June 8, 2021 • 37 mins
Sterling Smith is the founder at Sandbox Commerce, which helps store owners launch e-commerce apps without having to learn to code, and in less than 10 minutes.
On this episode, Sterling chat's with Will Lucas about who needs a custom app and who doesn't, how to scale a small retail business by selling online, and how to gather and translate business data for financial wins.
Follow Will Lucas on Instagram at @willlucas
Learn more about other Black tech disruptors and innovators at AfroTech.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Afro Tech nineteen, Oakland, California. Arc Cell is founder and
cvo f Vibe Heavy, a creative collective of entertainment and
technology innovators based in the heart of Seattle. He's partnered
with world class prayers like Microsoft, Salesforce, Netflix, and more
(00:21):
to deliver engaging experiences in both the digital and physical world.
He's on the nafro tex state. He's talking about securing
the bag with riding waves that are proving themselves out.
Building on traction versus chasing trending tech. One of the
things I want to focus on is transversus traction. You've
come to tech conferences, everybody wants to work on the
sexy stuff, right AI U a r VR chat box,
(00:47):
natural language processing? Right, Like, oh yeah, it's all sexy.
But that stuff doesn't have doesn't have traction, right? And
what I talk about mass market adoption. I talk about
enterprise companies. When an enterprise company wants to buy something
and resell it has mass market adoption. If we're only
talking about ms and not bees, I'm not interested, right,
because when when an Apple system has billions and trillions
(01:07):
of dollars flowing through it, and then there's a lot
of things you can both swim in the wake up.
If you're trying to rush to the top and be
the first cat on a r v R and all
that other stuff, it might not even happen. And usually
Black people don't have the resources to throw things that
and the hope that it's gonna work out for them.
So I want to focus on traction. I'm well lucas,
Mrs Black Tech, Green Money. I'm gonna insude you to
(01:30):
some of the biggest names, some of the brightest minds
and brilliant ideas. If you're black in building are simply
using tech to secure your bag, this podcast is for you.
Sterley Smith is founder as Sandbox Commerce, which helps store
owners launch e commerce apps without having to learn the
(01:50):
code and in less than ten minutes. So many black
retailers are already left behind with present day tech. So
I asked telling about the future re too and what
it might look like to see if there's a lame
black people can specifically play into position ourselves for success
with the commerce in retail. Yeah, the future of retail
(02:10):
A couple of things to jump out when you hear
But when when I'm asked about the future retail is
headless commerce. UM. Retailers want freedom. Retailers want flexibility. They
want to they want the ability to say, hey, I'm
with Shopify one day, but Shopify isn't allowing me to
service my customers in this way using this third party
(02:32):
integration partner. So let me get at the big commerce.
And they want minimal to zero lag time downtime UM.
So they want their site to be able to they
want to be able to continue to transact with their customers.
They want to be able to leverage the data and
owned their customer data. And uh, you know, technologies like
sandbox commerce allow for growing brands, and retailers should do
(02:56):
that in the same way that large brands of retailers
that you might find a Norwich frum um even markets
in the such and the like. So yeah, that's a
future retail as a broad answer, but we can we
can dive. Yeah, and we'll go deeper because I think
so much about like transactions is one thing. So if
you've got the Shopify account, you've got Woo commerce popping,
(03:17):
or you know, you're using any of these platforms, like
getting the transaction is one thing, but so many of
our potentially specifically black entrepreneurs, those startups, Um, they're shipping
from their living room. You know, they're printing you know
uh ups labels and boxing up out of their garage. Um.
So when you think about the transactions being in one bucket,
how do we also manage our deliverables? Because you got
(03:40):
my money, now, I want to know where my stuff
is at. Yes, yeah, I mean tools like ship station
shipping easy. Um. A couple of these budget visas are
fulfillment solutions that really enhance the fulfillment process, allowing you
to really take five you know, um um more control
over the moment process. You know, tools like Sandbox Commerce
(04:03):
again allowing you to inform customers about using push notifications
about the status of the product that you shipped from
your new mobile app that would have cost you a
hundred thousand dollars to build last year, but you're paying
a hundred dollars a month to build a mobile app
using our technology. And you know, solutions like that really
democratized access to technology like ours for people who are
(04:26):
frankly shipping products in their living room. I kind of
imagine what your answer might be to this, But I'm
interested in, like the inception of the idea here because um,
so many black businesses get left behind technologically just because
we can't keep up, you know. We you know, we
talked about the funding that goes to black owned businesses,
huge disparity there. Um, And then you think about that.
(04:49):
There was an SBA study that came out I think
there's the last time they did. It was like and
they said of black owned businesses, and well, my ethnic
minority owned businesses are in the by the industries for revenue,
so we over index on like dry cleaners and long
care services, in car washes, in et cetera. The p
(05:11):
of our businesses are in these bottom of categories for
sales revenue. Talk about like the mission, Like what was
the idea? Because I imagine what the mission was is
to help us do better business. But like what, I'm
not happy that you said, you know, this is a
problem I want to help solve, to help, you know,
give some balance to black owned businesses. Right, And that's
(05:34):
a great question. And I'll tell you I went from
being a software engineer at Walmart was my first job
out of school, um lockeed martin living in Doha, Qatar
was my second job at of school, and then Booze, Allen,
Hamilton's and d C And for each of those customer companies,
that were a lot of things that a lot of
(05:56):
a lot of shared attributes that I picked up on
the way that helped inform my decision to start Sandbox Commerce.
Before you know, the bridge between corporate working as an
engineering individual contributor at those companies to starting Sandbox Commerce
included a step in between where I started my first company,
(06:18):
an agency called Launch Partner, and Launch Partner the motto
there still is if it takes longer than eight weeks
to build, it's probably not an m v P. And
so today we I think built eight five m v
p s and they're still cooking. I'm no longer involved
in the day to day, but I'm the whole owner
of the company. Super super excited about that whole Another conversation.
(06:42):
But UM, in my experience building and growing Launch Partner,
one of the first things that I noticed that UM
we that I needed was a team. And I think
one of the answers to that question is that a
lot of UM black owned businesses, in many cases not
speaking I don't want to speak too broadly, but they
lack a team. You've got to build coalitions. You've got
(07:04):
to be able to convince people that you know you
you're you want to solve a bigger problem than yourself. UM,
and I think that's number one. UM. But where I
learned that we may be onto something bigger, there may
be a big opportunity and helping early stage and growing
brands and retailers build mobile apps using technology was when
(07:26):
we were approached by not not just one, but multiple, um,
you know, diverse lead retailers expressing interested interest in building
a mobile app for their brand and at launch partner
wearing my consultant hat and really kind of it would
cost them fifty and usually on average around a hundred
(07:46):
and twenty dollars to launch a mobile app. And in
that sounds foolish because there should be technology that allows
you know, a growing, aspirational you brandon retailer to operate
and take advantage of data, taking advantage of push notifications,
taking advantage of curbside pickup technology that the larger brands
(08:10):
are crushing it with. UM, they should be able to
do that as well. And so enter sandbox commerce that
started this really ugly, really clunky, embarrassing, really UM no
code mobile app builder before no code was a hashtag
before have those conversations hashtag. We started, we built out
an m VP. I think it was ten weeks if
(08:30):
I'm being honest. We built out something that demonstrated the capability,
and ever since then have just been iterating on that.
And so the inception was, you know, we started sand
Box to help those to help democratize access. You've heard
that a lot, but it's true access to the technology
that helps retailers um Specifically for this conversation, diverse lead founders,
(08:54):
black founders reached our audience and actually provide a lot
of the services that large your brands and retailer's leverage. Yeah,
you touched on a few things that I want to
come back to, but I want to continue setting the
stage here because the story is so interesting, and you know,
you talked about democratizing you know, the competitive landscape for
retail right for for ethnic lead, my black lead you
(09:18):
know companies and retailers. But there's also you know in
your in your startup story, like what plays out in
so many black lead companies, like a funding you know,
issue with just trying to get going yourself. So you've
got this great product, but how do you get it
capitalized to get to market? And so let's talk about
just because I want to jump on this before we
(09:39):
get too far into um the sandbox, let's talk about
black freelancers. Because you took your skills and said, you
know what, I'm building this startup. Let me go hustle
my skills elsewhere to continue paying for this startup. Let's
talk about, Yeah, if I told you that I had
five jobs, do you think I was telling the truth
(09:59):
or life? I've five dub and it's not even. It's
not it's not even, it's not even fake. It's real.
So effectively, there was a point along this journey and
shout out to my day one We have some awesome
Day one investors. UM. I don't want to call him
out because they may get blown up, but do we
have there are people who get it and who saw
the vision early on, a very diverse collection of former
(10:22):
founders and industry experts who are like, oh, this guy
building this company. We went in and shout out to
all those people that came in early um and um. Yeah,
and so we raised an angel round, uh, just over
seven hundred thousand, not including what I put in myself.
And it didn't happen. The problem is is for many
(10:43):
diverse founders, that seven hundred thousand doesn't come in right away.
That seven hundred thousand came over a period of three
to four years. And when you think about raising funding
and you think about piecing together you know, seven hundred
thousand dollars and you're getting sixty five thousand dollars or
eight thousand dollars in a year, it's more. It feels
more like a um salary of any more than an
(11:07):
investment in the company. But again not discounting those investments.
But in order to really swing for the fences, you
have to be like our competitor who in half that
time raised twenty million dollars with with showing a lot less.
And so you said it. You know, most many black
founders don't get the funding that our counterparts were a
white kid, right and so um, there was a period
(11:29):
where I realized, after just you know, bumping running into
the same wall over and over again, that um, in
order for me to be successful, in large in part
for a lot of black founders to be successful, we
can't follow the route that they teach you in the
NBA school or in you know tech Stars or some
of the some of the other accelerators that say, if
(11:49):
you just call a hundred people, you know, a certain
percent of those people will write checks and if you
you know, write your pitch date, your pitch deck in
this specific manner, it's going to happen. Most of my
most of my peers who I break bread with multiple
times a week, we talked about this. They all agree
that we have to take a nonconventional approach to fundraising,
(12:10):
whether that's making more phone calls or writing memos, memorandums.
I know that a lot of my peers have done.
That was just a very kind of bleeding edge approach
to fundraising today. For me, I found that after uh,
you know, speaking to the next level of investors, these
institutional investors that said uh no to me with more traction,
(12:31):
more revenue, more experience, and then so said yes with
twenty million dollars in funding to my competitor, I said, Okay,
we gotta do some difference. So what did I do?
I started, I created a upwork account, and I started freelancing,
and within twelve months, I'm not going to put it
on the record what kind of monthly income I was
pulling in towards the end of twenty just end of
(12:53):
this last year, because I started in I started Sterling
Smith dot dev is my website where I based the
highlighted what I'm good at as an engineer, and had
a call to action if you want to if you
want to work with me, visit Sterling Smith dot dev
and you can work with me. And over time I
created an upwork account that I I initially had to
(13:14):
use a white person's photograph to start winning bids, okay,
and then after and then they may be eventually validate
my idea using a picture, etcetera. But by that point
I had five stars and was doing five figures a
month in and side projects and some of them were
fractional cto roles, other were others were engineering roles. But
(13:38):
towards the end of last year closed out dinner. Last
year was about working actively on about six projects, all
in the tech space. UM and ended up going on
full time with with a company that said, Sterling, we
just want you to keep doing what you're doing. You
can keep your job for the time being. You can.
(14:01):
Here's here's one person you know, here's an equity in
the company. UM and here's unlimited vacation while you continue
to work, you know, uh deliver um, you know with
this company. But between that and the other businesses that
I own. Literally, at one point in time, I was
working on fire projects at once um and so that's
(14:24):
what it's taken to really fund the company. So, inner
Black freelancer, to to your point, Inner black freelancer, I said, hey,
why aren't more diverse founders doing this, Because there is
a way to self fund your business um when you
are faced with the reality like I was, and many
of my peers are that the funding is either gonna come,
it's gonna take a lot longer to get it, or
(14:46):
it's not gonna come at all in some cases. So
do for self and let's go out there and get
it ourselves, and let's let's break bread with each other.
And so that's where black freelancer Um started. And it's
just it's it's it's a project that really encourages, uh,
you know, it's up work for black freelancers. Many people
that I've worked with over the last year and along
the way said where can I find more black freelancers?
(15:08):
We want diverse teams, but they don't really want diverse teams. Well,
if you're really looking looking for diverse teams, remember black
freelancer dot com. You can go and find you can
choose from a list of over twelve hundred black freelancers
across the spectrum. And that's only been the past three
months that it's been the beata's been live. So that's
where black Freelancer came about. Yeah, so I hear you saying,
(15:29):
you know, you had better technology than your counterpart who
raised you know, twenty times, you know, essentially what you
were able to raise twenty times plus. I mean it's
more than that. Um. But but tech supposed to be
a meritocracy. Silica valleys supposed to be a meritocracy. No, right, right,
what is it that's happening here? No, No, I'm with
(15:51):
you know, so I'm gonna I'm gonna bit um. You know.
The reality is is that you know, I m in
the in the earliest stages, my competitor race two or
three million dollars without a product show. So so it's
it's and we had a product to show. Again, we
(16:12):
were running about six months earlier than them. Uh, they
came about, they rolled out and by the way, the
CEO of that company signed up for my product to
snoop around before he even wrote anything, and we knew
it we had and I called him up and because
I was like, this is kind of fishy, and those
are the days where I was calling every new customer
and uh, I called him up and he told me
(16:34):
his name and and I found out who he was,
and I was like, okay, well, you know, let's let's
just continue to do or do. And of course we
locked it down and restricted things more after that. But
the long story short is that it's this game is
not fair. It's not gonna be fair. That's that can't
be a reason why we don't succeed. Um. So that's
(16:54):
that's this, you know. Uh so Silicon Valley UM is
uh definitely not a meritocracy. I think it's it's safe
to say that. So I want to talk about low
code and no code. Let's start with no code first. UM.
You know, you hear this phrase, this hashtag you know
(17:15):
no code, and which is effectively saying to folks, you know,
you can build an app getting the App store, getting
iTunes app Store, get in Google Play wherever, and not
have to write code. Is is it really no do
I still have to know CSS. Do I still don't
have to know HTML? Or is it really dragging you
dragging around buttons and dropping them into where you want them? Great? No,
(17:39):
that's a great question. And the short answer is with
Sandbox Commerce, it is a no code solution, no code
which means that you can sign up and drag and
drop your way to building an app that's launched to
both app stores um and you can you can build
out that app using r interface within thirty minutes UM.
(18:01):
Usually it takes about a week or two for the
app stores to approve it. But you're not doing that.
Our client success team at Sandbox Commerce is doing that
now um at um tools using tools like web flow
and Bubble, and there are a handful of others that
(18:21):
are crushing it right now. I think web blows on
on track to be a billion dollar company if it's
not already UM now. They're, in my opinion, considered low
code solutions. UM. So there's a degree of dragging and dropping.
But to really fine tune UM the solution, you you'll
need to know a little bit of CSS and Java
script and or Java script um. Uh. And but one
(18:44):
thing that I can talk that I admire about web
Flow is that what also makes them successful for less
technical um users of the platform is they have a
ridiculously rich resource library of videos and they I think
they have some called web Flow universities to where if
if you're non technical even and you're trying, you you
(19:04):
have the time and energy to spin up on you know,
without having a computer SCE degree, you can modify the
user experience by using the resources they have And frankly
that's where we want to be and that's where we
plan on being with with sandbox Commerce, but low code
and no code. The differences is that with no code,
the promises you can build complex technology without running a
(19:27):
line of code. Check out Sandbox Commerce. If you're a
retailer uses sandbo uh shopifier big commerce, you can you
can prove me wrong if if you like. But web
Flow is a tool, is a low code solution that
allows you to to do that as well. So you've got
you know, retailers with physical locations who have had to
(19:49):
iterate two years ago, they say a decade ago to
build websites, or maybe two decades ago now to build websites,
and then they had to have an app. And now
you've got so, and now you've got people selling directly
via Instagram, like and Lesten, I just want to run
my business. I just want to sell my t shirts.
I just want to sell you know, my eyelashes whatever like,
(20:09):
whatever you like. I just want to sell my stuff. Like,
where should I be focusing my attention if I'm not,
If I don't want to, this is the next thing.
I gotta go do that because you just told me
a year ago I had to have an app. Now
now you're telling me I gotta have my Instagram store popping. Yes,
So I mean I think that you start with the fundamentals.
(20:30):
You start, you know where you are, and you look
at the resources to include time that you have at
your disposal, and you do the best that you can
at that, and then you try. You measure everything. You
measure engagement, you measure responses, you measure shales. Um. You know,
UM Sandbox Commerce were having a tool in data right
(20:50):
now called Sandbox Social to help bring your shoppable Instagram
outside of Instagram and and incorporate tag damages and blog
posts and things like that. That is for the more
advanced and kind of the more mature business or influencer,
you know, if you're looking to sell t shirt your hats,
you should. I would I would advocate first that you
(21:11):
use a tool like Shopify or big commerce to build
out a website, because you you really need to have
a website so that you're not getting UM taken advantage
of by the fees that tools like Amazon my charge UM. Right,
So I would start with a website, and I would
make that the best representation of what you're selling. And
(21:32):
then once you are firmly established UM and you're you've
proven out the potential of the website, then you begin
to keep your head on the swivel and look at
other opportunities to you know, double down. But don't don't.
It doesn't need to be that complicated UM as far
as UM, you know, doing everything at once. Now, when
(21:52):
it's time to build an app, you should certainly look
at sandbox commerce because you're gonna save a lot of time,
a lot of money, and you're also going to keep
the money to community and so all for all these reasons,
it's a no brainer to your sandbox commers UM. And
there are other tools that can provide you the list
offline well of tools that you that you may want
to also keep in mind to share with you some
(22:12):
of your guests later on future episode. Well, let's do
that now, because I wanted to talk about, like, what
are some let's say, I just I don't want to
be the biggest you know, I don't want to be
an engineer, but I want to learn how to run
my retail store better. Right, and so other than sand box,
which we are getting educated on here, what are some
other tools software and the other things that you know about,
(22:36):
particularly black owned. You know, if you've got upset which
I'll throw, will go ahead through in there shout out yes, yes, um,
so you've got that. Just talk about other tools that
helped me as a black owned entrepreneur running a lifestyle company.
Maybe I'm running barbershop or you know, I've got my
T shirt, you know, business popping. What are some other
(23:00):
tools I need to be aware of to help me
scale my operation and run it more efficiently? Likewise, yes, yes,
and I'm trying to this. I'm just pulling up a
few but um yeah, so there is there is uh Claibio.
Now Claibio is not black owned, but in my opinion,
it's one of the best tools to help you prioritize
(23:22):
engagement with with your brand, and so I would certainly
say that Claibio is a tool when it comes to
you know, email marketing and sitting, sitting and engaging with
the shoppers that that are engaging with your brand. I
would certainly say that you should you look at you
look at cladio. UM the now List, which was recently
(23:46):
acquired by um Revolt Media, one of pits um Uh companies.
Uh there they were. I don't know the name of
the new company that bought them, but um Kadija over
there is um pure Gold and she's innovative and apparently
got the attention of Revolting and pub Dady, So she's
(24:07):
got you know, she's she's she's smarter than me as
far as that's concerned. But but I would definitely say
that the NIH list is if you want to list
your product and and be included in a list of
products that is being exposed to other people who are
conscious and want to keep the money in the community,
I would certainly suggest that you um list your product
(24:29):
and the knowledge because it's an instant it's instant eyeballs
and instant attention to what you're up to. People understand
because just just for clarity, is the Nile List in
I L E. Because it sounds like we're saying now,
so that's want to make people know it's the Nile
correct and L yes, it is the Nile List. And
the name of the the acquiring company UM is called
(24:54):
shop Circulate UM. And so check Instagram. That's as there
you are, there you are, and so you know, any
connects there would be would be welcome. But I definitely
think that's another company that that you should be looking
at listening your products in other tools. A competitor to
Claibio is gonna be mail champ UM. I would consider
(25:17):
Claibio mail Champ. Now we talked about shoppable Instagram. It's
is if you want to be if you want to
sell products, if you're a retail you want to sell products,
obviously the first the first choice in them. The ideal
location that customers purchase your product from is your web
page or your mobile app because you retain as much
(25:37):
of the uh much as much of the profit from
the sale if you own if it's they're shopping on
your property. But you should also you know, highlight products
on shopple Instagram. You can all tag images so that
people can purchase a product while they're shopping their grid. UM,
I think that's important. And U and you know there's
(26:00):
you know, Google analytics, and I can talk all day
about different types of integration partners that you know, growing
reteller should use, but those are the first that come
to mind. And so obviously COVID has had a really
big impact on e commerce and retail as a whole,
UM e commerce being a section of e commerce sector
of IT. I should say, UM, what trends have you
(26:23):
noticed UM are changed forever because of COVID and ones
that particularly black entrepreneurs who are working to sell online
can get positioned for if they not, if they haven't
already missed a boat, like, what can we do to
take advantage of this moment? So prior that's a good question.
Prior to prior to COVID, there was like a slow
(26:47):
trend toward UM shopping and engagement on mobile phones and
frankly UM toward them and towards the in sectionally the
beginning the early days of Sandbox, UH, the need for
mobile a mobile app for retailers UM was not as pronounced.
(27:09):
I remember talking to early investments They're like, why do
retailers need mobile apps? And that was a cool thing
to say in a meeting Like that was like all
they would laugh at me in meetings, say retailers don't
need mobile apps. And and I would point to trends
that showed that. UM. I point to trends that showed
that the percentage of Google Analytics traffic what M for
(27:32):
for retailers was increasing month over month and year over
year UM in the browser and UH and in some
time and the not too distant future, you know, retailers
would see and notice that they need to provide better
services and more optimized mobile solutions for consumers to shop
(27:54):
on devices. And then came COVID, and I'll say, and
I think that all of my peers in the space
you have built to are growing technology platforms that are
used by retailers can attest to this as well, that
retailers will acknowledge today that they need mobile applications in
order to be successful. UM. And the percentage of retailers
(28:15):
that say they need mobile applications has accelerated over the
more than ten years, over the last one year, that's
so so UM. Every retailer at the beginning of COVID.
Almost in every retailer express the need to having a
mobile application to either help with curves that pick up,
which we revolutionized as I mentioned earlier, or to help
(28:37):
with providing you know, delivery um and you know, engaging
with customers of the safe distance and in the future.
What we learned is that consumers have also gotten used
to using technologies to transact even more so, like I'll
tell you, I use my Apple Watch, um almost exclusively
to make a purchase when I got a coffee shop
(28:59):
or even um, you know, a Lilly Limit or that
type of store, I use my Apple Watch. I don't
hand up my credit card anymore. These are trends that
will never change. Um uh. And I think that things
like that will You'll see that the more information will
be will will be released I think toward the end
(29:19):
of the year kind of capturing some of the data
that we've learned about the trends that are occurring in
the industry. But I think that a preference to using
technology to transact will be one of the things that
the bears out. So um, I love that you brought
up that you know, all these retailers are saying, you
know or experts quote unquote, we're saying retailers don't need apps,
(29:42):
which you've obviously found to not be the case. They
do need apps, right, So now you've got us with apps.
Will you got will Lucas is app you know for
will Lucas t shirts right right? How give people to
download this app? Now? Because now, because there's so many
people who have apps, particularly the retailers who've spent a
bunch of money probably not using your stuff now using
(30:06):
Sandbox which they should have used, but spend a bunch
of money getting these apps done. But now they've got
to get the word out about go download my app?
So how does that happen? Yeah? Now? And I would, um,
you should look at some of our customers Shift Style House,
black owned female brand, her Treasure Boutique out of Atlanta,
black female, um uh awesome brand that it's leveraging Sandbox
(30:30):
commerce to promote their app. They're gonna have, um, I
think more more um accurate, real time and and uh
first person type of feedback to support you that to
share with you. But based on you know, from the
app uh platform provider's perspective. Here's what I'll say to that,
(30:54):
a UM if you're just selling T shirts, then at
that stage I would not necess sssarily have an app
to sell T shirts. Yeah. So so I hate to
bush bubble there, but I think there will be a
point in which you know, once you have an apparel
line mobile application, right, So, I think that right sizing
(31:16):
and right sizing the problem with the with the particular
audience is going to be important. I don't think that
everyone needs a mobile app, but I think that perhaps
will will Lucas Black Tech create money. We can work
together to expand expand of expanded product line, and we
can get him a mobile app for you. But but
what I'll say is that even once you have the
(31:38):
mobile app, the mobile app is not meant for everyone, Like,
we're not building mobile apps for every one of your
customers to use. Well, what I'll say to that is
that we're building mobile apps for the of your customers
that generate the eight percent of your revenue, those customer loyalists.
In other words, are mobile apps are not for the
window shopper, not for the person's walking to them all
(32:00):
isn't really into the brand or doesn't know who doesn't know?
Who will Lucas dot Com Shop will Lucas dot com
is it's for the people that that cut for you.
They know exactly who you are. They know when you're new,
when you're new, um, you know, products are launching and
they want to be the first to get it right
and so and typically that's your most loyal customer, that's
(32:21):
spending the most money with you. That's you the mobile
apption for And so it's really knowing who your audience
is and then catering to your audience and providing them
with the easiest way to transact with you legit. I
love that. I love that answer is for who generate
of the revenue. It is not for the one I love.
I love that answer, and it's Will Lucas's Will Lucas
(32:43):
dot co. By the way, for anybody trying to find
me on Lucas. Okay, well we get we can set
up the shop, we can set that shops subjoins shop
dot Will Lucas dot co, e t H dot E
t H. So you can start accepting that a theory.
You're gonna have me. I'm gonna have you another episode.
We gotta talk about this. We have to talk about
transacting and with crypto. So we just gave me an idea. Okay,
(33:07):
all right, we'll have you back. We'll have you back.
You did touch on this, and I think this is
so important for the time that we live in and
this data, all right, and we too often don't particularly
black business, not all of us really large, but too
many of us who are in business don't know enough
about the metrics of our business, our customer profiles, the
(33:30):
you know, those those metrics, those key performances indicate that
we don't know enough. We don't know how to pull
that data out of our transactions and our business operations,
and we don't know enough about our customers. So those
people who do pull the trigger on the shop, on
the on the buy button, we don't know enough too
many of us. Um, what are some simple things we
(33:52):
can do? So, if you were to give homework today,
what would you say everybody with an e commerce a
web store, Um, what are some easy things they can
do to start to understand, start to gather that data
and help translate that data. Yes, okay, let's go. So
(34:12):
I would start with ensuring you have Google Analytics installed,
which is on your e commerce store. It's free, free,
and um, it's low code. You just need to copy
and pastes snippet into your Shopify or big commerce back
in if you go to Google, when you set up
Google Analytics, they will provide you with a snippet to
copy and paste. And what that does is it tracks
(34:33):
anonymously tracks each of the users that is traversing your
website UM. From there, I would install another set, a
tool called hot jar, And what hot jar does is
it allows you to UM it it didn't effectively records
a video of how customers engage with your website, allowing
(34:56):
you to see specifically what they look at, how much
time they spent on every page of your website, what
they're passing by, what they're focusing on, and it shows
like a tracing image or line of the customer's journey
and provide some more anonymous data about the customer UM.
And then I would look at potentially using a tool
like intercom UM to track user information UM. Intercom is
(35:21):
a tool that lets you actually install a chat bubble
that captures lead data, UM and user data so that
you can not only know who your customers are, but
engage with them in real time on your website UM.
Once you scale up and you feel like you've got
um your legs underneath you. From a again, again, from
a web standpoint, I would ultimately install sandbox commerce. I'll
(35:46):
tell you why. I'm going full circle with this because
the larger brands and retailers learned this a long time ago. Um.
But what what What sandbox commerce is really doing for
growing brands and retailers is helping them better understand who
their customers are and allowing them to more strategically engage
with their shoppers. So it's a It's a little known
(36:08):
fact that a customer who engages with a brand on
a mobile phone using a mobile app shares more data
with the retailer than if the customer actually went to
the to the physical store to shop. There are so
many attributes that are shared, everything from your location, your demographic,
(36:30):
your name, what you looked at, what you have in
your shopping card. And being able to tie all that
data together so that the brand and retailer you, as
a shop owner, can correlate that information and engage with
the shopper in a in a manner that you are
actually adding value to the shopping experience is invaluable and
ultimately will lead to increased revenue. Black Tech Green Money
(37:06):
to production of Black of the Afro Tech in the
Black Effect Podcast Network and i Heeart Media and it's
produced by Morgan Dabon and me Will Lucas, with additional
production support by Love Beach You, Raven near Bard. Special
thank you to Michael Davis since the carsa von Jan
you know like the Wine. Yes, that's his real name.
Learn more about my guests and other tech disruptors that
(37:27):
innovators at afro tech dot com. We're also on YouTube
if you're interested in the video interviews. Enjoying Black Tech
Green Money, leave us a five star rating on iTunes.
Go get your money, Peace and love
Afro Tech nineteen, Oakland, California. Arc Cell is founder and
cvo f Vibe Heavy, a creative collective of entertainment and
technology innovators based in the heart of Seattle. He's partnered
with world class prayers like Microsoft, Salesforce, Netflix, and more
(00:21):
to deliver engaging experiences in both the digital and physical world.
He's on the nafro tex state. He's talking about securing
the bag with riding waves that are proving themselves out.
Building on traction versus chasing trending tech. One of the
things I want to focus on is transversus traction. You've
come to tech conferences, everybody wants to work on the
sexy stuff, right AI U a r VR chat box,
(00:47):
natural language processing? Right, Like, oh yeah, it's all sexy.
But that stuff doesn't have doesn't have traction, right? And
what I talk about mass market adoption. I talk about
enterprise companies. When an enterprise company wants to buy something
and resell it has mass market adoption. If we're only
talking about ms and not bees, I'm not interested, right,
because when when an Apple system has billions and trillions
(01:07):
of dollars flowing through it, and then there's a lot
of things you can both swim in the wake up.
If you're trying to rush to the top and be
the first cat on a r v R and all
that other stuff, it might not even happen. And usually
Black people don't have the resources to throw things that
and the hope that it's gonna work out for them.
So I want to focus on traction. I'm well lucas,
Mrs Black Tech, Green Money. I'm gonna insude you to
(01:30):
some of the biggest names, some of the brightest minds
and brilliant ideas. If you're black in building are simply
using tech to secure your bag, this podcast is for you.
Sterley Smith is founder as Sandbox Commerce, which helps store
owners launch e commerce apps without having to learn the
(01:50):
code and in less than ten minutes. So many black
retailers are already left behind with present day tech. So
I asked telling about the future re too and what
it might look like to see if there's a lame
black people can specifically play into position ourselves for success
with the commerce in retail. Yeah, the future of retail
(02:10):
A couple of things to jump out when you hear
But when when I'm asked about the future retail is
headless commerce. UM. Retailers want freedom. Retailers want flexibility. They
want to they want the ability to say, hey, I'm
with Shopify one day, but Shopify isn't allowing me to
service my customers in this way using this third party
(02:32):
integration partner. So let me get at the big commerce.
And they want minimal to zero lag time downtime UM.
So they want their site to be able to they
want to be able to continue to transact with their customers.
They want to be able to leverage the data and
owned their customer data. And uh, you know, technologies like
sandbox commerce allow for growing brands, and retailers should do
(02:56):
that in the same way that large brands of retailers
that you might find a Norwich frum um even markets
in the such and the like. So yeah, that's a
future retail as a broad answer, but we can we
can dive. Yeah, and we'll go deeper because I think
so much about like transactions is one thing. So if
you've got the Shopify account, you've got Woo commerce popping,
(03:17):
or you know, you're using any of these platforms, like
getting the transaction is one thing, but so many of
our potentially specifically black entrepreneurs, those startups, Um, they're shipping
from their living room. You know, they're printing you know
uh ups labels and boxing up out of their garage. Um.
So when you think about the transactions being in one bucket,
how do we also manage our deliverables? Because you got
(03:40):
my money, now, I want to know where my stuff
is at. Yes, yeah, I mean tools like ship station
shipping easy. Um. A couple of these budget visas are
fulfillment solutions that really enhance the fulfillment process, allowing you
to really take five you know, um um more control
over the moment process. You know, tools like Sandbox Commerce
(04:03):
again allowing you to inform customers about using push notifications
about the status of the product that you shipped from
your new mobile app that would have cost you a
hundred thousand dollars to build last year, but you're paying
a hundred dollars a month to build a mobile app
using our technology. And you know, solutions like that really
democratized access to technology like ours for people who are
(04:26):
frankly shipping products in their living room. I kind of
imagine what your answer might be to this, But I'm
interested in, like the inception of the idea here because um,
so many black businesses get left behind technologically just because
we can't keep up, you know. We you know, we
talked about the funding that goes to black owned businesses,
huge disparity there. Um, And then you think about that.
(04:49):
There was an SBA study that came out I think
there's the last time they did. It was like and
they said of black owned businesses, and well, my ethnic
minority owned businesses are in the by the industries for revenue,
so we over index on like dry cleaners and long
care services, in car washes, in et cetera. The p
(05:11):
of our businesses are in these bottom of categories for
sales revenue. Talk about like the mission, Like what was
the idea? Because I imagine what the mission was is
to help us do better business. But like what, I'm
not happy that you said, you know, this is a
problem I want to help solve, to help, you know,
give some balance to black owned businesses. Right, And that's
(05:34):
a great question. And I'll tell you I went from
being a software engineer at Walmart was my first job
out of school, um lockeed martin living in Doha, Qatar
was my second job at of school, and then Booze, Allen,
Hamilton's and d C And for each of those customer companies,
that were a lot of things that a lot of
(05:56):
a lot of shared attributes that I picked up on
the way that helped inform my decision to start Sandbox Commerce.
Before you know, the bridge between corporate working as an
engineering individual contributor at those companies to starting Sandbox Commerce
included a step in between where I started my first company,
(06:18):
an agency called Launch Partner, and Launch Partner the motto
there still is if it takes longer than eight weeks
to build, it's probably not an m v P. And
so today we I think built eight five m v
p s and they're still cooking. I'm no longer involved
in the day to day, but I'm the whole owner
of the company. Super super excited about that whole Another conversation.
(06:42):
But UM, in my experience building and growing Launch Partner,
one of the first things that I noticed that UM
we that I needed was a team. And I think
one of the answers to that question is that a
lot of UM black owned businesses, in many cases not
speaking I don't want to speak too broadly, but they
lack a team. You've got to build coalitions. You've got
(07:04):
to be able to convince people that you know you
you're you want to solve a bigger problem than yourself. UM,
and I think that's number one. UM. But where I
learned that we may be onto something bigger, there may
be a big opportunity and helping early stage and growing
brands and retailers build mobile apps using technology was when
(07:26):
we were approached by not not just one, but multiple, um,
you know, diverse lead retailers expressing interested interest in building
a mobile app for their brand and at launch partner
wearing my consultant hat and really kind of it would
cost them fifty and usually on average around a hundred
(07:46):
and twenty dollars to launch a mobile app. And in
that sounds foolish because there should be technology that allows
you know, a growing, aspirational you brandon retailer to operate
and take advantage of data, taking advantage of push notifications,
taking advantage of curbside pickup technology that the larger brands
(08:10):
are crushing it with. UM, they should be able to
do that as well. And so enter sandbox commerce that
started this really ugly, really clunky, embarrassing, really UM no
code mobile app builder before no code was a hashtag
before have those conversations hashtag. We started, we built out
an m VP. I think it was ten weeks if
(08:30):
I'm being honest. We built out something that demonstrated the capability,
and ever since then have just been iterating on that.
And so the inception was, you know, we started sand
Box to help those to help democratize access. You've heard
that a lot, but it's true access to the technology
that helps retailers um Specifically for this conversation, diverse lead founders,
(08:54):
black founders reached our audience and actually provide a lot
of the services that large your brands and retailer's leverage. Yeah,
you touched on a few things that I want to
come back to, but I want to continue setting the
stage here because the story is so interesting, and you know,
you talked about democratizing you know, the competitive landscape for
retail right for for ethnic lead, my black lead you
(09:18):
know companies and retailers. But there's also you know in
your in your startup story, like what plays out in
so many black lead companies, like a funding you know,
issue with just trying to get going yourself. So you've
got this great product, but how do you get it
capitalized to get to market? And so let's talk about
just because I want to jump on this before we
(09:39):
get too far into um the sandbox, let's talk about
black freelancers. Because you took your skills and said, you
know what, I'm building this startup. Let me go hustle
my skills elsewhere to continue paying for this startup. Let's
talk about, Yeah, if I told you that I had
five jobs, do you think I was telling the truth
(09:59):
or life? I've five dub and it's not even. It's
not it's not even, it's not even fake. It's real.
So effectively, there was a point along this journey and
shout out to my day one We have some awesome
Day one investors. UM. I don't want to call him
out because they may get blown up, but do we
have there are people who get it and who saw
the vision early on, a very diverse collection of former
(10:22):
founders and industry experts who are like, oh, this guy
building this company. We went in and shout out to
all those people that came in early um and um. Yeah,
and so we raised an angel round, uh, just over
seven hundred thousand, not including what I put in myself.
And it didn't happen. The problem is is for many
(10:43):
diverse founders, that seven hundred thousand doesn't come in right away.
That seven hundred thousand came over a period of three
to four years. And when you think about raising funding
and you think about piecing together you know, seven hundred
thousand dollars and you're getting sixty five thousand dollars or
eight thousand dollars in a year, it's more. It feels
more like a um salary of any more than an
(11:07):
investment in the company. But again not discounting those investments.
But in order to really swing for the fences, you
have to be like our competitor who in half that
time raised twenty million dollars with with showing a lot less.
And so you said it. You know, most many black
founders don't get the funding that our counterparts were a
white kid, right and so um, there was a period
(11:29):
where I realized, after just you know, bumping running into
the same wall over and over again, that um, in
order for me to be successful, in large in part
for a lot of black founders to be successful, we
can't follow the route that they teach you in the
NBA school or in you know tech Stars or some
of the some of the other accelerators that say, if
(11:49):
you just call a hundred people, you know, a certain
percent of those people will write checks and if you
you know, write your pitch date, your pitch deck in
this specific manner, it's going to happen. Most of my
most of my peers who I break bread with multiple
times a week, we talked about this. They all agree
that we have to take a nonconventional approach to fundraising,
(12:10):
whether that's making more phone calls or writing memos, memorandums.
I know that a lot of my peers have done.
That was just a very kind of bleeding edge approach
to fundraising today. For me, I found that after uh,
you know, speaking to the next level of investors, these
institutional investors that said uh no to me with more traction,
(12:31):
more revenue, more experience, and then so said yes with
twenty million dollars in funding to my competitor, I said, Okay,
we gotta do some difference. So what did I do?
I started, I created a upwork account, and I started freelancing,
and within twelve months, I'm not going to put it
on the record what kind of monthly income I was
pulling in towards the end of twenty just end of
(12:53):
this last year, because I started in I started Sterling
Smith dot dev is my website where I based the
highlighted what I'm good at as an engineer, and had
a call to action if you want to if you
want to work with me, visit Sterling Smith dot dev
and you can work with me. And over time I
created an upwork account that I I initially had to
(13:14):
use a white person's photograph to start winning bids, okay,
and then after and then they may be eventually validate
my idea using a picture, etcetera. But by that point
I had five stars and was doing five figures a
month in and side projects and some of them were
fractional cto roles, other were others were engineering roles. But
(13:38):
towards the end of last year closed out dinner. Last
year was about working actively on about six projects, all
in the tech space. UM and ended up going on
full time with with a company that said, Sterling, we
just want you to keep doing what you're doing. You
can keep your job for the time being. You can.
(14:01):
Here's here's one person you know, here's an equity in
the company. UM and here's unlimited vacation while you continue
to work, you know, uh deliver um, you know with
this company. But between that and the other businesses that
I own. Literally, at one point in time, I was
working on fire projects at once um and so that's
(14:24):
what it's taken to really fund the company. So, inner
Black freelancer, to to your point, Inner black freelancer, I said, hey,
why aren't more diverse founders doing this, Because there is
a way to self fund your business um when you
are faced with the reality like I was, and many
of my peers are that the funding is either gonna come,
it's gonna take a lot longer to get it, or
(14:46):
it's not gonna come at all in some cases. So
do for self and let's go out there and get
it ourselves, and let's let's break bread with each other.
And so that's where black freelancer Um started. And it's
just it's it's it's a project that really encourages, uh,
you know, it's up work for black freelancers. Many people
that I've worked with over the last year and along
the way said where can I find more black freelancers?
(15:08):
We want diverse teams, but they don't really want diverse teams. Well,
if you're really looking looking for diverse teams, remember black
freelancer dot com. You can go and find you can
choose from a list of over twelve hundred black freelancers
across the spectrum. And that's only been the past three
months that it's been the beata's been live. So that's
where black Freelancer came about. Yeah, so I hear you saying,
(15:29):
you know, you had better technology than your counterpart who
raised you know, twenty times, you know, essentially what you
were able to raise twenty times plus. I mean it's
more than that. Um. But but tech supposed to be
a meritocracy. Silica valleys supposed to be a meritocracy. No, right, right,
what is it that's happening here? No, No, I'm with
(15:51):
you know, so I'm gonna I'm gonna bit um. You know.
The reality is is that you know, I m in
the in the earliest stages, my competitor race two or
three million dollars without a product show. So so it's
it's and we had a product to show. Again, we
(16:12):
were running about six months earlier than them. Uh, they
came about, they rolled out and by the way, the
CEO of that company signed up for my product to
snoop around before he even wrote anything, and we knew
it we had and I called him up and because
I was like, this is kind of fishy, and those
are the days where I was calling every new customer
and uh, I called him up and he told me
(16:34):
his name and and I found out who he was,
and I was like, okay, well, you know, let's let's
just continue to do or do. And of course we
locked it down and restricted things more after that. But
the long story short is that it's this game is
not fair. It's not gonna be fair. That's that can't
be a reason why we don't succeed. Um. So that's
(16:54):
that's this, you know. Uh so Silicon Valley UM is
uh definitely not a meritocracy. I think it's it's safe
to say that. So I want to talk about low
code and no code. Let's start with no code first. UM.
You know, you hear this phrase, this hashtag you know
(17:15):
no code, and which is effectively saying to folks, you know,
you can build an app getting the App store, getting
iTunes app Store, get in Google Play wherever, and not
have to write code. Is is it really no do
I still have to know CSS. Do I still don't
have to know HTML? Or is it really dragging you
dragging around buttons and dropping them into where you want them? Great? No,
(17:39):
that's a great question. And the short answer is with
Sandbox Commerce, it is a no code solution, no code
which means that you can sign up and drag and
drop your way to building an app that's launched to
both app stores um and you can you can build
out that app using r interface within thirty minutes UM.
(18:01):
Usually it takes about a week or two for the
app stores to approve it. But you're not doing that.
Our client success team at Sandbox Commerce is doing that
now um at um tools using tools like web flow
and Bubble, and there are a handful of others that
(18:21):
are crushing it right now. I think web blows on
on track to be a billion dollar company if it's
not already UM now. They're, in my opinion, considered low
code solutions. UM. So there's a degree of dragging and dropping.
But to really fine tune UM the solution, you you'll
need to know a little bit of CSS and Java
script and or Java script um. Uh. And but one
(18:44):
thing that I can talk that I admire about web
Flow is that what also makes them successful for less
technical um users of the platform is they have a
ridiculously rich resource library of videos and they I think
they have some called web Flow universities to where if
if you're non technical even and you're trying, you you
(19:04):
have the time and energy to spin up on you know,
without having a computer SCE degree, you can modify the
user experience by using the resources they have And frankly
that's where we want to be and that's where we
plan on being with with sandbox Commerce, but low code
and no code. The differences is that with no code,
the promises you can build complex technology without running a
(19:27):
line of code. Check out Sandbox Commerce. If you're a
retailer uses sandbo uh shopifier big commerce, you can you
can prove me wrong if if you like. But web
Flow is a tool, is a low code solution that
allows you to to do that as well. So you've got
you know, retailers with physical locations who have had to
(19:49):
iterate two years ago, they say a decade ago to
build websites, or maybe two decades ago now to build websites,
and then they had to have an app. And now
you've got so, and now you've got people selling directly
via Instagram, like and Lesten, I just want to run
my business. I just want to sell my t shirts.
I just want to sell you know, my eyelashes whatever like,
(20:09):
whatever you like. I just want to sell my stuff. Like,
where should I be focusing my attention if I'm not,
If I don't want to, this is the next thing.
I gotta go do that because you just told me
a year ago I had to have an app. Now
now you're telling me I gotta have my Instagram store popping. Yes,
So I mean I think that you start with the fundamentals.
(20:30):
You start, you know where you are, and you look
at the resources to include time that you have at
your disposal, and you do the best that you can
at that, and then you try. You measure everything. You
measure engagement, you measure responses, you measure shales. Um. You know,
UM Sandbox Commerce were having a tool in data right
(20:50):
now called Sandbox Social to help bring your shoppable Instagram
outside of Instagram and and incorporate tag damages and blog
posts and things like that. That is for the more
advanced and kind of the more mature business or influencer,
you know, if you're looking to sell t shirt your hats,
you should. I would I would advocate first that you
(21:11):
use a tool like Shopify or big commerce to build
out a website, because you you really need to have
a website so that you're not getting UM taken advantage
of by the fees that tools like Amazon my charge UM. Right,
So I would start with a website, and I would
make that the best representation of what you're selling. And
(21:32):
then once you are firmly established UM and you're you've
proven out the potential of the website, then you begin
to keep your head on the swivel and look at
other opportunities to you know, double down. But don't don't.
It doesn't need to be that complicated UM as far
as UM, you know, doing everything at once. Now, when
(21:52):
it's time to build an app, you should certainly look
at sandbox commerce because you're gonna save a lot of time,
a lot of money, and you're also going to keep
the money to community and so all for all these reasons,
it's a no brainer to your sandbox commers UM. And
there are other tools that can provide you the list
offline well of tools that you that you may want
to also keep in mind to share with you some
(22:12):
of your guests later on future episode. Well, let's do
that now, because I wanted to talk about, like, what
are some let's say, I just I don't want to
be the biggest you know, I don't want to be
an engineer, but I want to learn how to run
my retail store better. Right, and so other than sand box,
which we are getting educated on here, what are some
other tools software and the other things that you know about,
(22:36):
particularly black owned. You know, if you've got upset which
I'll throw, will go ahead through in there shout out yes, yes, um,
so you've got that. Just talk about other tools that
helped me as a black owned entrepreneur running a lifestyle company.
Maybe I'm running barbershop or you know, I've got my
T shirt, you know, business popping. What are some other
(23:00):
tools I need to be aware of to help me
scale my operation and run it more efficiently? Likewise, yes, yes,
and I'm trying to this. I'm just pulling up a
few but um yeah, so there is there is uh Claibio.
Now Claibio is not black owned, but in my opinion,
it's one of the best tools to help you prioritize
(23:22):
engagement with with your brand, and so I would certainly
say that Claibio is a tool when it comes to
you know, email marketing and sitting, sitting and engaging with
the shoppers that that are engaging with your brand. I
would certainly say that you should you look at you
look at cladio. UM the now List, which was recently
(23:46):
acquired by um Revolt Media, one of pits um Uh companies.
Uh there they were. I don't know the name of
the new company that bought them, but um Kadija over
there is um pure Gold and she's innovative and apparently
got the attention of Revolting and pub Dady, So she's
(24:07):
got you know, she's she's she's smarter than me as
far as that's concerned. But but I would definitely say
that the NIH list is if you want to list
your product and and be included in a list of
products that is being exposed to other people who are
conscious and want to keep the money in the community,
I would certainly suggest that you um list your product
(24:29):
and the knowledge because it's an instant it's instant eyeballs
and instant attention to what you're up to. People understand
because just just for clarity, is the Nile List in
I L E. Because it sounds like we're saying now,
so that's want to make people know it's the Nile
correct and L yes, it is the Nile List. And
the name of the the acquiring company UM is called
(24:54):
shop Circulate UM. And so check Instagram. That's as there
you are, there you are, and so you know, any
connects there would be would be welcome. But I definitely
think that's another company that that you should be looking
at listening your products in other tools. A competitor to
Claibio is gonna be mail champ UM. I would consider
(25:17):
Claibio mail Champ. Now we talked about shoppable Instagram. It's
is if you want to be if you want to
sell products, if you're a retail you want to sell products,
obviously the first the first choice in them. The ideal
location that customers purchase your product from is your web
page or your mobile app because you retain as much
(25:37):
of the uh much as much of the profit from
the sale if you own if it's they're shopping on
your property. But you should also you know, highlight products
on shopple Instagram. You can all tag images so that
people can purchase a product while they're shopping their grid. UM,
I think that's important. And U and you know there's
(26:00):
you know, Google analytics, and I can talk all day
about different types of integration partners that you know, growing
reteller should use, but those are the first that come
to mind. And so obviously COVID has had a really
big impact on e commerce and retail as a whole,
UM e commerce being a section of e commerce sector
of IT. I should say, UM, what trends have you
(26:23):
noticed UM are changed forever because of COVID and ones
that particularly black entrepreneurs who are working to sell online
can get positioned for if they not, if they haven't
already missed a boat, like, what can we do to
take advantage of this moment? So prior that's a good question.
Prior to prior to COVID, there was like a slow
(26:47):
trend toward UM shopping and engagement on mobile phones and
frankly UM toward them and towards the in sectionally the
beginning the early days of Sandbox, UH, the need for
mobile a mobile app for retailers UM was not as pronounced.
(27:09):
I remember talking to early investments They're like, why do
retailers need mobile apps? And that was a cool thing
to say in a meeting Like that was like all
they would laugh at me in meetings, say retailers don't
need mobile apps. And and I would point to trends
that showed that. UM. I point to trends that showed
that the percentage of Google Analytics traffic what M for
(27:32):
for retailers was increasing month over month and year over
year UM in the browser and UH and in some
time and the not too distant future, you know, retailers
would see and notice that they need to provide better
services and more optimized mobile solutions for consumers to shop
(27:54):
on devices. And then came COVID, and I'll say, and
I think that all of my peers in the space
you have built to are growing technology platforms that are
used by retailers can attest to this as well, that
retailers will acknowledge today that they need mobile applications in
order to be successful. UM. And the percentage of retailers
(28:15):
that say they need mobile applications has accelerated over the
more than ten years, over the last one year, that's
so so UM. Every retailer at the beginning of COVID.
Almost in every retailer express the need to having a
mobile application to either help with curves that pick up,
which we revolutionized as I mentioned earlier, or to help
(28:37):
with providing you know, delivery um and you know, engaging
with customers of the safe distance and in the future.
What we learned is that consumers have also gotten used
to using technologies to transact even more so, like I'll
tell you, I use my Apple Watch, um almost exclusively
to make a purchase when I got a coffee shop
(28:59):
or even um, you know, a Lilly Limit or that
type of store, I use my Apple Watch. I don't
hand up my credit card anymore. These are trends that
will never change. Um uh. And I think that things
like that will You'll see that the more information will
be will will be released I think toward the end
(29:19):
of the year kind of capturing some of the data
that we've learned about the trends that are occurring in
the industry. But I think that a preference to using
technology to transact will be one of the things that
the bears out. So um, I love that you brought
up that you know, all these retailers are saying, you
know or experts quote unquote, we're saying retailers don't need apps,
(29:42):
which you've obviously found to not be the case. They
do need apps, right, So now you've got us with apps.
Will you got will Lucas is app you know for
will Lucas t shirts right right? How give people to
download this app? Now? Because now, because there's so many
people who have apps, particularly the retailers who've spent a
bunch of money probably not using your stuff now using
(30:06):
Sandbox which they should have used, but spend a bunch
of money getting these apps done. But now they've got
to get the word out about go download my app?
So how does that happen? Yeah? Now? And I would, um,
you should look at some of our customers Shift Style House,
black owned female brand, her Treasure Boutique out of Atlanta,
black female, um uh awesome brand that it's leveraging Sandbox
(30:30):
commerce to promote their app. They're gonna have, um, I
think more more um accurate, real time and and uh
first person type of feedback to support you that to
share with you. But based on you know, from the
app uh platform provider's perspective. Here's what I'll say to that,
(30:54):
a UM if you're just selling T shirts, then at
that stage I would not necess sssarily have an app
to sell T shirts. Yeah. So so I hate to
bush bubble there, but I think there will be a
point in which you know, once you have an apparel
line mobile application, right, So, I think that right sizing
(31:16):
and right sizing the problem with the with the particular
audience is going to be important. I don't think that
everyone needs a mobile app, but I think that perhaps
will will Lucas Black Tech create money. We can work
together to expand expand of expanded product line, and we
can get him a mobile app for you. But but
what I'll say is that even once you have the
(31:38):
mobile app, the mobile app is not meant for everyone, Like,
we're not building mobile apps for every one of your
customers to use. Well, what I'll say to that is
that we're building mobile apps for the of your customers
that generate the eight percent of your revenue, those customer loyalists.
In other words, are mobile apps are not for the
window shopper, not for the person's walking to them all
(32:00):
isn't really into the brand or doesn't know who doesn't know?
Who will Lucas dot Com Shop will Lucas dot com
is it's for the people that that cut for you.
They know exactly who you are. They know when you're new,
when you're new, um, you know, products are launching and
they want to be the first to get it right
and so and typically that's your most loyal customer, that's
(32:21):
spending the most money with you. That's you the mobile
apption for And so it's really knowing who your audience
is and then catering to your audience and providing them
with the easiest way to transact with you legit. I
love that. I love that answer is for who generate
of the revenue. It is not for the one I love.
I love that answer, and it's Will Lucas's Will Lucas
(32:43):
dot co. By the way, for anybody trying to find
me on Lucas. Okay, well we get we can set
up the shop, we can set that shops subjoins shop
dot Will Lucas dot co, e t H dot E
t H. So you can start accepting that a theory.
You're gonna have me. I'm gonna have you another episode.
We gotta talk about this. We have to talk about
transacting and with crypto. So we just gave me an idea. Okay,
(33:07):
all right, we'll have you back. We'll have you back.
You did touch on this, and I think this is
so important for the time that we live in and
this data, all right, and we too often don't particularly
black business, not all of us really large, but too
many of us who are in business don't know enough
about the metrics of our business, our customer profiles, the
(33:30):
you know, those those metrics, those key performances indicate that
we don't know enough. We don't know how to pull
that data out of our transactions and our business operations,
and we don't know enough about our customers. So those
people who do pull the trigger on the shop, on
the on the buy button, we don't know enough too
many of us. Um, what are some simple things we
(33:52):
can do? So, if you were to give homework today,
what would you say everybody with an e commerce a
web store, Um, what are some easy things they can
do to start to understand, start to gather that data
and help translate that data. Yes, okay, let's go. So
(34:12):
I would start with ensuring you have Google Analytics installed,
which is on your e commerce store. It's free, free,
and um, it's low code. You just need to copy
and pastes snippet into your Shopify or big commerce back
in if you go to Google, when you set up
Google Analytics, they will provide you with a snippet to
copy and paste. And what that does is it tracks
(34:33):
anonymously tracks each of the users that is traversing your
website UM. From there, I would install another set, a
tool called hot jar, And what hot jar does is
it allows you to UM it it didn't effectively records
a video of how customers engage with your website, allowing
(34:56):
you to see specifically what they look at, how much
time they spent on every page of your website, what
they're passing by, what they're focusing on, and it shows
like a tracing image or line of the customer's journey
and provide some more anonymous data about the customer UM.
And then I would look at potentially using a tool
like intercom UM to track user information UM. Intercom is
(35:21):
a tool that lets you actually install a chat bubble
that captures lead data, UM and user data so that
you can not only know who your customers are, but
engage with them in real time on your website UM.
Once you scale up and you feel like you've got
um your legs underneath you. From a again, again, from
a web standpoint, I would ultimately install sandbox commerce. I'll
(35:46):
tell you why. I'm going full circle with this because
the larger brands and retailers learned this a long time ago. Um.
But what what What sandbox commerce is really doing for
growing brands and retailers is helping them better understand who
their customers are and allowing them to more strategically engage
with their shoppers. So it's a It's a little known
(36:08):
fact that a customer who engages with a brand on
a mobile phone using a mobile app shares more data
with the retailer than if the customer actually went to
the to the physical store to shop. There are so
many attributes that are shared, everything from your location, your demographic,
(36:30):
your name, what you looked at, what you have in
your shopping card. And being able to tie all that
data together so that the brand and retailer you, as
a shop owner, can correlate that information and engage with
the shopper in a in a manner that you are
actually adding value to the shopping experience is invaluable and
ultimately will lead to increased revenue. Black Tech Green Money
(37:06):
to production of Black of the Afro Tech in the
Black Effect Podcast Network and i Heeart Media and it's
produced by Morgan Dabon and me Will Lucas, with additional
production support by Love Beach You, Raven near Bard. Special
thank you to Michael Davis since the carsa von Jan
you know like the Wine. Yes, that's his real name.
Learn more about my guests and other tech disruptors that
(37:27):
innovators at afro tech dot com. We're also on YouTube
if you're interested in the video interviews. Enjoying Black Tech
Green Money, leave us a five star rating on iTunes.
Go get your money, Peace and love
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