[Voiceover]: Welcome to the checkout. We catch up with previous add to cart guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get you through your Friday.
Nathan Bush: Today's checkout features Amanda New and Ken Lau, co founders of the direct to consumer furniture and homewares brand Eva. Established in Melbourne in 2017, Eva is disrupting the usual suspects in this space. Not only do they have beautiful design, amazing customer reviews and a B Corp certified, they also offer a massive 365 day money back guarantee. Ken and Amanda, we've heard all about your story so far with Eva and all about your days selling from ebay and into neuropsychology. We covered actually a lot of ground, but we're here to learn a little bit more about you both. So five quick questions. Number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Ken Lau: So the weirdest thing I bought online is a carton of coconut water.
Nathan Bush: Why did you get that online?
Ken Lau: Because it's cheaper. Because I'm thrifty and like no matter how big the business is or how big or small or how much money you have, at the end of the day I want to save money. And I realized that buying online and buying a cotton saves me a dollar each. Cotton. So yeah, that's weird, but that's okay.
Nathan Bush: What about you, Amanda?
Amanda Niu: I don't know if it's the weirdest thing, but I recently bought my dog a light up collar. So it's getting dark pretty early nowadays. And so when we go to the park, I really can't see where he goes and I'm not sure if he knows where he's going either. So I thought let's get you some light when you're running around.
Nathan Bush: Makes a lot of sense.
Ken Lau: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: All right, number two, who is your favorite retailer?
Ken Lau: My favorite retailer is Everlane. So I've actually followed Everlane for close to 10 to 12 years right now. And I really like the business because it provides a lot of transparency. They also provide like they essentially have radical transparency all the way in terms of where things are made and how much things are cost as well. So yeah, I think that's one of the values that I've kind of brought from them and I've kind of try to infuse into eva.
Nathan Bush: I'm actually this is an Everlane T shirt right now. But it's really interesting what you said there, Ken, in terms of what you're talking about before with the coconut water and price being a point. And obviously you want to do business in the right way. Is that a discussion or a decision that you come up against often?
Ken Lau: Yeah, definitely. I think, like businesses, I mean, it's tough. It's very, very hard to do it because at the end of the day, business needs to come first. And I think we need to make decisions based on the survival of the business. If it comes down to it. And it's not about me, not about you, and can't take things personal. It's about ensuring that the organization survives and take the next step. So I think that's the mindset that I trained myself and kind of worked towards over the last few years.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, makes sense. Amanda, what about you? Who's your favorite retailer?
Amanda Niu: My favorite retailer is Mecca. I have absolutely loved their journey. They've been around for ages. I think they were one of the earliest e commerce companies out there as well, back in the day when shopping online was such a scary thing to do. Imagine putting your credit card details on this sort of online portal was just unheard of at that time. But they took the leap and it was so impressive. But I also love them because I think they've always had a really strong focus on their customer and experience and community. I think that served them so well over these last two decades and something that I hope that Eva can carve out for ourselves as well.
Nathan Bush: And has it got to the point with Mecca? When you're in the market for something that you can buy from Mecca that you don't even shop around anymore?
Amanda Niu: That's pretty much what I'm doing all the time.
Nathan Bush: It's the pinnacle, isn't it, for retail?
Amanda Niu: Exactly. They've just done a really great job.
Nathan Bush: All right, number three, which e commerce practice do you wish was history? I might start with you, Amanda.
Amanda Niu: It's a tough one because I don't profess to be an e commerce expert, having come from a very different field and so with very limited experience here. I guess it's one of those things about being everywhere all at once. I think it used to be one of those things where it's okay wherever the customer is, let's just put ourselves there. But nowadays, I guess with how expensive it's been trying to acquire new customers, it's probably not as sustainable anymore. And so I think it's really trying to be as strategic as you can. Let's make sure that we're putting our money where we know it's going to work as opposed to just spreading ourselves too thin.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah, makes sense, Ken. The thing that The e commerce practice you wish was history.
Ken Lau: Don't be everything to everyone. Always start with a niche. And you think about it, all the biggest brands out there, Amazon, start with books. Tesla cars, Kogan TVs, for example. Everyone's nailed down a niche. Then you expand, essentially, if you can.
Nathan Bush: That's a really good point. It's actually funny, isn't it? I went looking the other day for a physical book and I was like, some of prime member. I was like, I'll just get through prime because I need it tomorrow. You actually can't get many books now off Amazon, really. They're all Kindles and ebooks. And so if you actually try to find the physical version or end up at Booktopia, but. But where you start isn't necessarily where you finish. I think it's a great lesson.
Ken Lau: Yeah, exactly. It's always changing day in, day out. I think businesses, you know, this is like life, just every day is a different day. Let's put it that way.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. All right, number four, Ken, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Ken Lau: So the book I would recommend would be the Hard Things about the Hard Things. So I think, as you know, entrepreneurship tends to be a lot of articles and stories about. Entrepreneurship is more about, look at me, how great I'm doing and look at how much money, how much revenue. But those are the vanity stuff. And there's a lot of crap that goes behind. There's a lot of pain, a lot of struggles that people don't really talk about. And I think I love that book because the book just dives deep into, like, the struggles that you have as a founder or someone that's running a business that no one actually sees it unless you're actually in it.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. And I got that from you straight away from our main episode when we look talking about your backstory. And straight away you went, well, there were two big lessons that I learned straight away, the things that went wrong. And it made me who I am today. So I can see that you've adopted that philosophy really well. Amanda, can you recommend a book or
Amanda Niu: a podcast, a book that I've. I guess I constantly find myself going back to? Well, there's two. One is the messy middle. That one, particularly because I treat it as my sort of manager bible. I think a lot of the things that we're going through, especially sort of growing from, you know, from zero to 30 people now, lots of things are breaking, and there's a lot of things that we need to sort of focus on, in terms of knowledge transfer in general to the staff and ensuring that people remain empowered and taking that sort of human centered approach when things do come up. I think that that book, it really sort of takes and guides you through how to sort of approach these sort of situations. The second book which I find myself coming back to often is the Personal mba. So I don't have an mba. And I think the book, it's kind of like a. Oh, you've got it.
Nathan Bush: Amazing.
Amanda Niu: I find that it's like, it's almost like a business hack book. Like all the hacks are in there and just understanding the concepts of, you know, how to run a business, what do we look at? And it's got really great references to things. Even if you want to dive in deeper, it does recommend other resources to read into. And yeah, I think it's a really good sort of bible, Business Bible in that sense.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, it's a great resource. And for anyone who missed the excitement because I forgot that we're an audio medium, not a visual medium, I actually have it on my bookshelf right above where we're talking. So a shared love of the Personal mba. So great recommendation. All right, I'll throw to both of you. Whoever wants to jump in first, finish this sentence. The future of retail is convenience.
Ken Lau: Omnichannel.
Nathan Bush: Convenience and omnichannel, do they work together?
Amanda Niu: Most definitely.
Nathan Bush: Love it. How good. Amanda, Ken, thank you so much for joining us on the checkout.
Amanda Niu: My pleasure.
Ken Lau: Thank you so much, man.
Nathan Bush: To hear more from Amanda and Ken jump back into episode 202 where they share how their 365 day guarantee came about and how they had the confidence to make such a strong customer promise up front. We also dive into Ken and Amanda's backstories. Neuropsychologist meets electrical engineer. You don't hear that every day. And impossibly, the most important piece of information that you can ever get on Add to cart, we dive into the secret world of the mattress industry and share how to select the mattress that's best for you and optimal sleep. Thanks for listening. And until next time, keep adding to cart.
