This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Rob Fraser, Founder and CEO at endūr. Bootstrapping a business while creating his product category presented many initial challenges to Rob.
He had to maintain several side jobs in the beginning to fund the initial $1,000 needed to start a Shopify account and order the first batch of socks. He then relied on word of mouth and the help of micro influencer friends to get his brand out there.
By the third year, the company had already made $1 million in revenue and Rob had started paid acquisition too, but it was the shift to online business care of COVID that accelerated the growth of his business.
SHOW NOTES
HIGHLIGHTS
Creating an athleisure product category with $1,000
Building an online brand with micro-influencers and ambassadors
Organic funnels and global shifts to online business grows endūr
Growing an ambassador program with genuine passion
QUOTES
Rob: "We're talking one sale a day, sometimes zero sales a day. This was a very long slow burn. Over a year in, there were some days where we wouldn't have one Shopify sale. These things take time. We didn't really start paying to acquire customers for at least two years in."
Rob: "I wouldn't say oh, overnight we tripled our spend on Facebook or anything like that. We just continued. So I would say the majority of the growth came from the organic funnels we had built and just the organic referral and people talking about the product."
Rob: "I just wanted to be a voice in the conversation that was like, business is hard. You should make a profit. Raising money is not as cool as you think it is. I was just annoyed with the overwhelming voices of the young startup founders thinking that it's all about status."
You can connect with Rob in the links below:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbfraser/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/robbfraser/
Website: https://www.endurapparel.com/
For more tips for starting and launching your eCommerce business, be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple or Spotify today!