Ecommerce: Applying Online Strategy to Offline Biz + Driving Millions in Crowdfunding w/Samit Patel

Hey guys, we're here for episode 19 of the e-commerce opportunity where I'm joined by Samit. How are you, my friend? I'm good, good to be here. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Of course, and did I get your first name right? I know we were just for talking about it and I don't want to make sure I didn't butcher it. Did we get it right? Yeah, fine, that's perfect, perfect, yeah. Cool, let's start. What are you working on? So right now, what am I working on or what have I been working on? What are you currently working on right now? I know it's a couple things and I'm excited to actually talk about all of the things. Yeah, so I think the reason, I'll tell you quickly what I've been doing and then it'll come into play with what I'm doing right now. So I've been, since 2015, I've been helping products launch successfully online through crowdfunding platforms. I've helped raise over 43 million, so pretty much got it down to an hour of how you build up a campaign, how you initially validate the idea, how you build up a community and then how you launch it. So literally last month I had this crazy idea which was like, can I take what I've done on the online space and can I apply it offline? And I've always worked, I've been involved, I wanted to create my own bar and last quarter I worked on a really cool project which was like arcade machine that lets you play all these retro games and upright cabinet. So I thought to myself, okay, that idea, combine that with some wings, combine that with some booze is probably a win scenario. So it was like, okay, can we do this in London? No one's offering this in London and my thought process was, okay, let's see if we can validate this idea first. So I put together a landing page, started driving people onto that landing page, created a simple logo, simple brand called Arcade Monkeys playing on the famous band Arctic Monkeys. So we called it Arcade Monkeys and then just started driving traffic to it, seeing what would happen. And we had so many people go, this is incredible, I want to book right now. How do we book? How do we book? And it was like that sort of thing. So I was like, oh crap, we could actually make this work now. So to put together a bar, there's a lot of craziness involved in that and literally we've been recording the whole journey from inception to where we are. Today, we got the venue and we had an interior designer and we put up a job ad for an intern. We're being very scrappy with everything, even the furnishings inside. We're actually figuring out how can we make this ourselves? And there's going to be videos of us trying to make this furniture and literally doing it all. So it's a whole crazy story. We've got all these people helping us out for pretty much free. We've got the interior design going to be done by a graffiti artist who we are getting persuaded by. It's really taking what I learned in the online world and applying it offline. And I think that's a good experiment and I love experimenting. Dude, this is so cool. Wow. There's a lot here. Let's start on the bar and then we'll go to kind of some of the crowdfunding stuff after. So there's a couple of questions I have. In terms of the bar, you set up a landing page. Did the landing page have photos? What was on the landing page? Was there any kind of offer incentive? How were you running the traffic? What are you doing once you have the info? Let's walk through the funnel. Yeah. So the funnels that I've liked to build are usually very simple what it is. So at the top, London's hottest new bar, Arcade Gaming, Wings and Booze opening soon. So that's really the tagline. Launching soon, sign up now for early bird discounts. And that's, again, very similar what I do with the product launches. So it had a photo that I had from a previous project that I helped raise a million for. And they were really good friends. They had an arcade machine and that's where the original inspiration came from. So I took a picture that they had that looked like it was in a bar scene, put that up on the landing page. And it was literally that. I was driving people to that landing page. So the main landing page had what it was, a nice picture of it, and then had three real points of what it is. So it's like play thousands of all your favorite arcade games from Sonic and Street Fire. And then the second one was amazing food. So if you love Wings, then this is the place to be. And the third one was like, OK, amazing cocktails and things like that. And the ideas have developed over time. So it's now not only an arcade gaming place, it's also going to be serving cryptocurrency cocktails. So cryptocurrency inspired cocktails and also going to be accepting cryptocurrency because like arcade gaming, cryptocurrency, graffiti, all of this comes into play. Wow, this is super cool. So how far out is the launch and how much traffic are you planning on running? Do you think this only works for something that's pre-launch because there's kind of like this intrigue and mystery? Do you think, you know, a competitor that's already launched could go do this? Like, what are some of your thoughts on those things? I think I think everyone can do a pre-launch, right? Like it's you're really avoid like I failed through so many businesses without and upon self-reflection, I looked through and I said, why do these businesses fail? And I really broke it down to three reasons. One was lack of research, understanding who my competitors are, understanding what was going on. Two was, you know, I just was trying to bootstrap everything. You've got to get to a position where you're in a good position financially, so your decisions that you're making isn't all about bootstrapping and every penny that you earn trying to put that back, you've got to have some sort of balance. If you really believe in the idea that you have, you need to go all in at one point, right? And then the third thing was lack of community that I built up before launch. So the typical thing that everyone does is they'll have an idea, hey, I want to create this brand new, you know, spray for your body. They'll go out, they'll work out the formula, they'll work out the packaging, they'll work all this stuff out, and it'll take them three months, it'll take them six months, it'll take them all this time, when in actual fact, if you started from day one, going, okay, I'm gonna create a very simple landing page, every single person I talk to, I'm just gonna go, look, there's the landing page. If I start posting on my social medias, if I did the SEO work, if I did the PPC work, if I did all of this work, initially, you've got a whole pipeline by the time you launch. And this is the biggest reason why a lot of businesses fail, because they try and do this very long-winded and takes them very long to gather up steam, you know, think of a train, it takes them very long time to get that momentum going. And if you just launch everything without having a community, it's going to take a very long time. And by the time you get to a point where you're making money, it's not enough money for you to survive. So there's a lot of things that you need to think about. You got to think about the opportunity costs involved with your business. Am I going to be making more money than the time I'm spending if I could put it somewhere else? And a lot of people fail to understand that. So it's always like, oh, I'm going to go design my own leaflet on Canva. And it's like, what the hell, you know, go find someone that can do a better job than you. But you've got to strike that balance here. I love that. A couple more questions about the bar, and then I want to move on to the next topic. In terms of like the documentation, right? So it sounds like you're filming, you're recording, you're kind of documenting everything. Why are you doing that, right? Are you planning on opening additional restaurants? Are you planning on franchising it? Are you planning on turning into a course? What's the why? Yeah, exactly. So there's a long-term aim here. The long-term aim is to do an equity crowdfunding campaign. So there's another company called BrewDog. BrewDog, what they did, they started off with a very similar concept of creating a bar, and then they used the community to crowdsource it. So what we're doing with this bar is where the landing page is the first part of the funnel. The second part is we're driving them to a thank you page, and that's where we're building up the community, really. So they're going to be seeing the stories of how we put this all together. They're going to be connecting with us as the founders. We're going to give them like VIP, so it's like 10% off all food and drinks if they want to come there, and make it feel like a community-driven project. And every single time we're doing something, it's always like, okay, what drinks do you want? Or what do you think we should do on this wall? So they actually feel part of the journey. Because at the moment, there's a massive disconnect between the brands that are out there and people connecting with them. People just see a logo, whereas people want to feel like part of the journey. They want to feel like they're cared about, and that's exactly what we're doing with this bar. And there is another element why we're recording everything in the journey. It's because we're trying to also, at the same time, we're trying to crack YouTube, right? We're trying to crack, how can we make a video go viral? All these videos, they have people just doing random stuff. So one of the viral ideas that we're going to have is me and the co-founder, we're going to dress up as Mario or Princess Peach, right? And we're going to get a tricycle. We're going to ride around London, throwing eggs and water balloons at each other. So we're going to see if that element can go viral. So there's a lot of, like, it's the first social bar in the world that I can think of. Mr. Beast has done, he's created all these virtual kitchens. But what we're doing is, the revenue is not just only going to come in from the bar and the people playing the arcade machines. It's going to be, hopefully, from all these videos that we're going to be doing. So it's going to be a social-led business, which I find very interesting. I want to see if this whole thing works, because we can add a viral concept in every single week. And if that video picks up steam and gets a lot of views, it acts as free advertising for this bar. And that's how we can franchise it out, because we've got people in America who want us to bring it to Miami. They want us to bring it to all types of places. But it's the same thing. Salt Bay, the guy that puts a bit of salt on the steak and went a bit viral, and now he's got places everywhere. It's the same thing that we're trying to achieve. So yeah, that's it, really. I love that, man. And I know we were talking before this, how the opportunity came up. And this next question, this next focus, is less about Clubhouse as a platform and more about being early to a platform and taking full advantage. So it sounds like, from what you mentioned, I'll let you tell the story, this opportunity or the person that you're doing it with, you met on Clubhouse. And I know you were there early. I know you built up a good following. So I guess if you could take this in the direction of, do you want to talk about Clubhouse? Or what are the things of being on a platform early and building influence? And how important is that? How do you do that? Yeah. So even though I got on the platform in December, it's still very late. The platform launched, I think, in February. February was actually when it launched to the market. And then it started picking up steam. It was used by a lot of startups and VCs and things like that. So there's people on the platform who have been there from the very beginning and probably on the recommendation engine and have reached millions. Whereas I was the guy who was like, OK, I'm just going to work hard at this, right? It wasn't a case that I was recommended. So when you join the app, there's 30 people that it tells you to follow. And these people are friends of the creators and things like that. So I wasn't on those recommendation engines. Everything I've grown, I'm at 58,000 followers on that platform, which puts me in the influencer category. But that was literally built through blood, sweat, and tears. It's like any business, you've got to put your all into it. So as soon as I saw the opportunity in December, I didn't really engage in it too much. I jumped into a room. I hopped out. I didn't do anything. It's a very normal thing that any one clubhouse does. But then in January, I said to myself, look, I want to get to $5,000. In February, I want to get to $10,000. In March, I want to get to $20,000 and so on. So I set myself little goals. And I was like, look, I'm doing this because my goal this year is really to inspire a million people. And this is a platform that I see myself doing it. So it was a very simple platform. I could just be laying in bed and talking to people and giving them advice. The platform in itself went through a lot of different challenges. What you see that's on there right now is actually what we've ended up building up, because we've created that experience of what it was. We went through the traumas of what it was at before. Before, it was like the Wild Wild West. There was people getting canceled on the platform. There was the fights going on. It was crazy. And I was almost like the mafia leader that connected with lots of people. And I said, look, rather than trying to set up my own rooms, why don't we create a pod? Why don't we create rooms together? And every single time you create a room, I'll support your room. So I ended up doing that. And we were running like four rooms a day. We were absolutely dominating that platform. You would not be able to move without seeing me on that platform 24-7. And we ran that like a military operation. It was like, OK, what are we going to run as content for today? What are we going to talk about? Who's going to be leading it? Who can dedicate hours to it? And me and another guy, Mario, we said, we're going to go on this full force. And I told my agency, look, I'm going to be working on this. It is something new. We don't know where it's going to go. But I missed out on the Instagram days. I missed out on the TikTok days. So I want to try and get in early level and at least build up some sort of base that I can lift off when I want to go back to it. So it's that sort of thing. And yeah, getting those followers was literally built up through hard work, putting in the hours. I think for four months in January, February, I was on that literally day and night. I'd be working US time zone and being on that like 18 hours a day. It was crazy. Maybe 20 hours. I'd be waking up and sleeping on that same phone and be like that. Me with the iPhone, just like that. That's crazy, man. That's such a cool story. And I guess to round that out and then talk about the agency, I guess the transition of like, have the four months, five months of just like the blood, sweat and tears, has it allowed really great opportunities and has it made kind of that sacrifice worth it? So in terms of direct what's happened, I don't think it has, right? I've built up a following. Has that following turned into money? Probably not. I spoke to my sales team. They said that I think that we must have got like one or two clients. But for the amount of time that I spent into that four months, like build up a 58,000 following, like if I spent four months on a channel like YouTube and just tried really hard at that, I think I'd be able to get a lot more out of that, right? I think it's if you put a time into anything and you literally eat, sleep, drink that field, you will become an expert and you will be able to work it out. The problem with Clubhouse is a problem that I've talked about from the very beginning. The content isn't evergreen. So I could sit there for 18, 19, 20 hours a day saying the best things in the world. You know, it could be the Picasso of talking nonsense on an app, but no one would remember or I'd have to keep saying the same thing again. So the next day I could do another talk, but you'd get new audiences every time. You know, like the listing times is around 15 minutes. So you get new people entering, old people exiting. So it's like, it's just like, you can't structure the content in a good way really. And that's the biggest problem I've seen on that platform. And I think that's partially one of the reasons why, you know, I've been spending a little bit more less time on that and also the new venture, the arcade monkeys that came about because of Clubhouse. So that's a really good thing. You know, I met a lot of good people. I interviewed some superstars. I interviewed Grant Cardone, Tai Lopez, Billie Jean, co-founder of Netflix, Terry Crews, Jay Shetty and Naveen Jain, the billionaire, like all these people. I probably wouldn't, you know, it'd take me a very long time to actually get in a position to interview them, but that's, that's what ended up happening. So, you know, I'm grateful for the time that's spent on there, but now it's, you know, with this new opportunity of the bar that's come about and the person I met on Clubhouse through there, I'm grateful for that. And I really appreciate the transparency and kind of the candor here. So thank you for that. The last topic I want to talk about is your agency. You know, it sounds like you guys do crowdfunding. Can you talk briefly about the agency? Can you talk about like what kind of brands are great candidates for crowdfunding? What kind of brands maybe aren't the best fit for crowdfunding? Yeah, so we're a specialist agency that focuses on crowdfunding, but really in the industry, I'm known as like the launch expert. So if someone's trying to create something, you know, if they're launching a new SaaS business or they're launching a new product business or they're launching anything that needs a launch, then it's, they usually come to me for that piece of advice. It's like, how can we think outside the box in launching this? Where can we get really creative? How can we make our budget stretch for this? You've got the basic element, which is, okay, build up a community around that. You know, anytime you're launching something, test it out there. Just the way I mentioned for the bar that we did, we set up a landing page. We do a lot of A-B testing, so we already got a lot of data on what works well and we've got a format. The next step of that is driving people to a thank you page. On that thank you page, we ask people for a $7 deposit or we ask them to join our VIP group. So the VIP group is on Facebook and it's literally the founder filming himself as a selfie video and going, hey, my name is Samet. I'm the creator of these brand new trainers, Crocodile. I got tired of wearing trainers that really hurt my back. I've got lower back issues and I felt like I needed to change things. If you feel like you like this idea, comment below where you're from and spread the word. So you're creating that connection with the people. And then every week you'd create a video, which again, connects you to what you're doing and makes people feel like they're behind the scenes. So that was a system that I created, acknowledging, okay, you know what, at the beginning I did the very basic thing, which was landing page, getting emails, emailing people out, and then converting people there. But I saw the conversion rates increase a lot. So the typical conversion rates for a campaign that you're launching on Kickstarter is anywhere between 3% to 5% if it's about $99. But we were able to get up to 10% conversion rates at the minimum. We compared it to another person who did, we compared two projects, two different emails, and we broke it down and conversion rate without this engagement, without this connection was about 3% to 5%. We managed to get a 10% conversion. And that was just on the first email. So it's not on the second follow-up email, third follow-up email, all these different emails that you're doing. And email is a crucial part of this. And I know you're the expert in email marketing, so I don't have to really educate you on this, but if you can nurture them a bit more, you could have a lot of different touch points. And that's the real key, because people aren't opening as emails as much, but they would if they felt connected to you. I read your posts and I know you've got huge engagement on your email list. This is because people connect with you. People know Chase, right? But if they just got an email from Nike, you're not going to really connect with Nike. Maybe if you were speaking to the founder and the founder sent you a weekly update or something like that, you feel a bit more connected. The reason Kanye West does it a lot better is because he's the face of that brand, and he creates nice trainers. So it's really doing that and thinking outside the box. Using your face to promote your product or your brand is almost like a USB. People are struggling to create USBs. It's like if you go into a bread aisle and you see 20 different breads, they're all selling really well, but then how can you create a bread that will really sell? Maybe you become the guy behind the bread. That's how you differentiate, right? But this is a whole another way of differentiating yourself that generally textbooks and online world doesn't teach you. They talk about the form of how the product looks. They talk about the features. They talk about all these other things, but actually using your face, you're much more likely to buy from me than from someone else. If I said, hey, look, Chase, I've created this brand new trainer, you might feel connected to me and you might want to buy that next time you're buying trainers. I love that. The last question I have, and appreciate so much of your time and your insights, what's the state of crowdfunding today, right? So I think you've been in it around 2015, so it's been about six years. Is it just as good as it was? Is it worse than it was? And does the past year, year and a half of people shopping online add to it or subtract from it? Where are things at right now? There was a lot of panic when COVID was around. A lot of projects were like, oh, we don't know what's going to happen. But in actual fact, people are buying probably more online than anything. And you've probably seen this in the e-commerce space as well. People had income. They weren't spending as much because they weren't going out. They were spending more online because to get that level of escapism. And we saw projects rocket. So we didn't see anything where people were like, OK, you know what, this isn't worthwhile. This isn't a way to launch to the market. I think once people get realistic about what they want, again, we spoke about this a bit earlier about bootstrapping or not going wholeheartedly with the idea that you've created. If you've got an idea and if you think it's a game changer, you need to put your money where your mouth is. And that's the bottom line, especially if you've validated and tested it out and seen that people are interested in this, then yes, you need to go all in. And it can't be a case of where you're going. You're half in and half out. If something's working really well, you need to push as much as you can to make sure you create enough noise because, you know, you're going to get Chinese knockoffs. You're going to get people trying to copy you. You're going to come in with everyone doing it, especially if you've got a very unique idea. So, again, it's about separating out from the noise by making sure people know you as the first person that did it. And we did that with another project that did a million. It was Everplay, which is like a kid's sport. You put these like it's a magnetic thing you put together. We built it up and it did amazingly well. But the problem with that client was literally that they made so much money, they were like, oh, crap, you know, we now need to focus on production. But I said to them, look, you need to actually put everything you've got into this. The ROI on the ads you're getting is insane. You're spending one dollar and you're getting 10 on the first interaction and you're getting like 15 on the remarketing idea. You're getting crazy. Like, you just need to pump this. Otherwise, what's going to happen? You're going to get all these knockoffs. And by the time you go ahead and make these products and deliver to your initial batch, you're going to be done. So like seeing like sometimes it frustrates me seeing the reaction products again, you know, and I'll just be like, no, that was my product. I'd go all in. And that's that's what I'm doing, you know, with another collaboration of mine where we're creating a product together. And I'm going to go through the process myself. I just haven't had time to go through the process and do it myself and, you know, go and create a product. I've got a whole book of different ideas. And that's something sometimes you find, you know, you want to like, I think the easiest thing would be to do a crowdfunding product campaign if you knew what you're doing. And, you know, there's there's a lot of opportunity out there. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for the insight and the time. For those that want to work with you, you know, work for you, follow you, whatever it might be, what are the best platform or ways that someone can get in touch? Yeah, so you can go to my website, samitpatel.net, you can go to dupio.com, which is the agency. I post a lot of great content on Instagram, Twitter. I am Samit Patel, as well as on Clubhouse, you can just search my name and probably find me somewhere. But yeah, just feel free to reach out to me very easy. I am Samit Patel on Instagram. And yeah, happy to have a look at what you've got. But remember, you know, like I want to leave your audience with a bit of parting wisdom. Always try and think, how can you create something and validate it before you go out and spend a lot of money developing it? You know, if you're thinking about creating a new hair gel, why not just take an existing hair gel that looks like the product that you're going to create, slap on a label, start taking really nice Instagrammable pictures, start driving traffic to that and see whether people are interested rather than, you know, spend all your money in it and not really put together a long sequence. So it's really important creating a good launch sequence for anything that you're doing. And it's going to pay off in the long run. Love it, man. Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you being here. Have a good one. Cheers, man. Cheers.