Solo Entrepreneur to $10M+ Niche E-commerce Success: DoggieLawn Founder Natalie Youn (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How long did it take you to get to a million dollars in revenue?

Natalie Youn: It took until year two – around the end.

Sramana Mitra: $5 million?

Natalie Youn: If you look at a chart, it was slow and steady. We switched our PPC agency. From then on, our sales started ramping up. We went with the right partners who knew how to get us out to more eyes on Facebook and Google.

Sramana Mitra: How were you financing all this?

Natalie Youn: It was all bootstrapped. I did the sweat equity. My husband put in $30,000 or something like that. We’ve been able to sustain ourselves and did not have to lean on outside funding. A lot of it is due to the business model as well. We have a FIFO model. We’re dealing with a perishable good. I don’t have to place container order from China and have a huge outlay of cash.

Sramana Mitra: Where do you source from?

Natalie Youn: From different farms, but our main one is in Los Angeles.

Sramana Mitra: Have you used any kind of inventory financing?

Natalie Youn: No. Now that our business is more mature, we do more orders through China. We’re able to finance that now.

Sramana Mitra: Does it make sense to get perishable products from China?

Natalie Youn: No, ours is agricultural. There are these extremely expensive produce from Japan and they’re charging so much for the technology they use for it. Ours is a commodity.

Sramana Mitra: What about team? When did you start adding people and what functions?

Natalie Youn: We’re under 20. Half warehouse and then office. We hired our first person within the first six months. I would say a lot of it was me doing it on my own. I was doing a lot. At one point, I was changing out the grass. I was in sweats. I like telling that to other entrepreneurs. You can’t be afraid to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty.

Sramana Mitra: Do what it takes.

Natalie Youn: Yeah.

Sramana Mitra: In terms of strategy, have we discussed all the main levers?

Natalie Youn: Now it has changed. We’re pushing harder on the things that you should. For instance, the content and social media.

Sramana Mitra: From the digital marketing front.

Natalie Youn: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: It’s still roughly great execution on simple ideas.

Natalie Youn: Yes. At the end of the day, we are just a company that ships grass.

Sramana Mitra: Fantastic, great positioning and packaging.

Natalie Youn: I come from a marketing background. I would say what’s interesting is that we are not doing all of what we should be in marketing. For instance, our packaging comes in a corrugated box. Rather plain and simple.

Sramana Mitra: I don’t think your category requires premium category. It’s positioned for a specific audience.

Natalie Youn: It’s very niche audience.

Sramana Mitra: You reinvented the category. Very, very nifty marketing work. Congratulations!

Natalie Youn: Thank you. We’ve launched other products and it continues to come back to innovation. It has to solve a problem. It has to find that right market niche. Otherwise, it would be too expensive to advertise and you would be lost in the clutter. We’ve had to shut down some business ideas because it didn’t make sense.

Sramana Mitra: Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Solo Entrepreneur to $10M+ Niche E-commerce Success: DoggieLawn Founder Natalie Youn
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