[podcast]http://incomediary.com/DGA2.mp3[/podcast]
Nothing worth having comes easy
Hi Everyone,
Today we have an interview (Podcast and Transcript) with two remarkable Young Entrepreneurs – Erik Groset and Robin Defay from Digital Group Audio (DGA) and LiveSpeakr.com
Livespeakr is an amazing new speaker system that features a set of speakers that fold-up and store conveniently behind the iPhone when they are not in use allowing for maximum portability. When the unit is stored (or hidden) it piggy-backs on the iPhone or iPod Touch making it portable enough to fit in your pocket for on-the-go portability. (Visit Erik and Robin’s website for video demonstration)
This is one of the neatest inventions I have seen in a long time – I want one of these!
In addition DGA was recently recognized as one of five companies nominated for the WIRED magazine Small Biz Contest. In addition to this, inventor/co-founder, Erik Groset was added to the “Young Inventors International Hall of Fame.”
Favorite Quote from This Interview:
You have to learn from the negative experiences in your life and you have to make yourself become the person that you want to be. Nothing worth having comes easy.
Enjoy the Interview. These Guys are Hot and I predict Great Things for them.
best wishes
Michael
Interview Transcript – Erik Groset and Robin Defay
Barry Dunlop: Hi, folks, this is Barry Dunlop here at Retireat21.com. This is one more of our podcast series and I am delighted, actually, probably more than delighted, to have on today’s call a couple of very fine men from Southern California, (based out of Carlsbad/San Diego), from a company called Digital Group Audio.
The run a really wonderful website that I’ve just been getting my hands around, and my eyes around the last couple of days, called Livespeakr.com. The two gentleman on the call are the founders of the business. That’s Erik Groset and Robin Defay.
Thanks guys for being on this interview.
Barry: As I’ve said, guys, you are the founders of Digital Group Audio and I know that’s the business name. But I’ve been, just this evening–in particular because it’s evening time here in the UK–looking at your website. And that gives me a lot of questions for you.
But for those people who have not been to the website–not been to LiveSpeakr.com, as I’ve said earlier that’s without an “E-R” at the end, it’s “K-R” at the end. How did you guys come up with the idea? How did the whole thing originate? Where did the founding ideas comes from? Where was the big “A-ha” moment, if you like, when you guys said, “Hey, this is a great idea and we’re going to go with it!”
Erik: Well, Barry–this is Erik, here. Robin and I have been friends since sixth grade, way back when. We’ve always kind of been bouncing ideas off of each other and we kind of disconnected until later in our college years.
We determined that it’s probably a good idea to start working together again. We decided, “Hey, maybe we should start doing some different ideas.” We knew the iPhone was coming out, and we knew that there was going to be problems with the speakers with interference, from previous cell phones that we owned.
We also knew that iPhone would work in both portrait and landscape mode and that new speakers needed to be created to address that. We came up with this awesome concept, and we posted it on the Internet, and received some tremendous feedback from lots of different potential customers, and we were able to move forward from there.
Barry: Erik, I like that. But, actually, you almost make it sound too simple. I’m sure there was a few challenges along the way. I mean, can I ask? It’s probably…
Robin: I made it sound way too simple. I mean, it’s been brutal–but it’s a great product.
Barry: Thank you for the reality check, Robin. Tell us, and I think most people understand it’s an amazing achievement, but what were your biggest startup challenges? Apart probably, from lack of funds, maybe. But what was your biggest startup challenge?
Robin: Again, this is Robin. I would say that one of the biggest challenges was getting funding behind us. We met with multiple companies, people, individuals, attempting to get funding. And in this economy, it’s extremely difficult to get people to put their money at risk on inexperienced business people.
Erik and I had our own individual experiences prior to starting Digital Group Audio, however, in the grand scheme of things we were just young people getting into the picture. So that was one of the biggest challenges, was finding the funding that was necessary.
Barry: Can I pick up one point? You actually literally did lots and lots of presentations, did you?
Robin: Yes, we did do multiple presentations.
Barry: Do you have a number of the people? How many people did you speak to before you got your initial seed capital, your initial funding?
Robin: Realistically, people that we spoke to, who were actually interested one way or another, would probably be in the 8-10 range.
Barry: OK. So people, if you like, they qualified you down, you qualified them down as potential investors and you went to that. OK. Because one of the things that I’ve discovered as I listen to people is that there is a lot of tremendous ideas out there just like yours, but a lot of them never get anywhere just because they never got the funding. They never actually got started.
This is a very personal question, then we’ll go on to some other questions. Did you guys at any time think of giving up?
Robin: I don’t believe we ever thought of giving up, per se. At the beginning, we weren’t 100 percent sure if we wanted to start a business and develop the products ourselves. We were kind of interested in exploring licensing, or selling off the idea that we had, because we knew it was a winner.
But after getting involved in the initial early stages, Erik and I just decided let’s go for it, let’s take our shot then and we really haven’t looked back. We addressed all the challenges as opportunities.
Barry: OK. As I say, I encourage everybody to check out the website. There’ll be a link on our website to it. It’s a very interesting concept. I’m actually going to pursue it a little bit longer. How is the retailing done? Who retails it? Do you retail direct or is it sold through retailers? What’s the retail model?
Erik: This is Erik. Initially, it’s very hard for us to achieve distribution, so we sold through our website. But as press, kind of, caught on to us, we started getting a couple more offers on our table. Recently we’ve started selling in a direct relationship with Amazon.com and NewEgg.com and some of the bigger e-tailers.
They’ve been really helpful in getting us kind of moving very quickly in terms of selling, especially just based on the positive feedback that we’ve been receiving from our customers, as well. So it’s been a great start for us, and that’s been opening more and more doors as things move along and progress here.
Barry: Super. As I say, everybody’s encouraged, and we certainly will be encouraging people. It’s one of the most exciting concepts I’ve seen in a while.
Barry, I’ve got to ask you this question, because when I read your bio, I read about your poker experience. You credit it, or at least it says in your bio something along the lines that you credit your business skills, including reading people and negotiations, to lessons attained on the poker circuit. Fill us in, Robin. I’d love to hear about that. What’s the big thing you pulled out from that?
Robin: Yeah, definitely, Barry. A lot of what Erik and I do on a day-by-day basis revolves heavily around the relationships that we forge with partners, other people that we’re working with.
And when we’re getting involved with such people, it’s very important that we choose the right people we work with. Especially, I reference the economy again. Everybody’s also looking for work, and you have to be able to decipher between those that really are best for you, and have your best interests at heart, and those that are just trying to earn a buck and get a job.
And although you never know what a person is thinking, you can–through the skills I’ve learned and gained with my poker experience and my background–I’ve been able to give us the best guess at what is really going on in a person’s head. And reading their reactions, and their actions, and the way they respond to us, to determine if they should be the best people for the job.
Barry: I like that, Robin. Because what I’m getting from you guys, I think it’s often rare to find it. You are, as much, choosing your investors and business partners, as they are choosing you.
And that’s actually–quite often, any investor will do. It’s almost, sort of, like the old pop star story–they’ll sign any old contract just to be a pop star. You guys approached it quite differently, I think that that’s admirable. So well done, and anything else you want to add about that experience?
Robin: No, it’s just another experience in life, and you try to take everything positive away from all the experiences that you go through, good and bad. And learn from everything.
Barry: Indeed. When exactly did the business launch? I mean how long have you been established now?
Robin: Erik and I, came up with the idea for the product and the business in September of 2007, we didn’t commit to actually forming the business and beginning to develop the product until the 1st and 2nd quarter of 2008.
Barry: OK, good. Well, you’ve come a long way, in a relatively short period of time. And you guys sound like you made a lot of decisions, but I am assuming that as in most businesses you might have made one or two little wrong decisions along the way. I mean, what would you say is the biggest business lessons you’ve learned so far? And if you were starting again, guys, what might you do differently?
Erik: This is Erik and we’ve experienced, I think, just by nature, the life of a start up is tons of highs and tons of lows, so we’ve experienced the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows going through this process, I guess you could call it. And we’ve been really lucky, a lot due to Rob’s skills, in kind of that the people we have chosen to work with have really helped us out, and accelerated the process, and being successful as well.
So, in that aspect, we’ve been lucky and partnered with a lot of the right people. In terms of kind of bumps in the road and small things that have happened to us? Well, it’s just kind of stuff that comes with the nature of the beast. Legal agreements, especially, are rocky. Without knowing, or having any background in law, we can potentially get broadsided by a lot of contracts.
Luckily, we’ve learned to protect ourselves in partnering with some great attorneys. But it’s a lesson that you kind of learn the hard way, the first or second time. So, obviously a good lawyer is worth “their weight in gold” is what the phrase is, so we can attest to that, certainly.
Robin: Yeah, and Barry, and this is Robin, also to add to what Erik was saying, we learned something new everyday in this business. Neither of us were experts in any way, shape, or form, when we started this. However, what we are good at, is learning like a sponge and soaking it all in.
And we’ve learned so much, and we do continue to learn more every single day. And that’s also been one of the benefits of the people we work with. Everybody that we work with–one of our prerequisites before we hire them is by telling them that part of your job is to teach us how you do everything that you do. So that’s also been one of our strong learning points.
Barry: The answer there–I mean, there’s a big lesson there about learning all the time. I can remember one of my very first employers, or both as I should say, back many years ago was explaining that just because he couldn’t do the job didn’t mean he didn’t understand how the job could be done, or should be done, because he’d obviously asked all the right questions along the way.
This is good stuff. You guys come across as positive, you’ve had your lows, like you mentioned earlier there, Erik. I mean, do you have a strategy for coping with setbacks or negative experiences? Or is it, “Hey, we just go on to the next one?” How do you cope with, if you like, the “downs” of business? Because obviously the “ups” are relatively easy, how do you cope with the “downs” of business?
Erik: I think a lot of that, Barry–this is Erik again, and I think a lot of it–it’s preparation and always having a backup plan, and always having an exit strategy. And I feel that helps, not only yourself, but your investors, and all of our partners who have a vested interest in our business, and you know, you can always hope for the best, but plan for the worst. And you just, you know, just play with different scenarios and then you’ll always have a typically decent backup plan that will allow you to escape with scratches rather than broken bones. So we do the best we can in preparing.
Barry: Wonderful, I like that. And you guys, is there anybody that you model yourself on, or has there been a mentor along the way as of right now? Or maybe when you were much younger that inspired you? Do you have anybody that you want to, imagine it’s the Oscar’s evening and your saying, “Thank you,” who would you say, “Thank you,” to?
Erik: We’ve had tons of mentors, our investors are probably our biggest mentors. They are tremendously successful business men that not only are trusting us with their money, but also passing along the knowledge that they’ve had to make themselves successful business men. So definitely our investors, besides that, we have also had some awesome professors throughout the years. I was lucky enough to have a professor, who was named David Bennett, who was an ex-executive at Pepsi and Taco Bell and he ran a class in the executive chair where he would bring in a different senior level executive from different big name companies each week and they would pass along their knowledge to us.
So that helped out a lot, and definitely influenced a lot of the way that we run our business now. Besides that, we’ve been lucky enough to live in this wonderful community of San Diego that has so many great successful business people that are willing to pass along knowledge, free of charge, just to help out the community.
And Phil Baker, the guy who invented the original fold out palm keyboard lives right up the street from us – he’s helped influence us in the way that we conduct our business as well. So we’ve just been really blessed with all the mentors that we have and we’re thankful for them.
Barry: Tremendous, tremendous. What would you suggest or what might you say the best advice you’ve ever been given is? Or any sort of platitude? Anything anyone has ever said to you that’s had a tremendous influence, either personally, or in your business career?
Robin: The best advice ever.
Barry: Or best advice recently.
Robin: This is Robin and some of the best advice I’ve ever had, from my dad, he just told me that you have to learn from the negative experiences in your life and you have to make yourself become the person that you want to be. Nothing worth having comes easy. And you have to work for it.
Barry: Tremendous. Tremendous. Erik did you want to put anything in there?
Erik: Yeah, just through the experiencing of those lows I would just say, anything in business–tread with caution. So I’ll just keep an optimistic attitude, also a careful attitude, when conducting business.
Barry: Yes, business should always come with a wealth warning. But at the end of the day you’ve both achieved a tremendous amount at a very young age. What are you? 24 or 25? Or are you 25 each? For other young entrepreneurs getting started today, maybe with their first business, is there any advice you’d like to impart with them? Is there anything you would say to them, starting their first business, or first start up?
Erik: This is Erik, I would say just go for it. If your dream’s worth pursuing, definitely pursue it and definitely don’t let anyone tell you not to, because that’s America’s strongest part is entrepreneurship and “inventorship.” And that’s what sets us apart from the rest of the world, so just keep going for it.
Robin: I add to what Erik is saying, I strongly agree with him. I would also add to the fact that when people tell you that your idea is not good, this is something that we’ve learned along the way, it usually–it usually is good. And don’t let people get you down, if they tell you that you’re not onto something great. If you think it’s great, then follow your beliefs and your dreams with it, and take it to reality.
Barry: Excellent, excellent. I started out by talking about your website, guys. And obviously, you got a, you know, you actually started your business really online, at Mozy. I mean, your obviously, you’re now using retailers like Amazon, or whatever. What do you guys like? I mean, you guys have grown up with the Internet age. It’s been there probably, more or less, since your very earlier childhood. What do you like best about the Internet?
Erik: I like the best that you can just reach customers worldwide. You can get people’s honest feedback. Their, you know–honestly, you will never meet them fact-to-face, so they’ll be brutally honest with your product or your service. And that really allows you to create the best possible experience for that customer.
And we’ve, you know, obviously through our investors been given the advice that, you know, your customers are your best asset. And we kind of tailor everything towards that. And the Internet, allowing customers to be brutally honest with you, in turn, allows us to be tailored to their satisfaction.
Robin: Barry, this is Robin. With our product Livespeakr, we like to say that we put the power of a dock in the palm of your hand. And what I like about the Internet is it puts the power of a college education in the palm of your hand.
Barry: Wow.
Robin: It actually puts the power of any education in the power of your hand, because there’s so many answers you can find on the Internet.
Barry: That’s amazing. Now, I think we’re obviously all fans of the Internet, and we’ve all had great benefit from it here, but there’s usually something that we don’t like about the Internet. Do any of you guys want to offer up something that you don’t like about the Internet? Is there something that you sort of, “Oh, I wish it wasn’t like that?”
Robin: Sexual predators.
Barry: OK. That’s fair. That’s a very good one.
Erik: I think, just the mix of spam out there. It just sometimes clutters the Internet, and misleads a lot of people, which is harmful for those of us who want to do positive things on the Internet, because once customers feel that they’ve been mislead on the Internet, and that they’re much more hesitant to trust you, so you have to go the extra mile to earn that trust back, based on what spammers and other harmful, malicious people have done.
Barry: Indeed.
Robin: And that, with what Erik is saying, on a serious note–the spamming, as well as the fraud that goes on, on the Internet, whether it’s done with credit cards, theft, or identity theft, just a lot of –you have to be really careful with where you give your information on the Internet. A lot of people will take advantage of it.
Barry: OK. I’ve got my final two questions here. And for that, I’d like to come back to the website because as I say, I think there’s a lot of lessons to be learned from what you’ve done with you website. One thing which I’ve actually always wanted to ask somebody actually, because I noticed on your website, you’ve got live help online right now. How important or how good and idea was that? Is that something a lot of people use? Is it something that’s made a difference in terms of sales? How to track how well that works for you?
Erik: Yeah. It’s an interestingly new concept that’s just recently come on our plate. And we found it to be tremendously successful. What we’ve noted is that most people don’t want to give up their information. They want answers anonymously. So, as much as we would like to know their names, so we can personalized the answers, we’re going back to the anonymous, because people are more willing to ask questions when you don’t have to know information about them, once again, kind of a faceless sort of interaction.
So, in that aspect, it works out rally well. And we noticed that we can answer questions for our customers anonymously, and they can get the information that they need in a timely manner, that orders do increase. Yeah, by several percentage points. So…
Robin: And Barry, this is Robin. One of our strong points is our customer care. We are strongly–we make products by the customer, for the customer. We’re customers ourselves, and we want them to have an amazing experience. So, any way we can give them more options, and more availability to us, is better in our opinion.
Barry: OK. My final question, well actually, I think it’s almost my final question. I also read–and I was just quite taken by–you guys. It maybe the San Diego. It may be the Californian influence. But, you use some fairly unique methods to find talent for you business, and like hosting events for graduating seniors to submit a business plan. At least I think that’s what I read. I mean, to me that’s a very clever idea. Has that worked for you, or what’s you experience with that?
Robin: Yeah. It’s worked really well. We actually, are just getting involved with Cal State and San Marcos seniors. They were doing a senior experience program. They actually signed up through our website, at www.Livespeakr.com. And we are going to have them do a viral marketing program where they will be putting videos out and trying to bring more attention to the company.
Robin: As well as social networking, and just Twitter, and http://twitter.com/Livespeakr, and
http://twitter.com/DGAtweeter.
So, you know, students have been tremendously helpful. And we’ve kind of leveraged them very well in the fact that we’re helping them build kind of a–their resume, portfolio. The packaging was designed by artist, Christopher Delorenzo out of New York. And he just graduated, and now he’s got basically award winning packaging as his portfolio.
So, we’re really proud of what’s he’s done and some of the videos that we’ve had done before, are done by local students as well. So, we’ve been blessed in finding some tremendously talented students who are more than willing to help us out and help themselves out at the same time.
Barry: Yeah. It’s sort of like it’s the win-win situation. And obviously, for future employment for them, it must have huge benefits, you know, especially in the current economic climate.
Erik: Yep. Absolutely. Yep. We actually hired on our first intern here. So we’re stoked on that.
Barry: Good stuff. Good stuff. Guys I really appreciate your call. I would just really appreciate it if you have a couple of moments, maybe, final thoughts. It can be about anything. It could be about your hobbies. It could be about going forward. Just, you know, it could be message or for 2010–just final thoughts from both of you.
I’d really appreciate it because it’s not often you get a chance, you know, you guys are right there living the dream right now. You’re still in the dream, if you like. You’re still building the business. You are living it day-to-day. So, you got a lot, especially for aspiring entrepreneurs, and young entrepreneurs starting out, you’ve got a lot. And you’ve given a lot in this interview, which is really appreciated. So, you know, you got any final thoughts, we’d really appreciate them.
Robin: You got it Barry. For those you haven’t seen Livespeakr, they should definitely check it out. It’s one of the best portable speakers–It is the best portable speaker system on the Internet, in the world, really. It can’t be beaten. And we wanted to let everybody know that we are not just stopping with this product. We’re perfecting this product, as well as portable products, in general. And that’s what we want to be recognized as: The guys to go to for quality portable products.
Because, right now, everybody’s dipping their toe in the water, but nobody’s committing their business to bringing the public portable products that work, that are amazing sound quality, that are great. And that’s what we want to do. And that’s what we intend on doing. So remember the name DGA. And remember the name Livespeakr. You will not be disappointed.
About Digital Group Audio (DGA)
Digital Group Audio (DGA) was founded in 2007 by two lifelong friends driven to bring convenience to the consumer electronics world using their entrepreneurial spirit. Their dreams to bring their innovative ideas to life led them around the world in search of the highest quality parts and speakers, ensuring each DGA sound system would offer supreme sound quality unlike anything else. Their products are designed to make consumers live’s easier and more enjoyable without having to compromise style. Based out of Carlsbad, CA, DGA is only just beginning to bring music to your ears.
DGA was recently recognized as one of five companies nominated for the WIRED magazine Small Biz Contest. In addition to this, inventor/co-founder, Erik Groset was added to the “Young Inventors International Hall of Fame.”