SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders 701: Smart Desk King Sells $10,000,000+
Jun 25, 2017
22:09
Duy Huynh. He's the founder of Autonomous.ai which builds smart office products to help people work smarter.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – Zero to One
- What CEO do you follow? – Stewart Butterfield
- Favorite online tool? — Google Analytics
- How many hours of sleep do you get?— 4
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Focus on and build something really helpful to people"
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 00:50 – Nathan introduces Duy to the show
- 01:20 – Subscribe to Youtube to see Duy using a smart desk
- 01:32 – Smart desk helps work smart the whole day
- 01:48 – "We don't care much about the money"
- 02:02 – Autonomous' mission is how they can help companies' work smarter
- 02:51 – Autonomous wants to reinvent every single item in an office
- 03:15 – One of Autonomous' products is the Cardboard
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- 03:30 – It is created for people who want an affordable standing desk
- 04:05 – It sells for $19
- 04:17 – Cardboard is a fairly new product
- 04:42 – Autonomous was founded in 2014
- 05:10 – Autonomous has shipped around 100K units
- 05:16 – The best-seller is the SmartDesk
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- 05:38 – It can keep you healthy and stay active in office
- 05:50 – Some of Nathan's friends have bought the Smartdesk
- 06:07 – Autonomous has raised $200K
- 06:18 – Prior to Autonomous, Duy really liked smart products
- 06:46 – Duy started Autonomous with his co-founders in a small apartment
- 08:25 – The seed money has helped Duy make the prototypes
- 09:00 – Duy has spent $100-200K on the products before raising the seed round
- 09:09 – Duy traveled to find the best suppliers
- 09:30 – Team size
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- 09:43 – 4 are working in the NY office
- 09:46 – 10 in California and some in Vietnam and China
- 10:10 – Total of 40 people
- 10:22 – Autonomous is currently cash flow positive
- 10:35 – Duy isn't looking at raising another round at the moment
- 11:00 – Monthly expenses
- 11:40 – Autonomous is doing over $10M annually
- 12:18 – Most of the customers are founders
- 12:37 – Autonomous currently relies on word-of mouth
- 12:49 – Autonomous had a Kickstarter campaign
- 13:05 – Autonomous made $250K from their Kickstarter campaign
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- 13:20 – It was for a thousand units
- 13:58 – Duy wanted to maintain a fair margin in the supply chain
- 14:36 – "They pay for what they get"
- 15:00 – Competitors' margin
- 15:19 – Gross profit
- 16:04 – The second and third best-selling products are the chair and stool, respectively
- 16:38 – Duy wouldn't take a deal from Herman Miller at the moment
- 16:41 – Autonomous isn't a furniture company
- 17:19 – On paper, Duy is the single founder but the co-founders have equity as well
- 18:50 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- Smart products shouldn't just offer convenience, but make your life healthy and active too.
- Price your product fairly—the value of the product should match the price.
- Create something that will be really helpful for people.
Resources Mentioned:
- The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
- Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
- Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
- Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
- Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
- Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives