Inherent Loyalty in the Ecommerce Realm w/ Kadion Preston | Ep. 98

In this podcast episode, David is out of town and Gary, along with Big Pixel’s Marketing Director, Christie Pronto, take the podcast overseas to the Caribbean- we WISH! But they do chat with Kadion Preston, Founder and CEO of Caribshopper- and discuss how to run a successful ecommerce business in the age of COVID, taxes and those pesky regulations.

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kadionpreston/

https://caribshopper.com/

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Our Hosts

David Baxter - CEO of Big Pixel

Gary Voigt - Creative Director at Big Pixel

The Podcast

David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

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Transcript

Gary: 0:06

Hello, and welcome to the biz dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. And I'm your host today Gary Voigt. David Baxter is not with us he's on vacation, but filling his spot. Much better, much brighter, much smarter. arkose for the day, Christy Bronto, our marketing director and say hello, Christine. Hello, everyone.

Christie: 0:25

This is my podcast debut. Greetings.

Gary: 0:29

And joining us today as a guest, please welcome Katie on Preston KTN. Thanks for joining us.

Kadion: 0:36

Thanks for inviting me, Gary. And it's great that Christie is first time on the podcast is with is with me. So let's, let's make it fun. Gentle, be gentle.

Gary: 0:45

Yeah. Yes, straight up professionals here or also experienced this is going to be just smooth sailing the entire time I guarantee it. Or at least the editing will make it look like

Christie: 0:57

I'll do my best.

Gary: 0:59

Katie, you're the founder and CEO of carob. Shopper, or Caribbean. So how would you pronounce that?

Kadion: 1:06

It's carob shopper, carrot. So carob for Caribbean? Yeah. And of course, we all know what shopper means.

Gary: 1:13

It's an ecommerce marketplace for Caribbean made products. We're going to talk in just a minute and get a little bit more into how you started it. But I did want to ask as we, when I say we, me and Christy kind of look through the website, and I recognize some of the products. I'm living in Florida. So we do have a lot of these products in the area. Christy loved the way the site was built. So it made me think immediately if you build the site custom development, or did you use like new code platforms like Shopify or Webflow? Or what's the backbone of the same

Kadion: 1:49

sort of the side is actually a no code platform called Shopify. Shopify we it is Shopify, we edited a template to fit our needs. It was after try number three. So we went we started with Magento, then we went to WooCommerce. And then yeah, we're here now. And it makes sense spending our time on on the customer experience, rather than building a platform that so many exists.

Gary: 2:17

Yeah, and Shopify is a great tool. We love it, we use it, we recommend it to our clients all the time, it's way more effective to use a platform that already exists and has a great reputation than to try to create something custom from scratch, especially when it comes to just the transactional, like privacy, security and pulling in the different kinds of payment methods. Yeah, Shopify is great.

Kadion: 2:39

And the ecosystem that Shopify has built, allows you to spin up and execute a lot of tools, sales, tools, marketing tools, whatever you need very quickly, which is a little bit different from the experience I had starting out with other platforms.

Gary: 2:57

They're integrating, I think, to name other companies, they're kind of putting in like a MailChimp component as well, if I'm correct, yeah. Can you spin up my own pages and send direct emails? Pretty, I think, do they also connect to integrate with other no code? No code platforms, like databases like air table and stuff like that?

Kadion: 3:21

So I'm not sure I haven't used it for that. We've used air table in internally for separate reasons. But we haven't thought to connect it with with Shopify. How we built our platform, because we're a marketplace, Shopify isn't really built for marketplace. So the back end, which is one of the most critical components of a back end of marketplace, we built that internally. So we spent the time on building that internally. Because that was the missing point. But from a front end standpoint, Shopify is excellent.

Gary: 3:58

This brings up another question I had immediately when I was looking at say, Are these products being imported and then shipped again? Or are they shipped from a place in the United States has already imported them from?

Kadion: 4:15

Me? So the interesting thing is our mission is is authentic cabin made goods? Yeah, so one of the things for us to have a true impact on that Gary, and Christie are fulfillment centers are in the Caribbean countries. So today we're in Jamaica, Trinidad. We're building out our centers in in Baja in Barbados, sorry, Guyana. And we're thinking of whether Bahamas or Grenada, but it's all shipping from that country. And so the reason for that is not all products are domiciled here that we carry out. We have close to about 1000 skews on the platform between the two countries. So it's more convenient and also structured, better structured as having our fulfillment centers in the islands. And so we ship from there. Okay. And it also it also aids the customers to get the freshest products. Because a lot of times we don't we don't acquire the products with long shelf life long shelf life sustainability, we do the short self sustainability ones.

Gary: 5:27

Is there a whole rigmarole with customs and shipping food products or products you have to shy away from?

Kadion: 5:35

Oh, my God. I mean, look, there are three major barriers, Gary, the big barrier is understanding cross border e commerce, from the Caribbean to US and Canadian markets. And we're about to open the UK, and being able to make that cost effective. That's number one. The second barrier is understanding the the the responsibilities and departments that you have to get your products, right, whether it be FDA customs, whether you need licenses to carry certain things. And so we've we've done on a lot of those heavy liftings. And interestingly, in are close to three years in operation. I mean, we started in February 2020. Our biggest challenges for cross border ecommerce came this year, when we change our shipping method because of our growth rate. And we've had to go through some of the toughest times in getting those challenges resolved. And yeah, it's it's a barrier. And so we're more removing friction for our merchants.

Gary: 6:40

Awesome. Now you said you started in 2020. February, came up with the idea is that when you put the idea in executed into business, how did you come up with the idea to create a marketplace to ship goods from Trinidad Tobago, Caribbean, Jamaica, to the US.

Kadion: 6:59

So the idea started, the audio started in, I think it was 2015 2015. My brother and I we were we had just we've gotten ready to to sell or a or existing company that we had for over 16 years. And we were like what's next. And because of our background, our mother was an entrepreneur, she built a money a children's manufacturing business in Jamaica and looking at the market and realizing that things are the same. Since when our mother built her business in 1989, it's still the top 12 to 15% of manufacturers that are able to export their products internationally to their diasporic customer base or customer base that might have been introduced to these products. And for us living in states in different countries in different cities are made us realize that there's a big opportunity in solving this problem. And so, in 2017, we got the idea to control e commerce for for the Caribbean. So we started building the export of US products into the Caribbean and with the plan to do the import. And after a year and a half. On that side of the business, we said the margins are too tight. And we should just focus on what we started to do, which is to build the export model. And we literally walked down that business and spent 2019 working on Product Market Fit study. Traveling through the Caribbean meeting manufacturers directly seeing their challenges seem to challenges on the compliance side to the US and the Canadian border. Because those are two export markets and formulating a plan and then looking for a first team member in December 2019. And officially started a company in February right before the pandemic perfect. Like two weeks, like literally.

Gary: 9:05

Recently, a lot of the guests that we've had, and we we've talked to quite a few the pandemic seem to either really help accelerate their digital business, or forced them to switch from one idea to another, that in a lot of cases ended up being a better idea. So I'm curious in your situation when you're about to launch and hit go. And then the pandemic hits. What are you feeling?

Kadion: 9:34

So when we when we started in February, we were starting to, to work on building out the infrastructure for the for the platform so we weren't going to the public. Our plan wasn't to go to the public until 2021. But spell it spend a time building out the product the entire categories, getting all of the infrastructure in place when the pandemic Hit. I can't. To be very honest, I was very, very nervous, filled with anxiety because every single plan, every single strategy that we had in place had to change because the islands got extremely strict on their no touch policy, like Trinidad was shut down for a year, like nobody left their homes because that's an oil country. Jamaica had like hard real hard shutdowns, curfews, you name it and hiring new staff, everybody remote, getting everybody trained, understanding rules, responsibilities, how we're going to work with that week by week challenges and changes. That was a challenge, but it did. The pandemic did aid us in that merchants as a startup. merchants were excited to onboard with us they were they were shutting down in their own people's hands.

Gary: 10:56

Yeah, they're busy. So sorry, that probably also gives them a lot of challenges, which is shipping as well, because

Kadion: 11:03

they did. It did. We couldn't we couldn't touch shipping until we did our first shipment in beta, I think March 2021. And then we started smoothing out the process. And then then officially, we launched September 2021.

Gary: 11:20

Okay, so it took a while for that it took

Kadion: 11:23

a while. It slowed us down, but it made adoption. Yeah, it slowed us down, Gary. But it made adoption very quick with with with merchants, because our our model is that we work directly with the manufacturers, we don't allow resellers on our platform. Okay,

Christie: 11:40

I was I'm just so intrigued by the whole idea. When we interview people frequently, it's always that they've whittled the idea down to such a finite point that there is no other place to go, but success and that idea. But then like you're saying something else extraneous happens, like COVID. And it sort of pivots everything in a way that's like sink or swim, we spoke to a woman who has a it's like a farm fresh food to table type of delivery system. And they were having issues pre pandemic. And then during the pandemic, it took bit a bit like you had said to sort of reorganize their thoughts around it. But then pretty much after that, it was just like the need was there, those relationships that you had with the vendors, they were hungry for that. And so it sort of takes your idea and pivots it and accelerates it, which I just think it's really, really interesting. And something we've heard as a trend when we when we talk to business owners that have started right around that COVID time, which is really cool.

Gary: 12:33

Yeah, it seems like the delivery business or whatever, you know, digital shopping and things being delivered to you, without like a point of contact seem to really just kind of explode. And if it was done right. That I would say the acceleration in that. And then the adaptation, like you were saying didn't seem to slow down. Seems like the business that businesses that were doing it right, kind of kept their headway. So I was curious to know, yeah, you Kadian is business still growing? Or did you see like a spike and then a plateau no slow growth? Or is it still just shooting?

Kadion: 13:11

No businesses still growing for us? Luckily for us, outside of last three months where we had FDA issues, business is still growing for us. And we're loving the the opportunities that present itself. Just to add to your point, Gary, and Christy. I remember talking to one of my, my mentors, and he told me that go back in history, and connect the dots on when Alibaba took off. And interestingly, it was in I think it was 2012, when SARS first came out, that the adoption of Alibaba got really impactful because people were shut down from traveling to Asia. So it was a very, very good point. It made me comfortable to pivot and make the decisions that were making on that time. As hard as it was, it was interesting.

Gary: 14:07

It has worked before in the past as long as you stuck to it. For people who don't know, which I don't know, most of our listeners might or might not know, Alibaba is like the Amazon of Asia. So it's their number one digital shopping platform, e commerce platform, or I guess it would be more of an empire than a platform at this. So you mentioned you started with your brother. Is he still part of the company today?

Kadion: 14:36

So interestingly, no. My brother and I have been partners for close to easily best friends and partners for close to five business partners probably 18 years. In 2022. He's about three years older than me, he he wants to do something different with with his life and And I understood where he was coming from. And it was a life shifting moment for him. And so he, he sought out to do that. And I'm, I'm very happy for him.

Gary: 15:10

So a business like yours, I'm assuming you said you shifted your company to all remote employees? How many employees? Do you have at this point? Is it a small company still like five to 10? Or is it over? 1010 to 20?

Kadion: 15:27

It's 26. Today.

Gary: 15:29

Okay, so you have experienced some growth. People working in multiple countries that you have to manage

Kadion: 15:41

for countries to be exact for Okay, so we have employees in Jamaica, Trinidad, Colombia, and the US.

Gary: 15:52

How is that? Do you have some area and it just sent for you? Are you involved in that? Because I know, as I have a question, again, into the your position here, but I could just imagine the logistical nightmare that might be trying to get everybody on the same. So

Kadion: 16:11

it is challenging, remote work, it kills you on meetings. So if I look at my calendar, if I look on Google Calendar, and look at my use of time, meetings probably take about 65% of my time, weekly. And so this year, we set out, we had a meeting, a leadership meeting and started a year, we set out to try and bring everybody back in, right to cut down that meeting time and also bring more synergy. So we have looked to expand our offices in the local markets. And we even expanding our office in plantation Florida, in order to have less meetings and more in person communication, because we're missing some of the innovativeness and also ease touch items that are missed with bad communication.

Gary: 17:09

Yeah, now, big pixel, the company that we work for is all remote. And it kind of always has been, it was David who founded it was basically a freelancer, who then decided to turn his custom software development freelancing into a business, and then would hire contractors to help when the workload got to be too much. And then after a while, those contractors would stick around long enough for him to be able to hire them on and then it kind of grew from there. So from the core, we've always been a remote company. But like you said, Being remote does have some challenges and the meetings, yeah, there are quite a few meetings. But there's also opportunities where you can utilize the culture of being a remote company with the I guess you can call individualism, or a lot of the people that want to work remote, have that in them, you know what I mean? Some people don't like working remote. Some people do some people for it. And you can tell, usually, within the first couple of months, whether you're working with a contractor or just someone is added to the team, whether that synergy is going to happen, remote or not. So in our case, we worked out, but I can totally understand in your business, and especially if there's something that's like a quick thing that if two people were looking at it could be solved in five minutes, versus if two people had to communicate for a day and a half to come up with a solution. Yeah, that's a different, that's a different beast altogether. But

Christie: 18:47

well, and also to I would have to think like industry innovation for you guys, for e commerce, if you're all separated, some of the things that were on you daily aren't something that you get to talk about in the same setting every day. And those types of things come down with innovation is like all this thing that we keep on this rub of like this one merchant we're having or this trouble we keep having and if it's something that's consistent in the workplace that you talk about, innovation sort of comes from that when you're all together, and you can spit ball sort of ideas on how to how to problem solve that or change that. And so sometimes that's hard, you know, in a huddle, you know, in a in a remote in a remote type setting. So I can totally see that for you guys in your group growing so quickly. It's like you lose touch of sort of those like spark conversations that you can have, you know, by the watercooler?

Kadion: 19:32

Absolutely. And you also miss the little things right. So a lot of emails, a lot of slack, a lot of phone calls, and then that the little pointers that the small changes that need to be made or in a small message and so that that becomes critical in the end is Miss and so definitely looking to go where we're pushing to open up bigger offices, so we have more employees coming in than being being remote.

Gary: 20:02

Do you have if you're importing everything directly from the countries, and it's going directly from the producer to consumer, there's no

Kadion: 20:12

middle ground or fulfillment. Or the middle ground is? Yeah.

Gary: 20:16

So your if you do have fulfillment centers that do require workers, okay. Yeah, that's nice. We have to

Kadion: 20:21

undo the customer experience gearing. Okay. So all orders come to more Oh, yeah. Or, or fulfillment centers?

Gary: 20:29

Wow, that just gave me another big question. What kind of, and I don't even know if I want to ask this. But I can imagine if you're shipping things in constantly, and some of the items are coming up, broken, open, or whatever, like, then you have to return it to the manufacturer before you can even ship it to the consumer. Or like, what's what's that kind of turnover margin, like in between getting the product in and then

Kadion: 20:55

so we are three and a half to four days on delivery times from an order is placed. Because we're using all air. Yeah, we're using all air, we're using all air and we keep fast moving consumer goods in were in stock. Right. So a merchant, which is a manufacturer has 24 hours to get an order to our facility and how we've set up our first mile Logistics is that they pretty much have on the island that there are easy access to get a product was overnight. When it comes on it when it when it when it leaves our fulfillment center, it lands same day in Miami. And then by the next morning goes out two days shipping. So we're anywhere depending depending on what part of the country, we're either between three and a half days, four and a half days delivered to a customer on returned were about 3.6% on returns and damages in total. I just put them all together. Go ahead, Gary. You're gonna say something?

Gary: 22:02

No, I was gonna say that's, that's low. Oh, yeah, I would think that's low. It's lower than I would have expected.

Kadion: 22:08

Yeah, yeah. So so we the reason for that is we take in the beginning, it was about 9%. And everything had to be put pressure on our on our packaging, just because we had a longer transit. And because returns were so expensive for us. Packaging we had, again, challenges happen, you focus on what's what was hitting you and what what's the fire that time so 2021 returned and damages were nine at one point, I think it was like 12%. And then we were looking at the costs. So we focused a lot of energy on packaging, brought it down to three, three and a half percent. And then but now packaging is taking too much time. Now we have goals. So it's crazy, you go from shift. So now in 2022 Towards the end of 2019, we're looking at, okay, we need to get orders out faster. So what's taking a lot of packaging right and and so now in 2023 We're looking at smart ways to package or, or shipments faster and spend less time doing it. And in spending less time we have to balance the fact that we have securing the products so we have less damages on in transit. So go figure go figure

Christie: 23:30

that on the whole other side of it it's great you've got all these logistics figured out you're figuring out the all that on the back end, but then how do you market to the PDF how do people even know that you exist and when I was looking at your site you like you guys have a blog everything is well curated the customer experience is you can tell us something that's very very thoughtful with you guys when did you really and of course I have some skin in this game because I am in marketing but when did you guys decide Okay, so now we've got all this figured out how did you go about marketing? Are you okay? We were going to do like a beauty and wellness and home and living blog here where we're taking our products and we're prescribing them to certain ideas that come up in our consumers day to day life that seems very thoughtful to me so when did when did that sort of element come into come into play with your with your founding of the idea.

Kadion: 24:18

That's that was the one that was one of our first acquisitions like or, or brand aesthetics or brand story how we're going to was one of our first was employee number four, and UX UI, everything was consistent. And we were very intentional on how we're going to get the message out there of of brand Caribbean made and supporting cultural commerce, how we're going to communicate to those customers. Because our first goal is to get to our or customer who is from the island who misses the island and who getting those products is not convenient. It's instant and accessible. We know that our communication will change over time. As a matter of fact, again, you work on things, you solve one problem, I think, to your point, Christy, we were intentional about that. And that was early days. I think no, we're going away from the curated experience to more. The real experience, I think that's one of the things that we've we've pulled out from our data, like our social media, we need to show a lot more of our people and your connections with us versus are our products and our content, well curated Instagram, well curated Facebook, but it's not converting the way we should be converting when we're served over 56,000 customers. And those customers have either good or bad experiences. And we need to be telling that story. So we're actually shifting from the way our content content is, is is or on social media, and also our our paid strategy.

Gary: 26:05

And you do have reviews and ratings on all your products on the homepage and stuff. So it was leveraging, like the reviews and the feedback that you're getting as part of the marketing. Where you're kind of going forward with that, or Yes. So

Kadion: 26:22

it was definitely to leverage that. You knew day one from, from all the experience that you've seen out there that reviews matter, especially for discovery of new product. For users to be confident that you're a real site, if you're a real new company, these things matter. And so that was that was Deewana, no architecture. And like I said, you know, three months ago, FDA we had, we've had a good NPS score. And when we had those issues with FDA manual reviews got blasted. And so,

Gary: 26:58

so because you got to do like reputation, man, now

Kadion: 27:01

we got to do reputation management, it's everyday, it's everyday. You could never foresee that getting, you know, almost 1200 packages on hold at the port not moving and have to figure out all the regulations and compliance things that you have to know do because you, you improved or changed your process. But yeah, it's a part of it. So

Christie: 27:27

my marketing brain is working for you. I was thinking you could always do like a day. And that's the way you were describing it. It's almost like a day in the life of a product from you from start to beginning. So the moment that person clicks or the moment it's even before that it's the feeling that is evoked with them from the culture, the thing that they're getting the experience that they had, and then they purchase that and then what does it take for your company to get that from start to finish into the consumers hands, that's a very interesting story to be seen and to experience that they can then understand, it's not just a review that they're leaving, it's like you are really trying to do your very best to get them what they've asked for in a system that is working against you a little bit right now.

Kadion: 28:05

That's a great idea, Chris. Yeah, my steal that one, I'll definitely give you a credit, I will allow you to give me a credit.

Gary: 28:13

Okay, cool. Big pixel gets 1% of all proceeds 1% of all proceeds. Sure. I had a question, David, even though he's not here, I can hear his squeaky little voice in the back of my head. And he's gonna want me to ask a question about leadership. So when you started the company, and then you grew it enough to start getting employees, how much of your job and what you were involved in? has changed?

Kadion: 28:43

My involvement, my involvement,

Gary: 28:46

you go from being the technician to the leader, but I'm sure like, what does that look like in an E commerce way?

Kadion: 28:53

In the beginning, in the beginning, in 2020, I'm doing everything I'm learning. I'm learning how

Gary: 28:59

we are founders are the same. Yeah, yeah.

Kadion: 29:02

You gotta you got to do every single job in your company, because you hire somebody to do it. If you don't know the components of that job, you either gonna be you're not going to be clear on what um, what success is right in that position. Yeah. So I literally did merchant success, which is the, which is the department that onboard new brands and manufacturers to our platform. I did packaging and packing boxes. I worked with, I did logistics. The only thing I didn't do hands on was marketing. But I'm doing marketing and through PR things that I'm doing or partnership relationships. So your job title changes, obviously, and I think where we are in our growth stages, I'm now coming taking a step out of operations and focusing on the long term vision and, and the big picture, I was always focused on the big picture items, but I'm going to be spending more of my time on the big picture items, the partnerships, the growth efforts, that's going to take one plus one equals 11 versus one plus one equals two. That's that's where my focus is. I mean, we've we've grown to where we now have a head of operations. And I had an our head of operations has been with us from day one. And actually, that person started out as head of merchant success when they first came in, and they have grown. And so they understand the day to day operations and what's required. And so 70% of your time is going to be spent on making sure that that quality control is done and execution is done. And I think more of my time is going to be focused on putting one on one together and making 11.

Christie: 30:52

That's exciting. That's an exciting place to be I mean, I get excited about that, because I in sitting in watching all the podcasts and listening to sing through lines of a conversation with some of these startup owners that we have. Instead, they're sort of in that, you know, maybe one to five years in the beginning, that first step trying to get to the place where they are shutting those, those job titles so that they can focus on the one plus one equals 11. And you guys are at that place. It's like everything is coming together. Now for you right now where you're okay, now we're actually going to see how can we move this idea, our long term strategy into something bigger, better, more refined, more true to who we are, you're not only just staying afloat, but you're really like sort of driving that ship, which is super exciting to hear for you guys. But also, I'm sure pretty scary, because it's Uncharted for you.

Kadion: 31:36

Yeah, it certainly is. But everything is timing right now.

Gary: 31:39

Did you guys? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, everything is that. And another, just a little, I don't want to quote David because he's not quotable. But to quote David, he says, and I'm sure he got it from someone else, because he's really not this bright. So part of the job of a CEO or leadership is giving away your job. Meaning, like you said, you start doing everything, and then you slowly start giving away all these little things that you had to do to you can get until you can get to the point where you're getting to where you could just sit back and kind of focus more on the big picture and how to expand from that. So that's a hard time with that. And some people don't give them credit for that. They don't tell them now we're gonna find a Michael Scott, that quote. So yeah, some people have a hard time with that, because a lot of times in David's case, and I'll speak for Him, His love, His passion was actually coding and creating the software, doing that tactile, physical part of building the software. And then the more the company grew, he had to step back from that further and further and further. And now he doesn't really code much at all. And while he does miss it, he's still, you know, he's got a whole new environment that he asked to explore and grow from in that leadership phase to try to help the whole company grow. So he did have to give away kind of what he loved to do at the beginning. And then found out this is actually something else that he learned to love to do. So interesting position to be in.

Kadion: 33:19

And I think to that point, guys. It's also Uncharted when you start growing as a CEO, you're doing new things, and you have to learn new skills. I mean, my newest skill I'm learning is is the HR side of things that come up. And I'm sure all of us get it. But it's it's important. It's very important. And managing my board and working with them and keeping them apart, day to day and buying out time for that. That's that's also a new uncharted territory. My business before this was a my brother and I, we built it from ground up. We never raised any capital, we just built a very, very good business over 16 years. So this is quite interesting.

Christie: 34:13

So you had investors to begin this iteration of what you were doing is what you're saying then invested in in carob shopper?

Kadion: 34:20

Yeah, we did raise seed seed funding, and we've had some good investors. Because what we did was very capital intensive in the beginning and there's no way or sales, we're going to catch up to those to what was needed. Fulfillment Center alone is still being paid off. So, you know, it's, it's, you know, there's some businesses that can be bootstrapped and some that cannot. Right. And you have to be clear enough. Yeah.

Christie: 34:55

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you ship out of what 48 countries and have employees and forget Different countries and things like that. Yeah, some things, raise capital for

Gary: 35:04

different countries into 48. States and then Canada. Yeah.

Kadion: 35:08

Yeah. That's crazy. It would be crazy. If it's 48 countries. That'd be awesome.

Gary: 35:12

Yeah. You're getting products from Jamaica, Canada in three to four days. Yeah, that's enough. Wow. It's not, it's not something that's better than Amazon in some cases.

Christie: 35:25

Yeah. But that's the relationships that you forged, which is really important is that you guys did the work on the upfront to make sure that that was really tight. So that when this even came to the consumer, that was all set. So you weren't losing business or losing time or losing revenue, trying to work that out? You have the boots on the ground in those areas, having those relationships with the merchants and makes those relationships?

Kadion: 35:49

Yep, it's a little bit harder than that. But that's a good summary.

Christie: 35:55

Was that easy?

Gary: 35:57

You get a good idea. People throw money at you, and then you're successful. It's stupid. Everybody, should

Kadion: 36:03

everybody. Don't count migraines

Gary: 36:06

are actually speaking of that. Yeah, he's actually only 22. For people watching this on YouTube. Oh, yeah, I was gonna say you don't have grandkids? Now, we do have a question, we ask everybody that comes on the show. And it seems like you're gonna have a really good group of answers for this. So through your journey, and through even your journey from the previous company, what would be your top three pieces of advice for any entrepreneur or new business, when they get started?

Kadion: 36:38

Number one, before you start, like really, AB test your idea as best as possible. And the reason why I say that is one of the biggest assets to any entrepreneurs confidence, right. And while a lot of us are crazy in our heads to think that we can do something that hasn't been done, or do it better, or create a better structure, product, or whatever, you're going to go through times, that are really testing on your mental strength. And you have to have the confidence to know that either you're right or you're going to be right. That's the key, your you might not be right, but you're onto something and you're gonna get there where you're right. That that level of confidence, that level of confidence, comes with you being confident in your idea, because it's going to be tested every day. And, and you being confident that if you're not right, you're gonna figure it out. So both are the first and most important and, and if you've done a B test, it's it gives you more confidence. It's like I've built I've built a tent, I know how to build a house, it's not

Christie: 37:58

knowledge is.

Kadion: 38:02

The second thing I want, I would love to tell an entrepreneur, as they begin to start your journey is spend a time to map out your journey, it's going to take a lot of turns, it's going to take it will have pivots. But if you know where you're going to how you get there, is going to change along the way. But you're going to know you're getting there. Because it's easy to say I'm going to my goal I was I'm building an E commerce marketplace, but through two reasons. Reason number one, I want to help Caribbean manufacturers scale internationally, because they'd been marginalized for years, and nobody has put the time and effort to solve this problem. And it's the same problem we're solving on the consumer side. Because if you if you don't live near a Caribbean grocer, or you're not in the vicinity, there's no convenient or accessible way to access your culture. Right? So there's a problem solving. But the second part of this is, we know that doing this we keep our culture alive no matter where we go. And if you look at Italians, in more cities, Asians, Mexicans, all different different cultures, they found a way to to maintain your culture no matter where they are. And, and cabin people for that fact have, but but I also see that we haven't spent the time to grow or, or, or connection, cultural connection. So once you understand as an entrepreneur, what your what your business is going to do or going to how it's going to impact. The that's your end goal. You're going to find you're going to meet the roads or you're going to find the right road to take along the way. But you have to be clear on the vision, it can't just be. And it has to be deeper than I see an opportunity here to make some money.

Gary: 40:10

Yeah, those of you that entrepreneurs that just think they, they found a slick a quicker way to solve a problem that exists, and they're going to spin something up and sell it. They don't have the passion behind it. Yeah. Obviously, you have the passion behind this idea. So.

Kadion: 40:26

And last but not least, entrepreneurs always go to fuel. They always when things are not going right. It could be executions that happening in the company, it could be their marketing is not converting the way they want. Operationally, something's not working. We always think, put fuel behind it, whether we need to spend more on marketing, or we need to do more marketing messages, or we need to hire more team to solve this problem. So we get better execution. I've learned and I've found that removing friction is more impactful than fuel. But you got to know the difference when so for me, if I'm working with Christiane or marketing is not converting, it's not about let's throw more dollars. And while there is a time for that, there is a the first move that you make is trying to look at what's what friction is holding partner messaging, is it our messaging is it, the platform is what once you figure that out, it's easy to throw fuel behind it. But if you start working on removing friction, a lot of things become clearer. A lot of things become clearer.

Christie: 41:39

I love that. I love that. I think we've heard that before Gary, I'd love

Gary: 41:43

I was gonna say that's probably one of the most unique pieces of advices pieces of advice that we've gotten so far. And that one is really good. And super true and when to spot and remove friction. That's then add the fuel.

Kadion: 41:56

Yeah, remember, I'll share something with you, it actually goes in all aspects of life. I remember a friend of mine related it to a relationship with a man in a relationship, a couple a couple of having a relationship. If you if things were not going well, and you're gonna go on a lot of dates. It's more impactful if you remove the things that are not going well in your relationship that add more dates and more fun things. Because it's it holds more weight, removing that the friction that's causing, whether it be just not communicating well, you'd be surprised that if your default for most of us is, is to do more. If we start looking at how do we do less and accomplish more than when it's time to put fuel is going to be more impactful.

Christie: 42:50

Absolutely. It's like it's like working out every single day. But then eating cupcakes at night being like I'm working out a million times a day. Why aren't I losing weights because you're eating cupcakes at night? Remove the cupcakes. And then you know you'll see results. Yeah, I love that Katie on that's really I love it.

Gary: 43:04

But have you have you seen on his website? They got orange cupcakes?

Christie: 43:09

Perfect. Perfect. I'll send you my address. There'll be here in two to three days. Right? Yeah.

Gary: 43:14

random question. Do you have favorite products? Oh, I do that you guys. Oh, I do. I do what connects you back to? Like us homeless Florida now but what connects you back to the culture? Oh, man. It's food for a lot of people. Do you? Well, I'm wondering if there's any specific food? Yes, it is specific

Kadion: 43:35

foods there is that the the normal so it's the snacks. So it's the bond. It's the childhood. It's a childhood favorites. But as an adult, it's my coffee. Jamaican coffees like the ish, you know, it is the real deal. I have not tried it. I mean, Google it. It is it is it bounces between number one and number two coffee in the world. And there's a reason for it. Because of how its brew how its sorry, how its roasted, how its harvested where it's grown at 8000s Beat above sea level. It's it's very very amazing coffee. My peppers. There's a pepper sauce that I can't get anywhere else. Oh, Saturday Island and man there's so many things. If you come to my house, you'll be starting goat cheese and pepper jelly and pepper jellies. How amazing.

Gary: 44:42

Is it? I've had like jalapeno, pepper jelly. Is it like that? Or is it different mixture like scotch?

Kadion: 44:49

Gospel bonnets? We use scotch bonnets in Jamaica and in Trinidad. They use Scorpion pepper and I've had the scorpion pepper one and they're both they're both like that. If you put it the right mix, the palette, the palette, taste that you get, it's amazing. And then and then in my house, I mean, three kids, I tried to grow them up to know what what it what it was like for me to grow up and the cultural habits that we have or where we make porridge versus cornflakes or, or we would have, you know, curry chicken and and different different types of meals that that have been a part of my upbringing and you know, it's very important to me so there's so many things that um, that I could pick on the list. And then and then and then there's the health products you know, even the food even the food preparation to preserve less preservatives last year. That's a lot of things that we're we're ingesting today. It's it's between Latin America and the Caribbean. They're very extra calling the way they produce products.

Gary: 46:03

Awesome. So getting if anybody else wants to learn more about your company, or yourself, what is the best way for them to get in touch.

Kadion: 46:13

So if you want to learn more about character operates WW dot character shopper.com. And we're at Carib shopper on all platforms, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, we're at carob shopper about if you want to learn more about me, Katie and P on all platforms. And, you know, tell your friends, you know, anybody who loves who've been who've spent time in the Caribbean or from Caribbean descent, tell them about carob shopper because we're connecting the culture and bringing it one step closer.

Gary: 46:49

Speaking of friends, I actually do have quite a few friends that I am immediately sending a link to this site to because amazed they were the ones that would take me in and out of the Jamaican groceries in the Caribbean groceries in the area where I live. And yeah, got me hooked on some of these things. Like I instantly when I saw the spice bone wrapper, I was like, I know that. I've heard that. Yep. Yep. And friends from my, I guess you could say the other islands like Puerto Rico and Malta. Like, they're so different stuff like that, like, Yeah, this is really interesting to me, and I have a bunch of people I'm gonna send this link to. But awesome. If anybody wants to ask us questions, or leave any comments about the podcast, the comments can go below this video on YouTube, you can email us at Hello at the big pixel.net. And you can reach out to us on any one of our social media platforms as well. Big pixel, the big pixel NC so thank you very much for your time today. Kadian. Is there anything else that you would like to say before we move on out till next week?

Kadion: 47:52

No, guys, it was a pleasure. Christy. You're amazing, Gary. You're really cool.

Gary: 48:00

Chris is amazing. I'm okay, David. David sucks, but he's gone. So

Kadion: 48:07

no, I had a great time today guys. And you know, we'd love to see you guys. Check us out and tell me what you like. And I'd be sure to make any any good recommendations and thank you for the time.

Gary: 48:22

Right and we will put all these links below in the show notes. So you don't have to try to write them down when you do this. And we will see you guys next week.