How E-Commerce is Unlocking the Inner-Entrepreneur in Us All with Sandeep Kella: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like DTC pod. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives and we'll be breaking down how e-commerce is unlocking the inner entrepreneur in all of us. To drop these value bombs, I brought Sandeep Kella into EO Fire Studios. Sandeep is a co-founder and CEO of Assembly with vast experience on SaaS tools geared for starting, growing and running Shopify, Amazon and e-commerce storefronts. Today's value bonds, Fire Nation, how as an entrepreneur, it is possible to be successful and live happy and healthy simultaneously.

0:45E-commerce will consistently grow over the next few years and how to start your business now and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Sandeep and our sponsors. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lanz, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier. AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented. The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business.

1:22Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts. Sandeep, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with? Hey, John, thanks for having me. The thing I believe is that our society glamorizes entrepreneurship, creates this image that you have to kill yourself and sacrifice everything to be successful. And I just fundamentally disagree with that. I think having balance in life, whether it's with your family, your friends, along with your work is much more gratifying and sustainable. And I think the problem is you don't really hear a lot of stories about, you know, a founder or a CEO of a company and how they're a good parent at home or how they're a good spouse.

2:14You just kind of hear about how they work themselves to the bone. And I disagree with that notion. And I think balance is really important. And I think portraying entrepreneurship in that extreme way actually discourages a lot of people from entering into entrepreneurship, which I think is wrong. Because I think you can have balance. You can be very successful. You can do all of those things and kind of live a more healthy and happy life. Sandeep, I do think you're right that we don't hear enough of those stories of entrepreneurs who have achieved that type of balance you're discussing. But guess what?

2:53I got you on the mic, brother. So why don't you take a second and share your story? So Fire Nation now has some inspirational stories and guidance and journeys to guide them. To be clear, I'm still working on that balance. That's something I think about every day. But my background was I grew up in Michigan, immigrant parents who had started all sorts of businesses. And I've always, you know, after college, I started a couple of businesses. I worked in finance for a little bit, but I was always gravitating towards this weird intersection of building companies and also acquiring businesses. And that's where I spent the greater part of the last decade was just acquiring businesses and building them.

3:39And I did it all bootstrapped, did it all personally with my business partner at the time and learned a lot along the way. And one of the things I learned was about this thing called e-commerce, which led me to starting Assembly about two years ago. Now, before we move into assembly, what exactly would you say your day-to-day, week-to-week looks like? Talk to us about the type of balance that you've been able to achieve to the level that you've achieved it thus far. I have three kids who are all in elementary school and preschool, and it's very, very important to me that I don't look back and regret not being around for parts of their lives.

4:18So it's a constant struggle for how to be more efficient with my time so that I can be home at a reasonable hour and also be present, which I think is the bigger challenge. But it's something I prioritize and try to schedule around. A couple of minutes ago, my son was here for the last three hours just being at the office so we could hang out even though I was working. and I try to do as much of that as possible. Yeah, sometimes even just being in the same room can mean a lot. You know, he's doing his thing, you're doing your thing. But of all of that, like, you know, some things do drop off. So if you just had to be honest with yourself right now in Fire Nation, like what's one area of your life that you're like, you know what, over the next six to 12 months, I'd like to achieve more balance here.

5:08I think it's trying to have more fun personally. I feel like my life has been consumed by work and family and I'm trying to find more time to do things that I enjoy and starting to cultivate things that I enjoy. So that's definitely been put on the back burner for the last 10 or so years and I'm trying to bring that back up. So we mentioned this in the introduction and you mentioned it briefly in the last section, assembly. What is assembly? What are you building at assembly and what is the why behind assembly? Let me start with the why. If you look back 10 years ago to start an e-commerce business, you needed tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars to get set up.

5:50You had to hire engineers. It was very, very time and cost intensive. And over the last 10 years, the friction to starting a business has been completely removed. So what used to take weeks, months, tens of thousands of dollars, you could get started in a matter of hours under a hundred bucks, whether you're selling on Amazon or Shopify or Walmart or BigCommerce. So the friction has been completely removed, which has been fantastic because it's opened up entrepreneurship to all sorts of people who otherwise wouldn't have exposure to it. But when that has come, this explosion in the number of merchants, whether they're selling on Amazon or Shopify or whatever the platform is, and they need help.

6:35They started their business with this idea of selling this product that they're passionate about. they didn't start thinking about inventory management and advertising campaigns and attribution and all of these different things that are a reality and a necessity to succeed. And so what they're using is a bunch of disparate software solutions to help them run their business. And I saw that firsthand. I saw merchants big and small juggling 10, 15 different apps. There's literally 6 ,000 different e-commerce software solutions out there. And seeing that was what led us to start Assembly. And what we are doing in very simple terms is we are building and acquiring the picks and shovels that serve the e-commerce industry.

7:24And we're bringing them together to create a better user experience for merchants so they can focus on what they love to do, which is create great products and create happy customers. and we can help them save time and money by managing all of the software. Fire Nation, think about this. Who made money in the gold rush? It was people that sold the picks and the shovels. So don't always just think of, oh, what's like the gold right now that everybody's rushing into and everybody's doing all at once. Maybe there's great ways to service those people that are rushing to do those things. So of all the things at assembly right now that you guys are doing with the picks and shovels analogy, what's one of your favorites you can give a little quick rundown of?

8:07The first company that we got involved with and we acquired was a company called Helium 10. And Helium 10 is one of the leading software solutions for Amazon merchants. We have over 60 ,000 customers leveraging our products. And what I love so much about what Helium 10 has built and what we've been able to do is it combines two things. It's great software, but it marries that with this community. And I know community is like a fluffy term that people throw out there, but it really is core to everything. We have a 100 ,000-person Facebook group, multiple podcasts, a documentary series we just rolled out, an influencer network.

8:52We have content, YouTube series. And all of it is in service of teaching someone, teaching an e-commerce merchant something new, inspiring people to become e-commerce merchants. And then we've got all the software to help them. But I think I'm very passionate about that convergence of community and software. I think HubSpot has done a fantastic job of this, of bringing these two things together. And I think it's a trend that we are heavily focused on at Assembly. is how do we teach someone something and then give them the tools to be successful? Teach someone something, Fire Nation, and then provide them the tools to be successful.

9:30I mean, I love how you just closed that down with that phrase because it really is that simple at the end of the day. And look at all the different ways that Sundeep and Assembly in general are looking to disperse this knowledge through podcasts, through documentaries, through a lot of different areas because he's using that be everywhere approach. And we have so much more coming up, Fire Nation, when we get back from thanking our sponsors. The overwhelm that comes with choosing the right software and tools for growing your business is real. With so many options and so little time, how are you supposed to know which platform is best?

10:07You've got your email marketing platform, payment systems, content tools, the list goes on. It can sometimes feel like you're spending more time organizing all the moving pieces and places than actually connecting with prospects and customers. and this is where HubSpot steps in. HubSpot is the all-on-one customer platform for growing better. Imagine this. Marketers generate better leads. Sales builds tighter relationships with customers and closes more deals. And service supports your customers at scale with tools like HubSpot's AI chatbot and knowledge base. Plus, with built-in AI to answer common customer questions, brainstorm and write marketing content, easily pull reports and more, your teams can slash their busy work, meaning your marketers, sales reps, and service teams actually have the time to be, well, marketers, sales reps, and service teams.

10:58And when they grow, the sky's the limit for your business too. Grow better, faster with HubSpot's all-in-one intuitive customer platform. Visit HubSpot.com to learn more. Sandeep, e-commerce has literally been on fire for some time now. So talk to us about the rapid growth of e-commerce. And what do we as entrepreneurs need to know about e-commerce? E-commerce was always going to grow. When we started Assembly, it was our view that, I think at the time, e-commerce was about 10 % to 12 % of total retail in the US. And in China, it was about 30%. And our view was always that over the next 10, 15 years, the US would look more like China and e-commerce would be 30 plus percent of total retail.

11:45And as we all know, what's happened in the last year, it's just it's just pulled that demand forward. You know, you've got people like my parents who never bought anything online, who who had to are forced to adopt buying things online and it's now become part of their routine. And so with that demand that's pushed online. You've seen just a proliferation of people who have different ideas, who realize that it's actually not that hard to get started in selling something online today. And you've got brick and mortar businesses who've had to adapt to the circumstances and start to sell online. And so it's led to this explosion in the number of merchants.

12:27There's more than six million merchants selling online today. And it's created all sorts of opportunity and all sorts of complexity, right? In the past, you could just sell on Amazon. You could just sell on Shopify. You could sell on Walmart. But customers' preferences are changing. And you can buy products anywhere. You can buy it through Instagram. You can buy it through Facebook. You can buy it on TikTok. And so the complexities of running and building a sustainable e-commerce business has only increased, right? And that's where we're really trying to help simplify things so people can manage that.

13:05So let's talk about this specific opportunity for small businesses, for merchants, for solopreneurs. What is this opportunity and how is it just democratizing the entire entrepreneurial playing field at the exact same time? Think about it this way. When you buy something on Amazon, how often do you know who's behind that product? Never. Right? Many people just think it's Amazon. But the reality is it could be a large brand. It could be Procter & Gamble. It could be, you know, someone in their house who had a passion for a particular idea and is selling it online today. And so it's become easier than ever to start a business, but it's challenging to sustain it.

13:49And so if you think about it, the job of an e-commerce merchant is find a product that they believe there's an opportunity in and focus on acquiring customers. right building experiences building your brand so that people want to consume your product it's it's very simple it's find the product and figure out how to get it out there and we try to help simplify everything else all the logistics all the back end so that so that merchants can can focus on product and marketing so there's this whole new world of opportunity that's out there because of the shift that's been happening i mean as son deep shared his parents have completely new buying habits i mean i can't even tell you the things that my parents are talking about now that they never would have talked about you know as recently as 18 months ago and it's just their whole new level of competency and this is just bringing a whole new generation that probably was just going to skip them or never even get to them in the first place is now it's forcing like the boomers and that age group into this as well not to mention you know people like my nine-year-old niece now who never has never known anything but this world.

14:57And that's going to continue to be the case. So with all of this being said, Sandeep, take the microphone and take us home. What do you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets about what you have going on over at Assembly, about the opportunities that exist in the world when it comes to e-commerce and just the world that we live in today? I would really encourage people who have thought about doing something on their own to just get started. The friction has been removed and don't overthink it. You know, focus on an area that you've got an interest in. And there's so many tools, you know, so many, so many courses out there, whether it's our own through, you know, companies like helium brands, like helium 10 or others.

15:40Uh, but there's, there's so many resources at your disposal to get started. And, and, you know, that friction is gone. And I think as we've all realized with the pandemic, people are evaluating side hustles, other things they can do to bring in side income. And I think there's just so much opportunity to get started today. It's not as hard as you think. It doesn't require as much capital as you think. It doesn't require you to sacrifice everything, your family, your friends, everything else. You really can balance all of this. and it's not going to take 10 years to get there. And so that's what I would stress is it seems daunting, but if you think back to 20, 30 years ago, it was so much harder back then.

16:32And today you can get started very quickly, very little dollars and be successful. Now, if you would want Fire Nation to learn more about what you have going on over at Assembly, where would you send them? How can they connect with you? Break it down. Go to our website, withassembly.com. You can see the different brands that we have under our umbrella. We're constantly adding new products, new features. And I would really dig into the training and the content piece that we have because I think your audience would get a lot of value out of that and how to get started. Fire Nation withassembly.com.

17:10That's W-I-T-H assembly.com. And you're the average Fire Nation. of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with Sandeep in JLD today. So keep up the heat. Head over to eofire.com. Just type Sandeep in the search bar and the show notes page will pop up with everything that we talked about here today. That is S-A-N-D-E-E-P. And Sandeep, I want to say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you so much. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Sun Deep and Fire Nation.

17:49Over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 3 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment. And I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need, Fire Nation to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com to order your copy today and I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer hosted by Matt Wolfe and Nathan Lance is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

18:34Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier. AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented. The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business. Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts.