Whatnot Co-Founder and CEO Grant LaFontaine on Scaling with Live Selling

0:02John Lee Dumas:Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here, and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today, we'll be breaking down Whatnot co-founder and CEO Grant LaFontaine on scaling with live selling. To drop these value bombs, I brought Grant LaFontaine into you, Fire Studios. Grant is the co-founder and CEO of Whatnot, the largest live shopping platform in North America, the UK, and Europe, which lets anyone transform their passion into a business. Today, we'll be chatting about going from passion to platform, why live selling wins, starting smart, and oh, so much more.

0:35John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Grant and our sponsors. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com. highlevelfire.com. Fire Nation, 50 days will fly right on by. The only question is, will you have something to show for it? I created a free YouTube series called 50 Days to Something, a step-by-step path to build a real product, service, or offer in just 50 focused days.

1:18John Lee Dumas:Start today for free at eofire.com slash YouTube. Grant, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with? Hey, everyone. I don't know that everyone would disagree with this, but I think my prevailing sort of belief on success is that ultimately it boils down to, do you really want to be successful? And by that, I mean, are you willing to put in the work required because nothing worth having is easy? And are you willing to be wrong and learn from being wrong so that you can continuously point yourself in the right direction.

2:01So you don't have to be the smartest person in the world. You don't have to have everything handed to you if you're willing to do those two things.

2:09John Lee Dumas:Whenever I'm mentoring people, they always say, but John, what you're asking me to do, it's so hard. And I say, exactly. That's the only way to victory because the higher the barrier, the lower the competition. If what I was asking you to do was easy, everybody would be doing it and there'd be no opportunity. It has to be hard. That's how you're going to win. So we're talking today about scaling with live selling. And Grant, I want to talk about transitioning from passion to platform. What passion did you turn into a business? And what did you learn from being Whatnot's first live seller? Funny enough, Whatnot sort of came full circle from when I was younger.

2:52And I think a lot of people my age, maybe their first bit of entrepreneurial work came from selling Pokemon cards online. And so that was the first thing I ever did for a business. And, you know, that was when eBay and Yahoo auctions were the biggest platforms and there wasn't even payment processing online. You'd sort of send a money order in the mail. And yeah, which is hard to imagine. but you know that's like late 90s I guess mid to late 90s and you know that through that I sort of always was collected items bought and resold items and you know as we were starting out what not just felt like there wasn't a great place to do that and there hadn't been a lot of innovation around it and so we thought there was something around social because if you're collecting things or a lot of why you you know, buy things is because of the social aspect of it.

3:51And we went out and we, we built whatnot. We built the first live, um, streaming feature on whatnot. And one of the things we try and do is whatever we put out into the world, we want to make sure it's good. And so we can't tell you it's good unless we've used it ourselves. Um, and so, you know, I went live at that point on whatnot. We were just doing them Funko Pops. And in my first live stream, I sold about$5 ,000 worth of Funko Pops in two and a half hours. And I just learned how one, much fun it was. And then two, you could just see how this format was going to change e-commerce and people's businesses.

4:31Okay.

4:32John Lee Dumas:I don't want the long story, but I want the short story. How did the name WhatNot come to be? A little bit of random luck. We had a really bad name when we were first starting out. our designer and his first person to work with us was like, I hate it. We need to change names. What was the name? It was terrible. It was always legit. It was basically, we got the cheapest domain we could get. Cause we were like, let's go and build. We'll go and build. We'll figure out the rest later. We know it was bad. But he was like, literally, I just can't even work on this. We sat down and we came up with a name of like about 10 different names we thought were good.

5:06And on that list was whatnot. we always envisioned sort of we'd sell selectables and fashion and food and cards and whatnot

5:16John Lee Dumas:and whatnot i love it and whatnot yeah so it's just it's a sort of fit like we imagined we'd build this place where you could sell everything and uh logan who's my co-founder went out to try and acquire the domain the guy wanted a bitcoin for it he had bitcoin yeah he haggled them down to half of Bitcoin. And Bitcoin was$10 ,000 back then. So it was, you know. Hopefully he held on to half of Bitcoin. We got a really good deal and we were really, really happy with our name. That's the story. Now I want to talk about why live selling wins. I mean, live selling consistently converts better than traditional e-commerce.

5:54John Lee Dumas:So what is happening psychologically that makes it so gosh darn learn powerful. The reason live works is because it combines so many elements of what helps you make a purchase. Uh, and it's fun. So you go into a live stream, you can see the things, someone can tell you a story behind the thing. So you can discover something you knew you didn't even know you wanted. Um, it's fun. So you're going to hang out there for a while and you're going to discover, you know, many more products than just the one or two products you sort of intended to come in to find in, you know, traditional e-commerce site.

6:31There's a higher degree of trust because you can ask questions, make sure you know what you're getting. You can see how, what other people are doing, ask them if they've had good experiences and so forth. And so I think sort of the, being able to see the object and the trust that builds, being able to ask questions to the store owner or even folks in the chat, and just the fact that it's fun. So you're going to discover more new things are part of what makes it convert and be magical.

6:58John Lee Dumas:I mean, for nine years in a row, I did a live webinar selling Podcasters Paradise. And I'll tell you that converted so well because it was fun. I got to engage people. I got to answer their questions live. I always had a live Q &A at the end. I mean, it was this really fun, enjoyable experience. And like, man, it was for nine years in a row, every single week, 52 weeks a year. I mean, that's how we sold because live was so much more fun. We never made a fraction of the sales on a static sales page. That's boring. People love to come and leave because they're just like, oh, this, what is this? Like, was this made like 10 years ago, one year ago, one day ago?

7:34John Lee Dumas:No, live in the moment. It's real. It's exciting. It's psychologically powerful. So let's talk, Grant, about starting smart. I mean, for somebody launching their first live selling show, what are the foundational steps that will set them up for traction from day one? When you look at the people who are really successful on whatnot, it really boils down to two things. Number one, sort of what we talked about at the beginning, do you want to be successful and do you want to learn the craft and go through everything that you need to do? So the desire to succeed is number one, most important. And then once you're there, it then boils down to what are you going to sell?

8:19Are you knowledgeable about it? Do you have access to the supply? And those are the two ingredients. so ultimately you got to go what am I going to sell is it collectibles is it fashion do I know those things because people want to buy from people who have knowledge or access to products that you know that are either unique or good prices and then it's it's going to be a new thing you're going to have to get used to being in front of camera talking to folks and you just have to sort of roll with that and each show get a little bit better and a little bit better.

8:55John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, we're going to talk about the six-figure playbook, the hottest categories and growth opportunities, the future of lives, commerce, and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Trying to get a traditional bank loan for your business, it's slow, it's complicated, and it rarely moves at the speed you need. With tighter lending standards and more hoops than ever, you're often left waiting when you need capital now. That's why I want to tell you about Revenued. Revenued is built for small business owners who need fast, flexible access to working capital without relying on your personal credit score.

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11:58John Lee Dumas:Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Grant, we're back, and I want to talk about inside the six-figure playbook. I mean, what separates six figure sellers on whatnot from just everyone else? I mean, what happens during a great live show that keeps buyers engaged? Sometimes we're talking for over 60 minutes instead of just bouncing in and out and say like 30 seconds. One, I think it's, it's simpler than you would think it is. Um, so some people will expect, oh, I have to be the world's best entertainer. And actually it's really not about that. It's, are you knowledgeable about what you are selling?

12:39Are you going to be authentically you? And are you going to keep up with it? Because each show you run, new people come in, they get an affinity for what you're selling, they get an affinity for you, they get an affinity for the community you're building. And sort of that authenticity plus consistency is actually the recipe for success. And there are many six-figure sellers on whatnot who started off maybe never even having sold online or certainly not being entertainers, just people who are knowledgeable about their area and domain that have driven success just by going live every week or multiple times a week and just building their business from the ground up.

13:28John Lee Dumas:what exactly does it mean to be a six-figure seller? Like, what does that mean? Like, what are we talking about? Does that mean like somebody's doing it once a week for a year and making$100 ,000? Is that a six-figure seller? Or like, what are you talking about when you say six-figure sellers on whatnot? You know, we have sellers anywhere from, you know,$1 ,000 a year to nine figures. And I think the majority of sellers on whatnot today, or I have to get that, it's something like 50 % of sellers are full-time. And so if you're a full-time seller, you're probably around, you know, six figures plus.

14:00So it's not uncommon. Um, there is, um, the range of who does it. Um, I think the, the average six figure seller probably streams at least three days a week. Um, they're going live, you know, two to three hours each time they stream and they're building a business that people want to come back to because, uh, they like the person who runs the business. They like the community around the business and they like the products, that they're selling.

14:28John Lee Dumas:Okay. But let's even dive a little bit deeper than that. So like we have this individual, let's say they want to go full time. Cause I want to kind of, you know, paint an opportunity here for Fire Nation, if they're interested, I want them to actually be able to see it and visualize it. So let's say, you know, they're going to go live three days a week for a couple hours, two to three hours each day. What, like, how are they making money? Like, what does that look like? Like, where, like, are they bringing on guests that are doing that? I I mean, like, what does that look like? Like paint us a picture of, there's no average like person because I'm sure they come from all over the place and it's all different verticals and niches, but like, what does a person look like that's doing this?

15:04John Lee Dumas:That's a full timer. Let's just take maybe someone who wants to sell in women's fashion as an example category. Maybe what they've done before joining whatnot, they've sold on a couple of the other resale platforms online. And so maybe they have a hundred units of something to sell in their first couple of shows. So they'll schedule their first show. They'll figure out what products they want to sell. Maybe it's, um, uh, new with tags, you know, maybe old season inventory from mall brands, Nike, Lululemon, something like that. So they'll, they'll run their first show and they'll get people in.

15:47We help new sellers break out and sort of give them an extra boost on the platform. So get people on there. Maybe they'll sell 20 or 30 items and that will make them get to their next show and their next show. And what typically happens is the power of live is how much you can sell per show if you're a business owner. So it's sort of like the revenue per hour is unmatched relative to any other format. And so that person who had 100 units, maybe by their second or third show, they're completely out. And they made a bunch of money from doing that. So they're going to go and buy 200 units and sort of like slowly scale from there.

16:27Now, the specifics of the show, you don't have to be the world's best entertainer. They're going in, they're listing their items. They're going to put them, they're going to hold them up on screen, tell you what the item is and, you know, uh, in it on, on the live to be able to, so if people can purchase it or bid on it and just be themselves in front of camera. And that is honestly how it gets going. And then as you sell more and more and more, you keep scaling your business. You look for new sourcing channels, you maybe buy some stuff wholesale. And there's many folks who started exactly like that, who now have a million dollar businesses.

17:06And maybe once they get to that scale, they might have some employees, a warehouse, and so forth.

17:11John Lee Dumas:Let's talk about the hottest categories and the growth opportunities that you're seeing right now. I mean, which categories are just exploding right now? And on that note as well, where do you see untapped growth potential for new sellers? So maybe start with the exploding categories. By any standard, every category is exploding. I don't think there's a single there's virtually no category I can think of on whatnot that's not growing near triple digits year over year. So collectibles are still growing incredibly fast. Women's fashions, you know, multiple triple digits, same with men's fashion.

17:50Some of the newer stuff that's, you know, maybe thousand percent year on year, food and drink, candy, shelf stable stuff is incredible opportunity. I've, uh, I'm trying to get my brother to, to sell on whatnot. And I told him he should start with candy. I think that's a incredible opportunity.

18:08John Lee Dumas:Like what kind of candy we're talking like cake pops. Yeah. Well, it could be international candy. So Japanese candy overseas. It could be, um, bulk candy. So just, you know, stuff you might get at a Costco or something like that. And just like well-priced. So is this kind of like the modern version of like HGTV? The way I think about it is it's, it's, it's the best way to bring physical retail online. So you can, with a live stream, you can effectively set up a brick and mortar shop for zero cost and do it within an hour. I mean, five minutes really. Um, and so it's going to be across every single category.

18:47We have people selling steaks and beef jerky and candy and drinks, you name it. it's probably being sold on whatnot in some capacity. And any of those newer emerging areas are an incredible opportunity to break in because the growth is just going to be enormous and it's pretty early on.

19:11John Lee Dumas:Obviously, you love your brother and you would probably be guiding him to the direction or area you think is probably the hottest. So you literally think the best thing that your brother could do would be to open up a what, what not store and sell candy. So what, what type of candy would you, would that recommendation be for him? It really depends on what you can get access to and what you're excited about. I think. Well, what is he excited about? I don't know. That's why I was trying to push him, but I don't know. If it were me, I'd probably do international candy, get something unique. Um, so that when people see it, um, it's not something they're seeing every day.

19:48John Lee Dumas:like what we're talking like like toberone chocolate that you usually only see like i'd be like you know that there's like 200 flavors of kit kats in japan if you had access to those um you could probably sell them at a premium everyone who's on whatnot eats food um and so it's a nice just addition it's a nice addition to um if you're buying something already i mean it does kind of seem like collectibles are kind of a no-brainer what do you what are your thoughts on that category? I mean, it's great. It's, you know, it's growing triple digits. That's our biggest category. We were asking about untapped growth potential.

20:24John Lee Dumas:So, I mean, within, say, collectibles, I mean, obviously, Pokemon's like through the roof, but what would you say for untapped growth potential within collectibles? I truly believe just about anywhere there's potential. There's still a lot of potential in comics. There's still a lot of potential in toys. um i think always trying to stay ahead of where is the new and popular collectibles so you know one of the things that's blowing up right now is one piece cards um you know netflix has the second season uh rolling out and so that creates a lot of popularity around something and so you can what's it called the one piece card one piece yeah um which is it's like a anime series and so there's the cards around it are very very popular but I think you know if I were recommending to folks what to do ultimately I would ask what are they excited to do where do they want to spend their time and if you're excited about building a category or maybe across multiple categories and live the potential everywhere is so monstrous.

21:36In Asia, live shopping is a trillion-dollar-plus-a-year industry. In the US and Western markets, we're so early. You're talking 20 or 30 billion is what the size is. So that's a really big delta relative to where it's likely going.

21:53John Lee Dumas:Okay. What if our listeners are excited about making money? I mean, I know it's all nice to have a passion and stuff and people can go that route. Go ahead. What if they're excited about making money? Where do you really see the highest earners per capita, so to speak, when it comes to whatnot? So the biggest businesses are in collectibles, for sure. Then you have really, really large fashion businesses. And but then if even if you look in a bunch of emerging categories, like food and drink, we have people doing. Yeah, right off, like, I was looking at someone in our food and drink category. And that started two weeks ago and they're already doing$3 ,000 an hour in sales.

22:35And so, you know, that's why, look, if you're going to start a business, ultimately you're starting a business to make money. You know, you're not going to build a good business if you don't make money. So you got to be excited to make money. But I would pair that with like, where are you knowledgeable? Where do you have access to supply that is unique or you can get at really good prices that you can build a sustainable and long-term business around it?