701: Smart Desk King Sells $10,000,000+

Duy Huynh. He’s the founder of Autonomous.ai which builds smart office products to help people work smarter.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Zero to One
• What CEO do you follow? –  Stewart Butterfield
• Favorite online tool? — Google Analytics
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 4
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Focus on and build something really helpful to people”

 

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 00:50 – Nathan introduces Duy to the show
• 01:20 – Subscribe to Youtube to see Duy using a smart desk
• 01:32 – Smart desk helps work smart the whole day
• 01:48 – “We don’t care much about the money”
• 02:02 – Autonomous’ mission is how they can help companies’ work smarter
• 02:51 – Autonomous wants to reinvent every single item in an office
• 03:15 – One of Autonomous’ products is the Cardboard
• • 03:30 – It is created for people who want an affordable standing desk
  • 04:05 – It sells for $19
  • 04:17 – Cardboard is a fairly new product
• 04:42 – Autonomous was founded in 2014
• 05:10 – Autonomous has shipped around 100K units
• 05:16 – The best-seller is the SmartDesk
• • 05:38 – It can keep you healthy and stay active in office
• 05:50 – Some of Nathan’s friends have bought the Smartdesk
• 06:07 – Autonomous has raised $200K
• 06:18 – Prior to Autonomous, Duy really liked smart products
• 06:46 – Duy started Autonomous with his co-founders in a small apartment
• 08:25 – The seed money has helped Duy make the prototypes
• 09:00 – Duy has spent $100-200K on the products before raising the seed round
• 09:09 – Duy traveled to find the best suppliers
• 09:30 – Team size
• • 09:43 – 4 are working in the NY office
  • 09:46 – 10 in California and some in Vietnam and China
  • 10:10 – Total of 40 people
• 10:22 – Autonomous is currently cash flow positive
• 10:35 – Duy isn’t looking at raising another round at the moment
• 11:00 – Monthly expenses
• 11:40 – Autonomous is doing over $10M annually
• 12:18 – Most of the customers are founders
• 12:37 – Autonomous currently relies on word-of mouth
• 12:49 – Autonomous had a Kickstarter campaign
• 13:05 – Autonomous made $250K from their Kickstarter campaign
• • 13:20 – It was for a thousand units
• 13:58 – Duy wanted to maintain a fair margin in the supply chain
• 14:36 – “They pay for what they get”
• 15:00 – Competitors’ margin
• 15:19 – Gross profit
• 16:04 – The second and third best-selling products are the chair and stool, respectively
• 16:38 – Duy wouldn’t take a deal from Herman Miller at the moment
• 16:41 – Autonomous isn’t a furniture company
• 17:19 – On paper, Duy is the single founder but the co-founders have equity as well
• 18:50 – The Famous Five

 

3 Key Points:

• Smart products shouldn’t just offer convenience, but make your life healthy and active too.
• Price your product fairly—the value of the product should match the price.
• Create something that will be really helpful for people.

 

Resources Mentioned:

• The Top Inbox  – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives