Today is a very tough day for me. Today, I officially decided to no longer pursue Bebarang.
I had series of very serious conversation with my partner Dave in the past few weeks regarding our future. We both jumped into Bebarang because we wanted to change the world. We both enjoyed the idea of collaborative consumption and solving a global problem (of kids growing out of clothes). The passion to build a company that no one has ever done before fueled our energy to move forward until this day.
As we moved forward with Bebarang, we faced key challenges. The time it will take to prove the business was going to take longer than our own financial situations could afford. More importantly, the very core of our business was around parents and babies. It was extremely challenging and difficult for us, as we did not feel the pain of our customers and were unable to relate directly to their problems. This was the hardest part for me to run Bebarang – not being able to solve my own problem.
I’ve been very persistent in my journey with Bebarang. At times, I had to rebuild the entire founding team and had to change the business model.
It couldn’t have been a more devastating and stressful few weeks. I remember the times when we printed hundreds of Bebarang flyers and taped it on NYC subways and apartments door to door bypassing the security guards. I remember the emotions running through me when our chief merchandiser told me that she was so happy working for Bebarang.
It definitely wasn’t an easy task throwing in the towel for what we’ve built for the past year and a half. But when I found myself speaking the words ‘funding’ and ‘exit strategy’ more than ‘babies’ and ‘customers,’ I knew something was going wrong. I started this company to create value, not to gain monetary reward. For personal happiness and stability, I decided this was the best course of action moving forward.
What have I learned?
I wrote a blog post on things I’ve learned on a personal level on my previous post. There are few more things I wanted to add on the list.
Build something you care about
Being exposed in the startup world, I’ve seen many business opportunities that could be the next big thing. But with Bebarang, I realized solving your own problem is the best way to be passionate about your product and endure the long trough of sorrow.
Inventory sucks
Dealing with inventory sucks. All the necessary capital that is required to manage inventory and overhead sucks. Don’t get me wrong; we will always have physical stuff in our lives that technology can’t solve. There will always be room for disruption in physical goods. But there is a reason Netflix worked and Bebarang didn’t on a logistics perspective: margins. For example, it costs less than dollar to ship a Netflix DVD to and from a customer’s house while it costs over 10 dollars for ship an article of baby clothing. For a physical goods rental business, the economics have to make sense on a unit basis. If you add the cost to acquire customers and low rental utilization (due to seasonality) on top of that, this becomes a very difficult marketing, business operations problem.
If all possible in my next startup, I don’t want to manage inventory. The world already has too much stuff, let the market share it with one another, not you.
Build something early adopters will love
Don’t build a half-ass painkiller. Build an advil^3. If you don’t think your product is so good that people will change the way they normally do things and even willing to pay for it, don’t think it’s going to succeed.
What’s next?
I’m not sure what’s ahead of me.
I think I’ll be taking some time off the next few weeks to go travel, read books, and reflect on my career path to reenergize. Before the next chapter of my life begins, whatever that might be, I want to be fully prepared and ready to give my 100%.
I’m interested in working for another startup, be an analyst in the VC world to help other startups, or go back to school and pickup programming. I don’t know which path I should take. (If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please email me at allenkim77@gmail.com)
Putting something you thought of dearly to sleep is no easy task. But I've learned a lot from this experience. It made me grow tremendously.
Whatever I do next, I'll not make the same mistake twice.
Life goes on.
I had series of very serious conversation with my partner Dave in the past few weeks regarding our future. We both jumped into Bebarang because we wanted to change the world. We both enjoyed the idea of collaborative consumption and solving a global problem (of kids growing out of clothes). The passion to build a company that no one has ever done before fueled our energy to move forward until this day.
As we moved forward with Bebarang, we faced key challenges. The time it will take to prove the business was going to take longer than our own financial situations could afford. More importantly, the very core of our business was around parents and babies. It was extremely challenging and difficult for us, as we did not feel the pain of our customers and were unable to relate directly to their problems. This was the hardest part for me to run Bebarang – not being able to solve my own problem.
I’ve been very persistent in my journey with Bebarang. At times, I had to rebuild the entire founding team and had to change the business model.
It couldn’t have been a more devastating and stressful few weeks. I remember the times when we printed hundreds of Bebarang flyers and taped it on NYC subways and apartments door to door bypassing the security guards. I remember the emotions running through me when our chief merchandiser told me that she was so happy working for Bebarang.
It definitely wasn’t an easy task throwing in the towel for what we’ve built for the past year and a half. But when I found myself speaking the words ‘funding’ and ‘exit strategy’ more than ‘babies’ and ‘customers,’ I knew something was going wrong. I started this company to create value, not to gain monetary reward. For personal happiness and stability, I decided this was the best course of action moving forward.
What have I learned?
I wrote a blog post on things I’ve learned on a personal level on my previous post. There are few more things I wanted to add on the list.
Build something you care about
Being exposed in the startup world, I’ve seen many business opportunities that could be the next big thing. But with Bebarang, I realized solving your own problem is the best way to be passionate about your product and endure the long trough of sorrow.
Inventory sucks
Dealing with inventory sucks. All the necessary capital that is required to manage inventory and overhead sucks. Don’t get me wrong; we will always have physical stuff in our lives that technology can’t solve. There will always be room for disruption in physical goods. But there is a reason Netflix worked and Bebarang didn’t on a logistics perspective: margins. For example, it costs less than dollar to ship a Netflix DVD to and from a customer’s house while it costs over 10 dollars for ship an article of baby clothing. For a physical goods rental business, the economics have to make sense on a unit basis. If you add the cost to acquire customers and low rental utilization (due to seasonality) on top of that, this becomes a very difficult marketing, business operations problem.
If all possible in my next startup, I don’t want to manage inventory. The world already has too much stuff, let the market share it with one another, not you.
Build something early adopters will love
Don’t build a half-ass painkiller. Build an advil^3. If you don’t think your product is so good that people will change the way they normally do things and even willing to pay for it, don’t think it’s going to succeed.
What’s next?
I’m not sure what’s ahead of me.
I think I’ll be taking some time off the next few weeks to go travel, read books, and reflect on my career path to reenergize. Before the next chapter of my life begins, whatever that might be, I want to be fully prepared and ready to give my 100%.
I’m interested in working for another startup, be an analyst in the VC world to help other startups, or go back to school and pickup programming. I don’t know which path I should take. (If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please email me at allenkim77@gmail.com)
Putting something you thought of dearly to sleep is no easy task. But I've learned a lot from this experience. It made me grow tremendously.
Whatever I do next, I'll not make the same mistake twice.
Life goes on.
