From Teen Student Entrepreneur in Australia to a Mature Global E-commerce Entrepreneur: Mike Rosenbaum, CEO of Spacer (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What about customer acquisition? When you’re selling on eBay, eBay provides the foot traffic.

Mike Rosenbaum: It was the early days of e-commerce. There was a much smaller number of people shopping online. We had built this large database off eBay which we used to sell direct. We would send emails to them. Initially it was one email a week. Then it was two. Eventually it became one a day.

At the end of the business, we were sending three emails a day. Because we had such good content, we actually had customers upset if their emails went to junk. We really had to make sure that we kept creating great content. It was a challenge, but it was a very exciting time. 

Sramana Mitra: What else was interesting strategically in that business? You went from zero to $100 million with that online department store business. We’ve explored your financing. We’ve explored your inventory strategy and customer acquisition strategy. 

Mike Rosenbaum: I was transitioning from being a tech guy to a business guy. I had some great mentors over the years. I wasn’t very good at going from two guys in a room to 200 people and scaling that. I wasn’t a natural leader. I was a very good doer. When I look back, I wasn’t the best leader. I certainly worked hard on it. We had a great team. That’s what made the business work. We worked every day to bring our customers the best deal. Our tagline was, “Love a bargain.” 

Sramana Mitra: What year did you hit the million mark?

Mike Rosenbaum: DealsDirect launched at the end of 2004. We ended up selling the business in 2014. 

Sramana Mitra: Whom did you sell it to?

Mike Rosenbaum: We did a listing on the Australian stock market. That was in January 2014. Then in November 2014, it got acquired by a large auction company called Grays Online. 

Sramana Mitra: Australian company. 

Mike Rosenbaum: Yes, a B2B and B2C online auction company. 

Sramana Mitra: What did you do after that? Did you stay together to do the next venture?

Mike Rosenbaum: He had already sold out and moved on to his next thing. I took a little bit of a break. I went to Silicon Valley to get some inspiration for my next thing. I went to Tech Crunch in New York. This was in 2015. I was lucky enough to go to this investor trade mission across Silicon Valley. We got to meet micro-VC funds and entrepreneurs.

I was looking for something to bring back to Australia. When I went over to Silicon Valley, I thought that I wanted to do something in the sharing economy. I really loved the concept. I was looking for another sharing economy idea to bring back to Australia.

I remember vividly telling my wife about space-sharing. I had some experience and I knew there was a real need. It just made sense to me. It’s a bit like bringing bargains to people. There was a lot of empty space sitting idle. Making that easily accessible to people using technology would be a great idea. That’s how I got started. 

Sramana Mitra: That was in 2015?

Mike Rosenbaum: We launched at the beginning of 2016.

This segment is part 3 in the series : From Teen Student Entrepreneur in Australia to a Mature Global E-commerce Entrepreneur: Mike Rosenbaum, CEO of Spacer
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