So the Side by Side business model is fully online-focused?

Antoine d’Haussy: Side by Side is mostly based on an online business model, yes. The reason for that is twofold. First, selling online gives me a way to control my sales and to know precisely what works and what doesn’t in a very flexible and reactive way.

Second, selling online is a way for me to offer reasonable prices to my clients. Typically, retail prices tend to be five times higher than wholesale prices, because a variety of intermediaries needs to take their share before the product arrives on the retail shelves. However, by being mostly online I have an opportunity to reduce that ratio significantly.

Ultimately, the choice increases the value I provide to the clients. This model helps me to invest in higher quality materials and to sharpen my designs while making my prices reasonable so it’s a win-win situation. Apart from that, I also invest in pushing my products in physical shops – about twenty-five in Hong Kong so far – but so far this is mostly is a visibility operation and my presence is mostly Amazon-related.

Are your typical clients online-focused too?

Absolutely, yes. Side by Side was created on the idea that I wanted to “get traveling right”, which is a matter of being prepared at all times. Interestingly, nowadays business is made mostly with digital nomads. People who want freedom in their daily routines and for whom smart travel equipment is a good match.

This is a niche clientele, really, but it means that I know what to focus on and what to forget. As time goes, my bet is that people will want more modularity so their things will need to be multi-usage oriented and adapt to them, not the other way around. For instance, my products are inspired by toiletry bags and can be used as such, but they are also typically used as fly bags to store a book and an iPad in planes or to store a drone and the related equipment. I call that a Travel Packer and I leave it to people to do the best of it. Less is more, right?

>> Read also: A Call for Modular Durability in Design, by Alexandre Besson.

You worked for others, now for yourself. Have you improved the methods you used to follow?

Absolutely. I was saying earlier that my philosophy is to build products for people, and by that, I mean that I do invest in building the best products ever – which is not the usual approach in business.

In the field, the reality is very different. Typically, designers would design a great product, however product managers would then spend all their energy degrading the product to get to the correct price point. On paper the design is great, but progressively some features and details are taken off so the price tag can be lowered as much as possible. I don’t work like that, and my business model helps me make a difference.

What did you learn from doing business on Amazon?

Antoine d’Haussy: Interestingly, Amazon taught me to think in terms of bundles. This is counter-intuitive for me because I would rather spend my time working on one product and on making it perfect. Online, however, I realized that Amazon does not limit the number of product you can offer and I found myself forced to rethink my model. This makes sense because in contrast with a physical shop there is no stock management constraint, but this is a challenge because it forces me to re-design my offering. Either invest in building more products or break a very complete product into a bundle to give people an opportunity to mix and match as they please.

You have managed Chinese providers for a decade, can you share a tip or two?

Doing business with Chinese manufacturers is complex because their approach to doing business is different. They typically use the last mover advantage to their own advantage and that means you need to be two or three steps ahead all the time. Supply chains need to be split, so forth and so on…

A lot of business is moving to Vietnam and other countries in South-East Asia, and the way Chinese businesses operate is one of the reasons. Doing business in the region requires flexibility, modularity but also trust.

What are your challenges as a ‘solopreneur’?

Working on my own has major advantages in terms of flexibility and adaptability, but it also creates significant challenges because there are only so many hours in a day. Social media presence is a challenge (how to get your products seen in the middle of cute cats and pups is complex) but so is stock management. Online, stocks can go very fast so managing is a skill.

Another challenge would typically be organization-related. Designing is fun and it can take a lot of time, but the time spent on fun is not time spent on business development so there is an arbitrage to be made here. As my business grows, I am however learning to work with others, mostly freelancers, which also creates another type of HR-related challenge.