important thing. We needed a place to be able to have like the best PDPs for furniture around and to be able to present products in a very cohesive, you know, friendly way for consumers. So we are building it on the Shopify platform. As far as the ad platform technology, yes, we'll probably leverage we haven't gotten that far yet, but we'll probably leverage an existing ad tech, ad tech platform to enable on our site. And I think the most important decision to be made there is which one is most relevant to your industry or highlights, you know, the products or services that your advertisers or marketers, you know that you as a publisher, are going to be displaying, what are, what are the ones that work for them. Like retargeting, for instance, is incredibly valuable and important in the furniture industry. So do we go with, like a retargeting first approach is a type of a thing that we will think about when we get to that stage of development.

Speaker 1: 8:11

One of the things that was an interesting finding for me is that a lot of the websites that you shop, like lighting from, for example don't actually manufacture any of their own products either. I think it was like, as I was trying to furnish my place, I was trying to look at a bunch of different websites to see different product assortments, but every website pretty much had the same product assortment. I forget the names. I think it was maybe like all modern or whatever it was. It was just fascinating to me to see that the end manufacturer is not the one with the consumer facing website. I don't really think you see that in a lot of other verticals, but it seems to dominate the home like sort of goods that's right Home furnishing market.

Speaker 2: 9:03

I think that highlights sort of one of our unique opportunities in the furniture e-commerce space, especially with the platform like couchcom, because there's a tremendous gap between furniture manufacturers and home furnishings manufacturers lighting, you name it and the retailers there always has been. The reason is that manufacturing these products and shipping them all around the world is a very, very difficult and challenging process. It's almost an industry where the manufacturers have let the retailers do the retailing. Similarly, retailers they have no business like owning and operating a couch factory. It's an unbelievable operation. There's always been this sort of dichotomy, these two separate entities.

Speaker 2: 10:01

I think what a platform like couchcom does and Wayfair has done a pretty good job of this also it sort of democratizes the online furniture space. A manufacturer in the future, if they want to directly retail, they theoretically could use couchcom as the entry point or the advertising platform for their products and goods. They could have a very basic website just for the transaction and let us do most of the romancing and gathering of customers, whereas other retailers are. Like the brand that I used to run, we were sort of on the straight and narrow in terms of what we could promote and offer. Couchcom is very, very broad in scope and we could serve manufacturers and retailers alike.

Speaker 1: 10:57

Are you interacting with the retailers directly, like a Bob's discount furniture, or are you going straight to the manufacturers who are listing on your site?

Speaker 2: 11:09

The key strategy is to work with retailers. The retailers are the ones who are advertising. The retailers are the ones who are looking for customers. I was merely highlighting that we could theoretically go just work directly with manufacturers and we have the platform that they can retail their goods in the future or at least get the word out about their products. But still I would say there's probably, even with all the D2C brands that have popped up, brands that do their own manufacturing, like it's they own or operate the factory themselves in the home furnishings business. It's probably like a 2%. Your observation is spot on. It's like 98%. Traditional retail model that's disguised in various forms like people who are promoting their own products or their own couches and I used to do it in my former company as well. They're not actually owning and operating the factory. It's more of like a licensing partnership or something a little bit a few levels removed. If that makes sense, yeah, got it.

Speaker 1: 12:21

So, since it is a marketplace, and as an Ecom guy yourself with apartment 2B, is that how you say that? Yeah, apartment 2B. Okay, how are you dealing with the chicken and the egg problem when it comes to building a marketplace? Cause you gotta get the retailers to list their inventory on your site and then you also have to obviously get people to come in and actually purchase the product. So which one's gonna be the harder of the two to crack, and is there any way to sort of leverage one to get the other?

Speaker 2: 13:02

Big time, and that's a great question. It's really the challenge of getting this business up and running. The chicken or the egg thing is something that I think every startup has to deal with in some way, shape or form. Do you focus on product first or do you focus on audience first or audience first? So for us, the current thinking is that we are going to really focus on building the platform and we are going to have some sort of flagship relationships with retailers across the country and offer them either a slam dunk deal to join couchcom and get signed up, or just maybe bring on some free partners for sort of a freemium type atmosphere. So we'll get the platform up and running.

Speaker 2: 13:58

We're also going to be just listing a lot of products from different retailers that we'll be able to scrape data from the internet and it's really just free advertising for them. So the idea is build the platform first, then go after a pretty robust but very targeted user test audience. So we'll go after a test audience and really very closely track their engagement and see what's working and what isn't. And that's sort of the first MVP iterative process that we're trying to stand on its feet. In the next few months the platform gets built and it's sort of like in an MVP or version one format, and then we sign up a few retailers, then we bring in an audience to test it and from there I think we'll learn a lot about what needs to be augmented about the platform and or our advertising or audience. Use your acquisition strategy.

Speaker 1: 15:00

Are you going to be using your standard acquisition channels like a Facebook and Instagram, or are there any other sort of means that you're thinking about leveraging when it comes to getting the consumers there, because that's always a hot topic for the e-commerce that we work with and that, listen to, this is aside from meta. What else is there that we can do to acquire new customers?

Speaker 2: 15:26

Yeah, well, first, I mean we're a content heavy site and we have tons of education and I have a lot of experts in my network that have been and will continue to contribute to educating consumers. So we've invested a lot over the last six months in SEO and sort of building an organic content strategy, or at least the foundation of it. So I just want to say that first, like that's a major focus of ours of going the organic route, because we really do have something to offer outside of products to draw users in and have a platform that helps people, but from a paid perspective yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:10

I know where to find furniture customers. I mean, that's really what I did Ultimately. I was a furniture marketer for the last decade and change. So yeah, it's traditional, traditional platforms are kind of where it's at. We always saw the most success with meta and TikTok is obviously growing in this space. But it's a high consideration purchase and usually quite expensive. So TikTok I don't think has become that yet for the price point that we're working in.

Speaker 2: 16:46

And obviously Google search a lot of people search questions so they have questions about the furniture industry. So I think having a question focus or question and answer focused advertising strategy on Google is something we're gonna be testing. But ultimately I know as a furniture marketer there exists no real great platforms for finding furniture buyers. And that's a huge, huge part of what we're doing at couchcom. We're creating a furniture first advertising platform so we bring in the users one way or another and you can bet that the people that are browsing at couchcom are shopping for couches. So to the furniture marketers that we're marketing, to our clients, the retailers, we're trying to create a very, very, almost no brainer type of an atmosphere for them to advertise with us to find the best warm leads for them.

Speaker 1: 17:48

So two questions off of that One when you were scaling your previous business, what was the secret sauce there, like why were you able to scale it and ultimately lead it to an acquisition? And then I've got like a thousand other questions as a byproduct of that. But then, second, you mentioned Wayfair. So what makes couchcom different than Wayfair?

Speaker 2: 18:17

I'll answer the Wayfair one first. So Wayfair is a is a marketplace and they are selling to the user or to the customer different manufacturers and different products. They're providing all the customer service and sort of like they are. They have a tremendous dropshipping operation. So in essence we're quite different in the sense that we're not actually handling any product or customer service. We're really just promoting different retailers and brands.

Speaker 2: 18:56

What's different about Wayfair is that Bob's discount furniture, as the retailer, does not advertise on Wayfair nor do they show their products there. Wayfair deals directly with manufacturers and suppliers who are able and willing to do to engage in a dropship business operation. So really it's of no use or just a competitor to someone like Bob's furniture or any other retailer out there. So we're creating a platform for retailers to advertise. And, side note, if you're a manufacturer and you do business with Wayfair and you're ready to, you're ready to maybe start your own website. Thecouchcom is a perfect place to start advertising and bringing in new users to your site. So it will handle sort of the user acquisition side of things. If you want to handle the customer service and retailing on the manufacturing side, does that make sense?

Speaker 1: 19:48

Yeah, got it, so they can pretty much have like they could have like a micro storefront Right Exactly On Couchcom.

Speaker 2: 19:55

Exactly. And then, as far as you know what worked in my former company to help us grow and scale, I think the biggest thing that I would say is to not be afraid to really go after something when you know that it works. So if you're testing different advertising platforms and you're seeing a good return or some positive results or some good promise, really invest the time and go after that and start working. That. It's really just this idea that you know.

Speaker 2: 20:28

Rinsing and repeating is not necessarily a bad thing, even though it's very. It could be boring to some or you're always getting sort of attracted or pulled towards something brand new and exciting, whether that's an advertising platform or something else. But if you, if something's working, if you're, if you're like doubled and tripled down on meta and it's working for you, then keep going with it. There's no shame in that. You don't have to try everything. So for us, I think it was a matter of just like trying different things, and when we found something that worked, we just unabashedly went after it without any sort of shame for not, you know, diversifying and trying too many different things, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 21:12

Yeah, and we have a lot of brands that, for example, want to have a social account on every platform, but they don't have the team to actually run and manage a social account on every platform, because at this point you basically need a team for each platform and maybe there's a little bit of overlap, but, like you know, your, your Instagram, folks are not going to be running your, your Twitter, and but I know a lot of businesses who will have all them and they just sort of do each of them half-assed and none of them produce any results because the fact that they're spread too thin and they never really figure out what does or doesn't work for them.

Speaker 2: 21:51

That's a perfect example of, you know, being being sort of pulled towards the, the rest of the crowd or the noise that one needs to be everywhere at all times or try everything new and you, what's true is that you try what works for you and if it works, you keep going. If you only focus on YouTube, that's fine. There's plenty of opportunity on each individual, one of these platforms, so it does make sense to really focus on one or a few versus many, I think.

Speaker 1: 22:23

Yeah, and then from there, I mean you can always test into like one net new one and see whether or not it's worth, you know, investing the resources into that as well. It's a similar dilemma how we have when it comes to like LinkedIn versus Twitter, which I think is pretty much the two sort of tried and true B2B, you know, platform you want to use the term influencer or content marketing or whatever.

Speaker 1: 22:51

Those are your typical two channels and for us, and me specifically, it's always been LinkedIn dominated, partially because I just never liked Twitter. I never really understood it. I still don't love it so I don't really want to do it. But we have a decent amount of, you know, audience, followers, engagement, whatever on LinkedIn and quite a posting cadence over there. So to make the leap into Twitter, you know we're going back and forth on whether or not that's actually worth it. But then you see other folks who you know they have quite a bit of following. They're making some substantial headway and results on that platform. So there's always that sort of back and forth that we go through to.

Speaker 2: 23:37

Yeah, absolutely, and it's kind of maddening because you know we always, as humans, want what we can't have and we always want more and are very dissatisfied, being stagnant at times, but sometimes it's okay to let things go and just go with what you know and go with what works. There's so many things that we've ignored or I've ignored personally in my humble career over the years that other people are like okay, you're not doing this, no, now we're just focused on this other thing and you just have to stick to your guns.

Speaker 1: 24:12

Just because you receive advice doesn't mean you have to act on it.

Speaker 2: 24:17

Yeah, exactly, People love to give advice and, you know, I read I don't know 20 articles a day where someone has an angle on something and it's like, oh, this person sounds smart, they might be smarter than me. Should I listen? I don't know. I don't know that that's always the right thing, but I think taking everything with a grain of salt and just putting it in your back pocket and stop stopping listening to things and reading things if you feel like you really need to focus, I think, is it's tough to do, but it's an important skill.

Speaker 1: 24:48

Well, having all of your experience at an apartment to be. What are some of the lessons or takeaways from that company that you're applying to this next one? Either things that went really well or things that you're like, oh, I'm never going to do that again because that didn't go well at all. And doesn't have to be on the marketing side either. It could even be like, you know, when it comes to HR, building out the team processes, whatever it may be.

Speaker 2: 25:20

Yeah, so well, I will answer from a marketing perspective. You know I have. I mean, I have a ton of experience as a furniture marketer and I kind of know what works and what doesn't, what doesn't work. An example of that is furniture influencers that that really, that concept doesn't really. There's no real ROI behind that. So, and yet you know, influencers will, will reach out to furniture brands daily I'm talking like in volume to try and score furniture.

Speaker 2: 25:59

It's a big ticket item. Everyone has big ad budgets in the furniture industry, so it makes sense and at the same time no one's really personally influenced by another person to buy a certain thing. It has worked at times, like there's the tick tock viral couch. There are certain things that serve a purpose or that like serve a certain moment. That could really hit, of course, but by and large, like over a lot of testing, we haven't seen much much success there. But a place we have seen a lot of success is in the affiliate space. Like people are way more influenced by a top 10 list that a couch may be on on the internet with a fairly reputable company or you know, or publisher than they and it's all BS, by the way, they've never seen these couches whatsoever.

Speaker 1: 26:51

Yeah at all. My question was going to be when? When does that stop? Like, you know our, our customers, not you know. Those have been around for a while and maybe I'm so jaded to them because I know what they are. But, like, do you think there's a? There's a point where you can't trust anything anymore Cause, like the influencers, they're getting paid. The affiliate you know the top 10 articles are also getting paid. Is there truly any like organic content left out there that's not getting paid for in some way? Like, how do you find that reputable voice who's like oh yeah, actually this couch doesn't suck.

Speaker 2: 27:28

I'm super glad you phrased it like that, because the reputable voice is what we're trying to create. There's a wire cutter element to what we're doing, wire cutter being sort of the gold standard for a recommendation platform. When I was growing up, it was consumer reports. Wire cutter sort of like the modern version of that. Side note wire cutter is an affiliate marketing site. They get paid for every single you know listing. But I think they walk the line of very well like the line between being a trusted resource and a paid partner where they do offer a lot of value. They'll give you an opinion but they'll back it up with a lot of actual, real things. They do test products and things like that. So I think you know, as consumers wise up to this sort of thing, they're going to seek out more detailed information, possibly from the influencers or marketing platform about these and they're not just going to take it at face value.

Speaker 2: 28:32

I mean, you go on Tik Tok now. It's like it's changed so much in the last month. As far as I'm concerned, with people promoting Tik Tok shop like anybody who has any sort of followers now is like finding the first product close to them. Be like yo, you got to try, try to end sour patch. I'm telling you this is the best thing you got to buy it on the Tik Tok. It's like everyone's doing it. So there's going to be an oversaturation element, like you suggested, I think. Um, but that was kind of a tangent. What was your original question? We were talking about something else.

Speaker 1: 29:06

The things that worked well at a partner's business that you're going to replicate again or, honestly, more interestingly to me is what didn't go well that you're not going to repeat again, or you're going to do it again, but in a different way.

Speaker 2: 29:23

Yeah, I think, um, well, one, one major thing that I, you know, really wanted to get away from um was the fact that, you know, the bulk of my operation, the bulk of the company that I ran, was a customer service oriented company, and that's a completely different business than an advertising business. So I'm really trying to focus on one aspect of the furniture industry and not two major ones at the same time, rather than focusing on marketing and operations for a nationwide furniture distribution network. Um, I'm just interested in focusing on the marketing now. So I think having that focus will allow me to do a really good job at that, versus like a pretty good job at a lot of different things. So I think, like the more niche I guess to to make it a little bit more broad for other people to be able to relate to better, um, I think the more niche your business is, while not narrowing the scope too much, the better job you're going to do it.

Speaker 2: 30:39

It's kind of what we like, what we were talking about a few minutes ago with advertising platforms and things that work like you don't have to do everything Um and uh and. And another thing in that regard too, is just focusing on couches and not the entire furniture industry, bar stools and dining chairs. It may seem simple to others, but marketing for all different types of furniture is like selling cars and donuts it's like two completely different things that you have to market to the same customer base. Um, and sell the same things. But if you're just focused on couches and a little bit more niche, it actually opens up the world of possibilities and specificity. It's so great that it really helps you in your in your advertising efforts and things of that nature.

Speaker 1: 31:31

Yeah, I think it's easier for people to connect to that too. Like when we were building the agency, we did everything for everyone to start, and and part of that was because we didn't really know what we wanted to do or what we were really the best at yet. But once we became, you know, the Shopify retention agency, it made our team better. It made scaling easier. A lot of repeatable processes didn't have to you know, manage an ads department, an email, an SMS department, a social department, of this, of that.

Speaker 1: 32:12

But also for people in the market, you know, they land on the website and I go okay, this is what they do, versus oh, we're a full service agency that can, you know, do everything, from you know whatever to anything, essentially to, hey, if you want to improve retention, you work with us. And then it also led to a lot more referrals too, because it was a hell of a lot easier when tech partners or other brands were communicating with one another and they had a singular pain point, which was improved retention. It's like, oh well, I know, you know, from the very moment you land on their website, all the way through, everything they talk about all this agency Does is retention. And then from there you know, maybe we would expand the other areas or use that as like the funnel. But if your funnel is very niche, I found it to be significantly easier than when you know your funnel is very broad and then you try to go the other the other way.

Speaker 2: 33:04

You just said that so much better than I did and more succinctly, but that's exactly what I'm, what I was trying to convey. I think a good analogy is like if you need your house painted and you go online to search, sure, you can find a handyman who paints houses as one of his services that he offers. But wouldn't you rather go with a painter?

Speaker 1: 33:26

That's a good one too, and I'm in the midst of multiple remodels that are making my life miserable.

Speaker 2: 33:32

There you go, perfect analogy.

Speaker 1: 33:35

Go find a painter. But again, at the same time, there's something to be said for some a place that is like all in one, that houses everything. And you see it in in software too, because the Shopify ecosystem was very much so like a point solution. You go with singular apps that do singular things an app for email and app for SMS and that for reviews, and that, for you know Everything. And now you got 85 apps in your Shopify store.

Speaker 1: 34:00

This is another issue. But now it's become, you know, you got one tool that does all of your customer communication email, text, push, direct mail. You have one tool that does all of your website personalization, and more and more consolidation is happening. So there's pros and cons of both, like HubSpot, for example. We use HubSpot, we don't really use any other. You know B2B Marketing tools, our websites there, our CRM is there, live chat, customer support, everything just funnels in there, and Maybe it's a certain size of company or certain maturation of the industry where that becomes possible. But at the same time, you have companies who do that and then they just get stuck in the mud and they can't innovate, and so then their product isn't, isn't great.

Speaker 2: 34:47

So yeah, it's interesting. I would like what, and I use tools like that too. Some thinking, and I think I Could almost just a. My only retort to what you just said would be like okay, well, maybe a platform like HubSpot? The product that they're selling is consolidation. So if that's what someone's focused on the all-in-one nature, or as a marketing agency if you're, you can sort of create your own niche around consolidation. Like, tired of Using for 14 different agencies, come to ours because we do everything. So I think there's a customer for that too. But yes, this is all very like existential now. I think it's true. There are pros and cons to a very specific approach or niche approach and one that's more broad.

Speaker 1: 35:39

And maybe I mean there's there's definitely pitfalls or pros and cons to each one, like with HubSpot, the social media scheduling tool, for example. It's not as great as a sprout social, but do you need that, do you care about that? Do you value, you know that, more than the cost savings and the ease of use that you'll get by having everything integrated into one platform. I think you know, maybe one day you can have both, maybe AI will make that, will make that possible, where you can just have a giant platform for everything that does everything super well but I think that's interesting.

Speaker 2: 36:12

And Shopify I I've seen some app developers and companies that try to offer various services. I think a gold standard example of that is like Klaviyo going into SMS a few years ago. That actually has worked, but now they're focused on two things, not 19. I wonder if one day they'll be like a Shopify app that handles everything, or that there'll be enough mergers that you'll get a six in one app, versus some of them do two or three things at once. But that's a very interesting thought.

Speaker 1: 36:56

You got Yapo, which is close to that, but you see the dilemma of build versus buy again, because they went the buy route for most of their product lines. I still don't think they're as integrated as they would have been if they did the build route, but the buy route gets you to the end place significantly faster. They were the first ones to do that. Now everybody else is trying to build or buy their way to getting wider with the service or the product lines that they offer, but I think at some point Shopify will or could become everything for everyone. It feels like the writing is on the wall where in a lot of these industries, there's really only going to be like one or two major players. I don't think there's room for whatever there is right now. There's so many commerce platforms Shopify, salesforce, magento, bigcommerce you just keep on going down the line Wix, square they all keep building their own things, but it feels like that's not sustainable long term.

Speaker 2: 38:11

No, and it's interesting, the company that acquired mine. I worked with them for the last well, not the last four years after post acquisition and it was part of this larger company where they had an incredible technology team at the company that recommended these very niche and interesting tools and had no problem using 10 different tools to do something specific within the operations of the business. But at the end of the day, something like a Shopify is putting out of business all these smaller platforms, like it was Kibo, which is still around. But we did an analysis of the top 180 retailers in the furniture industry and only two of them use Kibo. And that's because the ease of use of so many of these other platforms, like a Shopify or, in other industries, the equivalent they're just so much easier that the decision makers of companies are like we have to, we just got to go with, go with the flow here. And it's the same thing with in many industries just when something gains so much momentum, it almost can't be stopped. To your point, right.

Speaker 1: 39:26

Yeah, and if I'm an app developer, I build my app for Shopify first. I'm not going to build it for one of these very like niche commerce platforms. Exactly so I think in the commerce platform discussion it actually benefits Shopify to not be like, you know, just commerce for one thing and that's like the company that bought electric drinkscom. That's their whole sort of premise behind why they're so tightly integrated with Shopify as opposed to necessarily a wine director or commerce seven, which are the incumbent ecom platforms for the alcohol vertical. Because you have a very defined TAM and you can only service so many merchants, because you literally only service wineries. So it already caps you at you know, 11,000 or whatever I think it's 13,000 now in the U S. You're never going to be able to have the same amount of engineers, you never have the same amount of resources. You're never going to be able to invest in the product in the way that Shopify can with its you know massive market cap and its 800 engineers or 4,000 engineers, whatever they're at now. So how do you keep up Like? You just can't. So it makes more sense to build into Shopify what alcohol merchants need versus building Shopify for alcohol merchants. Right, that makes sense? Yeah, absolutely. So.

Speaker 1: 40:43

I got one last question for you here before before we hop off. Okay, going through that acquisition process and then leaving, how long did you already know you wanted to do couchcom? Was it something that was like in the back of your mind once you had sold and you were overseeing the transition? Or were you you go on vacation for three months and like Tahiti and say, you know, came back all re-invigorated that you know couchcom is what you had landed on. Is your idea? How did that work for you?

Speaker 2: 41:17

Yeah, so I sold, we sold our company in 2018 and then I worked for the new company as the COO of apartment to be for four years after that so for for a long time, and I had a lot of time to think about like I had a pretty definitive end date, which was that four year mark. Because of our deal structure and just some personal reasons, so, like I kind of knew that was coming. At the same time, I was very burnt out on furniture, so the only thing that I knew was that I wanted to do something other than furniture and so when I left, yeah, I did sort of like I was like a walking cliche. I was reading self-help books and business books and exercising a lot and traveling a lot, and that was the. That was a lot of this past year for me and someone.

Speaker 2: 42:19

I was going on a trip to Norway solo trip to see Northern Lights and go to Oslo, and I had an amazing time. Like somebody told me about couchcom being available. I'm like wha, and it was. It was very, very expensive and I'm like, well, that's not happening.

Speaker 2: 42:36

And then I was on this trip and I sort of had this existential aha moment where it's like, not I'm the one that can do something with this. Like this opportunity is is going to be very challenging, but I feel like like I owe it to myself to really pursue something that I can be very, very good at, and possibly better than anybody else at, which is marketing couches and educating customers in a fun and engaging way. And the aha moment was realizing that I can do this without actually having to sell, product and deal with customers and run an operations network. So that was the big thing for me. And then I then I started really considering it, put a pen to paper and I'm like I see how this makes a lot of sense for everybody. So that's how couchcom was born on the streets of Oslo, norway.

Speaker 1: 43:29

That's awesome. I love that. Um, well, thank you so much for for coming on. I'm looking forward to, uh, maybe buying a couch from couchcom and the and the not so distant future here. Um, before we hop, can you let everybody know where? I mean? This is the usual question where to find you online, but I've literally said it like 14 times now it's it's couchcom, but any other way that you know you'd want people to connect to you.

Speaker 2: 43:55

Uh, connect to you by I mean, I'm an extremely communicative person, Um, so whenever I go on a podcast or or talk to anybody, I'm happy to give out my. My email address is alex at couchcom. If there's any opportunities, questions or just want to chat or connect, that's a great place. And obviously LinkedIn, I'm pretty easy to find.

Speaker 1: 44:16

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on this show. Uh, for everybody listening, as always, it's Brandon Amoroso. You can find me at Brandon Amorosocom or electric marketingcom. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.