Bootstrapping to $8 Million in 3 Months During the COVID Crisis: Cuver CEO Ammar Amdani (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You didn’t raise any financing? Is all this based on your personal investment in the advertising?

Ammar Amdani: Yes. 

Sramana Mitra: What is the customer acquisition cost? Could you talk about how much you are putting into advertising? What kind of equation have you been able to achieve?

Ammar Amdani: It depends on the medium. For Facebook and Instagram, we were acquiring customers at about $1.85 and that’s for a ten-pack of masks. Our return on Aspen was high which helps with liquidity. With newsletters, it was more on the $4 mark but these were valuable customers that would repeat purchases. We can also target more customers interested in bulk pricing. 

Sramana Mitra: Are you only selling through your own branded Shopify website or are you also on Amazon and other places?

Ammar Amdani: We launched on Amazon two weeks ago. We discontinuously sell out there. We are having trouble keeping up with the demands. We are also launching on Walmart. We also expanded internationally. We have a Shopify store for Europe and the UK. Those are our few different avenues.  

Sramana Mitra: You had incredible growth. You launched in March and by June, you have $8 million worth of masks. Can you talk about the secret of such incredible fast growth?

Ammar Amdani: I would say it’s just prioritizing problems. I think the best thing we did was focus on bringing people to the team that could help with customer service and operations. Bringing the right pieces that could make it more efficient and solve that issue.

We have just been doing that repeatedly even when it means bringing in more specialists with advertising and partnerships for example. We brought in people that had a lot of experience. Bringing together the right pieces is how we’ve gone about it. 

Sramana Mitra: How big is your team?

Ammar Amdani: Right now, our team is 12 people. 

Sramana Mitra: All the manufacturing is outsourced to Central America and the team essentially manages the website, customer service, and marketing. Is that right?

Ammar Amdani: We are also involved in the packaging and sourcing of different products. We are going to be launching two new products over the next week. We try to get as involved as we need to be with the manufacturer, but it’s more where we need to get involved and stay within those guidelines.

Sramana Mitra: Amazing story. Congratulations! Well played. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Bootstrapping to $8 Million in 3 Months During the COVID Crisis: Cuver CEO Ammar Amdani
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