Josh Dzime-Assison is a successful full-time reseller and he has been doing so for over 10 years. He has run multiple blogs and social media accounts for various companies. He was previously the owner of a physical sneaker store and has also worked as an image consultant and stylist for numerous musicians and professional athletes.
Josh has a keen eye for fashion trends and his skill set has made him into an up-and-coming reselling influencer on social media. He is currently using his reselling experience and marketing knowledge as the CMO of Vendoo, software for online resellers.
What is Vendoo all about?
Vendoo is a software that was created to solve the daily pain points of the millions of sellers in the steadily growing reselling industry. Our goal is to save sellers time and help them make more money. The user-friendly interface allows sellers to crosspost their items onto multiple marketplaces in a fraction of the time that it takes to do so manually.
Users can currently list items onto nine marketplaces, including eBay, Poshmark, Etsy, Mercari, Facebook Marketplace, and more. The software also provides other conveniences for sellers, like the ability to easily import their existing listings, delisting and relisting items with one click, and inventory management features like easy sorting and searching. Vendoo also provides sellers with business data and analytics to help them make calculated decisions to grow their business.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
Prior to starting Vendoo, I worked for about 10 years as a full-time reseller. I began with a brick-and-mortar sneaker store and transitioned into online reselling around 2010. As my business grew, I started experiencing some of the pain points of being a one-man operation.
My main problem was not being able to scale my output and revenue past a certain point, due to being spread too thin with responsibilities. I eventually met our CEO, Thomas, and our other co-founders and was able to combine my reselling knowledge and experiences with his idea of creating software for resellers.
What was the biggest problem you encountered with your business and how did you overcome it?
One of the biggest problems that we’ve faced so far is our lack of founder experience. Running a small business is much different than running a quickly growing tech company. Our founders have been faced with numerous difficult decisions that we weren’t equipped to handle. We combatted that by seeking out experienced advisors and meeting with them for mentorship and advice. Relying on those relationships has helped us make wise financial decisions, take smart legal actions and navigate hiring and the other challenges of scaling a business.
What were the top mistakes you made starting your business and what did you learn from it?
One of our top mistakes was oversharing our business plans before they were finished. As we were developing our software, we talked casually on social media and at reseller events about features and specific solutions that we were building.
In business, we learned that most projects take much longer than anticipated and our software was taking us much longer to build than we expected. During that time, we were forced to deal with other companies coming into the market and emulating our idea.
What is one thing that you do daily to grow as an entrepreneur?
I try to read articles and watch educational content about marketing strategy and business growth. I like to hear the perspectives of other successful entrepreneurs and learn how they navigated the challenges they faced. As a first time founder, it’s important to have as much information as possible at your disposal, so I do as much research and preparation as I can before making difficult decisions.
What are three books or courses you recommend for new entrepreneurs?
Three books that I gained a lot of knowledge from are “Tools of Titans” by Tim Ferris, “Crushing It” by Gary Vaynerchuk, and “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell.
What is the one thing you wish you knew before starting your business?
I wish I had a better grasp of the toll that it would take on my work/life balance. In order to run your business successfully, you have to rest and relax. The challenges and decisions of running your business will consume your time and your thoughts, so it’s important to be intentional about when you rest. You need to be in a healthy mental space to make correct decisions and produce at a high level.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
For Vendoo, our most effective strategy has been content marketing. I have been able to use my reselling experience to create relatable and informative content for our customers. Being a reseller has allowed me to speak to our potential customers in their language and establish credibility within our brand.
Our content spans from quick tutorial videos to long-form educational YouTube videos, with blog posts as well. Many of our educational reselling tips have gone viral on social media and created significant visibility for the company. The consistent reselling content sustained us and helped us grow our initial user base and social media platforms until we had a budget to begin incorporating ad marketing into our strategy.
If you only had 1000 dollars to start a new startup, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
At the beginning stages of running a business, you can use free software, apps, and social media to manage your operations. I would use the $1,000 to incorporate my business and I would also open a business bank account to begin organizing and preparing for company expenses.
What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
My personal mantra is Patience. Persistence. Progress. I’ve used that quote in my personal business branding for over 15 years. I believe that in order to achieve any level of success, you have to go through each stage of the cycle. Once you make some progress, the cycle of patience and persistence begins all over again. In my opinion, repeating that cycle is the path to success because it creates positive momentum in your life and business.
The key is consistency. Work on your idea every day and learn every aspect of it. You’ll begin to notice the momentum you’ve created and things will begin moving faster for you.
What is your favorite quote?
I’m not sure where I first heard it, but I love the quote
Business is a lifelong game.
Unlike professional sports where you only have a small window of time to maximize your talents, in business you get wiser as you get older. You get better at running your business the longer you do it. This quote reminds me to be patient and learn everything I can at these early stages of my business life so that I can have more at my disposal now and later in my career.
Besides the obvious social media tools available, what are the top 3 most useful tools or resources you’re currently using to grow your company?
We use many software to manage company tasks and communication. We use Trello and Jira to track projects and delegate responsibility among the team members so that everyone knows what’s being worked on. We also use Slack to centralize all of our internal communications because we have a remote team.
Google Suite is very helpful as well because we can store all of our files in an easily accessible Google drive, hold meetings with Google Meet, and coordinate schedules with the Google calendar.
How is running a tech company different than what you thought it would be?
I’ve noticed that my scope of daily responsibilities is a lot wider than I anticipated. When you’re starting a company with only four founders, you find yourself taking on tasks that you didn’t expect. As we’ve grown and been able to hire, I’ve been able to re-focus my responsibilities, but now I also have to balance my tasks with the time it takes to manage other team members.
How can readers get in touch with you?
Our website vendoo.co is the easiest way to find more information about Vendoo. You’ll find links to our YouTube channel, our blog, and our social media accounts. You can follow and contact us on Instagram at @vendoo.co and you can search “Vendoo” on Facebook to find our page and our private group. If you’d like to reach our team directly, you can send an email to support@vendoo.co.
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