 Do you plan to sell Dormify? Eventually. But I want to grow the shit out of it first. Good answer. A Amanda Zuckerman, co-founder of Dormify. Are you ready to answer some questions? Let's do it. What are the tenants of the Dormify brand? What makes it a brand, right? It's a service brand. It's not like a cup brand. You are a retailer, right? Right, but we create all the product too. Interesting. We design and manufacture a majority of our products. So it's all proprietary products only sold on our site. Bedding, wall decor, storage, bath, lighting, it's all the Dormify brand. The only things that we carry from third-party vendors are like tchotchkes and accessories that we're either testing the product or we don't buy into it deep enough that it would make sense to manufacture. Can you see how the service a la Shopify, Spotify, all are essentially marketplaces or conduits to other content? So it leads me to believe that Dormify is a retail or not a designer manufacturer. Right. I mean, we stress, like one of our brand tenants is the fact that we're creating unique products that is inspired by what college students want. So we listen to what our customers need for their rooms and what they think is cool and we create the products that are perfect for them because no one out there is. Are you ever tempted to sell them to other retailers because the products are stuff you're proud of? We carry our product in American Eagle Outfitters online right now. We have a product partnership with them. So in their home department, we have a Dormify assortment there and we've done other retail explorations. We worked with Barnes & Noble Bookstores before on campus where we sell our product there and we've also worked with Macy's, but it was a few years back and it's most important to us right now to establish our brand and sell it on our own site. Seems like adding IFY to the end of things is a typical naming convention for startups. What other names were you considering? This was before Spotify and other Ifis. So I like to think that Dormify was one of the first Ifis, but it came to us when we were looking for domain name acts actually that were available. So it stuck as soon as that was like one of the available domains. Is the name Dormify a double-edged sword? Not gonna use my college company when I'm an adult. It could be, people think that it could be that we're only college focused, but we actually wanna own the fact that we're college experts and really be the authority in that space. So I think it's great that Dormify relates back to college but people use Dormify as a verb without even being told to. They say, I wanna Dormify my space whether that's a bedroom, an apartment, your camp bunk, it doesn't matter, they're Dormifying it. Either way, I like what you're saying is everyone always tries to tackle the whole world but ultimately we love usually one brand for one thing and it's hard for brands to expand and you're very cool just saying if we're just college, college is still huge. What do you love about yourself? I love that I balance my work and my life. What do you hate about yourself? I hate that I'm always late and I can't fix it. If someone said I wanna be you, what would be the first thing you tell them to do? Stop being late. When will you know you've made it? I feel like I already have made it. I think the fact that so many people know about the brand that are in our target demo that when I say I started Dormify, they're like, oh my God, you started Dormify so to me that feels like making it and when people tag us on Instagram that in itself is making it to me. Do you plan to sell Dormify? Eventually, but I wanna grow this shit out of it first. Good answer. How has the marketplace changed since you launched? The marketplace has changed drastically. E-commerce is a totally different industry from what it was in 2012 when we launched so there's just such expectations to me and especially with our brand in general, everyone expects a small brand like Dormify which it is functionally but people see it as a big brand to operate like an Amazon which we just can't right now because of our size. Now, granted, I'm out of college over 10 years so I don't matter to you at the moment but does the fact that I thought Dormify was more of a marketplace and not a brand that makes us on stuff, is that a problem? I think so. I think every conversation that I have with a stranger or with someone that's not on my team, I make sure that they understand that first so we do need to do a better job of establishing that it's our own product then if that's not clear. What part of the brand are you most proud of? I'm most proud of the reputation that we have. I'm just really excited that people love what we've built and are so excited to tell their friends about it. How important are reviews? They're very important, especially being an online business. It's important for home decor and linens and soft goods for people to explain online the quality, the texture, the feel of it for potential customers. What's your biggest business challenge? Our biggest business challenge is that it takes three months to manufacture our products so we basically have to get our buy right when we first place the order. So we run into the challenge of something really sells and really takes off. It sells out before the end of our season and we have upset customers. So we actually saw the fact that there could have been a couple million more dollars worth in revenue this summer if we didn't sell out of our key products. What was the one that surprised you that was so popular? We have these nightstands that we created with outlets in them. When did you have your breakout moment? I think I had my breakout moment in two ways. One, we built a dorm room in the middle of Times Square and we're on Good Morning America which was the biggest press appearance that we've ever had. And while that doesn't always convert into sales, huge moment. Also when I was named on the Forbes under 30 list it was just like a huge personal accomplishment. If you had one marketing dollar to spend where would you spend it? Instagram. When I was in college, I don't really remember seeing pictures of dorms was needing till good on Instagram the white space that you saw. We actually came up with the idea for Dormify before Instagram was created. So we saw a white space for college focused dorm decor embedding because no one was really filling that niche before and creating a one-stop shop for shopping for your dorm room. So Instagram followed suit and it really changed the business and we're grateful for it but we were great. How has your social media strategy changed with Instagram? We're social everything. If you could have one celebrity influencer endorse you who would it be? I would say whoever the real housewife of the moment that has a kid going to college. Who is your core customer? Can you describe him or her to me? Our core customer is an incoming college freshman who cares about the space that they live in and wants to invest in it. What part of your brand still needs work? Our whole guy area of the business. So we have products for guys and we call our guys Dorma guys but we really haven't positioned the brand to be something that's attractive to guys or really the moms of the guys who are shopping for them. Who do you consider your competition? Our competition is Bed Bath and Beyond Target and Urban Outfitters. How much more expensive is your stuff that uses Bed Bath and Beyond? It's pretty on par, which is really exciting for us because we do less volume than them and we're matching the prices that they have. How many co-founders do you have? My mother is my co-founder. Who did your branding and what was the brief? My parents' agency actually did the branding so my mom started her own creative agency 30 years ago and when I had this idea we were standing in Bed Bath and Beyond and I said to her, we need to create our own line of bedding. Let's do it and she's like, okay, let's do it. So her agency took on the branding in 2011. Amanda Zuckerman, co-founder of Dormify. Thank you so much for coming on and answering some questions. Of course, thank you. I'm Ian Wishengrad and we'll see you next time on I'm With The Brand.