Transcript:
[00:00:00] JARED WARD: NetSuite continues to sell down market. This is my beef with them. Yeah, I do have a beef with them. Like rightfully so. They continue to sell down market. And yet the organization, like they don't care to focus on you guys. They don't give a
[00:00:21] JARED WARD: Hey guys, welcome to Ops Unfilter. This is your host, Jared Ward. I'm the founder and CEO of Luminous. And for our guests today, we have. James Andrus from Renova Worldwide.
[00:00:32] JAMES ANDRUS: Yes, Renova Worldwide. Well, I'll start me. I'm James Andrus. I'm the president of Renova Worldwide. And, uh, Renova Worldwide is a supplement company.
[00:00:40] JAMES ANDRUS: We, uh, been around for about four and a half years. We were founded in May of 2019. And, you know, supplements are a, a big space. It's a more saturated space than ever before. But I think we've got a A couple of unique components that really set us apart. Um, we, [00:01:00] our flagship product is, has been around, or rather the formula has been around for about 25 years, and it's just a blend of 36 vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and plant extracts that are, um, the result of years of, of trial and error, and are now the subject of 35 medical journal publications that cover everything from ADHD, bipolar, stress, you name it.
[00:01:24] JAMES ANDRUS: And really all that research has found is that a lot of these conditions that people grapple with are the results of nutritional deficiencies in the brain. And so for years that was available in a capsule form. And then in the summer of 2018, uh, we developed a new technology which we call our direct to cell technology.
[00:01:43] JAMES ANDRUS: And it, uh, increases the bioavailability of the nutrients and so You're able to get greater benefit with less of them. And with that, we launched Renovo Worldwide with the mission of spreading this product and the others that we, we have to the world and [00:02:00] to improve on people's mental and physical wellbeing.
[00:02:03] JAMES ANDRUS: Who, who are your primary customers? Do you, We have a, we have a blend of just end consumers. So we, we have a, our website, renoverworldwide. com. We're also on Amazon. And then we also sell to healthcare practitioners. So we have a wholesale component to our business. And so they buy it wholesale and then resell to patients and clients.
[00:02:23] JAMES ANDRUS: They can also just refer their patients if they want, if they don't want to carry a physical inventory.
[00:02:27] JARED WARD: Got it.
[00:02:27] JAMES ANDRUS: Okay. Yeah.
[00:02:28] JARED WARD: That makes sense. So, um, Where I want to stay in most of this podcast is, um, you guys have had, you guys have been through the ringer with technology. Oh boy. Yeah. I think you guys are such a good example of what a modern e commerce company is like.
[00:02:47] JARED WARD: Yeah. So walk me through when in the early days of Renova, what did you guys do to manage? Or before we even dive into that, what are some of the attributes of your business from a [00:03:00] From an operational standpoint. So for example, how do you purchase goods? Do you purchase raw materials or do you just, do you purchase finished goods?
[00:03:07] JARED WARD: Um, how do you, do you fulfill out of a warehouse? Um, then for the fulfillment, is it direct consumer? So in other words, just like Shopify orders, you mentioned wholesale, like list out some of those operational attributes so people can kind of understand the complexities that you had to tame.
[00:03:22] JAMES ANDRUS: Well, and it's interesting because.
[00:03:25] JAMES ANDRUS: We've gone through waves of complexity. I think we, we started out pretty basic and that's kind of how my journey started with the company. Um, I came on board right before we launched and they needed some help trying to figure out some of these pieces, you know, how do we ship orders once we get them, you know, how do we, what do we do with customer service calls, how do we track the inventory because.
[00:03:48] JAMES ANDRUS: you know, we've got a growing catalog of products and things like that. And so, you know, we've, we've ramped up in complexity and then, you know, we've spent the past few months trying to scale back, but, [00:04:00] um, so when we started out, we were a network marketing company and we just had one channel. I mean, we had one website and that was the way that we interacted with people.
[00:04:10] JAMES ANDRUS: And so we did all of our fulfillment in house. And we put together kind of a hodgepodge tech stack, if you will, we launched with, um, ship station,
[00:04:22] JARED WARD: the OG baby. I know it's, it's
[00:04:25] JAMES ANDRUS: tried and true, do great work. And, uh, then we quickly figured out that they had some limitations in their inventory capabilities.
[00:04:33] JAMES ANDRUS: And so we, we put skew vault on top of it. And that worked well, but just starting out, it was kind of a spendy option. How much did it
[00:04:42] JARED WARD: cost at the time? I, I used skewball. It cost us around 2, 000. Oh, see,
[00:04:50] JAMES ANDRUS: ours wasn't anything like that. I think I, I think it was only like 500 bucks a month. Okay. But when we were paying, you know, next to nothing for everything, that was a big chunk just starting out.[00:05:00]
[00:05:00] JAMES ANDRUS: And it was interesting because the only thing that we needed it for Well, um, the only thing that we had actually that we really needed was for kits. We sold kits and ship stations, inventory, solution did not account for kids. And so we threw skewball on top of it. And so really it was overkill for what we needed, but it's what we.
[00:05:16] JAMES ANDRUS: Um, and then we were just growing like crazy and growing like 25 percent month over month. And so we realized that we need to get a new solution in place. And so we started doing some research and ended up coming across a company that was just starting out building MLM software and. Um, they've since gone out of business.
[00:05:38] JAMES ANDRUS: Uh, I think their name was Salteras.
[00:05:40] JARED WARD: Okay. Interesting. Yeah, there was, there was
[00:05:42] JAMES ANDRUS: two clients, us and then another one. And then, um, about a year after they got us up and going, they went out of business. And so we poached their IT director and developer. Yeah. Cool. Um, but with that growth, like I said, we were, we were growing like crazy and we needed a new solution.
[00:05:59] JAMES ANDRUS: And [00:06:00] so we got the new platform built on WordPress and then we're looking for something to replace. Cool. Thanks. Um, just to give us some greater visibility into all of our inventory and, um, our shipments and sales and everything. And so we came across NetSuite. So what was,
[00:06:16] JARED WARD: walk me through at that time.
[00:06:17] JARED WARD: Okay. You, you use ShipStation to fulfill orders. Yep. SkewVault, you just put it on top just to, just to show your kit inventory. So you could actually have a live visibility for your clients, for the people buying. Um, what was breaking? Like what was breaking that made you think like, man, we need, we need to upgrade
[00:06:35] JAMES ANDRUS: this?
[00:06:36] JAMES ANDRUS: We just didn't have the visibility that we wanted. Um, it was tough to track down, um, Let's see, man, this was, this was a long time ago.
[00:06:47] JARED WARD: Probably something like, forecasting, that you couldn't know how much you needed to purchase. Um, how was the, uh, have you guys always just fulfilled a one warehouse? [00:07:00] No. Okay.
[00:07:01] JAMES ANDRUS: No. We, uh, so we filled, fulfilled in house. We still do. Um, but for a time there, uh, for about two years, we had a, a warehouse in Austria that did all of our, um, European union fulfillment.
[00:07:16] JARED WARD: Okay.
[00:07:16] JAMES ANDRUS: Yeah. But that wasn't at that time. That was, that came about a year after we, well, no, about six months after we got NetSuite up and running.
[00:07:23] JAMES ANDRUS: Um, but that was a whole ordeal to get that going.
[00:07:26] JARED WARD: So
[00:07:27] JAMES ANDRUS: what, so I'm trying to figure out like, well, so we jumped
[00:07:30] JARED WARD: to
[00:07:30] JAMES ANDRUS: NetSuite, like what, it seems like a big leap, huh? Yeah. Yeah. So we had, so on top of ship station and skew vault for order management and inventory, we had QuickBooks for, um, our accounting and payroll.
[00:07:45] JAMES ANDRUS: And then all of our reps had their own individual websites, the replicated websites that they used and. Um, so we just had some concerns about being able to scale properly. It [00:08:00] just didn't feel like we had a lot of manual parts that we needed to, um, account for to make sure that everything came together and we could see what we needed to see and get everything where it needed to be and have the inventory that we needed when we needed it.
[00:08:12] JAMES ANDRUS: And we were just kind of running around with like chickens with our heads cut off, honestly.
[00:08:17] JARED WARD: Oh, that sounds interesting. So all of your reps would have individual websites. They did. To sell wholesale. What was that just be did you guys have individual sales reps that weren't employed by you?
[00:08:28] JAMES ANDRUS: They were just yes, we marketed Exclusively through sales reps these were and they were all independent contractors And so we had to track their commissions and everything as well pay them out monthly or weekly in some cases and Yeah, I mean replicated websites in that industry are pretty common.
[00:08:47] JAMES ANDRUS: I don't know if the way that we did it was common. Like I said, the original software we had was pretty janky and was the primary reason that we decided to move. And so, really we were [00:09:00] just looking, we looked at it as a fresh start and that we were going to put together a platform that we would be able to scale and grow on for.
[00:09:08] JAMES ANDRUS: Years to come. Got it. the end all be all software. That was
[00:09:11] JARED WARD: that, but that was the mindset. Yes. When you're going to NetSuite, it was like, okay. This is
[00:09:14] JAMES ANDRUS: a big move. It's gonna be expensive. It's gonna be time consuming, but this is gonna be the last one we need to go to and it'll scale from here and you know, sky's the limit.
[00:09:21] JAMES ANDRUS: Yeah. So what happened? Well, it turns out, uh, it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. It was funny as this morning in preparing for this, I was reviewing the contracts.
[00:09:36] JARED WARD: Oh man. For
[00:09:36] JAMES ANDRUS: implementation and for our, we were on a quarterly billing cycle. We had a, our initial contract was for a year. And, I mean, we had a small team.
[00:09:49] JAMES ANDRUS: I think at that time, maybe five of us. Yeah. Running the whole thing. And we were already at seven figures. [00:10:00] And I was wearing many hats at the time, and so, really, I took it upon myself to do Pretty much the entirety of the implementation by myself. Full ERP, we're talking accounting, payroll, CRM, shipping, inventory, integration with WooCommerce and with Amazon.
[00:10:27] JAMES ANDRUS: Yeah.
[00:10:28] JARED WARD: Yeah. I want to bring up something right here. Yeah. It'll probably spark some good conversation. We're getting off. We're getting a client off of NetSuite right now. Something hit me this time around. Okay. Obviously, you're gonna dive into a lot of things that people don't know about a big ERP implementation for a small e commerce company, but a lot of times what's often overlooked in the jump to NetSuite is You lose out so much in the ecosystem.
[00:10:57] JARED WARD: So if you're, if you're a [00:11:00] company who does a lot of sales on Shopify or like, it's just a bunch of rag tag team of sales reps and you move really fast. The Shopify in e commerce ecosystem is very vibrant. Like there's a trillion Shopify tools. There's a million Amazon tools that do things so amazing. Um, this particular client that we're getting off of NetSuite, they.
[00:11:23] JARED WARD: They're also on SweetCommerce. Okay. So, SweetCommerce is kind of like NetSuite's B2B option. Were you guys on SweetCommerce? We weren't. Okay, that's good. Yeah. Dodged a bullet there. And, what, they're now downgrading their tech stack because Yeah, sweet commerce is great and all, but if you're a 10, 20 million business, then it's, you're basically, they, they're an e commerce company, so they want to use tools like Klaviyo.
[00:11:57] JARED WARD: They want to use tools like ShipStation that like [00:12:00] play really well in that ecosystem. And if you want to use systems like that, but you're on SweetCommerce, not only are you paying 7, a month for NetSuite and SweetCommerce together, but you're now having to pay 3, 000 a year plus to keep those integrations live.
[00:12:16] JARED WARD: So, and that's That's what I realized. Obviously, I do a lot of content about NetSuite and e commerce companies going to big ERPs, but yeah, it's you you get pitched Originally as this will be about two thousand three thousand dollars a month Go with the low implementation tier. That'll, that'll serve you.
[00:12:36] JARED WARD: And then like one year later, you're like, dude, I'm paying like 10, 000 a month. Like, it's like a six figure employee that's not really working out and I can't fire them.
[00:12:47] JAMES ANDRUS: Right. Yeah. And between the contracts and the costs, it's killer. And, and not to mention that you have to have someone who practically earns a degree in how to use the software.
[00:12:57] JAMES ANDRUS: And if you're a small team training your team on how to use it. [00:13:00] It's
[00:13:00] JARED WARD: almost like having an MBA. You have to have somebody who has an MBA. And it's because NetSuite was, NetSuite is an amazing product for massive companies who have, or like, you know, they have purchasing team A and demand plan team B and contract team.
[00:13:19] JARED WARD: Yeah.
[00:13:19] JAMES ANDRUS: And,
[00:13:20] JARED WARD: and those, like those modules with 17 steps, like they make sense for a big company. But if you're somebody like you, you're literally having to do all of those steps by yourself. Um, we, we just did a. We filmed a piece of content where we did a We tried to come up with a metaphor for like a small e commerce company using NetSuite.
[00:13:42] JARED WARD: So it's like moving. So if I'm moving and I don't really have that much to move, like I'm not that, you know, I'm just like a single dude and I can use my friend's Prius and that's like ship station and Google sheets and um, QuickBooks. It's just like a small little tech stack, like kind of gets you where you need to [00:14:00] go when you're that big.
[00:14:01] JARED WARD: And what a lot of brands end up doing is like, I need. The biggest fucking U Haul. You only use like a little corner of it. So we talked about how like, okay, Lewis is that like in between.
[00:14:14] JAMES ANDRUS: Yeah.
[00:14:15] JARED WARD: Like we're, we're the, we're like the pickup truck. It's a good space to be in. Yeah. I think there's a real need for it.
[00:14:21] JARED WARD: I agree. So walk me through that. Like, why, why is there a need for somebody in, in the middle? Like what did you experience after you implement NetSuite and what led you to eventually cancel?
[00:14:33] JAMES ANDRUS: Yeah. So, I mean, and we were fortunate, it didn't cost as much as you said, you know, for a lot of those people that you're working with.
[00:14:41] JAMES ANDRUS: I think our implementation took about six months and was 25 grand and then we were on a year contract for. Uh, 50, 000 a year. And Was that all in pricing? Like, no variable, like, user
[00:14:56] JARED WARD: fees or anything?
[00:14:58] JAMES ANDRUS: Um, if we added additional users, then it [00:15:00] would tack onto that. Got it. But,
[00:15:01] JARED WARD: that was And then, what was included in the implementation for 25, 000?
[00:15:06] JAMES ANDRUS: We had, uh, an account rep who checked in and told us what needed done. Um, we had a third party that they initially recommended who was going to actually serve as the connector between WooCommerce to NetSuite and then also Amazon to NetSuite. And the price that they were charging us for that was outrageous and so we ended up finding a different third party on our own that was far more reasonable.
[00:15:31] JAMES ANDRUS: Um, and let's see. So, I mean it was just a lot of. A lot of spreadsheets, a lot of data transfer, um, surprisingly little handholding considering what we were paying and how long it was taking. And this, I've talked to David about
[00:15:53] JARED WARD: this before, like I was curious, his thought, um, NetSuite continues to sell down market.
[00:15:59] JARED WARD: [00:16:00] This is my beef with them. I do have a beef with them. Rightfully so. They continue to sell down market and yet the organization, they don't care to focus on you guys. They don't give a shit. But they continually jam this down your throat. It's like, this is going to solve all your problems. That's my beef.
[00:16:19] JARED WARD: They gave a heck of a presentation. You, you upgraded the system to 4, 000 a month, which is a, I mean, that is, that's pretty massive. It's a big leap given your size. And it's like, Oh, Oh, by the way, here's this third party, like here, here's the system, right? Figure it out. Here's a third party that, that costs a hundred thousand dollars.
[00:16:39] JARED WARD: They'll, they'll set you straight. It's like, they don't understand like. You are actually screwing over people's businesses. Oh for sure. And then you're locked in a contract like that that screws over young e commerce companies Like you you could literally spire out a business because of that because not only are you stuck in a tool that doesn't work for [00:17:00] you, but you're also You're also stuck in this contract and they're going to up prices every single year and you might be stuck or you might think that you're stuck and it's difficult to find tools.
[00:17:13] JARED WARD: I'm sure you're going to get into like trade gecko and QuickBooks commerce. It's, it's difficult to find. Tools that will actually service you.
[00:17:21] JAMES ANDRUS: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and they, they had the audacity once that contract was up to pitch a three year contract to me with a price increase.
[00:17:31] JARED WARD: That
[00:17:32] JAMES ANDRUS: happens. It happens
[00:17:32] JARED WARD: all the time.
[00:17:33] JARED WARD: Yeah. Everybody. Yeah. And it's because SMBs. Small and medium sized businesses. NetSuites, NetSuites S& B is, I mean, honestly, like a good NetSuite client is probably doing, they should be doing like a hundred million dollars here in revenue. I agree. They have a bunch of employees. Yeah. So, you know, when they sell somebody that's doing, you know, Five, 10, 20 million in revenue.
[00:17:58] JARED WARD: They've got to make that contract [00:18:00] value worth it. So it's like, all right, you're stuck in here. Here you go. Here's the three year contract. We bumped up
[00:18:06] JAMES ANDRUS: the prices. Like what? Yeah. And it was when we got that contract, well, and, and the tides had kind of been changing once we had been in it and we'd used it for quite a while, we were just like, this is too much.
[00:18:17] JAMES ANDRUS: You know, I was trying to, if we brought on a new customer support representative, trying to teach them how to do a return that takes eight steps, you know, it's just. And if you want to, um, get some additional seats for their academy where they teach you how to do everything. Okay, well here's another 2, 000 for a seat for their training academy so that you can put your people through it.
[00:18:43] JAMES ANDRUS: And, oh, you want a sandbox to practice? Okay, that's 4, 000. Here you go. And just like all these things, and it's just they keep tacking it on. And we were like We can't keep doing this. And things were changing with the business too. Um, you know, we got hit pretty hard by the pandemic, unfortunately. And so [00:19:00] things were, were trending downwards.
[00:19:02] JAMES ANDRUS: And so we were looking for ways to, um, be more efficient. How did you handle your wholesale business on NetSuite? So we didn't have the wholesale business at that time. Oh, okay. We, I mean, we kind of did, but it was, it was unconventional. We offered some pretty steeply discounted large packs. So we had like 12 packs of products that were discounted 25%.
[00:19:22] JAMES ANDRUS: They were open to everybody, but obviously they catered to people who were looking to buy in bulk and then resell. Got it. And so, those were just listed on the site for people to buy, and so it was, like I said, unconventional wholesale component. Okay. That didn't come till after.
[00:19:37] JARED WARD: So walk us through, when you, when you guys canceled NetSuites, like, how did that happen?
[00:19:42] JARED WARD: What was the breaking point? Was it just like, this is too expensive?
[00:19:45] JAMES ANDRUS: Well, yeah, it was when we got that next contract. And they said Here's three years and a price increase and we're like, I'm sorry, that's not going to work and To their credit they gave it to us with ample time. So it wasn't [00:20:00] like okay, you need to sign this within a month You're done but I just started looking for other solutions at that point and as soon as that came through and we made the decision and Then I, I was fortunate that at that time was right after QuickBooks had acquired Trade Gecko.
[00:20:22] JAMES ANDRUS: Yeah. And so they acquired them in, I think like September of 21, maybe. And we jumped on board like two months later. Okay. And, um, I was actually familiar with Trade Gecko because when we were first starting out and I was looking for an inventory solution. That's when I came across TradeGreco, but for whatever reason, I can't remember.
[00:20:44] JAMES ANDRUS: It didn't, it didn't align with what we needed at the time.
[00:20:46] JARED WARD: Got it.
[00:20:47] JAMES ANDRUS: And so, um.
[00:20:49] JARED WARD: And for, for anybody who doesn't know, I, I put, there's three main competitors, in my [00:21:00] opinion. Or, in, as far as the, like the all in ones. Yeah. For back end e commerce. So you have down market, mid-market and um, up market. So down market is Trade Gecko.
[00:21:13] JARED WARD: Trade Gecko is super cheap. Yeah. Um, and now it's QuickBooks Commerce. There's sun setting. It's now it's dead. . Yeah. Now it's all QBO. Yeah. It's, it's crazy. Um, we actually, we get a lot of leads from. Hey, this isn't working for me anymore. I'm used to it. Now it doesn't. Um, it was just that cause it was servicing a lot of people.
[00:21:32] JARED WARD: Yeah. Um, so that's down market mid market I would say is sin seven and sin seven core used to be deer systems. Yeah. Mid market and luminous. Yup. Yup. We're, we're competing directly with them. Um, and then there's, I would say net suite is up market for e commerce companies. I agree. So you, you went from ship station, Google Sheets, QuickBooks, QVault, jumped to NetSuite, went [00:22:00] down market to Trade Gecko or QuickBooks Commerce.
[00:22:03] JARED WARD: Yep. Then, then what happened? That's, that's about the time that we met you. Yes. After, after QuickBooks Commerce.
[00:22:09] JAMES ANDRUS: Yeah, after QuickBooks Commerce. So we were on QuickBooks Commerce for a year and a half or so. Okay, I think and I mean it was a great platform. I mean it did everything we needed really well We did and at that point you're probably an expert you think you can just go in like oh, this is
[00:22:30] JARED WARD: way easier than
[00:22:31] JAMES ANDRUS: oh Yeah, that was a breeze.
[00:22:33] JAMES ANDRUS: Yeah. Yeah So the thing that I think NetSuite really missed or they don't understand about Small to medium businesses is how many hats people have to wear Like you were talking about earlier, I don't have one person that's a dedicated to each task within my company. Everybody's wearing two, three, four hats.
[00:22:54] JAMES ANDRUS: The same person
[00:22:55] JARED WARD: that purchases and forecast is going to do the transfer order to Amazon. Yeah. And the same [00:23:00] person that does the transfer order, Amazon is going to adjust inventory, like exactly.
[00:23:04] JAMES ANDRUS: And so when they have to learn all these different systems in, in NetSuite, I mean, it's just. It's a lot to take on and, and then like I said, training someone else to do it is a nightmare.
[00:23:17] JAMES ANDRUS: And so, um, to the credit of, of QuickBooks Commerce, they had a well designed system that worked great. And we were on that for like I said, a year and a half, we did have inventory planner on top of it. And funnily enough, the reason that I needed that is because QuickBooks Commerce didn't have inventory notifications.
[00:23:41] JAMES ANDRUS: If I needed to reorder, they didn't have a notification system in place. And I didn't want to have to go in and look at it all the time. I needed that basic reminder that something needed to be
[00:23:51] JARED WARD: ordered. There's, there's so many companies and operators who they have the same gripes as you. I mean, that's, that's why Luminous exists.
[00:23:58] JARED WARD: Cause like, I've been in [00:24:00] your shoes. Yeah, we're trying to build a system that services all those little gripes like Oh QuickBooks Commerce would work Yes, we need this like that's what we're building towards. Honestly.
[00:24:10] JAMES ANDRUS: Yeah, you guys are doing
[00:24:12] JARED WARD: a
[00:24:12] JAMES ANDRUS: great job.
[00:24:12] JARED WARD: So, okay So after QuickBooks Commerce, um, you guys came to Luminous's
[00:24:17] JAMES ANDRUS: clients.
[00:24:18] JAMES ANDRUS: I did. Yeah, so QuickBooks Commerce like you mentioned earlier I was going away. So they're rolling it into QuickBooks Online and They didn't launch with WooCommerce integration That's what our website's built on. They had an Amazon and a Shopify integration, which makes sense, those are the most popular.
[00:24:36] JAMES ANDRUS: But it left us out to dry.
[00:24:38] JARED WARD: I remember, yeah, I remember our conversation in person. Um, cause the way we sell at Luminous is I try to understand exactly. Operators know what they need. Like, they'll tell you. Hey, we tried this. It's not working. Like, I just need this with you guys. Like, we just need WooCommerce integration.
[00:24:55] JARED WARD: It's like, all good. Like, we're not going to charge you anything until, like, we actually [00:25:00] implement you and we can, like, prove that we can solve your problem. Um, yeah, that was a Those implementations are always the easiest. When somebody's been through the ringer in tech. Oh, yeah. They already know systems really well.
[00:25:13] JARED WARD: They know their needs. I think it took like two weeks to implement. For sure. It was a dream come true.
[00:25:20] JAMES ANDRUS: Yeah. Yeah, so that's They went away and we had a hodgepodge solution. Once again, it was like we were back to day one. Um, we were using inventory planner. They had a big limitation where we had two WooCommerce stores.
[00:25:34] JAMES ANDRUS: Cause our wholesale platform is also on WooCommerce. We had two, but it's pulling from the same inventory. Back to your question where we're back down to just one warehouse that we do, um, at our headquarters. And, um, I needed all of the inventory to pull from the same place. And so I was having to do that manually and.
[00:25:50] JAMES ANDRUS: I went to Commerce Catalyst, not really looking for a solution, but that was actually my first time meeting David in person, funnily enough. Yeah. I mean, we've been on [00:26:00] a thousand zoom calls together, but we'd never met. And so we were down there and he asked if I was looking for anything or if I had any, any gripes.
[00:26:07] JAMES ANDRUS: And I was like, I don't, I don't think so. But I do have this one issue and he's like, should go check out luminous. I got a good thing going that, uh, cause he knows my history with NetSuite as well. I could always pick his brain because he'd come from there. And so he'd give me tips and tricks and, um, just one of those minds, like you mentioned, that's just so full of knowledge and he's just so willing to help.
[00:26:28] JAMES ANDRUS: So that's when I met you and explained our situation and here we are. That's right. I'm the. I'm the guy who bashes on NetSuite. So I attract you guys. So a couple weeks later, I think it was after that meeting, we jumped on a Zoom call afterwards, made sure that all the needs were met. You sent me over a proposal and we moved forward and like you said, I think it was two weeks we were up and running and it's been smooth sailing.
[00:26:58] JARED WARD: Josh, Josh [00:27:00] implemented you.
[00:27:00] JAMES ANDRUS: How is it
[00:27:00] JARED WARD: working with Josh?
[00:27:02] JAMES ANDRUS: Yeah, he's, uh, he's done a great job, very thorough, um, and he's got a good personal touch, which I like. You know, that was one of the big gripes that I had too with, um, with NetSuite is we were just another number. I think, I think that's the biggest difference with Like you gotta get to know people in business.
[00:27:23] JAMES ANDRUS: Like you gotta have these relationships and you gotta care about people and that's there.
[00:27:28] JARED WARD: Our first beta clients. I, I literally lived at their warehouses. Yeah, I believe it. That's what you gotta do. I, I, I lived there. Yeah. I remember we had a, we had a beta client in Arizona. I was literally there Monday through Friday for like months at a time sometimes.
[00:27:44] JARED WARD: Yeah. And we were just getting into, like, I came from e commerce operations. Okay. So I thought I already understood everything, um, like all of the needs. Yeah. I didn't. Like, I, I had to sit with three PLs. I had to [00:28:00] sit with distributors. Yeah. I had to sit with. I don't really understand our target client and understand all of the, there's, there's a variety of needs.
[00:28:09] JARED WARD: I think that's, that's what happens with tech. There's a system called Locate, Trade Gecko, Deer Systems, like the, Skubana. All of these things, they, founders will, they'll get a surge of success. Um, they'll get acquired. And then the companies that acquired them, the roadmap just stalls out. And, that's, we're committed to not have that happen at Luminous.
[00:28:35] JARED WARD: That happens all the time in this industry. Yeah. You hit 3, 5, 10 million in ARR, you get an acquisition, and the roadmap just stalls out. Like, the, that's why nobody's really emerged to compete with NetSuite. Yeah. Um. Makes sense. There's SIN7, I wouldn't say like they're the industry standard though. They don't have, they don't have a powerful brand where it's like, oh yeah, go with SIN7.
[00:28:58] JARED WARD: So that's exactly what we're [00:29:00] doing. We're, like, I'm going to say no to acquisitions when we hit that 3 10 million. Like, we are going to keep pressing forward and, like, stay in touch with the problem. Yeah. Cause, yeah, to service these types of companies, which The Renovas of the world are only growing right now.
[00:29:18] JARED WARD: There's going to be more and more of them. So if a company can actually stay in touch, not get acquired, then they can actually rise to the top and service a lot of small businesses.
[00:29:28] JAMES ANDRUS: There's a definite niche that you guys are filling well. And I think, uh, I think his word starts to get out that You're out there and then what you're doing, I think you're positioned really nicely.
[00:29:39] JARED WARD: I have a question. As somebody who's researched a bunch of tools. Yeah. This is a, this is a common discussion at Luminous. Okay. How do you research inventory tools? What do you type in on Google? Inventory software. Do you, do you ever type in symptoms? Like how to? Nope. Okay. Never. [00:30:00] So you just know I like what type of software I'm
[00:30:02] JAMES ANDRUS: looking for, that's what I search for.
[00:30:04] JAMES ANDRUS: So if I'm looking for accounting software, I would type accounting software, or I'd look for, you know, best inventory software, that kind of thing. Um, or sometimes what I'll do is I'll do, um, like if I know someone in that space, I would do net suite versus, and I would let the auto populate fill in whoever their competitors are.
[00:30:24] JAMES ANDRUS: And that's how I would find people to interesting. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. But I would never, I would never look for. Inventory that can track kits, something like that, you know?
[00:30:36] JARED WARD: Well, I think that's, I think that right there though is the problem with researching an inventory tool. Yeah. It's because you're really just looking for this one feature.
[00:30:44] JARED WARD: Yeah. Like, everything else about the system could just be nuts and bolts inventory system. Right. But, um, I need this one tool that can manage kits like this. Mm hmm. That, that's what we're trying to figure out at Luminous is. Is how to, how [00:31:00] to service that basic level of marketing like, Oh, best inventory tools, and Loomis will pop up.
[00:31:04] JARED WARD: NetSuite versus Loomis. But also, how can we, how can we help guide people who are having this one problem, or this one problem. I think the answer is content. For sure. Like, I think I'm just gonna be making content about like specific use cases that we solve for, that are common.
[00:31:22] JAMES ANDRUS: Well, and where you guys are positioned, I mean you don't, I don't think that you truly have a ton of competition.
[00:31:31] JAMES ANDRUS: And so I think lean into that. I mean, say exactly who you're targeting and create the content for them. Let them know that you're there. Yeah, I would have, frankly, I don't think I ever would have found you guys had I not been at that event.
[00:31:44] JARED WARD: Yep.
[00:31:45] JAMES ANDRUS: And, and even that David would have said anything because, like I said, I wasn't really looking for anything.
[00:31:50] JAMES ANDRUS: I knew that I had this issue, but I wasn't looking to solve it there. Right. And it just so happened that I talked to David and he said, hey, check out Luminous. That's, that's interesting, it's good to be back. Because I walked past your [00:32:00] booth like four times before that point and didn't stop. Um, so. I don't know, do with that what you will, but yeah, that's interesting.
[00:32:10] JAMES ANDRUS: Marketing is always a challenge. Let yourself be, be found.
[00:32:14] JARED WARD: So what, what's in the future for Renova?
[00:32:17] JAMES ANDRUS: Oh, bigger and better things. We have a motto of a better way and that's what we constantly strive to find is a better way of supplementation, a better way of serving our customers, a better way of, um, you know, providing healthy solutions, you know, whatever it is, that's kind of our, our gauge that we look to.
[00:32:35] JAMES ANDRUS: on whether or not we're going to move forward with something. Is this a better way of conducting business with, you know, in whatever aspect that is. And so, um, we've got a good inventory software in place now that I feel comfortable scaling with. Um, you know, really, really our tech stack as a whole, I think.
[00:32:56] JAMES ANDRUS: We're positioned nicely.
[00:32:58] JARED WARD: How does the tech stack [00:33:00] feel right now? If you could use one word to describe your tech stack versus when you had NetSuite?
[00:33:08] JARED WARD: Hmm,
[00:33:09] JAMES ANDRUS: I can think of lots of words. Um,
[00:33:21] JAMES ANDRUS: clean? Yeah. I mean, it fits our needs so nicely right now. And, just the right amount. I don't know, I think of Goldilocks and the porridge, you know, just the right temperature. Nice. That's good. That's good to know. Yeah. So, yeah, we're just, uh, we're looking for new ways to connect with people and, uh, Um, you know, like any business, trying to figure out what's the best way to connect with people that need us.
[00:33:50] JAMES ANDRUS: You know, I think that's just trying to find the right market fit and, um. Blessing lives with a better way.
[00:33:57] JARED WARD: Okay. Well, cool. That's awesome, [00:34:00] man. Um, I think that's it. I think that's good for the conversation today. Okay. Do you have anything to add? Where can we find you?
[00:34:09] JAMES ANDRUS: What's the website? RenovaWorldwide.
[00:34:10] JAMES ANDRUS: com Yep, or search us on Amazon. Renova Worldwide. Um, yeah, we're accessible. Check them out. Yeah,
[00:34:18] JARED WARD: you'll be on our website. Like, we'll upload this podcast and then we'll also like do A case study and we'll reference your website and everything. So
[00:34:27] JAMES ANDRUS: yeah, I've got a bunch of feedback to give you guys too.
[00:34:29] JAMES ANDRUS: Awesome. Yeah excited
.svg){kind=small}
