And then let me just also say I've looked at a number of businesses that are E commerce businesses where they essentially aggregate a category. So there's some category of consumer product. And this website, this e comm website is the, is the, you know, the market for that very niche product or category.
Acquiring Minds
The Late 40s Pivot Into Business Buying
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But, and I could in many cases just not get comfortable with why that business should exist. I put that in quotes what value it's adding over and above Amazon. Is that an analysis that you could overlay on this business?
Yeah, absolutely. So this is a, an industry that's early enough in its life cycle that there's a lot of work to be done by the, the businesses that service the customers. And this is one of those areas. So there are several small, somewhat small, you know, small business retailers that do basically what we do.
You can get products for converting your van on Amazon. Not all of them, but you know, A lot of them and the, the, the niche that we serve that I have bet on essentially is that DIYers need, don't know what they're doing and they need help. And so they are.
And I've done, and I've done research since coming here and learned a lot more about this, but they are, for the most part they are eager but uneducated and they, they're sometimes overestimating their capabilities, but for the most part they know that they what they don't know. And so they are looking for help. And that's actually how the blog came about.
One of the founders had been a van lifer since he was a kid with VW bands. But then as an adult he decided he wanted to build his own band. And so this is in 2016.
He looked around, he couldn't find enough information, videos, blogs, etc, so he kind of had to figure out how to build it on his own. And he decided, hey, I might as well share, you know, what I'm learning through a blog. And that lack of content and education exists still today.
And one of the moats that I saw was that we had four years of content and trust built up strictly through education. No store or anything. But people were constantly asking, asking him his name, Zach.
And constantly asking Zach, hey, where do I get that? You know, you keep telling me about these products. Where do I get it? Where do I get it? Where do I get it? And so in 2020, he and Josh, the other founder, said we might as well offer them what we're telling them is good and let's, so let's turn it into a business.
So they had already built trust and content that is a meaningful moat versus competition. But anyway, it's that need for education and, and that desire for trust that, that I think mean will allow Van Life Outfitters to live alongside Amazon. I think of REI and yeah, and Chewy as examples where the types of things they sell can be purchased on Amazon.
But there are brand reasons, reasons to go to Chewy and brand reasons to go to rei. And I think we can continue to build that.
Yeah, yeah, no, and, and, and I think in your case those, those reasons, those brand and content reasons are much stronger because this is not just, you know, help me find the best parka. I don't want to buy it from Amazon where it just feels like a hodgepodge of everything. I want to buy it from rei.
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