Josh Kim describes the business model and fee structure of his collegiate art platform, The Cubby.
Insight
Kim: Founders should focus on solving personal problems, not monetization ideas
“The number one question that my mentor shared with me, and that I came to, came back to over and over again, it was, what is a problem I can solve? And what is the biggest problem in my life? It wasn't, what is your idea? What is the business you want to grow?…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kim tested 50% transaction fees on his manual campus marketplace MVP
“Like, I was making money, and I was actually implementing manual transaction fees just to see. I, we actually played, I played around transaction fees to a point where I would get 50% transaction fee, and it was crazy because, like, these students wouldn't car…”
Insight
Kim: Founders should build personal friendships with their prospective acquirers
“Be friends with your, with the person who's going to acquire you, with the group that's going to acquire you, whoever your main correspondence is.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kim: Acquire.com listing generated 10 to 12 buyer inquiries on day one
“The first day we were approved, I had, like, 10, like, 10 to 12 different people reach out, like, immediately”
Insight
Kim: Defining non-negotiables and nice-to-haves accelerates acquisition talks
“Know what you want, and really define that, and I didn't do that for the first two months of my journey, so know what you want and the conversation just gets so much faster and so much more efficient after that.”
Disclosure
Josh Kim self-invested $5,000 of personal savings to build The Cubby
“And so I think I self-invested like five grand At the time, and that was almost all the money I had, but I truly believed in it.”