MEET PEDRO

Pedro was working as an interactive designer for NBC Universal, but when his friend, a fashion designer, approached him with the idea to launch a swimwear brand, he just couldn’t resist joining in.

Although they visited manufacturers, created their products and set to work selling them, they missed a small but critical step: market research. They soon found that they couldn’t compete with the other retailers in the space, and before long, his friend moved on to other endeavors.

But Pedro wanted to push forward and find a new way to sell apparel. Through Live Bottomless, he began selling handmade leather footwear made in Mexico, but despite his prowess at web design, the only times he actually sold products were when he was physically present at weekend street markets.

He wanted to build an online shop, but when not a single customer made a purchase from the website in all of 2017, he began to doubt whether e-commerce could actually work.

When he discovered the Start & Scale course through a Foundr blog post in 2018, he decided to give it a shot.

Pedro says that the course module on social media marketing utterly changed the game for his business. He learned how to create content of real value to his audience and it helped him to build an engaged community.

“At first you want to have 10,000 followers, but what good are 10,000 followers if none of them are buying? It’s better to be a big fish in a very small but rich pond.”

And through his small but engaged following, he began making sales.

“When that first sale came in, I was the happiest person ever. I went from just one or two people visiting to like 50 people.”

The sales trickling slowly in on his website encouraged him to keep at it. Five months into 2019, and after fully implementing what he learned through Start & Scale, his sales are up 365% from 2018.

With the rest of his 2019 shoe line on the way, Pedro is excited to see what the rest of the year holds for his business. Now, instead of spending his weekends selling at street markets, he is able to enjoy his time off while customers buy his products online.