0:00

Gift is Unwrapped Guest, episode number 412.

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What if we can build a more affordable private website with

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custom domains for you, while also helping you be part of a new philanthropic marketplace

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and grow it? Attention gifters,

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bakers, crafters and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

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Whether you have an established business or looking to start one

0:21

now you are in the right place.

0:24

This is Gift Biz Unwrapped,

0:27

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

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Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

0:35

resources and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

0:38

Here is your host Gift Biz gal Sue Moon Height.

0:43

Hi there, it's Sue and thanks for joining me today.

0:47

If you've been looking for your first or a new home

0:50

for your e-commerce website, grab a pen and paper because today's show is just for

0:56

you. But before we get into that,

0:58

I wanna share something with you. We've covered so many facets of a handmade product business over

1:05

the course of the years and today is no exception.

1:09

We've talked about how to start and grow your business stories

1:13

from many of you who have done just that.

1:15

How to choose and use social media sites,

1:19

build your website. Oh my gosh,

1:22

there is just so much information here for you,

1:25

but not necessarily at your fingertips.

1:29

So I've made a tool for you that categorizes by topic

1:33

the episodes of this podcast, but only the ones that stay relevant over time.

1:39

Because yes, let's face it,

1:41

there are past shows that just don't work anymore for us

1:45

today. The world is changing so fast,

1:47

right? You can use this tool to zero in on whatever

1:52

topic you need at the moment. Do you wanna hear from others in your specific industry?

1:58

How about details on Pinterest or setting up an email strategy?

2:03

You can now easily find the right episodes and create your

2:07

priority listening roster. Consider this your Gift Biz Resource center at a glance.

2:13

It's a Google Sheet best viewable on your computer versus your

2:17

phone. Make sure to look on the bottom where there are

2:20

five separate sections for easy topic reference,

2:23

kind of like chapters of a book. It makes finding the shows to help you with what you're

2:28

working on right now. So much easier.

2:31

To access this free resource, go to gift biz unwrapped.com/topics.

2:39

Today we're talking about a new e-commerce platform only for handmade

2:44

creators that offers options not available anywhere else.

2:49

I say they're new, but they have solid experience under their belt from the last

2:53

two years of startup and growth. What should peak your interest first?

2:59

John is serious about keeping this marketplace only for true handmade

3:04

creators. Nobody slips in who's producing from a factory or justifies

3:10

handmade when in truth it isn't.

3:13

The go imagine marketplace is affordable,

3:16

provides you direct access and ownership to your customer's contact information,

3:21

which oh my gosh, is so big and has a philanthropic overlay that doesn't cost

3:27

you anything to align with almost too good to be true.

3:31

Right? Well, I've got one up even better than what I said here.

3:36

How many of you know you should have a website of

3:40

your own too, perhaps in addition to another outside owned e-commerce site like Etsy

3:46

or Amazon One with your own domain name,

3:49

smooth setup and control and reliable functionality,

3:53

go imagine has the solution for this two all in one

3:57

place. I bet I'm confusing you because you just can't believe

4:01

that all this is possible. Let's dive into the details so you can hear it for

4:06

yourself Today.

4:12

I'd like to introduce you to John Lincoln,

4:15

the founder of Go Imagine the handmade marketplace that donates a

4:20

hundred percent profits to help children in need.

4:23

This new marketplace concept is following in the footsteps of other

4:27

great companies such as Newman's Own and Patagonia,

4:30

by building philanthropy into the fabric of the business.

4:33

Since launching in 2020 Go Imagine has attracted thousands of makers

4:38

and artists throughout the US supporting their mission to create a

4:42

more caring economy through Handmade.

4:45

This year, go Imagine is adopting a shared ownership model where the vendors

4:49

on the marketplace are given ownership in the company,

4:52

including voting rights and board representation.

4:56

It's with the support of the maker community that go imagine

4:59

continues to grow and they feel it's only right that makers

5:02

are given a seat at the table when decisions are being

5:05

made. John, I'm so excited to hear more about Go Imagine.

5:10

Welcome to the Gift Biz Unrepped podcast.

5:12

I appreciate you having me, Sue. Thank you. Before We get into everything,

5:17

we have to take care of another little task and that

5:20

is to have you describe yourself by way of a motivational

5:24

candle. This is a way for our listeners to get to

5:27

know you in kind of an undercover way,

5:30

if you will. So motivational candle for you by color in quote,

5:34

what would it look like? Yeah, yeah. Remember you emailed me to ask that and I've been thinking

5:38

about it. You know, color I think for me would be pretty straightforward.

5:41

It would be teal because that is the color of go

5:44

imagine. Although when I thought when you first said candle,

5:47

it wasn't just the color, but I would tell you that I think my candle would

5:50

also have one of those wicks, you can't blow out Going and going and going.

5:57

I'm a serial entrepreneur and I've done a number of businesses

6:00

and yeah, it's like it's, you know, in life you can't hold someone down.

6:03

And so yeah, it's, I feel like I, I'd have a,

6:05

an endless wick so to speak, from a motivational quote.

6:09

I mean there's so many of 'em, but in business,

6:11

one of the quotes that I've always liked on the business

6:14

side of things is from Henry Ford,

6:16

which is if two partners always agree on the same thing,

6:21

one of them isn't necessary. And in the whole concept of that quote is the fact

6:25

that when you're building a business and you have partners, or in the case of our marketplace,

6:28

I consider all of our makers and artists,

6:30

our partners, is that you're not always gonna agree on the same thing.

6:33

What really matters is you're getting the right decision through discourse

6:37

in that process of having differing opinions.

6:40

That's a healthy way to grow a business is by having

6:43

different opinions and finding the right answer collectively instead of having

6:47

a bunch of yes men who are just, you know, agreeing with you on everything cuz you're not gonna get the

6:51

right answers if you're not having some disagreement.

6:53

Yeah. Or you're only going to have a resulting product that

6:57

is appreciated or welcomed by a certain portion of the community.

7:02

Right? Because we're all different. Absolutely. I do truly believe this,

7:06

that the makers and artists on the platform are partners in

7:09

the company. And one example would be, and we don't have to talk too much about this,

7:12

but the definition of what handmade is, right? Everybody has a different idea of what is handmade and

7:18

that's one of the things that we're working with our community on our handmade guidelines as we continue to grow on defining

7:23

handmade. At the end of the day that quote really comes

7:26

to the fact that just cuz two people might have differing

7:28

opinions, they're both valuable opinions and they help find that right

7:32

common ground. Absolutely. And I like too,

7:35

as the conversations evolve and good points come up,

7:39

I like to slip in these extra points that aren't necessarily

7:42

in alignment with the conversation. But one of the things that you said,

7:45

John, while you were talking about your quote,

7:48

I learned way back in my corporate world when I was

7:51

learning management, you know, that was when you took courses,

7:53

they were prepping you to be a manager or something like

7:55

that. One of the things they always said is,

7:57

you don't wanna hire people who looked us like you.

8:00

You wanna hire people who have different skillsets,

8:03

different opinions, all of that.

8:05

So very similar and parallel to what you're talking about,

8:08

but in a little bit of a different environment. But for our makers here who are thinking of starting a

8:14

team or adding to a team, that's something to always keep in mind is add people who

8:19

are different from you in some way because it makes your

8:22

whole group richer And it makes you grow,

8:26

right? Because you start to see things maybe differently than you

8:28

did before because you're exposed to that.

8:30

Yeah, I could not agree with you more. All right,

8:33

so now we're gonna dive into you Don.

8:35

Okay, fair enough. Tell me, and you can start wherever it makes sense to start,

8:40

but what led you over to handmade?

8:43

What were you doing before? Give us the entrance like the curtain is opening,

8:47

John, what do we see? I think like most people,

8:51

your life is windy and where you end up is not

8:53

really where you started. I mentioned a moment ago,

8:56

I've been kind of a serial entrepreneur. So if we go back,

8:58

20 years was when I started my first company actually in

9:01

standup comedy. I was a comedian for many years.

9:03

I opened up a couple comedy clubs, a production agency,

9:06

and for 10 years I made my living running my comedy

9:10

business. Lucky enough we won Boston's best comedy club,

9:12

gone on the Today Show, did some fun things there.

9:14

And when I was probably about 30, so that's 10 years later,

9:17

life hit me in the face and I was getting married,

9:20

having my first kid and it was time to grow up

9:23

and get a real job. That led me to getting into software,

9:26

right? And I got into actually the insurance industry,

9:29

not merely as exciting as handmade, but I got into software development working for a company that

9:34

led me to start my own software agency management system on

9:39

a product called Salesforce. This is now going back 2015,

9:43

I'm guessing. Had a great experience growing that company.

9:46

Through those years growing the company, I raised over $7 million and then Capital grew it to

9:51

over 40 employees. And about three and a half years ago,

9:55

I had an opportunity to exit the company. I was a CEO for many years and with okay belabored

10:01

points, the money I had raised diluted me down to,

10:03

you know, a minority owner in this company. And I was trying to think about the next thing I

10:07

wanted to do in life, right? And so I was able to exit that company at

10:11

luckily it was a 44 million valuation.

10:13

That's not what I made. That's what the company was valued at when we sold it,

10:16

sold the shares. But I was thinking about the next chapter in life for

10:20

me and what I wanted to do. And for the years I grew,

10:24

the last company, it was called Veruna, you can check 'em out,

10:27

they're still growing veruna.com. And I was quickly becoming dis enamored with the fact that

10:32

the endless days and nights I was working,

10:35

the outcome of all the work was to make our investors

10:39

more money. That wasn't why the company started,

10:41

the company started because I was excited to help agencies run

10:44

their business. But it got to the point where when you have investors,

10:48

it's only about them, right? And it wasn't very fulfilling to me to work so

10:53

hard to make rich people more rich,

10:56

right? And so that's when I started thinking about,

10:58

you know, doing more of a philanthropic venture.

11:01

And by the way, this all does lead to handmade, I promise.

11:04

And so I was thinking through tech cause I had been

11:07

in software for about 10 years and then I, it led me to marketplaces in general and how marketplaces operate.

11:12

And the true power of a marketplace is the buyers and

11:16

sellers has very little to do with the actual tech.

11:18

I mean, yeah, you know, you can invent new fun things like 3D video or something.

11:23

At the end of the day, it's the community that makes a marketplace successful.

11:27

And these marketplaces are all on Wall Street now.

11:31

They're all venture capitalized. They're all making billions of dollars through transaction fees between the

11:37

buyer and the seller. And I thought to myself, what if we could harness that power of those network effects

11:43

to do good in the world, to build a marketplace environment where the fees being generated are

11:49

to help children need instead of simply go to the shareholders

11:53

and then the stockholders and investors. So at that time,

11:56

we're going back probably three and a half years. I started considering different marketplaces and where there was a hole

12:01

in the market, Connor, where, where do we want to go? Cause I by trade don't have a handmade,

12:05

I, I'd like to think I have an entertainment background but

12:07

not an art background. So I started considering different marketplaces,

12:10

but one of my really good friends who has helped me

12:12

through all my other businesses, she's a graphic designer,

12:14

her name is Stephanie Mke is an artist,

12:17

she's been selling on Etsy for years. She's done countless craft fairs,

12:20

she's within the handmade community and,

12:23

and I was talking with her through business and I said,

12:25

you know, tell me about Etsy was my question to her.

12:27

This was three and a half years ago cuz I'd been looking at the different models,

12:30

Airbnb, Upwork, Uber. And I was like,

12:33

tell me about Etsy. She says, what do you wanna know? I'm like,

12:35

well do the makers like Etsy. That question alone opened Pandora's box when I asked Steph,

12:41

what do makers think of Etsy? Depending on what year?

12:45

Yeah, Yeah. This is 2018,

12:49

19. So anyway, it opened Pandora's box and you know exactly where the conversation

12:54

went led, you know, the fact that more manufactured items are going on this site,

12:57

the fact the fees are going up, they're forcing free shipping at that time.

13:01

All these other things start coming out. And I was like, okay, well what I saw talking with Steph was this,

13:06

I'll call it dissatisfaction within the handmade world because Etsy grew

13:11

on the back of handmade, but now is leaving it.

13:13

And by the way, I have a YouTube video, you should watch that.

13:16

I talk about why Etsy left hand made because it makes

13:18

perfect sense from an investor economic standpoint.

13:21

So what I saw working with Steph was what I would

13:24

think is a whole opening for a new handmade marketplace.

13:28

Okay, you've got this really behemoth that grew on the back

13:30

of handmade but it's slowly going away from it, which is going to open up an opportunity for the next

13:35

handmade marketplace that's truly handmade.

13:37

This led to me talking to Steph and actually partnering with

13:39

her. Steph is now a partner in the company with me. She's a co-owner.

13:42

I brought in some other software people I know very well

13:45

into the business and that's where it kind of all started.

13:47

Where on my end I am really more of the software

13:50

tech entrepreneur side. But Steph has always been the real handmade artist side of

13:55

things. And the first thing we did before we wrote a

13:59

lick code was start a Facebook group.

14:02

It invited makers into the community and started talking to them.

14:06

So if you go to our Facebook group, which we have 7,000

14:08

number of, if you go back to 2000 and in 19 early 20

14:12

you'll see the first conversation there of just learning from the

14:17

community on what is possible if we work together.

14:21

So when I look at starting a any marketplace,

14:24

you really need two types of people.

14:26

You need the software people because marketplace is our software and

14:30

you need the, what I would call domain knowledge,

14:32

the real handmade people. And from my perspective,

14:35

I bring the software and the community and Steph as a

14:38

partner bring the handmade. And so far it's been a good recipe.

14:41

You know, I think a lot of people who have been with me

14:43

for a while can really relate to this because as we

14:46

start talking about starting a business,

14:48

so it's not a marketplace but it's your,

14:50

your brand, right? Is to start rallying and supporters even before you're launching

14:57

your product. Yeah. To start building a community and having an audience for

15:01

support. Yes. But also so that when you're starting,

15:05

you're not opening the door to nobody coming in.

15:07

Well It's market research to a degree, right? And it's market research for sure.

15:12

Yes. Parting what their needs are and if you listen to

15:16

people and you get their input and you involve 'em at

15:18

the beginning, they wanna be involved later cuz they've actually had a hand

15:22

in helping building, right? Right.

15:25

That's a big, that's a big part of it. Marketplace is even more so.

15:27

But I think you're right with any business it's important.

15:30

So let's dive into, I think the interest of people who are listening here,

15:34

which is as a handmade maker,

15:37

what does go imagine have for me?

15:40

How does it work? Like give us all the goodness there.

15:44

I would love to, well, so start like starting any business in terms of your

15:48

question, you're differentiators, what are you bringing to the table that isn't already there?

15:51

Or what would you bring to me? So we've been working on this for years and obviously the

15:55

first thing is we're a marketplace, right? As we grow,

15:58

we are building a buyer base and traffic is increasing.

16:01

Now I'll be upfront and say that is traffic like Etsy?

16:04

Heck no. It's like some makers come to a new marketplace and expect

16:08

an Etsy type volume right off the gate.

16:11

But even Etsy wasn't Etsy at the beginning, right? So what we've done is we've really focused a lot

16:16

on where else can we support our makers outside of just

16:19

driving buyers to the marketplace. And that's led us to a number of different things.

16:23

Obviously the community aspect is a really big part of that

16:26

where we've built our community. The other big part is we launched something about a year

16:30

ago called our Mosaic platform.

16:32

And what Mosaic is, is the ability to have your own privately branded website on

16:37

go imagine that is also connected to the marketplace,

16:40

right? And we built that because what we found through our

16:43

own research talked to Makers is that a lot of them

16:46

have been trying to find how do I differentiate myself from

16:48

being just on Etsy? And that has led to a lot of them saying,

16:51

I'll start my own website. Well that's great,

16:53

you can go to Shopify, WooCommerce Wick on any of those,

16:56

but at the end of the day they're, they can be pricey. You know,

16:58

Shopify just raised their rates. I mean they're $40 a month before you buy anything on

17:02

top of that. And so we thought, well what if we can build a more affordable private website

17:07

with custom domains for you while also helping you be part

17:09

of a new philanthropic marketplace and grow it.

17:11

And so for 10 bucks a month you get your own

17:14

website, right? So not only are we reducing your cost to have your

17:17

own website, I always like to tell people that if you build Wicks

17:21

or your site on Wicks or on Shopify, they're guaranteed to draw you zero traffic because they're not meant

17:26

to draw you draw your own traffic. But on this platform for us,

17:29

you're gonna have your own website to market your own brand

17:33

while also being connected to a growing marketplace that will eventually

17:36

draw you traffic. Whether it's one sale a month or one sale a quarter.

17:40

It's more than the sales you're getting having your own website

17:43

on Wix or Shopify. Okay. Alright,

17:46

perfect. So John, I have to tell you that always what I advise is

17:51

your own website is Golden territory.

17:54

It's like your business headquarters online,

17:58

not an Etsy site. Because we all know Etsy has restrictions and structure that you

18:05

can't get out of and it's not your own domain.

18:09

So what I'm hearing from you, it's kind of a go-between,

18:13

it's a different animal if you will.

18:15

But the thing I'm really liking about what you're saying is

18:18

you create your own domain name.

18:21

So it's not your shop connected with an Etsy site,

18:24

it's your shop.com or whatever your URL is,

18:29

right? Absolutely. Yeah. And you owning your own url,

18:32

to your point, Sue is hugely valuable because even if you own your own

18:36

URL today and you point it to your Etsy shop,

18:39

well you can print all your business cards with your url,

18:42

print your brochures, your Facebook,

18:44

and then the day you decide to move your URL to

18:46

go imagine or Shopify, you can repoint it,

18:49

Right? And then all of that past stuff works.

18:52

But if you're advertising your etsy.com/my

18:55

shop name, when you then move to a url, all your past marketing is now poof because you've changed the

19:01

url. So to your point, I think every maker should own url.

19:04

That should be like the first thing cuz A they're super

19:07

cheap. I mean like 10 bucks a year,

19:09

20 bucks a year and you now have a brand.

19:11

The second step is where are you connecting that url?

19:15

Where is that Now it can always move,

19:17

right? And to your point, maybe on go imagine our platform gives you that stepping stone

19:24

to have your own branded website, but we don't have every feature that Shopify has yet.

19:28

We're still new. Maybe you'll graduate eventually and say,

19:30

you know what, we're now a bigger company, we've grown and now we wanna move to Shopify that has

19:35

more bells and whistles. Okay? So agree with you a hundred percent.

19:39

And the other thing, I have a couple of questions here.

19:42

First off, let me ask just one more tech question and then I

19:44

wanna get out of tech for a little while. Sure. Go Imagine site.

19:48

You guys are doing the hosting also,

19:51

so there's none of that to be worried about.

19:53

Okay. Kind of like Shopify does hosting too,

19:55

Etsy, but everything but WordPress kind of.

19:58

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we do all the hosting.

20:01

Alright, okay, so perfect with that.

20:04

You know, here's the thing with e-commerce also,

20:07

I feel that whether it's a site on Etsy,

20:12

go imagine Shopify, every single one of those attracts a different audience and works

20:17

in a different way. Although if you have too many,

20:20

you know there's nuances to every site. So if you have too many,

20:24

you'll never get to be an expert at one specifically.

20:27

You know, I think maybe one or two sites,

20:29

your own platform perhaps.

20:31

And then maybe it's Etsy, maybe it's Amazon for certain people here.

20:36

So you can think of it that way too. Especially if you're not one who's going out and doing a

20:40

lot of in-person shows anymore for whatever reason,

20:43

having multiple locations is not duplicating your efforts online.

20:49

So just a comment, and I don't know if you wanna react to that or

20:52

not, John, Around the fact that having more than one location online is

20:56

more work or less work. What about you? It's attracting different audiences.

21:01

So just because you are online now with whatever your you

21:05

are L is doesn't mean a second one won't be presenting

21:09

you up to new people, right? Absolutely.

21:12

And I think that's where as a maker,

21:15

so a lot of makers who are an artist who get

21:18

into business, they do it cuz of their love of the art and

21:20

the making and they're forced to do business cuz that's how

21:23

you make money, right? So it's almost like they have to learn the business

21:27

on the fly. They might've spent years making,

21:29

they might've gone to school, art school and they've learned all that and then all of

21:32

a sudden it's like, well you also now have to think about branding,

21:34

you've gotta think about revenue, you've gotta think about sales,

21:36

you all this other stuff you have to learn. And that's why they come to people like you sue to

21:40

learn from. And I think when you look at so many places to

21:43

sell today, the first thought often is,

21:45

which I would ask is like, well who are you as a brand and where can you

21:50

find the audiences that resonate with what you're selling?

21:52

Right? And you mentioned Amazon Handmade might work wonderfully for some

21:55

people and not work at all for others. Same with Etsy,

21:57

same with go imagine even same with your own website,

22:00

but starting off on different platforms from a testing peer,

22:05

you never call it, you start to learn where you fit more.

22:08

A little a little, right? Because just cuz you didn't sell well on Amazon doesn't

22:12

mean you won't sell on Etsy. Does that make sense? It makes total sense.

22:16

And then I also think you need to dive deeper as

22:18

you've been talking about, well as you experienced with your prior business too,

22:22

how businesses evolve and what might have met your needs when

22:26

you initially started might not be anymore.

22:30

Oh Yeah. You know Etsy, I'm not gonna dis Etsy because I think they're a good

22:34

platform. They have their limitations for sure.

22:37

But people have told me over and over again how they

22:40

aren't getting the results they once had on Etsy for various

22:43

reasons. And I think it's the company might have other objectives

22:48

now prices are going up like all different types of reasons.

22:51

So you've gotta look at what platform works for you.

22:54

And I wanna get back to go imagine, cuz I still want to understand more about Go imagine.

22:59

Okay, so I'm a maker, let's pretend I'm a maker.

23:02

I'm curious about the platform.

23:05

I love the idea of either starting my first website or

23:09

finding another home online.

23:12

It's not wholesale, it's direct to consumer.

23:14

No, this is not like fair. This is like more like Etsy.

23:17

Yeah. All right, perfect. And so if I was interested in working with you,

23:24

how does that start? Yeah, so the big thing for us is that we are

23:27

a handmade only marketplace, right? And so we work really hard on trying to make

23:32

sure every seller on the marketplace is truly selling handmade.

23:35

So there is a short application process.

23:37

So if you just go to the website, you click go to the bottom and click on become a

23:40

member, there's some questions where you apply and that goes to

23:43

our team to verify through your answers that okay you qualify.

23:47

And if you're curious, we do at the bottom of our site have what's called

23:50

handmade guidelines where you can first make sure that you qualify.

23:53

For instance, one of the hot topics right now in our community is

23:56

drop shipping. And right now we do not allow drop shipping.

23:58

That's something that the whole idea of production partners that Etsy

24:01

came out with, which we don't necessarily allow production partners.

24:04

That gets back to the whole defining handmade kind of conversation.

24:07

Well and a niche within handmade too,

24:10

right? And I love this because this is the majority of

24:13

the people who are listening who are my handmade creators,

24:16

are not producing their product elsewhere and are not having someone

24:19

drop ship for them. They're doing that. Yeah. So imagine we do not allow drop shipping or production.

24:24

So you go through the application process, it's not a scary process.

24:27

Basically we're just verifying that what you're saying is true,

24:31

that you are handmade right? After that we have our help center to help you get

24:35

your shop set up. But we also very much encourage everyone to join our community

24:38

to meet other go imagine makers who are, one thing we love is that our makers help each other

24:42

with setup and help each other with questions.

24:45

So not only do we have our Facebook group, but we have our own social app called Maker Circle that

24:49

you can download on Android or iPhone to join the community

24:53

in our own private app as well. Okay. Two questions.

24:55

I hope you don't mind if I interject. I always try to put myself in the mind of someone

25:01

who's listening and try and create the questions as we go.

25:04

Okay. So what if someone has their own website but they

25:08

like the idea of having another online shop?

25:11

Yes. Would they then get a new domain that would attach

25:15

to their Go Imagine account? Oh, maybe a spinoff or something?

25:19

Yes and no. The way to think about it is this is we have

25:22

different levels of plan. The lowest plan is $2 and 50.

25:25

So it's you know, very inexpensive and we take 5% per transaction.

25:29

So our fees are generally less than Etsy. When you're selling that plan doesn't come with your private website,

25:34

that's just a marketplace site, which would be go imagine.com/shop

25:39

name, just like etsy.com. So everybody in the marketplace has a marketplace shop,

25:43

which is go imagine.com/xyz.

25:46

If you want your own private website,

25:48

that's $10 a month. That's where you'd also get your own custom domain with a

25:53

branded website that doesn't have all the go imagine makers in

25:56

it. So essentially for $2 and 50 cents a month is

25:59

the lowest plan. You have a marketplace shop and for 10 bucks a month

26:02

you get the marketplace shop and your private website.

26:05

So we've had a lot of sellers that have decided to

26:10

say, you know what, I'm gonna, I've already got my private website set up,

26:13

it's going well, I'll get the lower plan and go imagine start selling there.

26:16

We've had makers who have canceled their Shopify and then just

26:19

started using our site instead. And some of that just don't have websites at all.

26:23

And use the lower plans. It depends on what fits your needs the best,

26:26

if that makes sense. Yeah. So you can be coming from both directions.

26:29

You could be someone who's never had a website before and

26:32

come on to the platform at $2 and 50 cents a

26:35

month. These days it's less than a cup of coffee, like less than not equal to,

26:39

less than, right? Or if you already have your own own website,

26:43

this is another audience that you could approach again for a

26:48

very, very unbelievably economic fee.

26:51

So, so you could come from both ways, people who are just starting or people who are already established

26:55

looking for additional eyes to capture.

26:58

So let me ask you this, how, and you don't have to get into all the nitty

27:03

gritty, but how does the functionality work in terms of setting

27:07

up the site? Are there like templates that you fit into or how does

27:13

that look? So the short story is you have a seller dashboard we

27:16

call it, which is the backend for you to manage your shop. If you're talking about using our custom website and the marketplace,

27:21

it's all one seller dashboard. So we always like to say you're managing two sites from

27:25

one dashboard. You know, you're mar, you're going back to marketplace shop and your custom website,

27:29

our help center is filled with videos and articles on meeting

27:33

you through how to set up a product or how to

27:35

set up your shop. I will tell you that we've partnered with Stripe as our

27:39

payment processor. I'm sure you're familiar with Stripe. So you do have to have a Stripe account to use.

27:43

Go imagine that takes all two seconds to set up.

27:45

And for those who don't know Stripe, it's just like Square or PayPal,

27:49

although I think better. But anyway, we can talk about payment processes another time.

27:52

Yeah. So it all runs to one dashboard. In terms of templates,

27:55

yeah, we have for instance our marketplace category.

27:57

So every product can have its own, you know, pick the category it belongs in.

28:00

But you can create your custom shop categories, which is separate from the marketplace categories.

28:05

You create the categories that resonate for you on your own

28:07

website, right? You on your own website for us,

28:09

you create your own custom banners, your own custom color scheme and all that.

28:13

But obviously in the marketplace site it'd be go imagines color

28:16

scheme, right? Because now you're in the marketplace. So when a visitor visits the site,

28:21

if they're going to your shop.com,

28:23

it's all your branding. But obviously the Go imagine.com/your

28:27

shop is all go imagine. But the beauty is,

28:30

at least from what we're building is that as a sneaker,

28:34

you're managing it all from one backend. So to your point,

28:37

this actually kind of wraps up nicely from what you said

28:39

earlier. You're getting two destinations in one spot.

28:42

So you're getting your own website and you're on a new

28:45

marketplace. So a lot of our sellers who do this program,

28:48

and I'm not trying to get too salesy here, so I apologize,

28:51

but the, the concept is if you're on Etsy and go imagine with

28:54

the custom website, you've chosen two platforms,

28:58

but you have three destinations, right? Because your custom website can be wrapped into it versus

29:02

having to manage a third. So that's kinda the concept that we're going through with the

29:07

custom website aspect. Okay, Big reason we did the custom website,

29:10

and this is where I don't mind talking about our strategy

29:13

is a lot of handmade marketplaces before us have come and

29:16

gone, right? There's a graveyard of 'em and,

29:19

and why did other ones not succeed in Etsy? Did. And I think part of the thing when building a

29:23

new marketplace, there's something called the chicken or the egg concept,

29:26

which I'm sure you can guess what that is, but how do you attract buyers if there's no sellers?

29:30

How do you attract sellers if there's no buyers, right? How do you get to that inflection point where the

29:34

network effects start happening so more bell buyers brings more sellers,

29:38

et cetera, et cetera. Now a lot of sellers and this,

29:41

this is not just maker specific, but any marketplace they'll join your job as a marketplace is

29:45

to bring 'em sales. You're brand new, you don't have a lot of buyers.

29:48

So they join in three months, they cancel, they add no sales.

29:50

Next buyer seller joins, they don't get sales,

29:52

they cancel. How do you grow a critical mass of sellers on a

29:58

platform so that you can start attracting the buyers and get

30:01

the flywheel effect? This is why we started offering own custom websites because now

30:06

it's not just about joining us and being on a marketplace

30:09

for our sales, but the benefit of having your own website that you otherwise

30:13

would've paid three, four times the price to a Shopify for,

30:17

but now you're helping get a new handmade marketplace to generate

30:21

those network effects and grow, right? And I think it's safe to say that the handmade

30:25

world is longing for another handmade marketplace,

30:29

I guess is a good way to put it, at least from everywhere I've been in communication with,

30:33

that they really would love to see another handmade marketplace be

30:36

successful. But the only way a handmade marketplace is successful is

30:40

when the community and the makers rally around it.

30:42

There's no other way, no one's gonna come out of the woodwork with a billion

30:45

dollars start pouring into marketing without any sellers.

30:48

And that's just as true with Etsy. You know,

30:50

Etsy grew based on the support of the makers.

30:53

In fact, the past CEO Chad Dickerson,

30:56

he was quoted saying in a shareholder meeting that the reason

30:59

Etsy grew so fast was because of makers promoting their own

31:03

shops. That's why Etsy grew. But we've gone into a point where marketplaces are so ubiquitous

31:09

that sellers expect to, okay, I'm gonna join Etsy and I'll just do nothing and

31:14

sales will come or I'll join Amazon, I'll do nothing and sales will come.

31:17

But a new marketplace needs to gain that support from the

31:21

community to grow. That doesn't mean the marketplace can do nothing.

31:24

The marketplace has to add value to the sellers.

31:27

What are they getting for being there? In our case,

31:30

it's your own website. And then on top of that we can talk about our

31:33

philanthropic aspect, our shared ownership model,

31:36

which also is more things we're doing to show the community

31:39

that this marketplace is being built for the maker community.

31:44

This is not another venture capitalized company that wants to grow

31:48

and sell to Wall Street. This is a company that is growing for the needs of

31:52

the makers and the needs of, in our case children in need to help them.

31:56

Okay, we have some other questions for you so that when

32:00

we get off they have enough information to come and really

32:03

talk with you about it. And philanthropic is also part of that in a second.

32:08

But walk me through, let's say I've got my shop up now.

32:11

I've got products there. All the makers on the site are helping gather their communities

32:18

over to purchase from that site.

32:21

I have like three questions at once. I don't know which way to go first.

32:24

Let's go with a customer, buys a product from me.

32:27

What do I see as a maker to handle the fulfillment

32:31

of that product? Cuz we've already talked about it's gotta be me,

32:34

it's not drop shipping. But so how does that happen?

32:40

I wanted to pause this discussion for a second to let

32:43

you know that I recognize you may be feeling overwhelmed right

32:47

now. I mean I bring on great guests who are specialists

32:51

in their fields and we get into fabulous conversations that you

32:55

know can help grow your business.

32:58

So after the show you have the full intention of grabbing

33:02

a download, making an adjustment on your website or any number of other

33:07

ideas that arise as a result of this podcast.

33:11

But what happens, you get back to your other activities and the momentum you

33:15

once had gets lost. What you've planned to do is forgotten,

33:21

then you feel bad because your business is going on as

33:24

usual without implementing anything that you know would help grow your

33:30

business. We're just too busy doing all the things like a

33:34

robot moving from one thing to another without thinking because we

33:39

have to. I get it,

33:41

I've been there. But guess what?

33:43

There is another way. Since I recognized this exact behavior in my own business,

33:50

I set out to do something about it and now what

33:53

works for me, I'm sharing with you.

33:57

I formalized the process and it's called the inspired daily planner.

34:02

Made specifically for gifters,

34:04

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34:09

First off, it comes with a video explaining my productivity strategy.

34:14

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34:20

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34:25

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34:29

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34:32

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34:36

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34:40

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34:44

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34:50

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34:55

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35:04

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35:07

So if you have a biz bestie, pick up a planner for them too.

35:11

That link again is gift biz unwrapped.com/inspired.

35:17

Okay, let's get back to the show. Yeah, so in the seller dashboard,

35:21

which is your backend to manage your shop,

35:23

you're gonna get an email that says Congratulations,

35:26

you got a new order. You log into your shop, you're gonna see the order there.

35:30

We do have integration with Shipo,

35:32

which is a shipping label product where any orders that come

35:35

in if you want to use shipo, will create the order in Shipo.

35:38

So you can go to shipo to print the label for that commercial rate label and without having a duplicate entry,

35:43

it's all there to print the label. You'll manage all your sales within our dashboard.

35:47

You can mark them complete, you can mark them, needs more information.

35:51

You can communicate to the seller through the dashboard.

35:53

If you have a question go back and forth on the

35:56

platform. It's very similar to Etsy, I guess in that sense where you know you're gonna manage

35:59

the shop and any orders that come through. Is there a specific required turnaround time?

36:05

No. So one of the big things for us with this

36:08

marketplace is we want to help makers build their business but

36:13

not tell makers how to run their business.

36:16

And marketplaces that have gotten to the size of an Amazon

36:20

or net zero all that, they've really tried to cookie cutter all makers into one path,

36:26

right? You've gotta turn around X amount of time.

36:28

Here's your template of shop policies. We have a section for shop policies that we're,

36:32

you're encouraged to put all your information in on your own

36:34

return policy, your own cancellation policy,

36:38

your own turnaround times. We have a shipping timeframe box that right on the top

36:42

of the product says the timeframe you can expect to get

36:44

the product from go imagine standpoint.

36:47

We don't require any specific turnaround time,

36:50

although we highly encourage providing that information upfront so that buyers

36:53

are understanding of what they're getting into.

36:55

Okay. And is it by product? It is,

36:58

yeah. Shipping timeframes by pro. Yeah. So great for people who offer customization or a product

37:05

line where different pieces they're made to order and they take

37:08

different amounts of time. That's also a good point is that we have unlimited options

37:13

and variations. So you get to create your custom variations so you know,

37:18

everyone has pick your color, pick your size,

37:20

pick your necklace, your chain length or whatever else.

37:23

Our system allows you to create them custom so you can

37:26

have as many as you need and as custom as you

37:29

need In terms of those dropdowns, That is huge because I know on Shopify it's challenging for

37:34

people to be able to put their options with the apps

37:37

that you add on and you know all of that.

37:39

Like if there's different color sizes, like all of that gets a little bit challenging.

37:43

And in some cases, like on Etsy you have to take multiple pictures of a

37:48

million products if everything's custom to sell.

37:51

So this sounds like a much more user friendly from someone

37:55

who offers really one of a kind type products.

37:58

Am I right here? Am I reading this right? Absolutely. And to that point,

38:02

this is a lot of the feedback we've gotten from our

38:04

sellers who are on the platform. They, they love the fact they can create custom dropdowns and

38:09

feature and variations. Another feature they like about us is we have what are

38:12

called hidden listings. So if to your point,

38:14

let's say you're doing a custom work for someone and you

38:17

wanna send 'em a link to pay for with the pictures

38:19

of what they bought. It's not listed on the marketplace or your shop,

38:23

but you have a hidden link that you can share with them. They can pay you and see the pictures of the

38:27

custom work before you send it Out. Very nice.

38:29

Yeah. So that's something that a lot of people like.

38:31

But I think the big thing here is that when you

38:34

think through what handmade is and what the Shopify's and Wickes

38:38

of the world built, the Shopify's and Wickes are really built around retail.

38:44

Shopify's not huge in the handmade space as they are in

38:48

the retail space. A lot of things are cookie cutter in retail.

38:52

Handmade is the antithesis of cookie cutter,

38:55

right? The whole idea of handmade is that it's unique,

38:59

it's different and especially with custom work.

39:02

So how we're going about building our platform and we're by

39:05

no means done, we're always trying to come up with new features based on

39:08

community input, is that we wanna do things based on the needs of

39:10

handmade and Shopify and w they're not doing it based that

39:15

needs handmade cuz handmade is only a small slice of their

39:18

overall business. So for them it's a lot more cookie cutter.

39:21

So it's not surprising that, as you mentioned,

39:24

a lot of times makers need to put a square peg

39:27

in a round hole when they use an off-the-shelf retail website.

39:30

Right. Okay. And then what about capturing the purchaser's contact information?

39:36

You know, I'm thinking for ongoing email marketing,

39:39

that kind of thing. Yeah, that is all flows to you.

39:42

So we consider, I, we consider the customers that come through our customers meaning

39:46

both the maker's customers and go imagines customer.

39:49

So you keep retention of people who are buying off the

39:52

site so you can market to them and then the individual

39:55

shop owners also can capture that information for themselves.

40:00

Oh my gosh, I love that.

40:02

So you have your customer list and now obviously you also,

40:07

that comes with your own liability of spam and all that,

40:09

right? But you keep your own customer list, you can download the customer list,

40:13

you can take the customers off the list and and market

40:15

to them. We are gonna be working on a way to more easily

40:18

maybe have like a mail chip sync or something where you

40:21

can have your list flow to your choice of email marketing

40:24

providers. But at this stage, yeah, the customers are in the database for you and you

40:28

can use them. Beautiful. I was almost a little bit afraid to ask that

40:31

question. I want up you here. When our invoices go out in our orders,

40:36

if you go to go imagine right now and you buy something and let's just say you buy something from Sue's res,

40:41

right? And you buy it and you get a confirmation email,

40:44

you know who the confirmation email says, Hmm, it's your order from Sue's res,

40:49

not your order from go Imagine it came for the emails

40:52

info, go imagine cause we need email, but it's your logo is in the email and in the

40:57

title is your order from Sues REITs or whatever your shop

41:00

name is. So that I think that you've got this mentality in,

41:04

in other marketplaces, where'd you buy that? I got got it off Etsy.

41:07

Right? Right. And they don't even know who the seller was.

41:11

Well in our world we really are thinking that from our

41:14

ethos is it's both of our customers. We want them to know about you and about us,

41:19

right? So we're not hiding the fact,

41:21

in fact we're propping up the maker. We think that's actually for us a competitive advantage to really

41:26

highlight the maker versus what bigger marketplaces Have done.

41:30

Yeah, well that in combination with the fact that you can

41:32

have your own domain owned website through you,

41:36

you know, and all the other things that you're providing.

41:38

I agree with you. I mean this is great. Okay, so talk to me more about the philanthropy part because

41:45

for a maker, we're gonna pay for the services we're gonna pay for product

41:50

listings. Is it byproduct? Listing byproduct?

41:53

No. So the way it works is we have a membership

41:56

fee, a flat membership fee, which includes a number of listings.

41:58

So for let's say we have a $5 plan for the

42:00

$5 plan, you can list up to a hundred products.

42:03

Whoa, that's a lot. Yeah. And for the $10 plan,

42:06

it's a thousand products. So unlike, well just use Etsy as the example cause everyone knows them.

42:11

They do a 20 cent listing fee.

42:13

We have none of that. Ours is just a flat monthly rate that you can plan

42:16

on. Then we take a small transaction fee like every marketplace.

42:20

In our case right now it's up to 5%.

42:22

Our fee is 5% without any other hidden fees other than

42:26

the Stripe fee. Cause I wanna be transparent, Stripe charges their 2.9%.

42:30

Well Stripe is coming from Stripe. So everyone understands like that just flows through.

42:35

You can't do anything about that. And so this is getting to the point that I was

42:38

trying to understand. So is it 5% or whatever the percentage is 5%,

42:43

5% to go imagine and then you can call 3% goes

42:46

to Stripe because, so it's 8% total is what's coming outta your transaction.

42:50

So 8% And so then a portion of that 5% is

42:55

what's being donated forward, right? Absolutely,

42:58

yes. Okay. I was trying to understand where the money came from.

43:02

That was the charitable portion of the money.

43:04

So that's important to distinguish. So the whole,

43:07

as we talked about earlier, the real passion here is to create a philanthropic marketplace,

43:12

right? We're doing it in handmade, we're doing it with the support of the maker community.

43:15

But the idea is to continue to grow this. And the bigger we get,

43:18

the more we get to donate. Now we've been donating from day one,

43:22

even when we were operating at a loss, right? So we've donated,

43:25

I wanna say $20,000 to four different charities so far,

43:29

which I mean it's tough when you're a startup, you know, I'd love to say it was a million dollars,

43:32

but so far we've donated $20,000. It's gonna get there.

43:35

It's just not yet. So with the supports,

43:38

we've donate about $20,000 to the four charities that you can see listed on our

43:41

site. You can go to that site and see the charity partners. We can talk about 'em.

43:44

Now the goal, our real goal is to,

43:47

as we grow in the donations grow with it,

43:50

is that our maker community can help us guide where those

43:54

donations go so that eventually the vendors will have input.

43:57

At this point, it hasn't been enough money to wanna like have a big

44:00

vote or anything on where the money goes. So we just let people know where we're donating it.

44:03

But I see a path where the makers get a part

44:07

of the decision and that goes into where we're giving the ownership to the makers to start getting them involved on those

44:13

decisions. So we run a similar model as Newman's own.

44:16

I use a lot because a lot of people know Newman's

44:19

own, they've been around 40 years and they've done the same

44:21

thing that we're doing but with salad dressing, right? And Patagonia just last year,

44:25

which is exciting for us, changed their business model into an all profits to charity model

44:30

as, and that's, you can look up as Patagonia's doing something similar now too.

44:34

And I truly believe that this is the future of where

44:36

you can create what we call a caring economy.

44:39

But you can also use the word conscious capitalism.

44:41

There's conscious capitalism and then there's predatory capitalism.

44:45

And capitalism I think is a wonderful thing.

44:47

I mean it's, it's the re it's the foundation of our country.

44:50

But runaway capitalism can also do a lot of bad things

44:54

in the world due to greed, right? And so this model is a model that I believe

44:59

can support the employees at the company,

45:02

support the maker selling and do good in the world with

45:05

the money you're making. Right? And you know,

45:07

I know it's a a lofty goal but beyond all the

45:11

other stuff we talked about the marketplace, this is really where I think the handmade community with us

45:16

has an opportunity to show the world.

45:19

There's a better way to say there is a better way.

45:22

Cuz just like I mentioned earlier, marketplaces are nothing more than a community.

45:26

The buyer goes to Etsy is cuz they know the handmade

45:29

sellers there. The reason the seller sells on that sea,

45:32

cuz they know the handmade buyers there. It has nothing to do with Etsy,

45:35

has nothing to do with Amazon. You don't care what the site was called.

45:38

Just that you know, they're there. And if the community in the world rallies around a concept

45:43

like this, there's that vision of it's the same maker,

45:46

it's the same price, it's the same product,

45:48

everything's the same. What's different?

45:51

Children are getting helped. That's the only difference.

45:55

And who doesn't want that? Yeah. So John,

45:58

this is now passed, we're a little bit late for this,

46:00

but I created a nationally recognized day for Makers.

46:06

It's called National Baker's Crafters Makers Day on January 21st.

46:11

So it's just passed. But for the episode I have two episodes that were recognizing

46:18

and honoring makers. And in one of them I put out a questionnaire to

46:23

Makers about what value they gave their customers and what value

46:27

their businesses gave them and everything.

46:30

The, a whole umbrella was giving and caring and spreading joy

46:35

to the world, right? And we've also done some podcasts and I,

46:39

this is leading to a point, we've done some podcasts from people who have started their business

46:45

also with a give back element.

46:47

And most of the time it's a give back element because

46:50

it's something that the maker has experienced personally,

46:53

right? Illness. Yep. Whatever it is.

46:57

And I know that there are a lot of makers who

46:59

would like to do that but have no idea,

47:01

number one, how to set it up from a tax standpoint.

47:04

Some people will say, oh, a certain percentage of a couple products is gonna go

47:08

to maybe their local fire station or some type of a

47:12

project. But I'm seeing this also as an opportunity for makers

47:16

to join something bigger than just themselves.

47:19

They don't have to do anything to also help promote the

47:23

fact that sales from their products through go imagined go to

47:28

your Groups, right? Absolutely.

47:30

Yeah. That's the whole idea was the idea is like we're

47:34

not asking anyone to do something different. Sometimes Makers will contact us or find us and say,

47:38

wait, so I donate my money? Like no, you're donating nothing.

47:41

In fact our makers are making more money cause we take

47:44

less of a transaction fee. It's that we're doing the donating through the business model.

47:49

And have you ever heard the term arising tide floats all

47:51

boats? Oh of course. Yes. Right.

47:54

And that's kind of how I envision every marketplace.

47:56

And up until now the internet has been a new thing

48:00

and marketplaces came around, what probably the two thousands was when they really started to

48:05

blow up and where money greed follows,

48:08

right? And where greed goes, so does like,

48:11

you know, wall Street and we don't want to get into that. I mean like I have no real negative input other than

48:16

the fact that we could do good in the world. But the point is,

48:19

is that we're now in a more mature internet.

48:21

We're in a mature online environment where now we see how

48:26

the public world and society is getting built online and naturally

48:31

corporations were the first to get there cuz there was money

48:34

and all the other people who weren't trying to rush to

48:36

the money are kind of seeing the effects later.

48:39

It's now 10 years later, corporations got there 15 years ago and everyone's going,

48:43

holy crap everyone, it's all corporations that own the world.

48:46

And I wrote a blog about this, but if you look at what a marketplace is,

48:50

and I'm not talking online, I'm talking about a real world marketplace,

48:54

physical marketplace, maybe in your town square once in a while at your

48:57

town football field or they put it on in the town

49:00

common. It was a public space, it was a space for everyone going.

49:04

If you paid for the booth, it was actually going to the town that owned that land

49:07

and it was to help build the road, right? Marketplaces,

49:10

if you look at other huge marketplaces on one I love

49:12

is in Seattle Pike's Market. You know,

49:15

if you look at the Grand Bazaar in the Middle East,

49:17

these were built as public goods for everyone to come and

49:21

sell their wares. But the internet has slowly become owned by private companies and

49:27

now all these private companies are owning the marketplaces.

49:31

And sadly a lot of the physical marketplaces are dying because

49:34

everyone shop online. And I know I'm going on a tangent here,

49:38

but the whole vision is these marketplaces should be public.

49:41

Why do you have to pay a private corporation to get

49:45

seen by the public to sell? And so the whole concept here is let's build a better

49:49

foundation for marketplaces. And the best way I could think to do it was

49:54

philanthropically the government's not gonna open an online marketplace right now.

49:58

Your town would've, your towns, towns do,

50:00

but towns don't open online companies. So gosh,

50:03

it's just, in my mind I'm like, it's such a simple concept that can have such profound effects

50:09

if people come together. And I love what you were just saying about your January

50:14

21st event about how many makers want to give back,

50:18

how many, and that's part of the reason I thought handmade was such

50:20

a great place to go is cuz artists have such a

50:24

big heart, right? And so as we grow the company,

50:28

the reason we are actually giving ownership to the makers,

50:30

and as I mentioned to you in that I think intro

50:32

I sent you is we're giving them board seats to sit

50:35

on the board is cause we want the makers to be

50:37

involved in the decisions, right? And, and who knows where that's gonna go?

50:41

I don't even know yet. Because you're saying, you know,

50:43

makers want to give to their fire department or their,

50:46

their local homeless shelter, whatever. And maybe our community decides that we'll work towards a

50:50

path where instead of go, imagine doing a charity,

50:53

you get to pick the charity of your choice and a

50:56

percentage of the sales that we would donate go to that

50:58

charity you're choosing, right? I dunno there's an option Or a split,

51:02

like some support the charities that you've already designated,

51:06

but another could support a local charity.

51:08

You could do like a combination too.

51:11

Yes. But this is a decision for the community.

51:13

And I'm not sure if you, did you see that Amazon Smile is ending?

51:16

Yeah, I did see that. Yeah. So,

51:20

but why is that? And I read a whole article about it.

51:22

It's because, well, they did it for a while, but you know,

51:24

times are tough. They're laying off people.

51:27

The first thing that matters is their bottom line, not the charities.

51:30

And, and that's the wrong way of thinking. Cuz if anything,

51:33

the people who need the money more now are the charities.

51:35

Right, Right. Well, you know,

51:38

there's another angle here that was coming to my mind as

51:41

you were talking, and that is one of the pain points of a lot

51:44

of makers is the price of the product.

51:47

Because it is, you know, you're gonna buy a soap between handmade soap,

51:51

I don't know, 5 50,

51:53

7 50, you know, depending on size and ingredients and all of that.

51:57

Or you could buy Dove at the grocery store for a

52:01

dollar 50, like whatever. I have not shopped soap for a long time except for

52:04

handmade. So I don't know what the grocery store prices of

52:08

far, but when people are out at craft shows,

52:11

I know that there is feedback about how high priced handmade

52:15

is. And then they of course have to go into the

52:17

value of the product and what you're getting and how it's

52:20

different, et cetera. Right. But if there's an element of give back,

52:24

people are way more willing to pay more for a product.

52:28

They're getting the product, they're doing something good for somebody else just by obtaining that

52:35

product. So I can see this overlay being significant also and

52:39

helping makers sell their products at the prices that they deserve.

52:43

By the way, you know, when you're taking into account everything that goes into a price,

52:48

so it could help prompt sales as well with that overlay.

52:52

Absolutely. In fact, that's where both on the seller side and the buyer side

52:56

can go Imagine standpoint is we are a mission-driven business.

52:59

And some people, mission doesn't matter, but there's a whole heck of a lot of people where

53:03

Mission does. Yeah. Right? And that's why they buy the Tom's shoes.

53:06

They buy the Bombas socks or anything else. It's cause of the mission or the Newman's.

53:10

The Newman's own salad dressing. It's cause they know not,

53:12

oh, maybe it's 25 cents more. Maybe it's 50 cents more.

53:15

But they also know they're supporting a company doing good.

53:18

And as we grow and the community grows, more people get to know about this mission.

53:22

And mind you, from a tech standpoint, it's just not just just about the community growing,

53:26

but we're investing more and more in development. So the platform is gonna get better in like as a

53:31

startup, there's things that if you joined us right now, you'd say,

53:33

I wish I did this. I wish I did that. Well, trust me,

53:35

we're working on that. Well stay tuned and we can all relate.

53:38

Right? Like when all of us started our businesses and we've

53:41

been in business for a while, it didn't look like it does today on day one.

53:45

I mean, it's a development. It's a course.

53:47

Oh yeah. Yeah. So, all right.

53:50

Well I'm looking at the time here and I think we

53:53

should start to wrap up You all day though,

53:56

Sue. I know we could, but then we won't get to all of the rest that

53:59

everybody's going to need to know. So kind of summarize for someone who's listening,

54:04

who's we've peaked their interest here.

54:07

Summarize what the value is of Go Imagine,

54:09

and then where they should go to learn more,

54:12

find out more. Or if maybe they're even ready to get started.

54:16

Where do all those channels lead? Yeah. So first thing I'd say is go imagines a community

54:20

of makers working together to do good in the world.

54:22

That's kind of like what we are now,

54:25

what value we bring to the makers. We mentioned that there's your PRI option to have a private

54:29

website. We of course, are building a marketplace with more and more buyers who are

54:33

coming to the marketplace to find your goods.

54:35

And we also have a growing community for you to get to know other makers that are working the same direction you

54:39

are. You can find out more about us. Go to Go imagine.com.

54:42

That's where you have to go. If you scroll to the bottom, you'll see a lot of information under the sale section where

54:47

you can see how to open a shop, see our handmade guidelines.

54:49

Everything else I guess I will mention, which I don't have to mention.

54:52

But yeah, we're all handmade. We're all in on handmade.

54:55

That's who we are. And the big thing we're doing right now,

54:58

we just had our first meeting last month with the community,

55:00

is that we're actually in the process of giving ownership to

55:03

our handmade community, which is, we talked come with voting rights and board representation because we

55:08

want the handmade community to have a hand, no pun intended,

55:11

in building this company. And that comes from a foundational level of having a seat

55:15

on the board and having voting rights and having involvement in

55:18

the decisions we make. If you tune in, if you go to our Go Imagine Facebook group,

55:21

you're gonna get a lot of these announcements. We're going live on that group a lot.

55:24

Talk about this stuff. So if you wanna just hear what's going on,

55:27

join our Facebook group or join our email list and stay

55:31

in touch. I hope you join our Caring Economy.

55:33

Oh, I love that. And everything is Go Imagine,

55:35

right? Go imagine. Yeah. We do have an app called Maker Circle,

55:39

which is our community app, which is a social app you'll see on Go Imagine.

55:42

But that's member only. So you have to become a member,

55:45

get into that community. But that's the app.

55:47

It's called Maker Service. Okay. But in terms of any social or their website,

55:50

it's all go Imagine. Yes. There are a bunch of Go Imagine Facebook groups now.

55:55

Cause some, some of our members had it. There's one called the Go Imagine Official Makers Group that's ours.

56:00

But I think there's like 10 different Goma because it's a

56:03

hundred Etsy groups out there now too. So you don't see a lot of us.

56:06

We love people supporting it. So we don't stop people from creating their own custom Go

56:10

Imagine groups, but look for the Official Makers Group is what it's called

56:14

it. Well, I'm really excited to watch how this develops.

56:18

I mean, there's no question in my mind that it's going to be

56:20

a success and the fact that you're already taking actions that

56:24

are proving what you say. It's not like, well, we're gonna do this,

56:26

we're gonna do this. You're already giving back,

56:28

you're already attracting people, you're already listening to the community and it's just gonna grow

56:34

from here. I'm very excited about Go Imagine and everything that it can

56:38

offer. Well, I'm very excited that you're excited,

56:41

Sue. I'm, I'm glad that you invited me here.

56:43

I appreciate It. There you go. Well, thank you so much for coming on today and telling

56:47

us all about Go Imagine. Thank you.

56:52

I absolutely love everything Go Imagine offers.

56:56

And what's fabulous already I know is going to get better

57:00

and better. When owners offer you voting rights and board representation,

57:06

that's the sign that they truly want your input to make

57:09

the company the best that it can be for you.

57:13

It's got my vote. I wanna make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook group

57:19

called Gift Miss Breeze. It's a place where we all gather and our community to

57:26

support each other. I got a really fun post in there that's my favorite

57:30

of the week, I have to say, where I invite all of you to share what you're doing

57:35

to show pictures of your product, to show what you're working on for the week,

57:39

to get reaction from other people. And just for fun,

57:43

because we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody

57:47

in the community is making. My favorite post every single week.

57:52

Without doubt. Wait, what?

57:55

Aren't you part of the group already? If not,

57:58

make sure to jump over to Facebook and search for the

58:01

group Gift Biz Breeze. Don't delay.