701: Smart Desk King Sells $10,000,000+
Duy Huynh. He\u2019s the founder of Autonomous.ai which builds smart office products to help people work smarter.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? \u2013 Zero to One
- What CEO do you follow? \u2013\xa0 Stewart Butterfield
- Favorite online tool? \u2014 Google Analytics
- How many hours of sleep do you get?\u2014 4
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \u2013 \u201cFocus on and build something really helpful to people\u201d
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Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 00:50 \u2013 Nathan introduces Duy to the show
- 01:20 \u2013 Subscribe to Youtube to see Duy using a smart desk
- 01:32 \u2013 Smart desk helps work smart the whole day
- 01:48 \u2013 \u201cWe don\u2019t care much about the money\u201d
- 02:02 \u2013 Autonomous\u2019 mission is how they can help companies\u2019 work smarter
- 02:51 \u2013 Autonomous wants to reinvent every single item in an office
- 03:15 \u2013 One of Autonomous\u2019 products is the Cardboard
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- 03:30 \u2013 It is created for people who want an affordable standing desk
- 04:05 \u2013 It sells for $19
- 04:17 \u2013 Cardboard is a fairly new product
- 04:42 \u2013 Autonomous was founded in 2014
- 05:10 \u2013 Autonomous has shipped around 100K units
- 05:16 \u2013 The best-seller is the SmartDesk
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- 05:38 \u2013 It can keep you healthy and stay active in office
- 05:50 \u2013 Some of Nathan\u2019s friends have bought the Smartdesk
- 06:07 \u2013 Autonomous has raised $200K
- 06:18 \u2013 Prior to Autonomous, Duy really liked smart products
- 06:46 \u2013 Duy started Autonomous with his co-founders in a small apartment
- 08:25 \u2013 The seed money has helped Duy make the prototypes
- 09:00 \u2013 Duy has spent $100-200K on the products before raising the seed round
- 09:09 \u2013 Duy traveled to find the best suppliers
- 09:30 \u2013 Team size
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- 09:43 \u2013 4 are working in the NY office
- 09:46 \u2013 10 in California and some in Vietnam and China
- 10:10 \u2013 Total of 40 people
- 10:22 \u2013 Autonomous is currently cash flow positive
- 10:35 \u2013 Duy isn\u2019t looking at raising another round at the moment
- 11:00 \u2013 Monthly expenses
- 11:40 \u2013 Autonomous is doing over $10M annually
- 12:18 \u2013 Most of the customers are founders
- 12:37 \u2013 Autonomous currently relies on word-of mouth
- 12:49 \u2013 Autonomous had a Kickstarter campaign
- 13:05 \u2013 Autonomous made $250K from their Kickstarter campaign
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- 13:20 \u2013 It was for a thousand units
- 13:58 \u2013 Duy wanted to maintain a fair margin in the supply chain
- 14:36 \u2013 \u201cThey pay for what they get\u201d
- 15:00 \u2013 Competitors\u2019 margin
- 15:19 \u2013 Gross profit
- 16:04 \u2013 The second and third best-selling products are the chair and stool, respectively
- 16:38 \u2013 Duy wouldn\u2019t take a deal from Herman Miller at the moment
- 16:41 \u2013 Autonomous isn\u2019t a furniture company
- 17:19 \u2013 On paper, Duy is the single founder but the co-founders have equity as well
- 18:50 \u2013 The Famous Five
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3 Key Points:
- Smart products shouldn\u2019t just offer convenience, but make your life healthy and active too.
- Price your product fairly\u2014the value of the product should match the price.
- Create something that will be really helpful for people.
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Resources Mentioned:
- The Top Inbox\xa0 \u2013 The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
- Klipfolio \u2013 Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
- Hotjar \u2013 Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you\u2019re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
- Acuity Scheduling \u2013 Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
- Host Gator\xa0\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
- Audible\xa0\u2013 Nathan uses Audible when he\u2019s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives