Welcome And Guest Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Yo yo yo, welcome back to the Fiddy Your Lifestyle Podcast Conversations on Lifestyle, Passions, and Hustles. My name is Chris. I'm your host, and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you. Episode 251 today, and it is an exciting episode. After much demand and after much request, we do have another guest today, and this was actually a little bit spontaneous, but it's with Nate. He's the co-founder and CEO of Shopfront, and he's actually a good mate of mine. We've been connected for a few years now, and I've been working closely with him testing out this tool, but also we've just had some really great conversations just around business, entrepreneurship, and just also a little bit about reselling as well. And that's why it's such a really great conversation because it really does bring in together the whole purpose and meaning of Further Lifestyle. You know, he's gone after some different ambitions and different ideas that he's wanted to pursue. He's had to hustle, he's had to work hard, he's had to, you know, be passionate about it, and he's had to deal with a lot of challenges and struggles while doing that. And it hasn't just been a linear path either. And I think that's really a really great point to take away from today's interview and conversation, whereas like everyone's journey is going to be different. There is going to be some hero moments, which we all kind of follow, but it's a really great way to sit back and hear how someone else is, you know, taking the future of resale, thinking about sustainability and the circular economy, and turning it into something which is, I guess, of a modern component or using the leveraging modern technology to turn it into a modern component in which we can use this on an everyday basis. So we're going to just dive straight into this. Great little interview, great little episode. If you want to continue the conversation afterwards, you can jump down below into the comments. Also, we have all of his details in the description below as well. Let's get into it. Nate, welcome to the Further Your Lifestyle podcast. Mate, it's great to have you here on kind of this was kind of like short notice. I mean, what, two weeks in the making, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Yeah, it's straight off the cuff.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

And look, I have already given a slight little introduction to you in when when I did the intro, but please tell us who is Nate, what is Shopfront, and uh yeah, what are you all about?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yeah, so I'm Nate. I'm one of the co-founders of Shopfront. We've built seller automation tools. So for eBay, Depop, fire and grailed sellers, we help distribute them across all the platforms at once, automate all the listings in bulk, manage them, several other things. We're just trying to build the infrastructure that helps sellers scale. And yeah, it's been a long journey. Before that, I spent four years in London and I was actively selling on eBay, Depop, and Vinted in the UK quite a lot. And the reason I started Shopfront was because I moved back to Australia and realized how tough the market was and how there was not really many tools available. And so yeah, dive straight into it and yeah, we can talk more about that after. Or yeah, that was about two years ago, and yeah, now we launched and yeah, in your thick of it.

Winning eBay’s Circular Fashion Fund

SPEAKER_00 3:02

It it must seem like a bit of a blur because I mean we've been we've been chatting for probably almost all those two years actually. And to be honest, I haven't realized it's been that long because yeah, like I mean, we've we've met up a few times and you know, we've had a lot of conversations, but mate, congrats. Two years, and like you're actually starting to get a bit of traction. Like, I think you know, what it was a year ago you won the eBay circular fund as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Yeah, yeah, that was uh I had no idea we were gonna win that. We were I just threw my hat in the ring to be honest. I think there was like 200 applicants in Australia, and we were in the top three, and I was like, shit, get to fly to Sydney, that's awesome, to pitch in the top three, and then we won for Australia, which I was just and there was like incredible businesses that we were up against as well. But then we got flown to London to pitch against the global winners, and we were just so out of our depth. Like the the amount of innovation in the US, UK, Germany was insane. But yeah, we put up a good pitch. I think we've got a really good relationship with eBay now. They've been really influential and supportive of what we're doing, obviously. Like we won the 100k prize from them. So yeah, that was an insane experience. Unfortunately, it was when we weren't live yet, though, so we weren't able to reap all the rewards of the press and the and the positive news. But yeah, it was definitely a good credibility piece for us, I think.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

And I think with that, like now it's kind of like, and I've joked to you before that you've become eBay's poster boy at one stage, right? But the thing is, like now, every time they do the circular fund every year, you can't your name comes up again, right? So it's kind of like you just get a natural little bump. Oh, who's this, or what have they done? And the good thing is every year when that circular fund, you know, when they do the fund every year, hopefully you're a year ahead further, which means every time people come back looking, your product's gonna be bigger and better and more established. So it's it's it's a win-win, right? Like it's that's great.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Yeah, I think one of the most important parts of it though is that I think you've even raised this before, but eBay sellers have dealt with a lot of crap with third parties where you know risks them their accounts getting banned, or you know, you're using APIs, which is like a you know a connection technology, and and a lot of people do that in a dodgy way if you're not like an official startup or a business. And so winning from eBay or getting the support from eBay hopefully provided a signal that we're legit and are not going to harm the seller's accounts. Like is like that can be the conception sometimes where where people think No, I I agree.

Thrifting Roots And Textile Waste

SPEAKER_00 5:29

I mean, because you know, I've got my listing service and we have folks in the Philippines, and the one question that probably the most question we get from our customers before they onboard is like, oh, well, how do they access it? You know, is it gonna create like IP issues and like they're gonna block my account or and all this? And like, no, no, no, I mean, eBay actually has a section in their back end to actually set up, you know, remote access or team access. And I think for some reason, there must have been a period of time about three or four years ago where things were happening really bad because people said, no, you can't go do you know eBay listings when you're traveling on holidays because it will trigger things. And I I felt like it was a bit of a myth, but it does sound like there is obviously some people with a bit of PTSD based on that conversation you've just said, uh, because it obviously became a big problem. But no, look, mate, you're doing amazing wonders. And just before we even get into anything else, folks, if you haven't checked out Shopfront, make sure you go check it out. Definitely a tool worth, you know, whether it's using it now or in the future as it continues to get bigger and better. But before we we go too much into you know the current state and where things are at, I know that you know, Shopfront kind of probably wasn't what it was intended to be now. Like back when you first started, like I know you went through the VC journey. Maybe tell us a little bit about that and like you know, the roots of you when you said you were selling on eBay, you were selling on Depop, but like even you in the thrift stores, like I know like you love your different fashion and things like that. So, you know, who is Nate when it comes to fashion and and thrifting? And then how did even shop front like even come to exist? Yeah, it's a good question.

From Marketplace Ideas To Seller Tools

Why Cross Listing Was Not Enough

SPEAKER_01 7:01

I've always had brands on the side, like Shopify brands while I was you know in the UK, even back you know from 2016 with friends, like never none of them obviously really took off, but it was something I was incredibly passionate about. But yeah, I I've always been thrifting. You know, Footsgray Savers was the place to go when you were 14, 15 and Sydney Road in Brunswick. Like yeah, I just I just personally think like quality has just depleted so much over the last five, ten years that you know, buying something that's 10 plus years old, you're just it's gonna last longer than anything you buy nowadays, new, even no matter what brand you buy it from. But the price has gone up. So I I I definitely have been, you know, a poster boy for second hand for quite quite a while. I've I was like, you know, the first one of the first in when we're in school, I was always driving, going to the op shops and stuff like that. But my obsession with the problem really came to light when I started realizing how bad Australia was at textile waste. And you know, as you get older, you start to think about doing something with your life or when you build something that has some sort of impact. And so, yeah, when I was in London, I was part of a startup and we were providing financial support for people who were in high cost short-term debt, like high high interest credit cards and things like that. We built an AI credit score model, actually, one of the first in the UK, and scaled that to like millions of millions of pounds in revenue. And so, you know, we were driving so much change with that business. And so when I moved back to Australia, obviously I wanted to stay in tech and startups, but I kind of wanted to focus on a problem space, and it really became obvious that Australia had this huge textile problem. And so combining that with my kind of brand experience, tech experience in the UK, fundraising experience kind of led me into this accelerator program in Melbourne. And my idea was to actually build a challenger to Depop because I was just like, no offense to Depop. I like if anyone from Depop is listening to this, I I I love Depop, but I was just like, there's not enough presence in Australia. Like, I don't know if anyone's, you know, if you've if you've sold on Depop to get in touch with customer service is almost impossible. Like, and if something goes wrong, like there was a case, there was an instance where people's accounts were getting banned for no reason, and like people were relying on this as their full-time job. And so that was a huge problem, right, with localization. And so I met my business partner. We were initially, we initially pitched a live selling platform, actually. This is pre-Whatnot. And all the investors were telling us that that's never gonna take off. That's why would you do that? Like, where's the demands? The people are gonna do live selling, and we were just so focused on like this idea because we were just like, people don't want to watch, people would love to buy from the Reels, and lo and behold, Whatnot and bloody every other live selling platform is taking off now. So that was that was that was the first idea. The second idea was then a more AI-driven marketplace, but again, investors chimed in, and then marketplaces are just incredibly hard to build. And to be honest, when we were speaking to a lot of sellers and buyers, the buyers didn't really complain about much. It was the sellers that complained. So if you really want to build a a product, you need to build the people that feel the pain, and that's why we decided to double down on the seller proposition. And so, yeah, the cross-listing opportunity was the one that came to light first, and that's where we started getting into the weeds of what platforms are most prominent, how to create good listings, and just focusing on that listing piece, and that's when we engaged you, I think, as a part of our research. And yeah, it's just been an iteration journey from there, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

And then the current state of shopfront now, do you because you know you've spoken a lot about cross-listing, and I know at the start a lot of people, you know, even if people are asking is there any cross-listing in Australia? And a lot of people refer to you. Do you think that is your and whether you want to answer this that way or not? Do you think that is your main focus now? Or where where is the focus of shopfront? And what I guess if someone was to you know listen to this now, which is obviously you know February 2026, you know, what is the focus of Shopfront?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Yeah, I think being in Australia was a really interesting. So all our competitors are in the US, because you've got like six different marketplaces, including Macari, Poshmark, Vinted, you know, Grailed is very prominent. So the idea of crosslisting is much more valuable in the US, where you can cross-list across so many marketplaces. In Australia, when your only proposition is that you can cross-list to eBay and BPOP, you really lose that value proposition. And we yeah, we found that out incredibly quickly. Like in six months, it was like there wasn't enough of a pain there in Australia, at least, for people to pay you to cross-list on two marketplaces. And so, as we were testing, we were trying to figure out what other things we could optimize. And my business partner, my co-founder, who's a CTO, he was just like, I can't, I don't know why I'm having to create one-by-one listings all the time to test the product. It's like incredibly jarring when you're testing with like 500 listings a day plus. Like you guys do that on the norm, right? And we're and we so we were almost feeling the pain of a high volume seller by having to test our own product and creating listings on eBay and listings on Depop D listing, then just to like make sure it worked. And so we started thinking about this idea of automation, and now we definitely are focused more on infrastructure and the AI automation side, and we're very ahead of the curve in making sure everything is automated. And so now our main proposition is that you can just drop in a bunch of photos and we'll create the listings in like less than five minutes for you, and they'll be like tailored to your templates, and then you cross-list them. And so that's a bit of our proposition now. And to be fair, the cross-listing part is the most painful and tough bit to build, but it's the least valuable part. So we're trying to focus on the things outside of cross-listing that save a lot of time, make the process automated, yeah, and can build be that like foundation workflow system for someone like yourself who does high volume. Like, for example, we implemented team access. So you can have like you managing it, your VAs can have access, and you can all share the same account and then distribute to all the marketplaces, which I think is one of our one of our value propositions that our competitors don't have. And if you look at Depop, for example, you can't have teams on Depop, like you have to just share logins, which isn't doesn't really work when you've got VAs. So we're trying to be more of a like a workflow system rather than just a cross-listing tool, because I think the world of cross-list, as you know, now with eBay buying Depop as well, they're going to embed cross-listing. It was in the press release, they're eventually going to embed cross-listing anyway. So for us, cross-listing, I don't know, it's not that exciting. It's like it should be part of what you're doing, not the whole thing. And so we're trying not to be a cross-lister and we're trying to be automation and like speed and workflow tool instead.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

It's it's I was gonna say it's interesting now with the whole Depop cross-list, I mean, sorry, the Depop acquisition by eBay, because you know, with the cross-listing, that's gonna make your world a little bit interesting. What would be the cool thing, you know, and is if you know they all of a sudden realize, oh, we need help with this tech. And we we know a guy. But but like, you know, it's always interesting to see, and you you raise a very valid point. Like Australia is, you know, we're so small, and I and I've said this to you before, you know, here we are in Australia, 30 million people, whereas you compare it to American Texas is 30 million people. So we're not really a good, we're really good to test and guinea pig stuff, but we're not really good at actual getting the actual potential out of things because, you know, yeah, 30 million people, but you've probably got like three million people actually even dabbling in this space, whether it's buying or selling. And that's probably a combination. So it probably hasn't even a million sellers, if you know what I mean. So it starts to get really like there isn't enough threshold or I guess throughput from your side as a customer base to come through and actually start, you know, smashing it. And that's I've always joked to you, like, you know, when we've been talking about, you know, so I've obviously done a lot of work with you to, you know, test it and triage it and play through it. And, you know, there isn't like, you know, I can't even name 10 more of me at my size. There, I know there is, I don't know them personally, but you know, it's not like there's a hundred of me in Australia. And if there is, again, not aware of them. So in terms of the volume that I'm doing, there's more ahead of me, but there's a lot of people that are dabbling on a smaller, you know, I guess, you know, volume base, you know, probably they're just trying to do it as a side hustle or whatever, which kind of then with the cross listing doesn't necessarily make sense, but yeah, but it does with the automation, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:31

It does with the automation. So a lot of the people coming to us aren't actually super high volume, they're doing maybe a hundred to two hundred listings a month, give or take, maybe a bit higher than that. And because they're working full-time still, because they're they've got other things that they need to do, they can justify the$30 a month because it means they don't have to spend that those hours listing. Like that time is a bit more precious when you've when you're doing it as a side hustle. Like if you want to kind of maintain it because you've got maybe you've got kids or you've got to go to work nine to five, or you know, this isn't your you're just doing it for the extra income. So you can easily justify$30 extra, which is maybe another five items sold or another three or four items sold. It's not that big a deal when we can accelerate your listing by like 70, 80%, right? It's kind of no, I agree.

Where AI Helps Resellers Most

SPEAKER_00 16:18

It's it was what what I was gonna get more mean to is is like I think the cross-listing play comes actually really more important to your bigger like corporate businesses, you know, whether it's charities or whatever, and because then they have that multi-tier of staff, they have multiple locations where they might need to be doing it. And you know, if all of a sudden they maybe they dominate already on their own Shopify store and they want to start to cross-list straight to eBay or straight to Depop or you know, whatever marketplace comes through, that is where they will win because you know, all of a sudden they can dominate very quickly because they kind of already have the infrastructure on their side of volume and things coming through. It's now like, okay, well, we only have to take the photo once, but we can now push a thousand of these listings to you know three different places at once. Whereas even myself, you know, we don't necessarily, it's not like we're having thousands of items, you know, we do about a thousand to fifteen hundred a month, but you know, it's not like we have five thousand ready to go up every every month because you know we're just a you know team of four. So you know it's an interesting play. And I think you know, five years from now, because everyone's always talking about AI, and you know, obviously there's pros and cons with that, which I think we should talk about, but be interesting to see where it all is, you know, not just with you guys, but AI in general in the next five years. And it's probably a good segue. I want to ask you like, where where do you see AI in general in the space of like e-commerce, online, reselling in the next five years?

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Yeah, it's super interesting. I I was watching a reel of this girl who was who her whole her hook was one of the jobs that AI is never gonna take is a reseller because AI will never be able to source, will never be able to keep up with the algorithms across all marketplaces. And that's true. So we're trying to be like that that tool where people can like we want to be the tool that people can use AI at its highest capability and its lowest risk while still maintaining human in the loop. I think you know, we work with a lot of different high-volume sellers, including charities, some even brands and things like that. And there is an expect unrealistic expectation that AI is gonna get it right every time. And it's not, and you say this all the time, right? All we need to do is get 80, 90% of the way, where the human in the loop has done is doing 10% of the work. That 90% reduction in time is massive, right? If you can do that at scale, like you're you're 10x in your output in one day, right? And so I don't think I think AI is always going to be a tool when it comes to secondhand, particularly with pricing, right? Pricing is one of those things where, you know, secondhand is you know, it's probably an unpopular opinion, but a lot of the time it's worth what people are willing to pay. And there are so many things associated with the secondhand product that is not to do with the product. For example, if you go into an op shop, what you're actually buying is the garment plus the value that you're delivering to the St. Vincent's or Salvos or the charity so that they can do their work, so that they can support like there's a compounding value chain. Like for people like yourselves, they they associate like your brand and your trust and your customer service, and that adds to the value of the product. When you think of like a first, like a first market brand, like a like a retail brand, it's literally just about most of the time, it's about the product, right? You what you see is what you get, you can buy 10 of them, they're all going to be exactly the same. You can trust it immediately. There is that huge gap when it comes to secondhand product, which means that the pricing is influenced by so many different things that you know, you could, you could I speak to op shops and charities all the time, and they have a different pricing model between Brunswick and bloody Collingwood, for example. Like just because of the demographic that are in those regions. And so, you know, when you look at that, that's a that applies to thrift stores that aren't charities, that applies to people who are on Depop versus eBay versus Grail versus wherever else. Like it's really hard to mean like I think everyone's trying to say we can tell you what the price is going to be and yeah, yada yada yada, but it's not an exact science in second hand, and unless I think there are actually a couple startups that are doing it on a very granular level for like luxury goods and stuff, which is probably a bit easier. But if you're talking like uh, you know, Tommy Hill figure and the vintage stuff that the majority of people sell, it's very nuanced and it's very much like yeah, and it's also on the basis that someone likes that.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Like, because you know, there's always that old and totally digressing right now, but like you've gone thrifting before and there's something that you love, but doesn't mean you should buy it to sell it because someone else might not love it the same way you do, right? Like I've got like this Star Wars shirt and I've bought three of them off the internet because it like it came out and came out like 10 years ago, and you I mean they don't make and it's a lot better fabric back then than it is now it came out. But like I love the shirt, it's just a nice fit. I love Star Wars and it's a cool print. So like every time I can find it for like 15, 20 bucks, I'll buy it because you know it's one less thing to have to think about, you know, when I'm when I'm you know what to wear. Whereas, you know, if it comes to other pieces of clothing, as you get to certain pieces, like for instance, I've got a Wrangler top that I always wear and I got it, the first one loved it, perfect, but then I found another one. But you know, it's it's got a slightly different cut in the in the sleeves and things like that. So just because one thing is the way it is, doesn't mean it's going to be the same way for everyone else, or continue to have that perceived value on the basis of your own interest. And I think that's where a lot of people, speaking from my own experience as resellers, we can get ourselves into traps because, oh, that's a sick item, it's Y2K, I love the vibes of that. But like you're assuming someone else is going to take that same perception. Whereas, like you said, something is only as good as what someone's willing to pay for it. Where I guess the beauty is you know we can help up uplift that perceived value based on how it looks, you know, is it curated? It gets free shipping. So it's like, oh, that is cheap because it's free, you know, like, and all those different things. But to do that at scale, where you come in, you know, with automation, it's it's very hard. I mean, like I said, we we process about 1,000 to 1,500 items a month. And our biggest challenge is actually getting photos now, right? To be to be able to get it up to the quality standard that we want to be able to provide that perceived value. But it's it it'll again, it'll be very interesting to see where that plays out in the longer term because I still feel like your tool also it creates easability and access for people that maybe haven't thought about doing this or are kind of already on the edge like corporate brands, like you know, just standard brands like you know Patagonia and North Face, they're already doing their own renewed and repaired and you know are reused in their own websites in the US and I think UK. But you know there could be brands that think we don't want to have that infrastructure you know on our site. Maybe they don't want to maybe they want to go through eBay and just do it that way or whatever, right? Maybe there'll be partnerships where they partner with brands and you know get cheaper fees because they dominate and all of a sudden they're like, well how do we get this stuff up quick? Right. And I mean Shopify to to eBay, you know this as well is pretty brutal. It's probably getting better and better. But you know a tool like yours obviously solves that problem as well.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Yeah I think we're we're it's interesting because we we need to yeah how do I say this? We need to be incredibly focused but we know that there's so much opportunity. So we you know part of my job is trying to navigate where we could go whilst focusing on the customers that we really want to focus on now, which sometimes means saying no to some customers because they've asked for something that's maybe too specific.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

You know I think I even maybe I've done that to you six months ago where it wasn't ready and I've just been like we we can't invest in this right now because we're focusing on on this and you have to be a little bit brutal with that and I think yeah the the whole landscape is changing. Like I've I've reached out I reached out to a thrift store on Instagram maybe three months ago it was a it was a young guy obviously I think he'd already he just started reselling it like but you know I was just having conversations seeing if he was willing to try it and his first question was is it free? And I was like no it's not free. I've got a whole team behind this business and he's like can't I just do it with AI now and I was like no I've got like two full-time engineers that are specialists in AI and we are still it's still a hard product to build like you know you see all this misconception in the market like I can vibe code my own yada yada yada and yes you can do it for something simple that might serve 50 people in a very simple way but you know for us it needs to be a very sophisticated flow and a very you know robust backend and infrastructure because you're dealing with people's Depop eBay and whatever accounts and if you're handling so much sensitive information. And so for us it's it's changing where people think the well the perception of building a startup or any technology people think it's easier than it actually is because people have seen so many videos and reels and ads that you can whip something up on lovable or chat GPT in one hour that can solve you know might be able to translate your dog into a portrait photo but like that's not the same as generating hundreds of listings at scale and pushing them to several marketplaces, right? And so when we talk about like AI and its impact, it it yeah everyone's in this limbo phase right now where people aren't willing to you know a lot of people on the fence because they don't know if they're if it's going to change next week. So we're we're trying to be at the for we are at the forefront of that and so we're trying to build the narrative that we are always ahead of the curve in terms of AI. So we're we're never going to be behind another AI product because we're constantly building on the edge of new like we update our listing generation model every two weeks because of the new Gemini model or a new chat GPT model and the way we actually generate you like your title description all that sort of stuff it actually goes through several different models that we've you know perfectly tuned in a way that makes it so we can replic like swap them out when a new model comes in. So you know it's not just like running it through chat GPT which is like the misconception now. So we're we're we're battling against that. So yeah I don't know AI's got a weird is in a weird state right now whereas I think peep people just don't know what the opportunity is and what to do and how to use it.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

And do you think there's also from the I guess from the other spectrum of it is people that are just scared of it or just don't like AI. And I know like for me like when I read an article and I can you you sometimes you can just tell no no no this is this is AI and you might feel a bit sour and you're like you it loses credibility or authority so you don't want to read it because it's like slop. Whereas you know if people are using AI and you don't know they're using AI, well then you you know you don't have this misconceived idea. But I feel like there is a little bit of that happening as well because it's like eBay AI descriptions. Like I hate it when I see someone that I something that I want to buy and the description is generated by AI because I'm like well one this person you know I I I mean I'm totally generalizing but it's like does this person even care about the item they're selling because they've just got this thing and and it will say like it says or this it says you can do it for that and it's like but that's not even the reason why I'm buying the item so I feel like the description's very very fakeish fraudish and you know thinking that it's going to make all the difference when really it's just a bit of bloat. Because at the end of the day if someone likes the picture they like the item regardless right like you know what I mean whereas the description it it then starts like you're overselling it. And and that's why like our our approach has always been like we want our photos to provide all the answers all the you know provide all the answers to all the questions and provide the confidence and you know quality assurance of what the customer's going to get. Because if they can't get it through the photos because most of them one they don't even look at all the photos but none no one's reading the description right and then when they are it's going to be like it's a bit bloaty anyway. So it's kind of like I feel like it's a bit redundant. And but to my original question is do you find maybe with your products that there's probably people a bit skeptical about it because it is AI and it's like oh we can't trust it. It's not going to be you know how accurate and I know I've spoken to you about accuracy but maybe more so on the extreme side where it's because it's AI they don't want anything to do with it.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Yeah I think what we've realized is that yeah last year I tried to there was a point where like to give you an example we tried to get official access to Etsy's API because we don't have to integrate with Etsy. We got knocked back because they said we don't want to integrate with anything using generative AI and I was just like we're not generating I think they thought we were generating images because our website was completely filled with we're going to help accelerate your listings with AI, yada yada yada, which is what we do. And so I had to troll through LinkedIn reach out to the head of commercial Etsy in bloody Silicon Valley or wherever the hell he was and just try and reach out to him to get to the person to be like listen we're trying to service your customers and we're getting blocked by XYZ when you're generating listings using AI on Etsy and every other marketplace is doing it anyway. So I don't understand why we're any different. Anyway we've got it approved and we haven't integrated Etsy yet but we got in the pipeline and where we can integrate with Etsy now. But that was an example of where I didn't stick to my guns and I I completely removed everything related to AI from the website. Whereas now I'm just more bullish on the fact that AI is is here and everyone needs to use it. And if you're not using it and you want to do things manually then you're not going to accelerate you you're just you're gonna be one of those people that are just left behind. Like sorry to say for anyone listening but like you need to be able to utilize the new tools as they come out for productivity reasons and your own perception of whether it's right or wrong or looks bad or looks good. Like you can make it so it looks good. It can still do a lot of the work for you and if you're scared of it doing one thing wrong and you're never going to touch it again, you're going to be left behind. And it happened with like the internet happened with mobile phones it happens with social media like it's just another thing. People are using it as their counselor, their financial advisor, their bloody yeah every everything there's no reason why resellers won't be using AI in two three years. And and you can do it now.

unknown 30:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

And so yeah now we now we take a more and I think you need to it's a business lesson for me is that you need to be opinionated in some way shape or form so that you have an identity and a personality and something that you believe in that ties into your product. And for us that belief is that AI is going to change the way resale happens whether people like it or not that's just the future of you know the the marketplaces are doing it which means the sellers are going to have to do it.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

So and if it's not you it's gonna come anyway and I mean like even even eBay is always pushing about you know how we're implementing new AI into their platform right whether it's through messages whether it's through you know cleaning up photos and all that and that's going to become more and more and more it I guess where it gets very interesting is the discrepancies.

Bad AI Versus Useful AI

SPEAKER_01 31:02

There is good there is good AI and bad AI as well though right so so I'm I'm coming from the point of a startup that is AI native with experts who work in AI and are on the cutting edge of AI constantly. But there are probably other tools that aren't as sophisticated that are using AI incorrectly which then can negatively impact your listing flow. So yeah there is that caveat there that there's good people there's good uses of AI and bad uses of AI and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Because yeah I feel like then sometimes if it gets saturated too much the value bec is going to become a little bit jumbled around well what is this actually you know it's like so like my my wife you know she works for a company and like they're top down they're saying oh like you know we should be implementing AI and it's like yeah but why like what what are we doing with AI? There's no and not even her company it's like so many companies and I was chatting to some friends on the weekend they're in the IT and yeah everyone's saying oh yeah their current focus is AI and I'm like but hang on where's the AI in that business like where does it bring value? And I'm sure there's plenty of places for it but it's like they're not actually looking at business cases of like we have problems we need to solve. They're actually just saying no no we just need to have AI in the in the business because we need to be ticking a box. And then they're trying to push it onto problems which probably don't have to have this implemented like you know a lot of people think they've implemented AI when they've got you know what's the Microsoft co-pilot right and they think oh now we're now we're AI a company. It's like you know it's it's just it gets a bit fluffy and that's what I'm saying you know yours is obviously a completely different entity in that capacity and it's a value add and it's you know driven from a workflow you know from a foundational perspective. It's not like just a little bolt on that someone's tried to put on and make pretty with you know oh we're gonna make things shiny for you now which even though your tool has the ability to make pictures better and things like that, they're all things that are relevant to different customers like as I you know when we went through the experience of testing and I said oh like I love the hero image but like sometimes it it it's too good. Like it add it makes the product look too good, which means it's gonna look like an item not as described if a customer gets it.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

So you know those Yeah we actually had to we actually had to make it so that the enhanced is what we call it. Because we had background removal and enhance which enhance users like the latest model to tidy up the image. But we had to flip it so that enhanced was optional and it wasn't ticked on as you got started. It was actually off and you could introduce it if you wanted to because people we saw from watching people use the product that they were generating photos and it would you know AI always has a you know maybe a 10 or 20% fail rate in most cases and it would add like a strap in some cases. And if you're a professional seller and you're we're trusting you to like oh sorry we're hoping that you just use us you know as your main space yeah and blindly and all of a sudden you've got listings with extra straps on that's a huge risk for something that doesn't really add immense value right and so yeah we're we're constantly learning and adapting as well but yeah I think there's there's a complete there's a whole spectrum of use of AI. Like you can be a chat GPT wrapper which is what most the marketplaces I think use and what most sort of listing tools and stuff use. Or you can be native like you said building from the workflow where there's actually human in the loop and it's yeah and it's you you know not just pulling a description out of thin air but it's referring to a template like I test with your templates every day with your little insurance policy at the with your insurance policy at the bottom and everything like that.

Trust And Go To Market Challenges

SPEAKER_00 34:33

And because it is a long one it's a good one for us to test and yeah that that then makes it look like we're you know it's still you writing it it's just filling the blanks with the brand description whatever it might be where you where you deter people is where it's like this is a pretty floral dress that'll make you stand out in a crowd blah blah blah where no one the image should already suggest that because that's psychological marketing right like if you see something in a window you're like oh my gosh I could wear that at the you know the wedding that we have coming up because it's going to go with the sunset on on the beach you know and I didn't need AI to tell me that I saw the the image and I saw it in the shop and you're like that is perfect what you want because it meets and the way they've presented it and you know whatever. So I feel like if you're having to then put that description and I know that helps with like SEO and keywords and searchability and stuff but it's fluffy in terms of actually getting the sale right I I feel like it's it's not necessarily going to help convince maybe the keyword of like silk or you know summer or you know wedding and things like that will but you don't then need you know three paragraphs of why you should buy the item. I do have a question for you before I forget it's on the top of my mind and it's always a fun it's a question that I learned. So my background is consulting before I was working for myself six years ago and one of the questions that we love to ask the C-Suite in this case the CEO is what's keeping you up at night at the moment?

SPEAKER_01 35:57

For me it's the fact that we it's hard to build a product from Australia and so for me it was the misconception that um being first to market in Australia was going to be the weapon and our kind of edge. In fact that meant that we had to spend a we'll still have to spend a lot of time educating. And it's the lesser of two evils you can have either a lot of competition or you can have a huge education gap. So if we had launched in the UK sorry or in the US there was more competitors but everyone would already know how to use our product we wouldn't be getting this feedback like I don't trust it. I don't know how to use it. We would have a higher chance maybe at a lower conversion but would have higher revenue but because we launched in Australia where there's no competition everyone's looking at us like oh I don't know if that's gonna fit my workflow. I don't know if this is actually going to help me I don't know is this like can I trust it? There's just a lot more skepticism. And so we've spent actually a lot of time trying to trying to like navigate that it's actually called what is it the crossing the chasm I believe is is the term from a from a book where essentially you get your early feedback users which we did. So we had like you know people like yourselves obviously two Aussie Swifters they're really big fans of us and we love them and we've got like lots of sellers that really engage with us and they were at the start and then you take that feedback and you think it's going to apply to the mass market of sellers in Australia and then you launch and it doesn't apply and you have to then cross the chasm which is like this huge learning curve which is like almost the valley of death where you either make it or you don't and you kind of need to go through and figure out how to get these people to convert at mass. And so that's keeping me up at night because I know we have a superior product we have really good like infrastructure I feel like we have a really good team we have a really good brand but we are crossing the chasm right now and we're in this period of trust building getting a tight feedback loop making sure people are actually getting value out of the product and then thinking about how we also scale into the US as well and and other markets. And so yeah what keeps me up at night is typically like just business stuff. Like last year if you asked me that question it would have been the product because the product was immensely difficult to build like the amount of the amount of different lines of code that we like it's it's insane. Like it's it's crazy the the simplicity of the product versus what actually happens in the back end are like two different worlds. Like we have built like enterprise grade code but it's servicing in a very simple way because we deal with volunteers, resellers who aren't you know super technically savvy a lot of the time. So it's like how do you package all this complex infrastructure and technology into something that's super easy to digest where people just kind of stupid.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Yeah.

Recognition Imposter Syndrome And Ambition

SPEAKER_01 38:46

Yeah and that that's that's not something I expected. I thought kind of thought you know either the code would be a bit easier or that people we'd get away with a bit more of a complicated product but you need to really find a happy medium where it's seamless to use that a volunteer whether they're 60 years old whether they're 18 out of uni and using an iPad and just sometimes just don't really know about the product or maybe don't even care about the product sometimes versus a reseller who's also very time poor and just needs to figure out how to use it from within the first two minutes. They don't need to spend time navigating what to do. Yeah. So yeah it's it's a lot of that typical go-to-market stuff that keeps me up at night because yeah I mean obviously we're very passionate about the market and we think we've built a really good product but yeah we are crossing that chasm of trying to educate people and build our presence. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

Okay. No that that's a very good answer. And like there's there's a lot you can unpack there and you know just being mindful of of time and things that I keep thinking of that I want to ask you to you know bring the conversation to life is you know and it's and it's a good it's a good nice little story. You were recently featured in the the Herald Sun I believe of you know what Victoria's top rising I think it was what was it 10 or 20 people I think it was only like 20 20 26 smartest in 20 yeah 26 smartest people in Victoria which I don't really know what the criteria was for that. Yeah but uh you were on there and you know all all in your glory so that that must be pretty exciting. I mean like if you go back five years ago did you imagine this is where you would be no not at all.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

In fact it was probably one of the one pieces of recognition out from everything that you know I've raised a million dollars in funding which I think was the most challenging thing. We built an incredibly complex product we won the eBay Secular Fashion Fund but that small article in the news is what made my parents go, I'm so proud of you this is because it's like the Herald's son like they know what it's like you know it's like oh he's not just doing a hobby or he's not just flopping about he's actually yeah doing something right so I think it was more of that that felt nice. But yeah that was that was really good. I mean we just got approached on LinkedIn to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

So that was I thought I thought it was a scam at first that she was like this lady DMing me about a smartest 20 I'm not the smartest in Victoria and I was I was next to like this girl that's created like an AI robot and raised like 30 million dollars of like geez okay this is uh so is is that is that insecurities tall poppy syndrome like what where do you think that comes from because I I struggle with this as well because and and look it it's probably I mean we're we're not far apart in terms of age and we've grown up in a you know a world and society where everything is very fast paced and it's like even as males as well you know naturally we're hunter gatherers you know it's always onto the next thing you're not really stopping and smelling the roses and it's like you get you get to the milestone and you're onto the next thing it's just naturally in our in our grains. Like I'm I'm generalizing but that that tends to be the way and I'm hard on myself as well you know we've we've done over we for the first time last October we passed over a million dollars in revenue and it's like wow but then you know I'm like I'm down this month and I'm thinking challenging you know questioning everything that I'm doing like what am I doing wrong? Is it going to work out but it's like hang on you know we we just hit a million dollars you know a couple of months ago it's like we're not actually doing that bad but like you know it's all relative to the time in that that you're in. So for you like do you struggle with those you know whether it's imposter syndrome or those challenges mentally and if you do what do you do to manage it, mitigate it?

SPEAKER_01 42:18

Yeah I mean of course I think every entrepreneur is you know whether you're a reseller big or small or something someone like me building in technology I think you you know there's social media plays a big role where you know that there's a huge opportunity you get really motivated and you see everyone doing really cool things but you you also can because of that think that you're not doing enough and you know you can ask my wife and I'm constantly like you know I raised there was one round we raised$800,000 and normally people be jumping for joy if you can you know inject$8000 into your business. Literally the next day I was borderline having panic attacks see okay now I need to use this money and figure out you know it was just straight into like all right now it's the next thing yeah and and it's like you know it's weird because if you told me like five years ago I'd be doing these sort of things like winning getting flown to London to the eBay office and all these great things I would have been like looking into the future like damn you better be like cherishing that moment and happy in that moment. But when you're in the thick of it it's just like what's next what's next you know what what are we what are we figuring out? How are we yeah your mind's just constantly ticking and I just think I think I I don't know if it is a male thing. I don't know if it's just a someone like a driven thing or whatever but you know there's this element of never being satisfied with yeah what I'm doing and that that kind of scares me because like where does the it's like where does where's the buck stop? Like where do you kind of and you know it's you can say like oh it might be when we exit for 500 million or for one billion dollars whatever it might be whatever the dream is but you know is it is that gonna mean that I'm gonna be happy because relative to now winning the e Secular fashion fund would probably feel the same as a billion dollar exit in five years' time when you kind of know you're at that level, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:07

But but I think it's a serious sorry, to cut you off, I think it's a serious question we have to ask ourselves to keep the reality check. Because it's like, you know, at what point we have to define, I mean, success continues continuously changing, right? For individuals, right? But you know, we define what that looks like. So for you, you know, what does success look like, right? Is that now? And like you, if you know, all of a sudden it had to stop, are you gonna walk away happy? Or is it kind of like no no, you do want that exit? Or no, you actually just want to be able to say, you know, we have 10,000 people using our, you know, our uh product, you know, every month or something. Like, is there a core one thing that you're like, no no no, you have to achieve that? Or is it kind of like, you know, just being able to have done this is is good enough?

SPEAKER_01 44:54

No, I'm definitely it's gonna sound absolutely outrageous, but I'm swinging for the fence completely. And I really want to just like my big vision is that, you know, we we are starting with professional resellers now, but my big vision is that anybody who uses any of these marketplaces will be using shopfront first. Yeah. And it's like, can we build the cleanest interface for every marketplace, not just for professional resellers?

SPEAKER_00 45:15

And you know, I think that is a heard it here first.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Yeah, we'll see, we'll see. Check in in a year's time and see how much progress we make. But I think there is a real opportunity because everyone, big or small, resells at some point, whether it's Facebook Marketplace, but you know, we're starting with the professionals because commercially that makes sense. We can learn a lot and we can build our brand and business around that. But you know, I definitely see us, I think we've we've got the brand framework, we've got the technical framework, we've got good people in the business, and there's really nothing stopping us but our go-to-market now. And so, you know, to be completely frank, I would be very disappointed if the business stopped tomorrow because I just don't think we've we're only scratching the surface of what we could actually achieve. And I just think there's so much opportunity that's coming in now. And yeah, I don't know if that's me just being crazy and not content, but I yeah, it's I'd be yeah, and and to be fair, I think you know, even if it did all go belly up tomorrow, I would be back on the horse the next day building the next thing that I think would also be a billion-dollar business. Like that's just the way I yeah, that's just the way I think I'm wired and whether people think that's crazy or not. Nah, it's it's fine.

Key Takeaway And Where To Connect

SPEAKER_00 46:23

I I think it's beautiful in its own essence because you know, I've struggled with, you know, kind of the things that I was just talking about, you know, imposter syndrome and all that, because you know, I have my big, you know, bullish ideas, dreams, and aspirations of where I want to take our business. And, you know, I'd love it to be a household name. And I remember when I told people that on my YouTube and people literally laughed and said that it's impossible to do. Like that's it's no way you can do that. And it's like, it just motivates me more to like, you know, come back in 10 years and let's talk again, right? But like, I mean, your dream is your dream, my dream is my dream, even though we're intertwined, like I'm not trying to achieve your dream, you're not trying to achieve mine. We're trying to maybe attain to a whether it's a value point or a total amount of money or whatever, maybe some of those are similar, but you know, what we're trying to achieve is because it's something that we want to conquer. It's like you know, running your own race. It's when you do a marathon, you're not doing the marathon to beat the guy next to you, you're doing it to beat yourself, right? Even if you don't know it till you've done it, right? You do it. I don't have you have you ran a marathon? So half marathon? You've I actually can't hear you at the moment. Maybe your AirPods died. All right, we're back. We kind of lost each other there, Nate. But keeping mindful of time, we'll we'll wrap it up anyway. Really appreciate your time and hanging out. And I love hearing your story every time. It's always, you know, it gives me goosebumps, and you know, we've known each other for a while now, but we'll have to do another one and catch up and you know, see where you're at in a year's time. But before we wrap up, I do want to ask one question. It's the question I love to ask anyone that I talk to, especially in these podcasts, is you know, out of all this session or you know, from this podcast, what's one thing that you want anyone that listens to this to walk away with? What's the one thing that they should take away from this?

SPEAKER_01 48:08

Yeah, I mean, trust trust automation, I think. You know, we're we're starting to get really opinionated on the fact that AI is going to help people scale in like several like many, many verticals, not just reselling. Yeah, but we're incredibly bullish that the whole resale game can completely accelerate with the right workflow opportunities and also just give things a new try, really. I think we've been in it for a while now, and I think yeah, we I I I like to think we know about the resale market. So yeah, if anyone would love to chat, Chris and I am always open to having a chat with people and learning and you know, letting people demo and passing on feedback. So yeah, just get in touch if you'd like to learn more. We're obviously just here to here to help and try and do our part to make it easier for for resellers and the environment, of course.

SPEAKER_00 48:52

Love it, love it. And if people do want to connect, whether it's you individually or actually check out shopfront, where where should they go? How do they how do they find it?

SPEAKER_01 49:00

Yeah, you can see me yapping on uh shopfront.ig on Instagram. That's probably the best place. But on our website, shopfront.app as well. LinkedIn, I don't know if people are using LinkedIn, but like my my personal Instagram as well. So yeah, shopfront.ig on Instagram would probably be the best place.

SPEAKER_00 49:15

Great, awesome. I really appreciate it, mate. And I'm sure you're going to do amazing and wonderful things, and we'll be catching up soon anyway. Uh, but yeah, folks, definitely go check him out. He does some pretty cool stuff. And uh yeah, I appreciate the chat, man. Take it easy.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

That was really good. Thank you. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 49:31

Ciao.

SPEAKER_01 49:32

Bye.