412 – Looking for an Upgraded Alternative to Etsy? with Jon Lincoln of goimagine

Gift is Unwrapped Guest,

episode number 412.

What if we can build a more affordable private website with

custom domains for you,

while also helping you be part of a new philanthropic marketplace

and grow it?

Attention gifters,

bakers, crafters and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one

now you are in the right place.

This is Gift Biz Unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host Gift Biz gal Sue Moon Height.

Hi there,

it's Sue and thanks for joining me today.

If you've been looking for your first or a new home

for your e-commerce website,

grab a pen and paper because today's show is just for

you. But before we get into that,

I wanna share something with you.

We've covered so many facets of a handmade product business over

the course of the years and today is no exception.

We've talked about how to start and grow your business stories

from many of you who have done just that.

How to choose and use social media sites,

build your website.

Oh my gosh,

there is just so much information here for you,

but not necessarily at your fingertips.

So I've made a tool for you that categorizes by topic

the episodes of this podcast,

but only the ones that stay relevant over time.

Because yes,

let's face it,

there are past shows that just don't work anymore for us

today. The world is changing so fast,

right? You can use this tool to zero in on whatever

topic you need at the moment.

Do you wanna hear from others in your specific industry?

How about details on Pinterest or setting up an email strategy?

You can now easily find the right episodes and create your

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Consider this your Gift Biz Resource center at a glance.

It's a Google Sheet best viewable on your computer versus your

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kind of like chapters of a book.

It makes finding the shows to help you with what you're

working on right now.

So much easier.

To access this free resource,

go to gift biz unwrapped.com/topics.

Today we're talking about a new e-commerce platform only for handmade

creators that offers options not available anywhere else.

I say they're new,

but they have solid experience under their belt from the last

two years of startup and growth.

What should peak your interest first?

John is serious about keeping this marketplace only for true handmade

creators. Nobody slips in who's producing from a factory or justifies

handmade when in truth it isn't.

The go imagine marketplace is affordable,

provides you direct access and ownership to your customer's contact information,

which oh my gosh,

is so big and has a philanthropic overlay that doesn't cost

you anything to align with almost too good to be true.

Right? Well,

I've got one up even better than what I said here.

How many of you know you should have a website of

your own too,

perhaps in addition to another outside owned e-commerce site like Etsy

or Amazon One with your own domain name,

smooth setup and control and reliable functionality,

go imagine has the solution for this two all in one

place. I bet I'm confusing you because you just can't believe

that all this is possible.

Let's dive into the details so you can hear it for

yourself Today.

I'd like to introduce you to John Lincoln,

the founder of Go Imagine the handmade marketplace that donates a

hundred percent profits to help children in need.

This new marketplace concept is following in the footsteps of other

great companies such as Newman's Own and Patagonia,

by building philanthropy into the fabric of the business.

and artists throughout the US supporting their mission to create a

more caring economy through Handmade.

This year,

go Imagine is adopting a shared ownership model where the vendors

on the marketplace are given ownership in the company,

including voting rights and board representation.

It's with the support of the maker community that go imagine

continues to grow and they feel it's only right that makers

are given a seat at the table when decisions are being

made. John,

I'm so excited to hear more about Go Imagine.

Welcome to the Gift Biz Unrepped podcast.

I appreciate you having me,

Sue. Thank you.

Before We get into everything,

we have to take care of another little task and that

is to have you describe yourself by way of a motivational

candle. This is a way for our listeners to get to

know you in kind of an undercover way,

if you will.

So motivational candle for you by color in quote,

what would it look like?

Yeah, yeah.

Remember you emailed me to ask that and I've been thinking

about it.

You know,

color I think for me would be pretty straightforward.

It would be teal because that is the color of go

imagine. Although when I thought when you first said candle,

it wasn't just the color,

but I would tell you that I think my candle would

also have one of those wicks,

you can't blow out Going and going and going.

I'm a serial entrepreneur and I've done a number of businesses

and yeah,

it's like it's,

you know,

in life you can't hold someone down.

And so yeah,

it's, I feel like I,

I'd have a,

an endless wick so to speak,

from a motivational quote.

I mean there's so many of 'em,

but in business,

one of the quotes that I've always liked on the business

side of things is from Henry Ford,

which is if two partners always agree on the same thing,

one of them isn't necessary.

And in the whole concept of that quote is the fact

that when you're building a business and you have partners,

or in the case of our marketplace,

I consider all of our makers and artists,

our partners,

is that you're not always gonna agree on the same thing.

What really matters is you're getting the right decision through discourse

in that process of having differing opinions.

That's a healthy way to grow a business is by having

different opinions and finding the right answer collectively instead of having

a bunch of yes men who are just,

you know,

agreeing with you on everything cuz you're not gonna get the

right answers if you're not having some disagreement.

Yeah. Or you're only going to have a resulting product that

is appreciated or welcomed by a certain portion of the community.

Right? Because we're all different.

Absolutely. I do truly believe this,

that the makers and artists on the platform are partners in

the company.

And one example would be,

and we don't have to talk too much about this,

but the definition of what handmade is,

right? Everybody has a different idea of what is handmade and

that's one of the things that we're working with our community

on our handmade guidelines as we continue to grow on defining

handmade. At the end of the day that quote really comes

to the fact that just cuz two people might have differing

opinions, they're both valuable opinions and they help find that right

common ground.

Absolutely. And I like too,

as the conversations evolve and good points come up,

I like to slip in these extra points that aren't necessarily

in alignment with the conversation.

But one of the things that you said,

John, while you were talking about your quote,

I learned way back in my corporate world when I was

learning management,

you know,

that was when you took courses,

they were prepping you to be a manager or something like

that. One of the things they always said is,

you don't wanna hire people who looked us like you.

You wanna hire people who have different skillsets,

different opinions,

all of that.

So very similar and parallel to what you're talking about,

but in a little bit of a different environment.

But for our makers here who are thinking of starting a

team or adding to a team,

that's something to always keep in mind is add people who

are different from you in some way because it makes your

whole group richer And it makes you grow,

right? Because you start to see things maybe differently than you

did before because you're exposed to that.

Yeah, I could not agree with you more.

All right,

so now we're gonna dive into you Don.

Okay, fair enough.

Tell me,

and you can start wherever it makes sense to start,

but what led you over to handmade?

What were you doing before?

Give us the entrance like the curtain is opening,

John, what do we see?

I think like most people,

your life is windy and where you end up is not

really where you started.

I mentioned a moment ago,

I've been kind of a serial entrepreneur.

So if we go back,

20 years was when I started my first company actually in

standup comedy.

I was a comedian for many years.

I opened up a couple comedy clubs,

a production agency,

and for 10 years I made my living running my comedy

business. Lucky enough we won Boston's best comedy club,

gone on the Today Show,

did some fun things there.

And when I was probably about 30,

so that's 10 years later,

life hit me in the face and I was getting married,

having my first kid and it was time to grow up

and get a real job.

That led me to getting into software,

right? And I got into actually the insurance industry,

not merely as exciting as handmade,

but I got into software development working for a company that

led me to start my own software agency management system on

a product called Salesforce.

I'm guessing.

Had a great experience growing that company.

Through those years growing the company,

I raised over $7 million and then Capital grew it to

over 40 employees.

And about three and a half years ago,

I had an opportunity to exit the company.

I was a CEO for many years and with okay belabored

points, the money I had raised diluted me down to,

you know,

a minority owner in this company.

And I was trying to think about the next thing I

wanted to do in life,

right? And so I was able to exit that company at

luckily it was a 44 million valuation.

That's not what I made.

That's what the company was valued at when we sold it,

sold the shares.

But I was thinking about the next chapter in life for

me and what I wanted to do.

And for the years I grew,

the last company,

it was called Veruna,

you can check 'em out,

they're still growing veruna.com.

And I was quickly becoming dis enamored with the fact that

the endless days and nights I was working,

the outcome of all the work was to make our investors

more money.

That wasn't why the company started,

the company started because I was excited to help agencies run

their business.

But it got to the point where when you have investors,

it's only about them,

right? And it wasn't very fulfilling to me to work so

hard to make rich people more rich,

right? And so that's when I started thinking about,

you know,

doing more of a philanthropic venture.

And by the way,

this all does lead to handmade,

I promise.

And so I was thinking through tech cause I had been

in software for about 10 years and then I,

it led me to marketplaces in general and how marketplaces operate.

And the true power of a marketplace is the buyers and

sellers has very little to do with the actual tech.

I mean,

yeah, you know,

you can invent new fun things like 3D video or something.

At the end of the day,

it's the community that makes a marketplace successful.

And these marketplaces are all on Wall Street now.

They're all venture capitalized.

They're all making billions of dollars through transaction fees between the

buyer and the seller.

And I thought to myself,

what if we could harness that power of those network effects

to do good in the world,

to build a marketplace environment where the fees being generated are

to help children need instead of simply go to the shareholders

and then the stockholders and investors.

So at that time,

we're going back probably three and a half years.

I started considering different marketplaces and where there was a hole

in the market,

Connor, where,

where do we want to go?

Cause I by trade don't have a handmade,

I, I'd like to think I have an entertainment background but

not an art background.

So I started considering different marketplaces,

but one of my really good friends who has helped me

through all my other businesses,

she's a graphic designer,

her name is Stephanie Mke is an artist,

she's been selling on Etsy for years.

She's done countless craft fairs,

she's within the handmade community and,

and I was talking with her through business and I said,

you know,

tell me about Etsy was my question to her.

This was three and a half years ago cuz I'd been

looking at the different models,

Airbnb, Upwork,

Uber. And I was like,

tell me about Etsy.

She says,

what do you wanna know?

I'm like,

well do the makers like Etsy.

That question alone opened Pandora's box when I asked Steph,

what do makers think of Etsy?

Depending on what year?

Yeah, Yeah.

19. So anyway,

it opened Pandora's box and you know exactly where the conversation

went led,

you know,

the fact that more manufactured items are going on this site,

the fact the fees are going up,

they're forcing free shipping at that time.

All these other things start coming out.

And I was like,

okay, well what I saw talking with Steph was this,

I'll call it dissatisfaction within the handmade world because Etsy grew

on the back of handmade,

but now is leaving it.

And by the way,

I have a YouTube video,

you should watch that.

I talk about why Etsy left hand made because it makes

perfect sense from an investor economic standpoint.

So what I saw working with Steph was what I would

think is a whole opening for a new handmade marketplace.

Okay, you've got this really behemoth that grew on the back

of handmade but it's slowly going away from it,

which is going to open up an opportunity for the next

handmade marketplace that's truly handmade.

This led to me talking to Steph and actually partnering with

her. Steph is now a partner in the company with me.

She's a co-owner.

I brought in some other software people I know very well

into the business and that's where it kind of all started.

Where on my end I am really more of the software

tech entrepreneur side.

But Steph has always been the real handmade artist side of

things. And the first thing we did before we wrote a

lick code was start a Facebook group.

It invited makers into the community and started talking to them.

So if you go to our Facebook group,

which we have 7,000

number of,

you'll see the first conversation there of just learning from the

community on what is possible if we work together.

So when I look at starting a any marketplace,

you really need two types of people.

You need the software people because marketplace is our software and

you need the,

what I would call domain knowledge,

the real handmade people.

And from my perspective,

I bring the software and the community and Steph as a

partner bring the handmade.

And so far it's been a good recipe.

You know,

I think a lot of people who have been with me

for a while can really relate to this because as we

start talking about starting a business,

so it's not a marketplace but it's your,

your brand,

right? Is to start rallying and supporters even before you're launching

your product.

Yeah. To start building a community and having an audience for

support. Yes.

But also so that when you're starting,

you're not opening the door to nobody coming in.

Well It's market research to a degree,

right? And it's market research for sure.

Yes. Parting what their needs are and if you listen to

people and you get their input and you involve 'em at

the beginning,

they wanna be involved later cuz they've actually had a hand

in helping building,

right? Right.

That's a big,

that's a big part of it.

Marketplace is even more so.

But I think you're right with any business it's important.

So let's dive into,

I think the interest of people who are listening here,

which is as a handmade maker,

what does go imagine have for me?

How does it work?

Like give us all the goodness there.

I would love to,

well, so start like starting any business in terms of your

question, you're differentiators,

what are you bringing to the table that isn't already there?

Or what would you bring to me?

So we've been working on this for years and obviously the

first thing is we're a marketplace,

right? As we grow,

we are building a buyer base and traffic is increasing.

Now I'll be upfront and say that is traffic like Etsy?

Heck no.

It's like some makers come to a new marketplace and expect

an Etsy type volume right off the gate.

But even Etsy wasn't Etsy at the beginning,

right? So what we've done is we've really focused a lot

on where else can we support our makers outside of just

driving buyers to the marketplace.

And that's led us to a number of different things.

Obviously the community aspect is a really big part of that

where we've built our community.

The other big part is we launched something about a year

ago called our Mosaic platform.

And what Mosaic is,

is the ability to have your own privately branded website on

go imagine that is also connected to the marketplace,

right? And we built that because what we found through our

own research talked to Makers is that a lot of them

have been trying to find how do I differentiate myself from

being just on Etsy?

And that has led to a lot of them saying,

I'll start my own website.

Well that's great,

you can go to Shopify,

WooCommerce Wick on any of those,

but at the end of the day they're,

they can be pricey.

You know,

Shopify just raised their rates.

I mean they're $40 a month before you buy anything on

top of that.

And so we thought,

well what if we can build a more affordable private website

with custom domains for you while also helping you be part

of a new philanthropic marketplace and grow it.

And so for 10 bucks a month you get your own

website, right?

So not only are we reducing your cost to have your

own website,

I always like to tell people that if you build Wicks

or your site on Wicks or on Shopify,

they're guaranteed to draw you zero traffic because they're not meant

to draw you draw your own traffic.

But on this platform for us,

you're gonna have your own website to market your own brand

while also being connected to a growing marketplace that will eventually

draw you traffic.

Whether it's one sale a month or one sale a quarter.

It's more than the sales you're getting having your own website

on Wix or Shopify.

Okay. Alright,

perfect. So John,

I have to tell you that always what I advise is

your own website is Golden territory.

It's like your business headquarters online,

not an Etsy site.

Because we all know Etsy has restrictions and structure that you

can't get out of and it's not your own domain.

So what I'm hearing from you,

it's kind of a go-between,

it's a different animal if you will.

But the thing I'm really liking about what you're saying is

you create your own domain name.

So it's not your shop connected with an Etsy site,

it's your shop.com

or whatever your URL is,

right? Absolutely.

Yeah. And you owning your own url,

to your point,

Sue is hugely valuable because even if you own your own

URL today and you point it to your Etsy shop,

well you can print all your business cards with your url,

print your brochures,

your Facebook,

and then the day you decide to move your URL to

go imagine or Shopify,

you can repoint it,

Right? And then all of that past stuff works.

But if you're advertising your etsy.com/my

shop name,

when you then move to a url,

all your past marketing is now poof because you've changed the

url. So to your point,

I think every maker should own url.

That should be like the first thing cuz A they're super

cheap. I mean like 10 bucks a year,

20 bucks a year and you now have a brand.

The second step is where are you connecting that url?

Where is that Now it can always move,

right? And to your point,

maybe on go imagine our platform gives you that stepping stone

to have your own branded website,

but we don't have every feature that Shopify has yet.

We're still new.

Maybe you'll graduate eventually and say,

you know what,

we're now a bigger company,

we've grown and now we wanna move to Shopify that has

more bells and whistles.

Okay? So agree with you a hundred percent.

And the other thing,

I have a couple of questions here.

First off,

let me ask just one more tech question and then I

wanna get out of tech for a little while.

Sure. Go Imagine site.

You guys are doing the hosting also,

so there's none of that to be worried about.

Okay. Kind of like Shopify does hosting too,

Etsy, but everything but WordPress kind of.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So we do all the hosting.

Alright, okay,

so perfect with that.

You know,

here's the thing with e-commerce also,

I feel that whether it's a site on Etsy,

go imagine Shopify,

every single one of those attracts a different audience and works

in a different way.

Although if you have too many,

you know there's nuances to every site.

So if you have too many,

you'll never get to be an expert at one specifically.

You know,

I think maybe one or two sites,

your own platform perhaps.

And then maybe it's Etsy,

maybe it's Amazon for certain people here.

So you can think of it that way too.

Especially if you're not one who's going out and doing a

lot of in-person shows anymore for whatever reason,

having multiple locations is not duplicating your efforts online.

So just a comment,

and I don't know if you wanna react to that or

not, John,

Around the fact that having more than one location online is

more work or less work.

What about you?

It's attracting different audiences.

So just because you are online now with whatever your you

are L is doesn't mean a second one won't be presenting

you up to new people,

right? Absolutely.

And I think that's where as a maker,

so a lot of makers who are an artist who get

into business,

they do it cuz of their love of the art and

the making and they're forced to do business cuz that's how

you make money,

right? So it's almost like they have to learn the business

on the fly.

They might've spent years making,

they might've gone to school,

art school and they've learned all that and then all of

a sudden it's like,

well you also now have to think about branding,

you've gotta think about revenue,

you've gotta think about sales,

you all this other stuff you have to learn.

And that's why they come to people like you sue to

learn from.

And I think when you look at so many places to

sell today,

the first thought often is,

which I would ask is like,

well who are you as a brand and where can you

find the audiences that resonate with what you're selling?

Right? And you mentioned Amazon Handmade might work wonderfully for some

people and not work at all for others.

Same with Etsy,

same with go imagine even same with your own website,

but starting off on different platforms from a testing peer,

you never call it,

you start to learn where you fit more.

A little a little,

right? Because just cuz you didn't sell well on Amazon doesn't

mean you won't sell on Etsy.

Does that make sense?

It makes total sense.

And then I also think you need to dive deeper as

you've been talking about,

well as you experienced with your prior business too,

how businesses evolve and what might have met your needs when

you initially started might not be anymore.

Oh Yeah.

You know Etsy,

I'm not gonna dis Etsy because I think they're a good

platform. They have their limitations for sure.

But people have told me over and over again how they

aren't getting the results they once had on Etsy for various

reasons. And I think it's the company might have other objectives

now prices are going up like all different types of reasons.

So you've gotta look at what platform works for you.

And I wanna get back to go imagine,

cuz I still want to understand more about Go imagine.

Okay, so I'm a maker,

let's pretend I'm a maker.

I'm curious about the platform.

I love the idea of either starting my first website or

finding another home online.

It's not wholesale,

it's direct to consumer.

No, this is not like fair.

This is like more like Etsy.

Yeah. All right,

perfect. And so if I was interested in working with you,

how does that start?

Yeah, so the big thing for us is that we are

a handmade only marketplace,

right? And so we work really hard on trying to make

sure every seller on the marketplace is truly selling handmade.

So there is a short application process.

So if you just go to the website,

you click go to the bottom and click on become a

member, there's some questions where you apply and that goes to

our team to verify through your answers that okay you qualify.

And if you're curious,

we do at the bottom of our site have what's called

handmade guidelines where you can first make sure that you qualify.

For instance,

one of the hot topics right now in our community is

drop shipping.

And right now we do not allow drop shipping.

That's something that the whole idea of production partners that Etsy

came out with,

which we don't necessarily allow production partners.

That gets back to the whole defining handmade kind of conversation.

Well and a niche within handmade too,

right? And I love this because this is the majority of

the people who are listening who are my handmade creators,

are not producing their product elsewhere and are not having someone

drop ship for them.

They're doing that.

Yeah. So imagine we do not allow drop shipping or production.

So you go through the application process,

it's not a scary process.

Basically we're just verifying that what you're saying is true,

that you are handmade right?

After that we have our help center to help you get

your shop set up.

But we also very much encourage everyone to join our community

to meet other go imagine makers who are,

one thing we love is that our makers help each other

with setup and help each other with questions.

So not only do we have our Facebook group,

but we have our own social app called Maker Circle that

you can download on Android or iPhone to join the community

in our own private app as well.

Okay. Two questions.

I hope you don't mind if I interject.

I always try to put myself in the mind of someone

who's listening and try and create the questions as we go.

Okay. So what if someone has their own website but they

like the idea of having another online shop?

Yes. Would they then get a new domain that would attach

to their Go Imagine account?

Oh, maybe a spinoff or something?

Yes and no.

The way to think about it is this is we have

different levels of plan.

The lowest plan is $2 and 50.

So it's you know,

very inexpensive and we take 5% per transaction.

So our fees are generally less than Etsy.

When you're selling that plan doesn't come with your private website,

that's just a marketplace site,

which would be go imagine.com/shop

name, just like etsy.com.

So everybody in the marketplace has a marketplace shop,

which is go imagine.com/xyz.

If you want your own private website,

that's $10 a month.

That's where you'd also get your own custom domain with a

branded website that doesn't have all the go imagine makers in

it. So essentially for $2 and 50 cents a month is

the lowest plan.

You have a marketplace shop and for 10 bucks a month

you get the marketplace shop and your private website.

So we've had a lot of sellers that have decided to

say, you know what,

I'm gonna,

I've already got my private website set up,

it's going well,

I'll get the lower plan and go imagine start selling there.

We've had makers who have canceled their Shopify and then just

started using our site instead.

And some of that just don't have websites at all.

And use the lower plans.

It depends on what fits your needs the best,

if that makes sense.

Yeah. So you can be coming from both directions.

You could be someone who's never had a website before and

come on to the platform at $2 and 50 cents a

month. These days it's less than a cup of coffee,

like less than not equal to,

less than,

right? Or if you already have your own own website,

this is another audience that you could approach again for a

very, very unbelievably economic fee.

So, so you could come from both ways,

people who are just starting or people who are already established

looking for additional eyes to capture.

So let me ask you this,

how, and you don't have to get into all the nitty

gritty, but how does the functionality work in terms of setting

up the site?

Are there like templates that you fit into or how does

that look?

So the short story is you have a seller dashboard we

call it,

which is the backend for you to manage your shop.

If you're talking about using our custom website and the marketplace,

it's all one seller dashboard.

So we always like to say you're managing two sites from

one dashboard.

You know,

you're mar,

you're going back to marketplace shop and your custom website,

our help center is filled with videos and articles on meeting

you through how to set up a product or how to

set up your shop.

I will tell you that we've partnered with Stripe as our

payment processor.

I'm sure you're familiar with Stripe.

So you do have to have a Stripe account to use.

Go imagine that takes all two seconds to set up.

And for those who don't know Stripe,

it's just like Square or PayPal,

although I think better.

But anyway,

we can talk about payment processes another time.

Yeah. So it all runs to one dashboard.

In terms of templates,

yeah, we have for instance our marketplace category.

So every product can have its own,

you know,

pick the category it belongs in.

But you can create your custom shop categories,

which is separate from the marketplace categories.

You create the categories that resonate for you on your own

website, right?

You on your own website for us,

you create your own custom banners,

your own custom color scheme and all that.

But obviously in the marketplace site it'd be go imagines color

scheme, right?

Because now you're in the marketplace.

So when a visitor visits the site,

if they're going to your shop.com,

it's all your branding.

But obviously the Go imagine.com/your

shop is all go imagine.

But the beauty is,

at least from what we're building is that as a sneaker,

you're managing it all from one backend.

So to your point,

this actually kind of wraps up nicely from what you said

earlier. You're getting two destinations in one spot.

So you're getting your own website and you're on a new

marketplace. So a lot of our sellers who do this program,

and I'm not trying to get too salesy here,

so I apologize,

but the,

the concept is if you're on Etsy and go imagine with

the custom website,

you've chosen two platforms,

but you have three destinations,

right? Because your custom website can be wrapped into it versus

having to manage a third.

So that's kinda the concept that we're going through with the

custom website aspect.

Okay, Big reason we did the custom website,

and this is where I don't mind talking about our strategy

is a lot of handmade marketplaces before us have come and

gone, right?

There's a graveyard of 'em and,

and why did other ones not succeed in Etsy?

Did. And I think part of the thing when building a

new marketplace,

there's something called the chicken or the egg concept,

which I'm sure you can guess what that is,

but how do you attract buyers if there's no sellers?

How do you attract sellers if there's no buyers,

right? How do you get to that inflection point where the

network effects start happening so more bell buyers brings more sellers,

et cetera,

et cetera.

Now a lot of sellers and this,

this is not just maker specific,

but any marketplace they'll join your job as a marketplace is

to bring 'em sales.

You're brand new,

you don't have a lot of buyers.

So they join in three months,

they cancel,

they add no sales.

Next buyer seller joins,

they don't get sales,

they cancel.

How do you grow a critical mass of sellers on a

platform so that you can start attracting the buyers and get

the flywheel effect?

This is why we started offering own custom websites because now

it's not just about joining us and being on a marketplace

for our sales,

but the benefit of having your own website that you otherwise

would've paid three,

four times the price to a Shopify for,

but now you're helping get a new handmade marketplace to generate

those network effects and grow,

right? And I think it's safe to say that the handmade

world is longing for another handmade marketplace,

I guess is a good way to put it,

at least from everywhere I've been in communication with,

that they really would love to see another handmade marketplace be

successful. But the only way a handmade marketplace is successful is

when the community and the makers rally around it.

There's no other way,

no one's gonna come out of the woodwork with a billion

dollars start pouring into marketing without any sellers.

And that's just as true with Etsy.

You know,

Etsy grew based on the support of the makers.

In fact,

the past CEO Chad Dickerson,

he was quoted saying in a shareholder meeting that the reason

Etsy grew so fast was because of makers promoting their own

shops. That's why Etsy grew.

But we've gone into a point where marketplaces are so ubiquitous

that sellers expect to,

okay, I'm gonna join Etsy and I'll just do nothing and

sales will come or I'll join Amazon,

I'll do nothing and sales will come.

But a new marketplace needs to gain that support from the

community to grow.

That doesn't mean the marketplace can do nothing.

The marketplace has to add value to the sellers.

What are they getting for being there?

In our case,

it's your own website.

And then on top of that we can talk about our

philanthropic aspect,

our shared ownership model,

which also is more things we're doing to show the community

that this marketplace is being built for the maker community.

This is not another venture capitalized company that wants to grow

and sell to Wall Street.

This is a company that is growing for the needs of

the makers and the needs of,

in our case children in need to help them.

Okay, we have some other questions for you so that when

we get off they have enough information to come and really

talk with you about it.

And philanthropic is also part of that in a second.

But walk me through,

let's say I've got my shop up now.

I've got products there.

All the makers on the site are helping gather their communities

over to purchase from that site.

I have like three questions at once.

I don't know which way to go first.

Let's go with a customer,

buys a product from me.

What do I see as a maker to handle the fulfillment

of that product?

Cuz we've already talked about it's gotta be me,

it's not drop shipping.

But so how does that happen?

I wanted to pause this discussion for a second to let

you know that I recognize you may be feeling overwhelmed right

now. I mean I bring on great guests who are specialists

in their fields and we get into fabulous conversations that you

know can help grow your business.

So after the show you have the full intention of grabbing

a download,

making an adjustment on your website or any number of other

ideas that arise as a result of this podcast.

But what happens,

you get back to your other activities and the momentum you

once had gets lost.

What you've planned to do is forgotten,

then you feel bad because your business is going on as

usual without implementing anything that you know would help grow your

business. We're just too busy doing all the things like a

robot moving from one thing to another without thinking because we

have to.

I get it,

I've been there.

But guess what?

There is another way.

Since I recognized this exact behavior in my own business,

I set out to do something about it and now what

works for me,

I'm sharing with you.

I formalized the process and it's called the inspired daily planner.

Made specifically for gifters,

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But it's not your ordinary planner.

First off,

it comes with a video explaining my productivity strategy.

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message or business building tip and plenty of space to capture

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It's the perfect solution to truly act and move your business

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This makes a great gift too.

So if you have a biz bestie,

pick up a planner for them too.

That link again is gift biz unwrapped.com/inspired.

Okay, let's get back to the show.

Yeah, so in the seller dashboard,

which is your backend to manage your shop,

you're gonna get an email that says Congratulations,

you got a new order.

You log into your shop,

you're gonna see the order there.

We do have integration with Shipo,

which is a shipping label product where any orders that come

in if you want to use shipo,

will create the order in Shipo.

So you can go to shipo to print the label for

that commercial rate label and without having a duplicate entry,

it's all there to print the label.

You'll manage all your sales within our dashboard.

You can mark them complete,

you can mark them,

needs more information.

You can communicate to the seller through the dashboard.

If you have a question go back and forth on the

platform. It's very similar to Etsy,

I guess in that sense where you know you're gonna manage

the shop and any orders that come through.

Is there a specific required turnaround time?

No. So one of the big things for us with this

marketplace is we want to help makers build their business but

not tell makers how to run their business.

And marketplaces that have gotten to the size of an Amazon

or net zero all that,

they've really tried to cookie cutter all makers into one path,

right? You've gotta turn around X amount of time.

Here's your template of shop policies.

We have a section for shop policies that we're,

you're encouraged to put all your information in on your own

return policy,

your own cancellation policy,

your own turnaround times.

We have a shipping timeframe box that right on the top

of the product says the timeframe you can expect to get

the product from go imagine standpoint.

We don't require any specific turnaround time,

although we highly encourage providing that information upfront so that buyers

are understanding of what they're getting into.

Okay. And is it by product?

It is,

yeah. Shipping timeframes by pro.

Yeah. So great for people who offer customization or a product

line where different pieces they're made to order and they take

different amounts of time.

That's also a good point is that we have unlimited options

and variations.

So you get to create your custom variations so you know,

everyone has pick your color,

pick your size,

pick your necklace,

your chain length or whatever else.

Our system allows you to create them custom so you can

have as many as you need and as custom as you

need In terms of those dropdowns,

That is huge because I know on Shopify it's challenging for

people to be able to put their options with the apps

that you add on and you know all of that.

Like if there's different color sizes,

like all of that gets a little bit challenging.

And in some cases,

like on Etsy you have to take multiple pictures of a

million products if everything's custom to sell.

So this sounds like a much more user friendly from someone

who offers really one of a kind type products.

Am I right here?

Am I reading this right?

Absolutely. And to that point,

this is a lot of the feedback we've gotten from our

sellers who are on the platform.

They, they love the fact they can create custom dropdowns and

feature and variations.

Another feature they like about us is we have what are

called hidden listings.

So if to your point,

let's say you're doing a custom work for someone and you

wanna send 'em a link to pay for with the pictures

of what they bought.

It's not listed on the marketplace or your shop,

but you have a hidden link that you can share with

them. They can pay you and see the pictures of the

custom work before you send it Out.

Very nice.

Yeah. So that's something that a lot of people like.

But I think the big thing here is that when you

think through what handmade is and what the Shopify's and Wickes

of the world built,

the Shopify's and Wickes are really built around retail.

Shopify's not huge in the handmade space as they are in

the retail space.

A lot of things are cookie cutter in retail.

Handmade is the antithesis of cookie cutter,

right? The whole idea of handmade is that it's unique,

it's different and especially with custom work.

So how we're going about building our platform and we're by

no means done,

we're always trying to come up with new features based on

community input,

is that we wanna do things based on the needs of

handmade and Shopify and w they're not doing it based that

needs handmade cuz handmade is only a small slice of their

overall business.

So for them it's a lot more cookie cutter.

So it's not surprising that,

as you mentioned,

a lot of times makers need to put a square peg

in a round hole when they use an off-the-shelf retail website.

Right. Okay.

And then what about capturing the purchaser's contact information?

You know,

I'm thinking for ongoing email marketing,

that kind of thing.

Yeah, that is all flows to you.

So we consider,

I, we consider the customers that come through our customers meaning

both the maker's customers and go imagines customer.

So you keep retention of people who are buying off the

site so you can market to them and then the individual

shop owners also can capture that information for themselves.

Oh my gosh,

I love that.

So you have your customer list and now obviously you also,

that comes with your own liability of spam and all that,

right? But you keep your own customer list,

you can download the customer list,

you can take the customers off the list and and market

to them.

We are gonna be working on a way to more easily

maybe have like a mail chip sync or something where you

can have your list flow to your choice of email marketing

providers. But at this stage,

yeah, the customers are in the database for you and you

can use them.

Beautiful. I was almost a little bit afraid to ask that

question. I want up you here.

When our invoices go out in our orders,

if you go to go imagine right now and you buy

something and let's just say you buy something from Sue's res,

right? And you buy it and you get a confirmation email,

you know who the confirmation email says,

Hmm, it's your order from Sue's res,

not your order from go Imagine it came for the emails

info, go imagine cause we need email,

but it's your logo is in the email and in the

title is your order from Sues REITs or whatever your shop

name is.

So that I think that you've got this mentality in,

in other marketplaces,

where'd you buy that?

I got got it off Etsy.

Right? Right.

And they don't even know who the seller was.

Well in our world we really are thinking that from our

ethos is it's both of our customers.

We want them to know about you and about us,

right? So we're not hiding the fact,

in fact we're propping up the maker.

We think that's actually for us a competitive advantage to really

highlight the maker versus what bigger marketplaces Have done.

Yeah, well that in combination with the fact that you can

have your own domain owned website through you,

you know,

and all the other things that you're providing.

I agree with you.

I mean this is great.

Okay, so talk to me more about the philanthropy part because

for a maker,

we're gonna pay for the services we're gonna pay for product

listings. Is it byproduct?

Listing byproduct?

No. So the way it works is we have a membership

fee, a flat membership fee,

which includes a number of listings.

So for let's say we have a $5 plan for the

$5 plan,

you can list up to a hundred products.

Whoa, that's a lot.

Yeah. And for the $10 plan,

it's a thousand products.

So unlike,

well just use Etsy as the example cause everyone knows them.

They do a 20 cent listing fee.

We have none of that.

Ours is just a flat monthly rate that you can plan

on. Then we take a small transaction fee like every marketplace.

In our case right now it's up to 5%.

Our fee is 5% without any other hidden fees other than

the Stripe fee.

Cause I wanna be transparent,

Stripe charges their 2.9%.

Well Stripe is coming from Stripe.

So everyone understands like that just flows through.

You can't do anything about that.

And so this is getting to the point that I was

trying to understand.

So is it 5% or whatever the percentage is 5%,

5% to go imagine and then you can call 3% goes

to Stripe because,

so it's 8% total is what's coming outta your transaction.

So 8% And so then a portion of that 5% is

what's being donated forward,

right? Absolutely,

yes. Okay.

I was trying to understand where the money came from.

That was the charitable portion of the money.

So that's important to distinguish.

So the whole,

as we talked about earlier,

the real passion here is to create a philanthropic marketplace,

right? We're doing it in handmade,

we're doing it with the support of the maker community.

But the idea is to continue to grow this.

And the bigger we get,

the more we get to donate.

Now we've been donating from day one,

even when we were operating at a loss,

right? So we've donated,

I wanna say $20,000

to four different charities so far,

which I mean it's tough when you're a startup,

you know,

I'd love to say it was a million dollars,

but so far we've donated $20,000.

It's gonna get there.

It's just not yet.

So with the supports,

we've donate about $20,000

to the four charities that you can see listed on our

site. You can go to that site and see the charity

partners. We can talk about 'em.

Now the goal,

our real goal is to,

as we grow in the donations grow with it,

is that our maker community can help us guide where those

donations go so that eventually the vendors will have input.

At this point,

it hasn't been enough money to wanna like have a big

vote or anything on where the money goes.

So we just let people know where we're donating it.

But I see a path where the makers get a part

of the decision and that goes into where we're giving the

ownership to the makers to start getting them involved on those

decisions. So we run a similar model as Newman's own.

I use a lot because a lot of people know Newman's

own, they've been around 40 years and they've done the same

thing that we're doing but with salad dressing,

right? And Patagonia just last year,

which is exciting for us,

changed their business model into an all profits to charity model

as, and that's,

you can look up as Patagonia's doing something similar now too.

And I truly believe that this is the future of where

you can create what we call a caring economy.

But you can also use the word conscious capitalism.

There's conscious capitalism and then there's predatory capitalism.

And capitalism I think is a wonderful thing.

I mean it's,

it's the re it's the foundation of our country.

But runaway capitalism can also do a lot of bad things

in the world due to greed,

right? And so this model is a model that I believe

can support the employees at the company,

support the maker selling and do good in the world with

the money you're making.

Right? And you know,

I know it's a a lofty goal but beyond all the

other stuff we talked about the marketplace,

this is really where I think the handmade community with us

has an opportunity to show the world.

There's a better way to say there is a better way.

Cuz just like I mentioned earlier,

marketplaces are nothing more than a community.

The buyer goes to Etsy is cuz they know the handmade

sellers there.

The reason the seller sells on that sea,

cuz they know the handmade buyers there.

It has nothing to do with Etsy,

has nothing to do with Amazon.

You don't care what the site was called.

Just that you know,

they're there.

And if the community in the world rallies around a concept

like this,

there's that vision of it's the same maker,

it's the same price,

it's the same product,

everything's the same.

What's different?

Children are getting helped.

That's the only difference.

And who doesn't want that?

Yeah. So John,

this is now passed,

we're a little bit late for this,

but I created a nationally recognized day for Makers.

It's called National Baker's Crafters Makers Day on January 21st.

So it's just passed.

But for the episode I have two episodes that were recognizing

and honoring makers.

And in one of them I put out a questionnaire to

Makers about what value they gave their customers and what value

their businesses gave them and everything.

The, a whole umbrella was giving and caring and spreading joy

to the world,

right? And we've also done some podcasts and I,

this is leading to a point,

we've done some podcasts from people who have started their business

also with a give back element.

And most of the time it's a give back element because

it's something that the maker has experienced personally,

right? Illness.

Yep. Whatever it is.

And I know that there are a lot of makers who

would like to do that but have no idea,

number one,

how to set it up from a tax standpoint.

Some people will say,

oh, a certain percentage of a couple products is gonna go

to maybe their local fire station or some type of a

project. But I'm seeing this also as an opportunity for makers

to join something bigger than just themselves.

They don't have to do anything to also help promote the

fact that sales from their products through go imagined go to

your Groups,

right? Absolutely.

Yeah. That's the whole idea was the idea is like we're

not asking anyone to do something different.

Sometimes Makers will contact us or find us and say,

wait, so I donate my money?

Like no,

you're donating nothing.

In fact our makers are making more money cause we take

less of a transaction fee.

It's that we're doing the donating through the business model.

And have you ever heard the term arising tide floats all

boats? Oh of course.

Yes. Right.

And that's kind of how I envision every marketplace.

And up until now the internet has been a new thing

and marketplaces came around,

what probably the two thousands was when they really started to

blow up and where money greed follows,

right? And where greed goes,

so does like,

you know,

wall Street and we don't want to get into that.

I mean like I have no real negative input other than

the fact that we could do good in the world.

But the point is,

is that we're now in a more mature internet.

We're in a mature online environment where now we see how

the public world and society is getting built online and naturally

corporations were the first to get there cuz there was money

and all the other people who weren't trying to rush to

the money are kind of seeing the effects later.

It's now 10 years later,

corporations got there 15 years ago and everyone's going,

holy crap everyone,

it's all corporations that own the world.

And I wrote a blog about this,

but if you look at what a marketplace is,

and I'm not talking online,

I'm talking about a real world marketplace,

physical marketplace,

maybe in your town square once in a while at your

town football field or they put it on in the town

common. It was a public space,

it was a space for everyone going.

If you paid for the booth,

it was actually going to the town that owned that land

and it was to help build the road,

right? Marketplaces,

if you look at other huge marketplaces on one I love

is in Seattle Pike's Market.

You know,

if you look at the Grand Bazaar in the Middle East,

these were built as public goods for everyone to come and

sell their wares.

But the internet has slowly become owned by private companies and

now all these private companies are owning the marketplaces.

And sadly a lot of the physical marketplaces are dying because

everyone shop online.

And I know I'm going on a tangent here,

but the whole vision is these marketplaces should be public.

Why do you have to pay a private corporation to get

seen by the public to sell?

And so the whole concept here is let's build a better

foundation for marketplaces.

And the best way I could think to do it was

philanthropically the government's not gonna open an online marketplace right now.

Your town would've,

your towns,

towns do,

but towns don't open online companies.

So gosh,

it's just,

in my mind I'm like,

it's such a simple concept that can have such profound effects

if people come together.

And I love what you were just saying about your January

21st event about how many makers want to give back,

how many,

and that's part of the reason I thought handmade was such

a great place to go is cuz artists have such a

big heart,

right? And so as we grow the company,

the reason we are actually giving ownership to the makers,

and as I mentioned to you in that I think intro

I sent you is we're giving them board seats to sit

on the board is cause we want the makers to be

involved in the decisions,

right? And,

and who knows where that's gonna go?

I don't even know yet.

Because you're saying,

you know,

makers want to give to their fire department or their,

their local homeless shelter,

whatever. And maybe our community decides that we'll work towards a

path where instead of go,

imagine doing a charity,

you get to pick the charity of your choice and a

percentage of the sales that we would donate go to that

charity you're choosing,

right? I dunno there's an option Or a split,

like some support the charities that you've already designated,

but another could support a local charity.

You could do like a combination too.

Yes. But this is a decision for the community.

And I'm not sure if you,

did you see that Amazon Smile is ending?

Yeah, I did see that.

Yeah. So,

but why is that?

And I read a whole article about it.

It's because,

well, they did it for a while,

but you know,

times are tough.

They're laying off people.

The first thing that matters is their bottom line,

not the charities.

And, and that's the wrong way of thinking.

Cuz if anything,

the people who need the money more now are the charities.

Right, Right.

Well, you know,

there's another angle here that was coming to my mind as

you were talking,

and that is one of the pain points of a lot

of makers is the price of the product.

Because it is,

you know,

you're gonna buy a soap between handmade soap,

I don't know,

5 50,

7 50,

you know,

depending on size and ingredients and all of that.

Or you could buy Dove at the grocery store for a

dollar 50,

like whatever.

I have not shopped soap for a long time except for

handmade. So I don't know what the grocery store prices of

far, but when people are out at craft shows,

I know that there is feedback about how high priced handmade

is. And then they of course have to go into the

value of the product and what you're getting and how it's

different, et cetera.

Right. But if there's an element of give back,

people are way more willing to pay more for a product.

They're getting the product,

they're doing something good for somebody else just by obtaining that

product. So I can see this overlay being significant also and

helping makers sell their products at the prices that they deserve.

By the way,

you know,

when you're taking into account everything that goes into a price,

so it could help prompt sales as well with that overlay.

Absolutely. In fact,

that's where both on the seller side and the buyer side

can go Imagine standpoint is we are a mission-driven business.

And some people,

mission doesn't matter,

but there's a whole heck of a lot of people where

Mission does.

Yeah. Right?

And that's why they buy the Tom's shoes.

They buy the Bombas socks or anything else.

It's cause of the mission or the Newman's.

The Newman's own salad dressing.

It's cause they know not,

oh, maybe it's 25 cents more.

Maybe it's 50 cents more.

But they also know they're supporting a company doing good.

And as we grow and the community grows,

more people get to know about this mission.

And mind you,

from a tech standpoint,

it's just not just just about the community growing,

but we're investing more and more in development.

So the platform is gonna get better in like as a

startup, there's things that if you joined us right now,

you'd say,

I wish I did this.

I wish I did that.

Well, trust me,

we're working on that.

Well stay tuned and we can all relate.

Right? Like when all of us started our businesses and we've

been in business for a while,

it didn't look like it does today on day one.

I mean,

it's a development.

It's a course.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. So,

all right.

Well I'm looking at the time here and I think we

should start to wrap up You all day though,

Sue. I know we could,

but then we won't get to all of the rest that

everybody's going to need to know.

So kind of summarize for someone who's listening,

who's we've peaked their interest here.

Summarize what the value is of Go Imagine,

and then where they should go to learn more,

find out more.

Or if maybe they're even ready to get started.

Where do all those channels lead?

Yeah. So first thing I'd say is go imagines a community

of makers working together to do good in the world.

That's kind of like what we are now,

what value we bring to the makers.

We mentioned that there's your PRI option to have a private

website. We of course,

are building a marketplace with more and more buyers who are

coming to the marketplace to find your goods.

And we also have a growing community for you to get

to know other makers that are working the same direction you

are. You can find out more about us.

Go to Go imagine.com.

That's where you have to go.

If you scroll to the bottom,

you'll see a lot of information under the sale section where

you can see how to open a shop,

see our handmade guidelines.

Everything else I guess I will mention,

which I don't have to mention.

But yeah,

we're all handmade.

We're all in on handmade.

That's who we are.

And the big thing we're doing right now,

we just had our first meeting last month with the community,

is that we're actually in the process of giving ownership to

our handmade community,

which is,

we talked come with voting rights and board representation because we

want the handmade community to have a hand,

no pun intended,

in building this company.

And that comes from a foundational level of having a seat

on the board and having voting rights and having involvement in

the decisions we make.

If you tune in,

if you go to our Go Imagine Facebook group,

you're gonna get a lot of these announcements.

We're going live on that group a lot.

Talk about this stuff.

So if you wanna just hear what's going on,

join our Facebook group or join our email list and stay

in touch.

I hope you join our Caring Economy.

Oh, I love that.

And everything is Go Imagine,

right? Go imagine.

Yeah. We do have an app called Maker Circle,

which is our community app,

which is a social app you'll see on Go Imagine.

But that's member only.

So you have to become a member,

get into that community.

But that's the app.

It's called Maker Service.

Okay. But in terms of any social or their website,

it's all go Imagine.

Yes. There are a bunch of Go Imagine Facebook groups now.

Cause some,

some of our members had it.

There's one called the Go Imagine Official Makers Group that's ours.

But I think there's like 10 different Goma because it's a

hundred Etsy groups out there now too.

So you don't see a lot of us.

We love people supporting it.

So we don't stop people from creating their own custom Go

Imagine groups,

but look for the Official Makers Group is what it's called

it. Well,

I'm really excited to watch how this develops.

I mean,

there's no question in my mind that it's going to be

a success and the fact that you're already taking actions that

are proving what you say.

It's not like,

well, we're gonna do this,

we're gonna do this.

You're already giving back,

you're already attracting people,

you're already listening to the community and it's just gonna grow

from here.

I'm very excited about Go Imagine and everything that it can

offer. Well,

I'm very excited that you're excited,

Sue. I'm,

I'm glad that you invited me here.

I appreciate It.

There you go.

Well, thank you so much for coming on today and telling

us all about Go Imagine.

Thank you.

I absolutely love everything Go Imagine offers.

And what's fabulous already I know is going to get better

and better.

When owners offer you voting rights and board representation,

that's the sign that they truly want your input to make

the company the best that it can be for you.

It's got my vote.

I wanna make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook group

called Gift Miss Breeze.

It's a place where we all gather and our community to

support each other.

I got a really fun post in there that's my favorite

of the week,

I have to say,

where I invite all of you to share what you're doing

to show pictures of your product,

to show what you're working on for the week,

to get reaction from other people.

And just for fun,

because we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody

in the community is making.

My favorite post every single week.

Without doubt.

Wait, what?

Aren't you part of the group already?

If not,

make sure to jump over to Facebook and search for the

group Gift Biz Breeze.

Don't delay.