Building a High Impact Social Enterprise over 20+ Years: Roberto Milk, CEO of NOVICA (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: It was going to be an artisan marketplace, right?

Roberto Milk: That’s right. We were leaving these corporate positions for that.

Sramana Mitra: How did you get your first set of artisans to come on board and start selling on the site?

Roberto Milk: It was extremely hard because there was no site at that point. We were getting products photographed and described. We started with four different hubs. The concept was we were creating an international network where we have presence on the ground. We were in Brazil, Peru, Ghana, and Mexico.

Sramana Mitra: Were artisans bringing you stuff into the hubs, and you were doing the photographing and listing?

Roberto Milk: Yes. They would focus on making their product as good as they possibly could. They could state their price, which is much different from the traditional system.

The retail price in a US boutique store might be $100 for an item that the artist was making $10 on. That was because of all the middlemen involved – village middlemen, national middlemen, international distributors, and retailers.

We said, “Let’s take out all of these middlemen.” We don’t want to be importing products in bulk into the US or Europe. We want to have an international hub network where the artisans are coming in and out of these hubs. They can state their own price. They just worry about making the product. The artist makes more and the customer pays less.

Sramana Mitra: When did you launch it?

Roberto Milk: 1999. We were really intent on doing it right and doing it big. We ended up raising $20 million in the first three years.

Sramana Mitra: When did you launch the MVP?

Roberto Milk: We started going in January of 1999 and we launched the website in May of 1999. 

Sramana Mitra: How many artisans were on at that point?

Roberto Milk: There were about 50 artisans.

Sramana Mitra: What kind of products did you have at that point?

Roberto Milk: It was almost all home decorative items. Everything that’s handmade for the home such as tapestries, area rugs, sculptures, paintings, masks, and boxes. These are things you might find in a tourist market when you go to Brazil or to Peru. 

Sramana Mitra: What kind of price point?

Roberto Milk: The prices were between $30 to $100.

Sramana Mitra: How did you get the other side of the marketplace?

Roberto Milk: We immediately started working on business development deals. We had placements with various like-minded companies that were promoting services related to travel or to doing good. We extended through our affiliate program and working with content websites.

We were thinking very big with it. Immediately, we started going after major deals like National Geographic. The way we had our whiteboard setup was to get four regions live, launch a website, and do a deal with National Geographic. 

Sramana Mitra: In 1999 of May, you launched this. When did the National Geographic deal come through?

Roberto Milk: That happened in November of 2000.

Sramana Mitra: There was a year and a half before that which was mostly affiliate marketing with smaller content sites?

Roberto Milk: Affiliate marketing and getting four more regions live. We had eight regions live. We opened up Bali, India, Thailand, and Central America.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Building a High Impact Social Enterprise over 20+ Years: Roberto Milk, CEO of NOVICA
1 2 3 4 5 6