Speaker 1: Afro Tech nineteen, Oakland, California. Arc Cell is founder and
Speaker 1: cvo f Vibe Heavy, a creative collective of entertainment and
Speaker 1: technology innovators based in the heart of Seattle. He's partnered
Speaker 1: with world class prayers like Microsoft, Salesforce, Netflix, and more
Speaker 1: to deliver engaging experiences in both the digital and physical world.
Speaker 1: He's on the nafro tex state. He's talking about securing
Speaker 1: the bag with riding waves that are proving themselves out.
Speaker 1: Building on traction versus chasing trending tech. One of the
Speaker 1: things I want to focus on is transversus traction. You've
Speaker 1: come to tech conferences, everybody wants to work on the
Speaker 1: sexy stuff, right AI U a r VR chat box,
Speaker 1: natural language processing? Right, Like, oh yeah, it's all sexy.
Speaker 1: But that stuff doesn't have doesn't have traction, right? And
Speaker 1: what I talk about mass market adoption. I talk about
Speaker 1: enterprise companies. When an enterprise company wants to buy something
Speaker 1: and resell it has mass market adoption. If we're only
Speaker 1: talking about ms and not bees, I'm not interested, right,
Speaker 1: because when when an Apple system has billions and trillions
Speaker 1: of dollars flowing through it, and then there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things you can both swim in the wake up.
Speaker 1: If you're trying to rush to the top and be
Speaker 1: the first cat on a r v R and all
Speaker 1: that other stuff, it might not even happen. And usually
Speaker 1: Black people don't have the resources to throw things that
Speaker 1: and the hope that it's gonna work out for them.
Speaker 1: So I want to focus on traction. I'm well lucas,
Speaker 1: Mrs Black Tech, Green Money. I'm gonna insude you to
Speaker 1: some of the biggest names, some of the brightest minds
Speaker 1: and brilliant ideas. If you're black in building are simply
Speaker 1: using tech to secure your bag, this podcast is for you.
Speaker 1: Sterley Smith is founder as Sandbox Commerce, which helps store
Speaker 1: owners launch e commerce apps without having to learn the
Speaker 1: code and in less than ten minutes. So many black
Speaker 1: retailers are already left behind with present day tech. So
Speaker 1: I asked telling about the future re too and what
Speaker 1: it might look like to see if there's a lame
Speaker 1: black people can specifically play into position ourselves for success
Speaker 1: with the commerce in retail. Yeah, the future of retail
Speaker 1: A couple of things to jump out when you hear
Speaker 1: But when when I'm asked about the future retail is
Speaker 1: headless commerce. UM. Retailers want freedom. Retailers want flexibility. They
Speaker 1: want to they want the ability to say, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: with Shopify one day, but Shopify isn't allowing me to
Speaker 1: service my customers in this way using this third party
Speaker 1: integration partner. So let me get at the big commerce.
Speaker 1: And they want minimal to zero lag time downtime UM.
Speaker 1: So they want their site to be able to they
Speaker 1: want to be able to continue to transact with their customers.
Speaker 1: They want to be able to leverage the data and
Speaker 1: owned their customer data. And uh, you know, technologies like
Speaker 1: sandbox commerce allow for growing brands, and retailers should do
Speaker 1: that in the same way that large brands of retailers
Speaker 1: that you might find a Norwich frum um even markets
Speaker 1: in the such and the like. So yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: future retail as a broad answer, but we can we
Speaker 1: can dive. Yeah, and we'll go deeper because I think
Speaker 1: so much about like transactions is one thing. So if
Speaker 1: you've got the Shopify account, you've got Woo commerce popping,
Speaker 1: or you know, you're using any of these platforms, like
Speaker 1: getting the transaction is one thing, but so many of
Speaker 1: our potentially specifically black entrepreneurs, those startups, Um, they're shipping
Speaker 1: from their living room. You know, they're printing you know
Speaker 1: uh ups labels and boxing up out of their garage. Um.
Speaker 1: So when you think about the transactions being in one bucket,
Speaker 1: how do we also manage our deliverables? Because you got
Speaker 1: my money, now, I want to know where my stuff
Speaker 1: is at. Yes, yeah, I mean tools like ship station
Speaker 1: shipping easy. Um. A couple of these budget visas are
Speaker 1: fulfillment solutions that really enhance the fulfillment process, allowing you
Speaker 1: to really take five you know, um um more control
Speaker 1: over the moment process. You know, tools like Sandbox Commerce
Speaker 1: again allowing you to inform customers about using push notifications
Speaker 1: about the status of the product that you shipped from
Speaker 1: your new mobile app that would have cost you a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars to build last year, but you're paying
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars a month to build a mobile app
Speaker 1: using our technology. And you know, solutions like that really
Speaker 1: democratized access to technology like ours for people who are
Speaker 1: frankly shipping products in their living room. I kind of
Speaker 1: imagine what your answer might be to this, But I'm
Speaker 1: interested in, like the inception of the idea here because um,
Speaker 1: so many black businesses get left behind technologically just because
Speaker 1: we can't keep up, you know. We you know, we
Speaker 1: talked about the funding that goes to black owned businesses,
Speaker 1: huge disparity there. Um, And then you think about that.
Speaker 1: There was an SBA study that came out I think
Speaker 1: there's the last time they did. It was like and
Speaker 1: they said of black owned businesses, and well, my ethnic
Speaker 1: minority owned businesses are in the by the industries for revenue,
Speaker 1: so we over index on like dry cleaners and long
Speaker 1: care services, in car washes, in et cetera. The p
Speaker 1: of our businesses are in these bottom of categories for
Speaker 1: sales revenue. Talk about like the mission, Like what was
Speaker 1: the idea? Because I imagine what the mission was is
Speaker 1: to help us do better business. But like what, I'm
Speaker 1: not happy that you said, you know, this is a
Speaker 1: problem I want to help solve, to help, you know,
Speaker 1: give some balance to black owned businesses. Right, And that's
Speaker 1: a great question. And I'll tell you I went from
Speaker 1: being a software engineer at Walmart was my first job
Speaker 1: out of school, um lockeed martin living in Doha, Qatar
Speaker 1: was my second job at of school, and then Booze, Allen,
Speaker 1: Hamilton's and d C And for each of those customer companies,
Speaker 1: that were a lot of things that a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of shared attributes that I picked up on
Speaker 1: the way that helped inform my decision to start Sandbox Commerce.
Speaker 1: Before you know, the bridge between corporate working as an
Speaker 1: engineering individual contributor at those companies to starting Sandbox Commerce
Speaker 1: included a step in between where I started my first company,
Speaker 1: an agency called Launch Partner, and Launch Partner the motto
Speaker 1: there still is if it takes longer than eight weeks
Speaker 1: to build, it's probably not an m v P. And
Speaker 1: so today we I think built eight five m v
Speaker 1: p s and they're still cooking. I'm no longer involved
Speaker 1: in the day to day, but I'm the whole owner
Speaker 1: of the company. Super super excited about that whole Another conversation.
Speaker 1: But UM, in my experience building and growing Launch Partner,
Speaker 1: one of the first things that I noticed that UM
Speaker 1: we that I needed was a team. And I think
Speaker 1: one of the answers to that question is that a
Speaker 1: lot of UM black owned businesses, in many cases not
Speaker 1: speaking I don't want to speak too broadly, but they
Speaker 1: lack a team. You've got to build coalitions. You've got
Speaker 1: to be able to convince people that you know you
Speaker 1: you're you want to solve a bigger problem than yourself. UM,
Speaker 1: and I think that's number one. UM. But where I
Speaker 1: learned that we may be onto something bigger, there may
Speaker 1: be a big opportunity and helping early stage and growing
Speaker 1: brands and retailers build mobile apps using technology was when
Speaker 1: we were approached by not not just one, but multiple, um,
Speaker 1: you know, diverse lead retailers expressing interested interest in building
Speaker 1: a mobile app for their brand and at launch partner
Speaker 1: wearing my consultant hat and really kind of it would
Speaker 1: cost them fifty and usually on average around a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty dollars to launch a mobile app. And in
Speaker 1: that sounds foolish because there should be technology that allows
Speaker 1: you know, a growing, aspirational you brandon retailer to operate
Speaker 1: and take advantage of data, taking advantage of push notifications,
Speaker 1: taking advantage of curbside pickup technology that the larger brands
Speaker 1: are crushing it with. UM, they should be able to
Speaker 1: do that as well. And so enter sandbox commerce that
Speaker 1: started this really ugly, really clunky, embarrassing, really UM no
Speaker 1: code mobile app builder before no code was a hashtag
Speaker 1: before have those conversations hashtag. We started, we built out
Speaker 1: an m VP. I think it was ten weeks if
Speaker 1: I'm being honest. We built out something that demonstrated the capability,
Speaker 1: and ever since then have just been iterating on that.
Speaker 1: And so the inception was, you know, we started sand
Speaker 1: Box to help those to help democratize access. You've heard
Speaker 1: that a lot, but it's true access to the technology
Speaker 1: that helps retailers um Specifically for this conversation, diverse lead founders,
Speaker 1: black founders reached our audience and actually provide a lot
Speaker 1: of the services that large your brands and retailer's leverage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you touched on a few things that I want to
Speaker 1: come back to, but I want to continue setting the
Speaker 1: stage here because the story is so interesting, and you know,
Speaker 1: you talked about democratizing you know, the competitive landscape for
Speaker 1: retail right for for ethnic lead, my black lead you
Speaker 1: know companies and retailers. But there's also you know in
Speaker 1: your in your startup story, like what plays out in
Speaker 1: so many black lead companies, like a funding you know,
Speaker 1: issue with just trying to get going yourself. So you've
Speaker 1: got this great product, but how do you get it
Speaker 1: capitalized to get to market? And so let's talk about
Speaker 1: just because I want to jump on this before we
Speaker 1: get too far into um the sandbox, let's talk about
Speaker 1: black freelancers. Because you took your skills and said, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm building this startup. Let me go hustle
Speaker 1: my skills elsewhere to continue paying for this startup. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about, Yeah, if I told you that I had
Speaker 1: five jobs, do you think I was telling the truth
Speaker 1: or life? I've five dub and it's not even. It's
Speaker 1: not it's not even, it's not even fake. It's real.
Speaker 1: So effectively, there was a point along this journey and
Speaker 1: shout out to my day one We have some awesome
Speaker 1: Day one investors. UM. I don't want to call him
Speaker 1: out because they may get blown up, but do we
Speaker 1: have there are people who get it and who saw
Speaker 1: the vision early on, a very diverse collection of former
Speaker 1: founders and industry experts who are like, oh, this guy
Speaker 1: building this company. We went in and shout out to
Speaker 1: all those people that came in early um and um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so we raised an angel round, uh, just over
Speaker 1: seven hundred thousand, not including what I put in myself.
Speaker 1: And it didn't happen. The problem is is for many
Speaker 1: diverse founders, that seven hundred thousand doesn't come in right away.
Speaker 1: That seven hundred thousand came over a period of three
Speaker 1: to four years. And when you think about raising funding
Speaker 1: and you think about piecing together you know, seven hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and you're getting sixty five thousand dollars or
Speaker 1: eight thousand dollars in a year, it's more. It feels
Speaker 1: more like a um salary of any more than an
Speaker 1: investment in the company. But again not discounting those investments.
Speaker 1: But in order to really swing for the fences, you
Speaker 1: have to be like our competitor who in half that
Speaker 1: time raised twenty million dollars with with showing a lot less.
Speaker 1: And so you said it. You know, most many black
Speaker 1: founders don't get the funding that our counterparts were a
Speaker 1: white kid, right and so um, there was a period
Speaker 1: where I realized, after just you know, bumping running into
Speaker 1: the same wall over and over again, that um, in
Speaker 1: order for me to be successful, in large in part
Speaker 1: for a lot of black founders to be successful, we
Speaker 1: can't follow the route that they teach you in the
Speaker 1: NBA school or in you know tech Stars or some
Speaker 1: of the some of the other accelerators that say, if
Speaker 1: you just call a hundred people, you know, a certain
Speaker 1: percent of those people will write checks and if you
Speaker 1: you know, write your pitch date, your pitch deck in
Speaker 1: this specific manner, it's going to happen. Most of my
Speaker 1: most of my peers who I break bread with multiple
Speaker 1: times a week, we talked about this. They all agree
Speaker 1: that we have to take a nonconventional approach to fundraising,
Speaker 1: whether that's making more phone calls or writing memos, memorandums.
Speaker 1: I know that a lot of my peers have done.
Speaker 1: That was just a very kind of bleeding edge approach
Speaker 1: to fundraising today. For me, I found that after uh,
Speaker 1: you know, speaking to the next level of investors, these
Speaker 1: institutional investors that said uh no to me with more traction,
Speaker 1: more revenue, more experience, and then so said yes with
Speaker 1: twenty million dollars in funding to my competitor, I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: we gotta do some difference. So what did I do?
Speaker 1: I started, I created a upwork account, and I started freelancing,
Speaker 1: and within twelve months, I'm not going to put it
Speaker 1: on the record what kind of monthly income I was
Speaker 1: pulling in towards the end of twenty just end of
Speaker 1: this last year, because I started in I started Sterling
Speaker 1: Smith dot dev is my website where I based the
Speaker 1: highlighted what I'm good at as an engineer, and had
Speaker 1: a call to action if you want to if you
Speaker 1: want to work with me, visit Sterling Smith dot dev
Speaker 1: and you can work with me. And over time I
Speaker 1: created an upwork account that I I initially had to
Speaker 1: use a white person's photograph to start winning bids, okay,
Speaker 1: and then after and then they may be eventually validate
Speaker 1: my idea using a picture, etcetera. But by that point
Speaker 1: I had five stars and was doing five figures a
Speaker 1: month in and side projects and some of them were
Speaker 1: fractional cto roles, other were others were engineering roles. But
Speaker 1: towards the end of last year closed out dinner. Last
Speaker 1: year was about working actively on about six projects, all
Speaker 1: in the tech space. UM and ended up going on
Speaker 1: full time with with a company that said, Sterling, we
Speaker 1: just want you to keep doing what you're doing. You
Speaker 1: can keep your job for the time being. You can.
Speaker 1: Here's here's one person you know, here's an equity in
Speaker 1: the company. UM and here's unlimited vacation while you continue
Speaker 1: to work, you know, uh deliver um, you know with
Speaker 1: this company. But between that and the other businesses that
Speaker 1: I own. Literally, at one point in time, I was
Speaker 1: working on fire projects at once um and so that's
Speaker 1: what it's taken to really fund the company. So, inner
Speaker 1: Black freelancer, to to your point, Inner black freelancer, I said, hey,
Speaker 1: why aren't more diverse founders doing this, Because there is
Speaker 1: a way to self fund your business um when you
Speaker 1: are faced with the reality like I was, and many
Speaker 1: of my peers are that the funding is either gonna come,
Speaker 1: it's gonna take a lot longer to get it, or
Speaker 1: it's not gonna come at all in some cases. So
Speaker 1: do for self and let's go out there and get
Speaker 1: it ourselves, and let's let's break bread with each other.
Speaker 1: And so that's where black freelancer Um started. And it's
Speaker 1: just it's it's it's a project that really encourages, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's up work for black freelancers. Many people
Speaker 1: that I've worked with over the last year and along
Speaker 1: the way said where can I find more black freelancers?
Speaker 1: We want diverse teams, but they don't really want diverse teams. Well,
Speaker 1: if you're really looking looking for diverse teams, remember black
Speaker 1: freelancer dot com. You can go and find you can
Speaker 1: choose from a list of over twelve hundred black freelancers
Speaker 1: across the spectrum. And that's only been the past three
Speaker 1: months that it's been the beata's been live. So that's
Speaker 1: where black Freelancer came about. Yeah, so I hear you saying,
Speaker 1: you know, you had better technology than your counterpart who
Speaker 1: raised you know, twenty times, you know, essentially what you
Speaker 1: were able to raise twenty times plus. I mean it's
Speaker 1: more than that. Um. But but tech supposed to be
Speaker 1: a meritocracy. Silica valleys supposed to be a meritocracy. No, right, right,
Speaker 1: what is it that's happening here? No, No, I'm with
Speaker 1: you know, so I'm gonna I'm gonna bit um. You know.
Speaker 1: The reality is is that you know, I m in
Speaker 1: the in the earliest stages, my competitor race two or
Speaker 1: three million dollars without a product show. So so it's
Speaker 1: it's and we had a product to show. Again, we
Speaker 1: were running about six months earlier than them. Uh, they
Speaker 1: came about, they rolled out and by the way, the
Speaker 1: CEO of that company signed up for my product to
Speaker 1: snoop around before he even wrote anything, and we knew
Speaker 1: it we had and I called him up and because
Speaker 1: I was like, this is kind of fishy, and those
Speaker 1: are the days where I was calling every new customer
Speaker 1: and uh, I called him up and he told me
Speaker 1: his name and and I found out who he was,
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, well, you know, let's let's
Speaker 1: just continue to do or do. And of course we
Speaker 1: locked it down and restricted things more after that. But
Speaker 1: the long story short is that it's this game is
Speaker 1: not fair. It's not gonna be fair. That's that can't
Speaker 1: be a reason why we don't succeed. Um. So that's
Speaker 1: that's this, you know. Uh so Silicon Valley UM is
Speaker 1: uh definitely not a meritocracy. I think it's it's safe
Speaker 1: to say that. So I want to talk about low
Speaker 1: code and no code. Let's start with no code first. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, you hear this phrase, this hashtag you know
Speaker 1: no code, and which is effectively saying to folks, you know,
Speaker 1: you can build an app getting the App store, getting
Speaker 1: iTunes app Store, get in Google Play wherever, and not
Speaker 1: have to write code. Is is it really no do
Speaker 1: I still have to know CSS. Do I still don't
Speaker 1: have to know HTML? Or is it really dragging you
Speaker 1: dragging around buttons and dropping them into where you want them? Great? No,
Speaker 1: that's a great question. And the short answer is with
Speaker 1: Sandbox Commerce, it is a no code solution, no code
Speaker 1: which means that you can sign up and drag and
Speaker 1: drop your way to building an app that's launched to
Speaker 1: both app stores um and you can you can build
Speaker 1: out that app using r interface within thirty minutes UM.
Speaker 1: Usually it takes about a week or two for the
Speaker 1: app stores to approve it. But you're not doing that.
Speaker 1: Our client success team at Sandbox Commerce is doing that
Speaker 1: now um at um tools using tools like web flow
Speaker 1: and Bubble, and there are a handful of others that
Speaker 1: are crushing it right now. I think web blows on
Speaker 1: on track to be a billion dollar company if it's
Speaker 1: not already UM now. They're, in my opinion, considered low
Speaker 1: code solutions. UM. So there's a degree of dragging and dropping.
Speaker 1: But to really fine tune UM the solution, you you'll
Speaker 1: need to know a little bit of CSS and Java
Speaker 1: script and or Java script um. Uh. And but one
Speaker 1: thing that I can talk that I admire about web
Speaker 1: Flow is that what also makes them successful for less
Speaker 1: technical um users of the platform is they have a
Speaker 1: ridiculously rich resource library of videos and they I think
Speaker 1: they have some called web Flow universities to where if
Speaker 1: if you're non technical even and you're trying, you you
Speaker 1: have the time and energy to spin up on you know,
Speaker 1: without having a computer SCE degree, you can modify the
Speaker 1: user experience by using the resources they have And frankly
Speaker 1: that's where we want to be and that's where we
Speaker 1: plan on being with with sandbox Commerce, but low code
Speaker 1: and no code. The differences is that with no code,
Speaker 1: the promises you can build complex technology without running a
Speaker 1: line of code. Check out Sandbox Commerce. If you're a
Speaker 1: retailer uses sandbo uh shopifier big commerce, you can you
Speaker 1: can prove me wrong if if you like. But web
Speaker 1: Flow is a tool, is a low code solution that
Speaker 1: allows you to to do that as well. So you've got
Speaker 1: you know, retailers with physical locations who have had to
Speaker 1: iterate two years ago, they say a decade ago to
Speaker 1: build websites, or maybe two decades ago now to build websites,
Speaker 1: and then they had to have an app. And now
Speaker 1: you've got so, and now you've got people selling directly
Speaker 1: via Instagram, like and Lesten, I just want to run
Speaker 1: my business. I just want to sell my t shirts.
Speaker 1: I just want to sell you know, my eyelashes whatever like,
Speaker 1: whatever you like. I just want to sell my stuff. Like,
Speaker 1: where should I be focusing my attention if I'm not,
Speaker 1: If I don't want to, this is the next thing.
Speaker 1: I gotta go do that because you just told me
Speaker 1: a year ago I had to have an app. Now
Speaker 1: now you're telling me I gotta have my Instagram store popping. Yes,
Speaker 1: So I mean I think that you start with the fundamentals.
Speaker 1: You start, you know where you are, and you look
Speaker 1: at the resources to include time that you have at
Speaker 1: your disposal, and you do the best that you can
Speaker 1: at that, and then you try. You measure everything. You
Speaker 1: measure engagement, you measure responses, you measure shales. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: UM Sandbox Commerce were having a tool in data right
Speaker 1: now called Sandbox Social to help bring your shoppable Instagram
Speaker 1: outside of Instagram and and incorporate tag damages and blog
Speaker 1: posts and things like that. That is for the more
Speaker 1: advanced and kind of the more mature business or influencer,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're looking to sell t shirt your hats,
Speaker 1: you should. I would I would advocate first that you
Speaker 1: use a tool like Shopify or big commerce to build
Speaker 1: out a website, because you you really need to have
Speaker 1: a website so that you're not getting UM taken advantage
Speaker 1: of by the fees that tools like Amazon my charge UM. Right,
Speaker 1: So I would start with a website, and I would
Speaker 1: make that the best representation of what you're selling. And
Speaker 1: then once you are firmly established UM and you're you've
Speaker 1: proven out the potential of the website, then you begin
Speaker 1: to keep your head on the swivel and look at
Speaker 1: other opportunities to you know, double down. But don't don't.
Speaker 1: It doesn't need to be that complicated UM as far
Speaker 1: as UM, you know, doing everything at once. Now, when
Speaker 1: it's time to build an app, you should certainly look
Speaker 1: at sandbox commerce because you're gonna save a lot of time,
Speaker 1: a lot of money, and you're also going to keep
Speaker 1: the money to community and so all for all these reasons,
Speaker 1: it's a no brainer to your sandbox commers UM. And
Speaker 1: there are other tools that can provide you the list
Speaker 1: offline well of tools that you that you may want
Speaker 1: to also keep in mind to share with you some
Speaker 1: of your guests later on future episode. Well, let's do
Speaker 1: that now, because I wanted to talk about, like, what
Speaker 1: are some let's say, I just I don't want to
Speaker 1: be the biggest you know, I don't want to be
Speaker 1: an engineer, but I want to learn how to run
Speaker 1: my retail store better. Right, and so other than sand box,
Speaker 1: which we are getting educated on here, what are some
Speaker 1: other tools software and the other things that you know about,
Speaker 1: particularly black owned. You know, if you've got upset which
Speaker 1: I'll throw, will go ahead through in there shout out yes, yes, um,
Speaker 1: so you've got that. Just talk about other tools that
Speaker 1: helped me as a black owned entrepreneur running a lifestyle company.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm running barbershop or you know, I've got my
Speaker 1: T shirt, you know, business popping. What are some other
Speaker 1: tools I need to be aware of to help me
Speaker 1: scale my operation and run it more efficiently? Likewise, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to this. I'm just pulling up a
Speaker 1: few but um yeah, so there is there is uh Claibio.
Speaker 1: Now Claibio is not black owned, but in my opinion,
Speaker 1: it's one of the best tools to help you prioritize
Speaker 1: engagement with with your brand, and so I would certainly
Speaker 1: say that Claibio is a tool when it comes to
Speaker 1: you know, email marketing and sitting, sitting and engaging with
Speaker 1: the shoppers that that are engaging with your brand. I
Speaker 1: would certainly say that you should you look at you
Speaker 1: look at cladio. UM the now List, which was recently
Speaker 1: acquired by um Revolt Media, one of pits um Uh companies.
Speaker 1: Uh there they were. I don't know the name of
Speaker 1: the new company that bought them, but um Kadija over
Speaker 1: there is um pure Gold and she's innovative and apparently
Speaker 1: got the attention of Revolting and pub Dady, So she's
Speaker 1: got you know, she's she's she's smarter than me as
Speaker 1: far as that's concerned. But but I would definitely say
Speaker 1: that the NIH list is if you want to list
Speaker 1: your product and and be included in a list of
Speaker 1: products that is being exposed to other people who are
Speaker 1: conscious and want to keep the money in the community,
Speaker 1: I would certainly suggest that you um list your product
Speaker 1: and the knowledge because it's an instant it's instant eyeballs
Speaker 1: and instant attention to what you're up to. People understand
Speaker 1: because just just for clarity, is the Nile List in
Speaker 1: I L E. Because it sounds like we're saying now,
Speaker 1: so that's want to make people know it's the Nile
Speaker 1: correct and L yes, it is the Nile List. And
Speaker 1: the name of the the acquiring company UM is called
Speaker 1: shop Circulate UM. And so check Instagram. That's as there
Speaker 1: you are, there you are, and so you know, any
Speaker 1: connects there would be would be welcome. But I definitely
Speaker 1: think that's another company that that you should be looking
Speaker 1: at listening your products in other tools. A competitor to
Speaker 1: Claibio is gonna be mail champ UM. I would consider
Speaker 1: Claibio mail Champ. Now we talked about shoppable Instagram. It's
Speaker 1: is if you want to be if you want to
Speaker 1: sell products, if you're a retail you want to sell products,
Speaker 1: obviously the first the first choice in them. The ideal
Speaker 1: location that customers purchase your product from is your web
Speaker 1: page or your mobile app because you retain as much
Speaker 1: of the uh much as much of the profit from
Speaker 1: the sale if you own if it's they're shopping on
Speaker 1: your property. But you should also you know, highlight products
Speaker 1: on shopple Instagram. You can all tag images so that
Speaker 1: people can purchase a product while they're shopping their grid. UM,
Speaker 1: I think that's important. And U and you know there's
Speaker 1: you know, Google analytics, and I can talk all day
Speaker 1: about different types of integration partners that you know, growing
Speaker 1: reteller should use, but those are the first that come
Speaker 1: to mind. And so obviously COVID has had a really
Speaker 1: big impact on e commerce and retail as a whole,
Speaker 1: UM e commerce being a section of e commerce sector
Speaker 1: of IT. I should say, UM, what trends have you
Speaker 1: noticed UM are changed forever because of COVID and ones
Speaker 1: that particularly black entrepreneurs who are working to sell online
Speaker 1: can get positioned for if they not, if they haven't
Speaker 1: already missed a boat, like, what can we do to
Speaker 1: take advantage of this moment? So prior that's a good question.
Speaker 1: Prior to prior to COVID, there was like a slow
Speaker 1: trend toward UM shopping and engagement on mobile phones and
Speaker 1: frankly UM toward them and towards the in sectionally the
Speaker 1: beginning the early days of Sandbox, UH, the need for
Speaker 1: mobile a mobile app for retailers UM was not as pronounced.
Speaker 1: I remember talking to early investments They're like, why do
Speaker 1: retailers need mobile apps? And that was a cool thing
Speaker 1: to say in a meeting Like that was like all
Speaker 1: they would laugh at me in meetings, say retailers don't
Speaker 1: need mobile apps. And and I would point to trends
Speaker 1: that showed that. UM. I point to trends that showed
Speaker 1: that the percentage of Google Analytics traffic what M for
Speaker 1: for retailers was increasing month over month and year over
Speaker 1: year UM in the browser and UH and in some
Speaker 1: time and the not too distant future, you know, retailers
Speaker 1: would see and notice that they need to provide better
Speaker 1: services and more optimized mobile solutions for consumers to shop
Speaker 1: on devices. And then came COVID, and I'll say, and
Speaker 1: I think that all of my peers in the space
Speaker 1: you have built to are growing technology platforms that are
Speaker 1: used by retailers can attest to this as well, that
Speaker 1: retailers will acknowledge today that they need mobile applications in
Speaker 1: order to be successful. UM. And the percentage of retailers
Speaker 1: that say they need mobile applications has accelerated over the
Speaker 1: more than ten years, over the last one year, that's
Speaker 1: so so UM. Every retailer at the beginning of COVID.
Speaker 1: Almost in every retailer express the need to having a
Speaker 1: mobile application to either help with curves that pick up,
Speaker 1: which we revolutionized as I mentioned earlier, or to help
Speaker 1: with providing you know, delivery um and you know, engaging
Speaker 1: with customers of the safe distance and in the future.
Speaker 1: What we learned is that consumers have also gotten used
Speaker 1: to using technologies to transact even more so, like I'll
Speaker 1: tell you, I use my Apple Watch, um almost exclusively
Speaker 1: to make a purchase when I got a coffee shop
Speaker 1: or even um, you know, a Lilly Limit or that
Speaker 1: type of store, I use my Apple Watch. I don't
Speaker 1: hand up my credit card anymore. These are trends that
Speaker 1: will never change. Um uh. And I think that things
Speaker 1: like that will You'll see that the more information will
Speaker 1: be will will be released I think toward the end
Speaker 1: of the year kind of capturing some of the data
Speaker 1: that we've learned about the trends that are occurring in
Speaker 1: the industry. But I think that a preference to using
Speaker 1: technology to transact will be one of the things that
Speaker 1: the bears out. So um, I love that you brought
Speaker 1: up that you know, all these retailers are saying, you
Speaker 1: know or experts quote unquote, we're saying retailers don't need apps,
Speaker 1: which you've obviously found to not be the case. They
Speaker 1: do need apps, right, So now you've got us with apps.
Speaker 1: Will you got will Lucas is app you know for
Speaker 1: will Lucas t shirts right right? How give people to
Speaker 1: download this app? Now? Because now, because there's so many
Speaker 1: people who have apps, particularly the retailers who've spent a
Speaker 1: bunch of money probably not using your stuff now using
Speaker 1: Sandbox which they should have used, but spend a bunch
Speaker 1: of money getting these apps done. But now they've got
Speaker 1: to get the word out about go download my app?
Speaker 1: So how does that happen? Yeah? Now? And I would, um,
Speaker 1: you should look at some of our customers Shift Style House,
Speaker 1: black owned female brand, her Treasure Boutique out of Atlanta,
Speaker 1: black female, um uh awesome brand that it's leveraging Sandbox
Speaker 1: commerce to promote their app. They're gonna have, um, I
Speaker 1: think more more um accurate, real time and and uh
Speaker 1: first person type of feedback to support you that to
Speaker 1: share with you. But based on you know, from the
Speaker 1: app uh platform provider's perspective. Here's what I'll say to that,
Speaker 1: a UM if you're just selling T shirts, then at
Speaker 1: that stage I would not necess sssarily have an app
Speaker 1: to sell T shirts. Yeah. So so I hate to
Speaker 1: bush bubble there, but I think there will be a
Speaker 1: point in which you know, once you have an apparel
Speaker 1: line mobile application, right, So, I think that right sizing
Speaker 1: and right sizing the problem with the with the particular
Speaker 1: audience is going to be important. I don't think that
Speaker 1: everyone needs a mobile app, but I think that perhaps
Speaker 1: will will Lucas Black Tech create money. We can work
Speaker 1: together to expand expand of expanded product line, and we
Speaker 1: can get him a mobile app for you. But but
Speaker 1: what I'll say is that even once you have the
Speaker 1: mobile app, the mobile app is not meant for everyone, Like,
Speaker 1: we're not building mobile apps for every one of your
Speaker 1: customers to use. Well, what I'll say to that is
Speaker 1: that we're building mobile apps for the of your customers
Speaker 1: that generate the eight percent of your revenue, those customer loyalists.
Speaker 1: In other words, are mobile apps are not for the
Speaker 1: window shopper, not for the person's walking to them all
Speaker 1: isn't really into the brand or doesn't know who doesn't know?
Speaker 1: Who will Lucas dot Com Shop will Lucas dot com
Speaker 1: is it's for the people that that cut for you.
Speaker 1: They know exactly who you are. They know when you're new,
Speaker 1: when you're new, um, you know, products are launching and
Speaker 1: they want to be the first to get it right
Speaker 1: and so and typically that's your most loyal customer, that's
Speaker 1: spending the most money with you. That's you the mobile
Speaker 1: apption for And so it's really knowing who your audience
Speaker 1: is and then catering to your audience and providing them
Speaker 1: with the easiest way to transact with you legit. I
Speaker 1: love that. I love that answer is for who generate
Speaker 1: of the revenue. It is not for the one I love.
Speaker 1: I love that answer, and it's Will Lucas's Will Lucas
Speaker 1: dot co. By the way, for anybody trying to find
Speaker 1: me on Lucas. Okay, well we get we can set
Speaker 1: up the shop, we can set that shops subjoins shop
Speaker 1: dot Will Lucas dot co, e t H dot E
Speaker 1: t H. So you can start accepting that a theory.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have me. I'm gonna have you another episode.
Speaker 1: We gotta talk about this. We have to talk about
Speaker 1: transacting and with crypto. So we just gave me an idea. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll have you back. We'll have you back.
Speaker 1: You did touch on this, and I think this is
Speaker 1: so important for the time that we live in and
Speaker 1: this data, all right, and we too often don't particularly
Speaker 1: black business, not all of us really large, but too
Speaker 1: many of us who are in business don't know enough
Speaker 1: about the metrics of our business, our customer profiles, the
Speaker 1: you know, those those metrics, those key performances indicate that
Speaker 1: we don't know enough. We don't know how to pull
Speaker 1: that data out of our transactions and our business operations,
Speaker 1: and we don't know enough about our customers. So those
Speaker 1: people who do pull the trigger on the shop, on
Speaker 1: the on the buy button, we don't know enough too
Speaker 1: many of us. Um, what are some simple things we
Speaker 1: can do? So, if you were to give homework today,
Speaker 1: what would you say everybody with an e commerce a
Speaker 1: web store, Um, what are some easy things they can
Speaker 1: do to start to understand, start to gather that data
Speaker 1: and help translate that data. Yes, okay, let's go. So
Speaker 1: I would start with ensuring you have Google Analytics installed,
Speaker 1: which is on your e commerce store. It's free, free,
Speaker 1: and um, it's low code. You just need to copy
Speaker 1: and pastes snippet into your Shopify or big commerce back
Speaker 1: in if you go to Google, when you set up
Speaker 1: Google Analytics, they will provide you with a snippet to
Speaker 1: copy and paste. And what that does is it tracks
Speaker 1: anonymously tracks each of the users that is traversing your
Speaker 1: website UM. From there, I would install another set, a
Speaker 1: tool called hot jar, And what hot jar does is
Speaker 1: it allows you to UM it it didn't effectively records
Speaker 1: a video of how customers engage with your website, allowing
Speaker 1: you to see specifically what they look at, how much
Speaker 1: time they spent on every page of your website, what
Speaker 1: they're passing by, what they're focusing on, and it shows
Speaker 1: like a tracing image or line of the customer's journey
Speaker 1: and provide some more anonymous data about the customer UM.
Speaker 1: And then I would look at potentially using a tool
Speaker 1: like intercom UM to track user information UM. Intercom is
Speaker 1: a tool that lets you actually install a chat bubble
Speaker 1: that captures lead data, UM and user data so that
Speaker 1: you can not only know who your customers are, but
Speaker 1: engage with them in real time on your website UM.
Speaker 1: Once you scale up and you feel like you've got
Speaker 1: um your legs underneath you. From a again, again, from
Speaker 1: a web standpoint, I would ultimately install sandbox commerce. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you why. I'm going full circle with this because
Speaker 1: the larger brands and retailers learned this a long time ago. Um.
Speaker 1: But what what What sandbox commerce is really doing for
Speaker 1: growing brands and retailers is helping them better understand who
Speaker 1: their customers are and allowing them to more strategically engage
Speaker 1: with their shoppers. So it's a It's a little known
Speaker 1: fact that a customer who engages with a brand on
Speaker 1: a mobile phone using a mobile app shares more data
Speaker 1: with the retailer than if the customer actually went to
Speaker 1: the to the physical store to shop. There are so
Speaker 1: many attributes that are shared, everything from your location, your demographic,
Speaker 1: your name, what you looked at, what you have in
Speaker 1: your shopping card. And being able to tie all that
Speaker 1: data together so that the brand and retailer you, as
Speaker 1: a shop owner, can correlate that information and engage with
Speaker 1: the shopper in a in a manner that you are
Speaker 1: actually adding value to the shopping experience is invaluable and
Speaker 1: ultimately will lead to increased revenue. Black Tech Green Money
Speaker 1: to production of Black of the Afro Tech in the
Speaker 1: Black Effect Podcast Network and i Heeart Media and it's
Speaker 1: produced by Morgan Dabon and me Will Lucas, with additional
Speaker 1: production support by Love Beach You, Raven near Bard. Special
Speaker 1: thank you to Michael Davis since the carsa von Jan
Speaker 1: you know like the Wine. Yes, that's his real name.
Speaker 1: Learn more about my guests and other tech disruptors that
Speaker 1: innovators at afro tech dot com. We're also on YouTube
Speaker 1: if you're interested in the video interviews. Enjoying Black Tech
Speaker 1: Green Money, leave us a five star rating on iTunes.
Speaker 1: Go get your money, Peace and love