Published: Oct. 6, 2016, 9 a.m.
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Laura Behrens Wu, the co-founder and CEO of Shippo. Listen as Laura talks about how a laundry list of shipping obstacles with her previous e-commerce store birthed the idea for Shippo.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? \\u2013 The Hard Things About Hard Things
- What CEO do you follow? \\u2013 Patrick Collison
- Favorite online tool? \\u2014 Slack
- Do you get 8 hours of sleep?\\u2014 \\u201cI wish\\u201d
- If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? \\u2013 \\u201cTrust that things will turn out right\\u201d
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Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:45 \\u2013 Nathan introduces Laura to the show
- 02:13 \\u2013 E-commerce business Laura had
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- 02:27 \\u2013 Started at Shopify
- 02:40 \\u2013 Sourcing unique items from NGO
- 03:07 \\u2013 Shipping problem
- 03:32 \\u2013 Revenue with the e-commerce business
- 03:50 \\u2013 Laura was 21 when she started her business
- 04:13 \\u2013 Financing with Shippo
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- 04:17 \\u2013 Drop shipping
- 05:08 \\u2013 Typical shipping pricing
- 05:30 \\u2013 Shippo shipping rates
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- 05:58 \\u2013 Volume metric
- 06:07 \\u2013 Doing millions of packages a month
- 06:30 \\u2013 Negotiation with shipping providers\\xa0
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- 06:44 \\u2013 Based on projected volumes
- 07:00 \\u2013 Shippo is a pay-as-you-go; not SaaS
- 07:20 \\u2013 Sample price per package shipped
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- 07:30 \\u2013 What if I\\u2019m shipping a 10 lbs. dumbbell?
- 07:44 \\u2013 \\u201cWe only provide the software\\u201d
- 08:06 \\u2013 How Shippo works in an e-commerce website
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- 08:10 \\u2013 Will compare different shipping providers
- 08:30 \\u2013 Not a standard shipping rate
- 08:47 \\u2013 How the shipping providers get the package from the seller
- 09:07 \\u2013 Why clients use Shippo\\u2019s service
- 09:37 \\u2013 Shipping providers are not tech company
- 09:55 \\u2013 Number of unique customers
- 10:12 \\u2013 Average shipping volume per month
- 10:29 \\u2013 Memebox
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- 11:10 \\u2013 Nathan\\u2019s proposed deal for Shippo and Memebox
- 11:54 \\u2013 They raised $9M in 2014
- 12:20 \\u2013 Team size
- 12:50 \\u2013 Use of the extra money
- 13:23 \\u2013 Minimum monthly revenue
- 13:33 \\u2013 Upselling
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- 13:50 \\u2013 Shipping insurance
- 14:11 \\u2013 Tracking as a product
- 15:28 \\u2013 Bigger revenue stream
- 15:37 \\u2013 $ 7 million in series A round, March 2016
- 16:00 \\u2013 How to keep the balance when you have a big account
- 16:38 \\u2013 Travel expenses last month
- 17:25 \\u2013 Will you sell the business for $ 47 million?
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- 17:45 \\u2013 Ideal exit assuming there\\u2019s a good fit
- 18:03 \\u2013 Built an app on top of Shopify
- 18:11 \\u2013 Connect with Laura through her Twitter, LinkedIn and email
- 20:00 - The Famous Five
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3 Key Points:
- Keep your customers updated and excited.
- Spend money on the right things and appreciate what you have.
- Don\\u2019t get upset on your first try \\u2013 everything falls into place given patience and time.
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Resources Mentioned:
- Toptal\\xa0\\u2013 Nathan found his development team using Toptal\\xa0 for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn\\u2019t have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal\\xa0 developers.
- Host Gator\\xa0\\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
- Freshbooks\\xa0\\u2013 The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
- Leadpages\\xa0 \\u2013 The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
- Audible\\xa0\\u2013 Nathan uses Audible when he\\u2019s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
- @LauraBehrensWu \\u2013 Laura\\u2019s Twitter handle
- LinkedIn \\u2013 Laura\\u2019s LinkedIn account
- laura@goshippo.com \\u2013 Laura\\u2019s email address
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
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