Breathing Success: From Father's Concern to Multi-Million Dollar Air Purifier Empire with Peter Mann

Ever wondered how a father's concern for his child's health could evolve into a multi-million dollar air purifier business? You're about to meet Peter Mann, founder and CEO of Oransi, who did just that. Using his background in operations and marketing with Tech Data and Dell, Peter embarked on a journey to provide a solution for his son's asthma, eventually developing Oransi to fill gaps in a highly competitive market. From understanding customer pain points to creatively outshining rivals, Peter's story is an inspiring testament to the power of entrepreneurship.

But the road to success wasn't all smooth sailing. A cancelled overseas order proved a hard pill to swallow. Yet, Peter turned this setback into a springboard by integrating AI into Oransi's operations. Now, AI and data form a crucial part of their marketing strategies, enhancing productivity and providing invaluable resources to customers. Peter's judicious blend of art and analytics have helped Oransi thrive amidst the pandemic, and he's here to share these invaluable insights with you. If you're an entrepreneur struggling to make your mark, Peter’s advice on marketing, realistic outlook based on solid metrics, and the importance of resilience is sure to resonate with you. Buckle up for an episode brimming with practical strategies, hard-earned wisdom, and inspiring success stories you won’t want to miss.

Chapters

• 0:01 Building Air Purifier Business
• 16:34 Marketing and AI in Business Lessons

Transcript

Jim James: 0:01

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Unnoticed Entrepreneur with me today is Peter Mann, who's an entrepreneur who started out building a business for his son, who had some breathing issues and actually built a multi-million dollar air purifier business. Peter Mann, founder and CEO of Arranzi. Welcome to the show, Peter.

Peter Mann: 0:21

Mann. Yeah, thank you, excited to be here, peter Mann, Well we're excited to have you too.

Jim James: 0:25

I'm in Wiltshire. You are in beautiful Virginia, down the east side of America, when we talk about Arranzi this business that you've built, and really what has now become a very competitive online B2B air purifying market and you're fighting and doing really well in that space. Peter, tell us about Arranzi and how you've managed to build this from a business where you were really helping your son's breathing issues into a multi-million dollar business, and how you've been able to overcome some of the challenges of competing in a B2B marketplace. Peter.

Peter Mann: 1:00

Mann Sure, yeah, I mean it wasn't overnight, but, as you mentioned, I got into this business because, as you mentioned, my son struggled with asthma as an infant. It really left a mark on me and really is my drive to help him and people like him. That's really what keeps me fueled in this marketplace. 2009, 2010, when I was starting, the market was completely different than it is now. Covid really changed things, really shut a light on the importance of indoor air quality. That created a much bigger market, but it also brought in a lot of competition.

Peter Mann: 1:45

Peter Mann, it's been quite the journey, I would say. To back up, when I started, I used the funds from selling of a previous business that I co-founded to start this business. I didn't have to go and raise money. But if I back up a little bit, my business experience is really from working at two Fortune 100 tech companies in the computer industry Tech Data and Dell where I learned a lot about marketing and operations and bringing products to market and competing in very competitive spaces. Then, during the dot-com bubble burst, that was really my push to start an entrepreneurial business. I co-founded an e-commerce business with another guy that I knew in Austin, texas. We built that from zero to $14 million. I sold that and used the funds to really find a RONC Peter.

Jim James: 2:45

Mann, you've done so well. According to your website, you sold over 100,000 units. I lived in Beijing for 13 years. We had AQI, which is the air quality index of up to 300 quite frequently. Heap air filters are very, very familiar with and they really are a lifesaver, literally On this show. Of course, peter, we talk about how you've managed to build the brand. It looks fantastic. Take us through what you've been doing, because you've managed to get to scale. Now Can you tell us some of the things that you did from the get go that got the brand, got those first customers, because those are always the hardest ones to win.

Peter Mann: 3:33

Yeah, it's really difficult when no one knows your brand, you have no reviews it's like, why should I buy from you? And I think what's important is to take a step back and look at things from the customers perspective. You know, what do they care about? What are their pain points and can we speak to them? You know, in messaging that connects where it's like yeah, this is the right solution for me.

Peter Mann: 3:57

You know we started, you know, thirteen, fourteen years ago. You know we weren't designing our own products and having a custom manufactured. We started off by just private labeling and then, over the years, evolved into designing our own products and really stepping it up. But it was more of a, you know, a longer terms path to get to where we are. I don't think you ever like crush it year one. It it's a bit of a journey and it's figuring out, kind of, I think, where you want to go and then work backwards to how do you get there. But I think it starts with really understanding the market, understanding the customer, understanding their pain points. Is it price? Is a certain feature, is it? You know, what is it that the others aren't doing that you could better do to serve the customer?

Jim James: 4:48

I'm interested, peter, because you started off with this is a business to you know, serve your son. But now you have a rancy really talk about b2b. So why the change from, if you like, the consumer focus to the business, to business focus?

Peter Mann: 5:05

So, yeah, so our market changed. When I started b2b, people weren't even thinking about your purifiers in business spaces or schools. It was really covered. That changed it where you know, like, how do we create a safe space for kids in school or how do we Get people to come back into the office and not work remotely? You know it's and it's. So those are the you know, those are the driving factors for what's kind of created this market that it didn't exist four years ago. And so it's, it's. It's all brand new and you know it's been. It's been pretty exciting and, honestly, unexpected. I never expected that we would do much in the b2b space since you know, the previous ten years that this market didn't exist.

Jim James: 5:53

Yeah, exactly. I remember in china I was working with iq a, the, the swiss company, and it went from consumer to business when people didn't want to go into the office anymore because the home was better purified, the office. Right, exactly, yeah, really some something there. You have a background b2b with big companies like tech, data and del. What are some of the best practices you brought from those to the Iran? See marketing and brand building. What could you share there?

Peter Mann: 6:28

Yeah, I mean.

Peter Mann: 6:28

So my background is in operations and in marketing and it's, you know, operations is about process and understanding the numbers.

Peter Mann: 6:36

You know I think anyone you alluded to this earlier that like, if you run a marketing campaign, you could spend a ton of money in advertising and just like it just doesn't make sense.

Peter Mann: 6:47

And so to me, what's interesting is mirroring the art of marketing with the analytics and the numbers, because ultimately, everything comes out in the numbers and the numbers have to make sense, otherwise, you know, you're not going to survive. And so I think it's it's having, you know, solid metrics in place to measure what you're doing and have an idea of, like, where you are and where you want to be. But you need to understand what does it cost to get there and what's realistic. You know, if I run this ad or this campaign, you know how much budget do I really need to have and what are, you know, are my expectations realistic with, with what can be achieved, and so there's a lot of experience that you get in doing that. But I think it's just building sound processes around it to evaluate where you are and what you're doing and not just blindly just throwing stuff, throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what works.

Jim James: 7:47

Peter, that's great advice. Can you suggest any tools that you've used that would help people, because often plunging into Facebook ads and Google ads maybe your Instagram ads it is a bit of an art. What tools can you recommend for people?

Peter Mann: 8:05

Yeah. So there's different kinds of tools, like if you're looking at, like your website, you know, a h roughs or SEM rush or two really good tools to see not just your website but your competitors. Like you know, there's really good insights you can gain from what are my competitors doing? Where are they advertising or not advertising? What kind of traffic are they getting versus what I'm getting and what could I do differently to close that gap or to separate from them? There's within, you know, google ads has, you know, pretty good reporting. I'm a little bit honestly skeptical of some of the Facebook reporting in terms of like revenue that it shows. It seems it, in my opinion, can be a little bit optimistic versus what you realistically see. And Google analytics is a pretty solid platform and it's free to see exactly what's happening on your website what's converting, what's not converting, what's.

Peter Mann: 9:02

You know, do people come in? You know I was at gosh. This is probably 10 years ago. I was at Google and they had this analytics guy come and talk and he talked about bounce rates and you know his it's this is stuck with me but he goes. You know I came, I saw and I puked. That's like people immediately like leave your site and it's like why is that? You know, I think there's other tools you can put on your site to see where people clicking or were they not spending time, you know? Are they rage clicking on your site? And there's just so much data and I'm a numbers person so I just love to look at that. But there's just so much information available. Even in the midst of privacy concerns, where certain things are stripped away that you didn't have before, there's still a ton of data available to see what's happening. But I would really start with the AHRuffs or SEMrush and then Google analytics as the, as the you know, primary tools.

Jim James: 10:05

Okay, peter, that's one of thanks for that. Now, looking at your website, I know it's B2B, but one of the things that strike me is that you have a lot of reviews on your website. So how does that work and why is that important in a B2B space? Because conventionally one would think that B2B is thinking about price, thinking about service and support, not about site reviews. And you've got from. It's called YachtPo here the reviews on your website.

Jim James: 10:40

you've got over 6000 reviews. Do you want to just tell us about that, Because it's quite significant on your website?

Peter Mann: 10:46

Yeah, sir, when, like when you're selling, even B2B, it depends what kind of product you're selling. If you're selling a component which is a commodity and it's to a spec where you could just look at a spreadsheet and it's like, well, what's the price for like this copper, coil or magnet or whatever it is Like there's not a ton of marketing that you need for that because it's like highly commoditized. For something like a air purifier there's. It's kind of in between, kind of like this exclusive product versus this highly commoditized type of product.

Peter Mann: 11:29

And within our space, a lot of the folks that are in the B2B segment that are buying air purifiers have never bought them before and and and they want to have confidence that what they're buying makes sense. And so it's not a kind of a spreadsheet hundred percent logical exercise. It's there's emotion in it, right, you want to connect with, like how do I know this is going to work? How do I know if I buy this I'm not going to get in trouble that I bought the wrong thing? Because there's a whole host of lawsuits in the US where people have bought stuff for schools that are just terrible products and so they want to have confidence that they're not going to, you know, stick their neck out and get in trouble.

Peter Mann: 12:15

We see that with government and we see that a lot with schools. But they also want to. You know, there's an emotional aspect to it and most people buy on emotion, unless it's a pure commodity, and then they justify it rationally with the tech specs and the other things. But that's just human nature. We're not. We're not wired to be logical people.

Jim James: 12:38

No, that's interesting. Even in B2B it's still an emotional dimension at the sort of two to five hundred dollar range. I also want to just pick you up on your website, because what you're also doing here is education, so I'd love for you to just share with me. You know my fellow unnoticed entrepreneurs. You know the role that you believe education can play in your marketing.

Peter Mann: 13:09

Yeah, absolutely. You know a lot of people that are buying our products have never bought these before. They don't know what they're what they're buying, and a lot of it's about having confidence that what you're buying is the right thing. And the other thing that's changing is our industry has been highly unregulated and that's changing, and so you know anywhere that we can educate them on like this is what the standard is. This is where the standards are going.

Peter Mann: 13:36

You're buying something that's in compliance, but it's all around, you know, a lot of times it's around trust and it's around confidence and setting proper expectations for what this is going to do. And you know, we know what we're talking about. You know, if you just see a spec sheet that gets thrown up, it's like with basic information and a price, there's really aggressive marketing within our space because it's so competitive and it's just kind of I think we've seen enough people get burned that you know they want to buy from someone that they trust. I mean, ultimately, business is about trust and relationships and they want to work with someone that they trust. It's really kind of that simple. It's hard to do, but that's ultimately kind of what's behind a lot of it.

Jim James: 14:25

Okay, no, I think that's wonderful. That's wonderful, and to see how much energy you're putting into that. Another aspect of air purifiers, of course, is sustainability. Peter. What role is sustainability playing in Iran C marketing and how you're leveraging? You know whatever you're doing in that category, as well of consumer concern.

Peter Mann: 14:51

Yeah, I think for us, that's a huge focus going forward. We're in the process right now of restoring our manufacturing, and so sustainability is around making the product in an environmentally responsible way. It's about right to repair is becoming a really big issue in the US, and that's if you buy a product and it breaks, like how do you get it fixed? And it just end up in the landfill, and so by us manufacturing here, anything that breaks, we bring it back, we can fix it and send it right back out.

Peter Mann: 15:28

I think that's going to be really unique in the marketplace, because almost all of our competitors are made in China. They don't have a way of fixing something that goes bad. And it's you know, and it's being able to show people behind the brand that are making their products, to put a name and a face into, humanize us and show that we care about sustainability and paying people living wages and you know, it's more of like a softer kind of thing, but I think it's something that people care about. They want to buy from someone who they share values with. Right, if you had everything, if you had three choices, they're all the same, but I like their values.

Jim James: 16:07

I'm going to most likely buy from them, I think that's wonderful, and I guess it maybe brings you all the way back to why you started this around. You know well-being of your son and the next generation of young Americans as well. Pete, it looks like a bit of a textbook case so far, but I have to ask you, as I do all my guests Is there anything that hasn't gone quite as planned, something that you think, oh, I wish we hadn't done that.

Peter Mann: 16:34

Yeah, I'd say the one that's the most painful for me is we had a business customer that had bought, you know, from us pretty decent sized orders that was overseas, and they came back with a larger order and then, just as we were getting ready to ship it, they wanted to cancel it and we never took a deposit on their order, just to kind of, you know, ensure that they took it. And so we custom built this for them and we were stuck with this inventory and it took a year, year and a half, to sell through. So that was pretty, pretty painful of an experience. And so we learned even if you know someone's bought from you in the past, you really have to make sure that you're not going to get stuck with something that, especially if it's custom made.

Jim James: 17:26

Okay, interesting Interesting there about managing your inventory and so on. Is there any impact on you and Arrancy around AI? I know I haven't really primed on this question but you know I worked, as I mentioned before, with Swiss Air in China at the beginnings of sort of intelligent air monitoring devices. Is that something as well that Arrancy is going to be looking at?

Peter Mann: 17:55

Yeah.

Peter Mann: 17:55

I mean we do. I don't know if this is fully AI, but some of the air quality measurements that you referenced we have some of that data on our website in terms of air quality and pollen, Just to provide a resource to our customers. It's a lot of the some of the same information if you have an Apple iPhone, but it's in map form. But AI, I think what we've used it more internally is more of a productivity tool. So, say, on marketing, you can describe a situation or describe what we're wanting to do, and it can come up with some really good ideas for messaging or different ways of seeing something that like oh, that never occurred to us, or points to bring up. Yeah, so that's.

Peter Mann: 18:40

Kind of the quality stuff, and so that's you know. We source that from a company, the same company that Apple gets the information from. It's actually owned by Google, now when this data comes from, so maybe it'll be on Google Maps soon. But you know, it's all the information just keeps getting better and better, and they use some AI modeling To do that, and it's also cool because it gives a forecast for what kind of like a weather forecast. But now of course, you're getting like air quality pollen Forecasts, like like they would do in China is you know it's not good to America.

Jim James: 19:19

Yeah, that'll help you, I guess, with the targeting of ads and promotions as well, won't it?

Peter Mann: 19:25

yeah.

Jim James: 19:26

Peter man found her in sea of a rancy. You know you've built in a relatively short amount of time. Well, it's 2009. Onwards this amazing business. If there's something that you think has already moved the needle for my fellow unnoticed entrepreneurs, what, what advice would you like to share?

Peter Mann: 19:45

Yeah, I would say and this is from Seth Godin is a marketing guy. I think I would get this as marketing. Not, I don't know him and but it's really helpful to you know, know how to market. And I would say it's build marketing into your product, because you need to connect with who you're selling to and if you can build it into your product, even though it's more expensive on the front end, it makes your advertising costs and your down-the-road costs significantly less. And so you know, if you have an average product, it's really difficult and expensive to sell that. If you can make something that that's Differentiated and really solves the customer pain points, it's so much easier to sell that product. And so build, take the time and build marketing into your product.

Jim James: 20:36

That is fantastic. It's plainly what you've done with your air filters over the Iran. See, peter man, if we want to find out more about you and the company, how can they do that?

Peter Mann: 20:47

Sure, yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. So if you just search Peter, man and man and then our website is Iran, see calm or an si calm.

Jim James: 20:56

Peter, thanks so much for joining me and sharing with me what seems to be a really a textbook way of building a brand that's bringing a lot of value. The time has really come to. I'm slightly, unfortunately, I'm afraid isn't, isn't it? I mean, you're there to solve a problem and this problem is getting bigger. So thank you very much for sharing how you're sold.

Peter Mann: 21:12

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, enjoyed it me too.

Jim James: 21:16

Well, it seems to have been so quick. We've heard so much in such a little time from Peter man. If you've enjoyed this show, do please share it with a fellow unnoticed entrepreneur. If you have time, please review on your favorite player. Really, really helps. And until we meet again, I just encourage you to keep on communicating. Thank you for listening you.