To kick things off, could you tell us a little about what sparked the idea for Profit Peak and what your company is all about?
We ran one of the largest pure-play online kitchenware stores, Everten.com.au and Kitchenware.com.au, for over a decade. As e-commerce store owners, we became frustrated by digital agencies and their inability to truly understand the customer journey, advertising returns across multiple channels and, ultimately, profitability on an SKU level.
We built Profit Peak initially as an internal tool to help us solve this problem. After seeing results and sharing them with a few friends in the e-com space who immediately wanted the same, we knew we were onto something and had to go “all in” on commercialising it and taking it to market.
Navigating a startup has its challenges and triumphs. What have been some significant milestones for Profit Peak since its inception, and how have you guys tackled the obstacles along the way?
3 milestones come to mind:
- Within a few months of onboarding over 20 beta customers, each milestone in itself has already been made. Many are well-known brands across a range of industries, including apparel, homewares, gifting, furniture, and cosmetics.
- My co-founder and wife, Carla, was selected to join the PeakXV program, adding another USD 100K in funding without investment, which enabled her to be mentored by some incredible founders.
- My favourite has been achieving customer love, where we’ve been able to improve profitability immensely for them. Two that come to mind are a homeware business that has managed to almost double its profit (not revenue!) for every $1 ad spend from $3.88 to $6.64.
Another is a coffee roastery business that sells beans online. We discovered that 44% of their ad spend was resulting in a net loss. We have since helped them turn their account around and almost quadruple their gross profit returns for sales attributed to ads.
Best of all, they’ve seen no decline in top-line revenue despite all the changes, too!
We’ve definitely had many obstacles along the way, but I keep telling my development team that for every difficult challenge that we overcome, that obstacle becomes a barrier for competitors and sets us apart from them.
At the same time, sometimes there are obstacles that you could have avoided. I always reflect on the quote, “When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.” I try to instill this in my team: for every mistake or stumble, we always make sure to learn from them collectively. As a startup, we need to move fast, so when we make mistakes, we make sure that we fall forward, learn from them, and move on.
As a relatively new member of the WOTSO Zetland community, how has the experience been so far, and what impact has it had on Profit Peak’s development?
Wotso Zetland has exceeded expectations. I love taking my dog to the office; it has also helped us break free from the world of work-from-home that we were so used to. It’s a great place to focus, take one-on-one meetings, and work collaboratively as a team, which you simply can’t replicate on Zoom.
I also love how close it is to both Surry Hills and Alexandria / Rosebery, where some of our customers are located.
Chloe and her team have also been so helpful and have made it easy for us. Nothing has been too much to ask.
Workspace vibes can really affect productivity and creativity. What are your favourite features of the WOTSO Zetland space, and have any specific aspects of the environment helped spark innovation within your team?
I personally love the small meeting rooms for taking calls or focusing. The natural light and various spaces you can sit definitely have helped. I know our designer likes to float around and work around in different spaces to give himself time to get creative.
I only recently discovered the event space where I hope to eventually host something that will benefit our customers and attract customers and people in the industry to network.
Looking towards the future, what big goals do you have for Profit Peak in the coming year, and how does being part of a collaborative space like WOTSO play into those plans?
We aim to onboard 150 customers by the end of the year and expand our team to serve them further. We also intend to visit our customers periodically at their locations, and having WOTSOs we can work from nearby can help us in between such meetings!
To learn more about Profit Peak, visit ProfitPeak.io
