701: Smart Desk King Sells $10,000,000+ - a podcast by Nathan Latka

from 2017-06-25T09:00

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Duy Huynh. He’s the founder of Autonomous.ai which builds smart office products to help people work smarter.

Famous Five:

  • Favorite Book? – Zero to One
  • What CEO do you follow? –  Stewart Butterfield
  • Favorite online tool? — Google Analytics
  • How many hours of sleep do you get?— 4
  • If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Focus on and build something really helpful to people”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • 00:50 – Nathan introduces Duy to the show
  • 01:20 – Subscribe to Youtube to see Duy using a smart desk
  • 01:32 – Smart desk helps work smart the whole day
  • 01:48 – “We don’t care much about the money”
  • 02:02 – Autonomous’ mission is how they can help companies’ work smarter
  • 02:51 – Autonomous wants to reinvent every single item in an office
  • 03:15 – One of Autonomous’ products is the Cardboard
    • 03:30 – It is created for people who want an affordable standing desk
    • 04:05 – It sells for $19
    • 04:17 – Cardboard is a fairly new product
  • 04:42 – Autonomous was founded in 2014
  • 05:10 – Autonomous has shipped around 100K units
  • 05:16 – The best-seller is the SmartDesk
    • 05:38 – It can keep you healthy and stay active in office
  • 05:50 – Some of Nathan’s friends have bought the Smartdesk
  • 06:07 – Autonomous has raised $200K
  • 06:18 – Prior to Autonomous, Duy really liked smart products
  • 06:46 – Duy started Autonomous with his co-founders in a small apartment
  • 08:25 – The seed money has helped Duy make the prototypes
  • 09:00 – Duy has spent $100-200K on the products before raising the seed round
  • 09:09 – Duy traveled to find the best suppliers
  • 09:30 – Team size
    • 09:43 – 4 are working in the NY office
    • 09:46 – 10 in California and some in Vietnam and China
    • 10:10 – Total of 40 people
  • 10:22 – Autonomous is currently cash flow positive
  • 10:35 – Duy isn’t looking at raising another round at the moment
  • 11:00 – Monthly expenses
  • 11:40 – Autonomous is doing over $10M annually
  • 12:18 – Most of the customers are founders
  • 12:37 – Autonomous currently relies on word-of mouth
  • 12:49 – Autonomous had a Kickstarter campaign
  • 13:05 – Autonomous made $250K from their Kickstarter campaign
    • 13:20 – It was for a thousand units
  • 13:58 – Duy wanted to maintain a fair margin in the supply chain
  • 14:36 – “They pay for what they get”
  • 15:00 – Competitors’ margin
  • 15:19 – Gross profit
  • 16:04 – The second and third best-selling products are the chair and stool, respectively
  • 16:38 – Duy wouldn’t take a deal from Herman Miller at the moment
  • 16:41 – Autonomous isn’t a furniture company
  • 17:19 – On paper, Duy is the single founder but the co-founders have equity as well
  • 18:50 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

  • Smart products shouldn’t just offer convenience, but make your life healthy and active too.
  • Price your product fairly—the value of the product should match the price.
  • Create something that will be really helpful for people.

 

Resources Mentioned:

  • The Top Inbox  – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
  • Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
  • Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
  • Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
  • Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
  • Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
  • Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

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