SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

EP 481: 4400 Flashlights Sold, $79 Price, $23 COGS, 55% Net Margin with TrueGunner CEO Tanner Larsson

17 Nov 2016

Audio

Description

Nathan interviews Tanner Larsson, co-founder of 80/20 Media, CEO of e-commerce brand incubator BuildGrowsSale.com. He's also the founder and facilitator of an exclusive e-commerce syndicate called Black Label – composed of the best and brightest marketers, CEOs, and entrepreneurs in the e-commerce space. He recently published his first book called Ecommerce Evolved which offers readers a box view of how successful e-commerce brands build, grow, and scale. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – Rocket Fuel What CEO do you follow? – Ed O'Keefe Favorite online tool? —FastStone Capture Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Not even close If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "You don't have to fund everything out of your own pocket, there are other options available" Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:27 – Nathan introduces Tanner to the show 02:15 – Tanner's ecommerce world started in 2001 02:20 – Started in eBay and Tanner became a powerseller 02:31 – Tanner was doing $ 50,000 - $ 100,000 a month in eBay 03:00 – "There's no reason not to sell a physical product" 03:25 – Tanner and his team have a number of e-commerce brands 03:36 – 2 main brands have done $6.5 million in a year 03:48 – They had a problem in production 04:06 – "We've had different bottlenecks that prevented us from growing at the rate we could have grown" 04:30 – The flashlight market 04:38 – Tanner doesn't want to sell what everybody is selling 04:47 – The gap they saw is between the lower price entry level flashlight and high-end flashlight 05:03 – Tanner and his team develop their own flashlight and a kit 05:17 – Truegunner.com 05:25 – The flashlight is in a sales funnel 05:34 – The funnel path 06:02 – The bestseller flashlight is the M600 tactical utility flashlight 06:07 - $22 manufactured price from China 06:32 – They had a much higher per unit cost and much lower profit margin on the first order 06:43 - First order was at a minimum which is a thousand 07:03 – Total is $30,000 tied up which equals to $3 per unit price 07:52 – It took 7 months before the first order started production 07:58 – The back and forth from the manufacturing county took time 08:05 – Shipping takes a week which includes the revises that needed on the product 08:30 – "If you're building your product from the ground, there's a whole back and forth with the manufacturer" 09:00 – Started selling on November 2015 09:05 – Sold about 4400 units for 12 months 09:21 – Total money in from this product is around $ 150,000 - $ 160, 000 09:50 – 99% of the funds came from Tanner 10:12 – The downside is some raw materials are specialized 10:27 – They have to buy raw materials in advance to prevent going out of stock 11:28 – Most of their sales are funnel driven 11:43 – They were using ultracart but shifted back to infusionsoft 12:09 – They are also using Hotjar records visitor interaction. Like heat mapping 12:43 – They spend $13 per user acquisition on the front end 13:03 – They breakeven in the funnel 13:30 – They also have subscription plans 14:01 – They have 7000 paying user 14:36 – They also have drop-off rates 16:00 – Connect with Tanner through his website 18:30 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Look for alternative funding. Don't shoulder everything. If you don't know something, that doesn't mean you can't explore. Sourcing from manufacturers abroad takes patience and a lot of research. Resources Mentioned: Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal developers. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email. Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel. BuildGrowScale.com – Tanner's website Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

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