Breathing Success: From Father's Concern to Multi-Million Dollar Air Purifier Empire with Peter Mann

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur. With me today is Peter Mann, who's an entrepreneur who started out building a business for his son who had some breathing issues and actually built a multimillion-dollar air purifier business. Peter Mann, founder and CEO of Airansi, welcome to the show.

Yeah, thank you. Excited to be here.

Well, we're excited to have you too. I'm in Wiltshire. You are in Beautiful Virginia, down the east side of America. And we're going to talk about Aranci, this business that you've built, and really what has now become a very competitive online B2B air purifying market. And you're fighting and doing really well in that space. So Peter, tell us about Aranci and how you've managed to build this from a business where you were really helping your son's breathing issues into a multimillion-dollar business. and how you've been able to overcome some of the challenges of competing in a B2B marketplace.

Sure. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't overnight, but as you mentioned, I, I got into this business because, as you mentioned, my son struggled with asthma as an infant. And, you know, it really left a mark on me and really is my, my drive, you know, to help him and people like him. And so that's really what keeps me fueled in this marketplace. And, you know, 2009, 2010, when I was starting, the market was completely different than it is now. You know, COVID really changed things, really shed a light on the importance of indoor air quality. And so that created, you know, a much bigger market, but it also brought in a lot of competition. And so, you know, it's, it's been, it's been quite the journey. And I would say, you know, to back up, when I started, You know, I used the funds from selling of a previous business that I co-founded to start this business. So I didn't have to go and raise money. But if I back up a little bit, my business experience is really from working at 2 Fortune 100 tech companies in the computer industry, Tech Data and Dell, where I learned a lot about marketing and operations and bringing products to market and competing in very competitive spaces. And then during the dot-com bubble burst, that was really my push to start an entrepreneurial business. And so I co-founded an e-commerce business with another guy that I knew in Austin, Texas. And we built that from $0 to $14 million. And I sold that and used the funds to really fund Auroncy.

Well, and you've done so well. So, according to your website, you sold over 100,000 units. And, you know, I lived in Beijing for 13 years, and, you know, we had AQI, uh, which is the, you know, Air Quality Index, of up to 300, uh, quite frequently. So HEPA air filters, um, very, very familiar with, and, uh, and they really are a lifesaver, uh, literally. Um, on this show, of course, Peter, we talk about how you've managed to build the brand and it looks fantastic. Take us through what you've been doing because you've managed to get to scale now. But can you tell us some of the things that you did from the get-go that got the brand and got those first customers? Because those are always the hardest ones to win.

Yeah, it's really difficult when no one knows your brand. You have no reviews. It's like, why should I buy from you? And, and I think what's important is to take a step back and look at things from the customer's perspective. You know, what do they care about? What are their pain points? And, and can we speak to them, you know, in messaging that connects where it's like, yeah, this is the right solution for me. You know, we, when we started, you know, 13, 14 years ago, you know, we weren't designing our own products and having them custom manufactured. We started off by just private labeling. And then over the years evolved into designing our own products and really stepping it up. But it was more of a, you know, a longer-term path to get to where we are. I don't think you ever like crush it year one. It's a bit of a journey and it's figuring out kind of, I think, where you want to go and then work backwards to how do you get there. But I think it starts with really understanding the market, understanding the customer, understanding their pain points. Is it price? Is it a certain feature? Is it, you know, what is it that the others aren't doing that you could better do to serve the customer?

I'm interested, Peter, because you started off with this as a business to, you know, serve your son. But now you have Aranci really talking about B2B. So why the change from, if you like, the consumer focus to the business-to-business focus?

So yeah, so our market changed. When I started B2B, people weren't even thinking about air purifiers in business spaces or schools. It was really COVID that changed it where, you know, like how do we create a safe space for our kids in school or how do we get people to come back into the office and not work remotely? You know, it's, and it's, so those are the, you know, those are the driving factors for what's kind of created this market that it didn't exist 4 years ago. And so it's, it's, it's all brand new. And, um, you know, it's been, it's been pretty exciting and, and honestly unexpected. I never expected that we would do much in the B2B space since, you know, the previous 10 years. This market didn't exist.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I remember in, in China, I was working with IQAir, the, the Swiss company, and it went from consumer to to business when people didn't want to go into the office anymore because the home was better purified than the office.

Right.

And that became really something there. You have a background in B2B with big companies like Tech Data and Dell. What are some of the best practices you brought from those to the Aranci marketing and brand building? What could you share there?

Yeah, I mean, so my background is in operations and marketing and it's, you know, operations is about process and understanding the numbers. You know, I think anyone, you alluded to this earlier that like if you run a marketing campaign, you could spend a ton of money in advertising and just like, it just doesn't make sense. And so to me, what's interesting is marrying the art of marketing with the analytics and the numbers, because ultimately everything comes out in the numbers. And the numbers have to make sense. Otherwise, you know, you're not going to survive. And so I think it's having, you know, solid metrics in place to measure what you're doing and have an idea of like where you are and where you want to be. But you need to understand what does it cost to get there and what's realistic. You know, if I run this ad or this campaign, You know, how much budget do I really need to have? And what are, you know, are my expectations realistic with what can be achieved? And so there's a lot of experience that you get in doing that, but I think it's just building sound processes around it to evaluate where you are and what you're doing and not just blindly just throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what works.

Peter, that's great advice. Can you suggest any tools that you've used that would help people? Because often, Plunging into Facebook ads and Google ads, maybe your Instagram ads, it is a bit of an art. What tools can you recommend for people?

Yeah, so there's different kinds of tools. Like if you're looking at like your website, you know, Ahrefs or SEMrush are 2 really good tools to see not just your website, but your competitors. Like, you know, there's really good insights you can gain from What are my competitors doing? Where are they advertising or not advertising? What kind of traffic are they getting versus what I'm getting? And what could I do differently to close that gap or to separate from them? There's within, you know, Google Ads has, you know, pretty good reporting. I'm a little bit honestly skeptical of some of the Facebook reporting in terms of like revenue that it shows. It seems, in my opinion, can be a little bit optimistic versus what you realistically see. And Google Analytics is a pretty solid platform and it's free to see exactly what's happening on your website, what's converting, what's not converting, what's, you know, do people come in? You know, I was at, gosh, this is probably 10 years ago. I was at Google and they had this analytics guy come and talk and he talked about bounce rates and, you know, his, it's, this has stuck with me, but he goes, you know, I came, I saw, and I puked. That's like people immediately like leave. your site. And it's like, why is that? You know, I think there's other tools you can put on your site to see where are people clicking or where are they not spending time. You know, are they rage-clicking on your site? And there's just so much data. And I'm a numbers person, so I just love to look at that. But there's just so much information available. Even in the midst of privacy concerns where certain things are stripped away that you didn't have before, there's still a ton of data available to see what's happening. But I would really start with Ahrefs or SEMrush and then Google Analytics as the primary tools.

Okay, Peter, that's wonderful. Thanks for that. Now, looking at your website, I know it's B2B, but one of the things that strike me is that you have a lot of reviews on your website. So how does that work and why is that important in a B2B space? Because conventionally one would think that B2B is thinking about price, thinking about service and support, not about site reviews. And you've got from, it's called Yotpo here.

Right.

The reviews on your website, you've got over 6,000 reviews. Do you want to just tell us about that? Because it's quite significant on your website.

Yeah. So when, like, when you're selling even B2B, it depends what kind of product you're selling. If you're selling a component, which is a commodity, and it's to a spec where you could just look at a spreadsheet and it's like, well, what's the price for like this copper coil or magnet or whatever it is? Like, there's not a ton of marketing that you need for that because it's like, highly commoditized. For something like an air purifier, there's, it's kind of in between kind of like this exclusive product versus this highly commoditized type of product. And within our space, a lot of the folks that are in the B2B segment that are buying air purifiers have never bought them before. And they want to have confidence that what they're buying makes sense. And so it's not a, kind of a spreadsheet, 100% logical exercise. It's, there's emotion in it, right? You want to connect with like, how do I know this is going to work? How do I know if I buy this, I'm not going to get in trouble that I bought the wrong thing? Because there's a whole host of lawsuits in the US where people have bought stuff for schools that are just terrible products. And so they want to have confidence that They're not going to stick their neck out and get in trouble. We see that with government and we see that a lot with schools. But they also want to— there's an emotional aspect to it. And most people buy on emotion unless it's a pure commodity, and then they justify it rationally with the tech specs and the other things. But that's just human nature. We're not We're not wired to be logical people.

No, that's interesting. Even in B2B, it's still an emotional dimension at the sort of $200 to $500 range. And Peter, I also want to just pick you up on your website because what you're also doing here is education. So I'd love for you to just share with me, you know, my fellow unnoticed entrepreneurs, You know, the role that you believe education can play in your marketing?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, a lot of people that are buying our products have never bought these before. They don't know what they're buying. And a lot of it's about having confidence that what you're buying is the right thing. And the other thing that's changing is our industry has been highly unregulated and that's changing. And so, you know, anywhere that we can educate them on like, this is what the standard is, this is where the standards are going, you're buying something that's in compliance. But it's all around, you know, a lot of times it's around trust and it's around confidence and setting proper expectations for what this is going to do. And, you know, we know what we're talking about. You know, if you just see a spec sheet that gets thrown up. It's like with basic information and a price. There's really aggressive marketing within our space because it's so competitive. And it's just kind of like, I think we've seen enough people get burned that, you know, they want to buy from someone that they trust. I mean, ultimately, business is about trust and relationships, and they want to work with someone that they trust. It's really kind of that simple. It's hard to do. But that's ultimately kind of what's behind a lot of it.

Okay. No, I think that's wonderful. That's wonderful. And to see how much energy you're putting into that. Another aspect of air purifiers, of course, is sustainability. Peter, what role is sustainability playing in Airansi marketing and how are you leveraging, you know, whatever you're doing in that category as well of consumer concern?

Yeah, I think for us, that's a huge focus going forward. We're in the process right now of reshoring our manufacturing. And so sustainability is around making the product in an environmentally responsible way. It's about right to repair is becoming a really big issue in the US. And that's if you buy a product and it breaks, like, how do you get it fixed? And like, or does it end up in the landfill? And so by us manufacturing here, anything that breaks, we bring it back, we can fix it and send it right back out. I think that's going to be really unique in the marketplace because almost all of our competitors are made in China. They don't have a way of fixing something that goes bad. And it's, you know, and it's being able to show people behind the brand that are making the products to put a name and a face and to humanize us and show that we care about sustainability and paying people living wages. And, you know, it's, it's more of like a softer kind of thing, but I think it's something that people care about. They want to buy from someone who they share values with, right? If you had everything, if you had 3 choices, they're all the same, but I like their values, I'm going to most likely buy from them.

I think that's wonderful. And I guess it maybe brings you all the way back to why you started this around, you know, well-being of your son and the next generation of young Americans as well.

Mm-hmm.

Pete, it looks like a bit of a textbook case so far, but I have to ask you, as I do all my guests, is there anything that hasn't gone quite as planned? Something that you think, oh, I wish we hadn't done that?

Yeah, I'd say the one that's the most painful for me is we had a business customer that had bought, you know, from us pretty decent-sized orders that was overseas. And they came back with a larger order. And then just as we were getting ready to ship it, they wanted to cancel it. And we never took a deposit on their order just to kind of, you know, ensure that they took it. And so we custom built this for them. And we were stuck with this inventory and it took a year, year and a half to sell through. So that was, that was pretty, pretty painful of an experience. And so we learned even if, you know, someone's bought from you in the past, you really have to make sure that you're not going to get stuck with something that, especially if it's custom, custom made.

Okay. Interesting. Interesting there about managing your inventory and so on. Is there any impact on you and Aranci around AI? I know I haven't really primed you on this question, but, you know, I worked, as I mentioned before, with Swissair in China at the beginnings of sort of intelligent air monitoring devices. Is that something as well that Aranci is going to be looking at?

Yeah, I mean, we do. I don't know if this is fully AI, but some of the air quality measurements that you referenced, we have some of that data on our website in terms of air quality and pollen, just to provide a resource to our customers. It's a lot of the— some of the same information if you have an Apple iPhone, but it's in map form. But AI, I think what we've used it more internally is more of a productivity tool. So say on marketing, You could describe a situation or describe what we're wanting to do, and it can come up with some really good ideas for messaging or different ways of saying something that like, oh, that never occurred to us, or points to bring up. Yeah, so that's kind of the pollen and air quality stuff. And so that's, you know, we source that from a company, the same company that Apple gets the information from. It's actually owned by Google now where this data comes from. So maybe it'll be on Google Maps soon, but, you know, it's all the information just keeps getting better and better. And they use some AI modeling to do that. And it's also cool because it gives a forecast for what kind of like a weather forecast, but now of course you're getting like air quality, pollen forecasts, like they would do in China is, you know, it's now come to America.

Yeah, that'll help you, I guess, with the targeting of ads and promotions as well, won't it?

Yeah.

Peter Mount, founder and CEO of Aranci, you know, you've built in a relatively short amount of time, well, yes, 2009 onwards, this amazing business. If there's something that you think has really moved the needle for my fellow unnoticed entrepreneurs, what advice would you like to share?

Yeah, I would say, and this is from Seth Godin, who's a marketing guy. I think I would get this as marketing, not to— I don't know him, but it's really helpful to, you know, know how to market. And I would say it's build marketing into your product because you need to connect with who you're selling to. And if you can build it into your product, even though it's more expensive on the front end, it makes your advertising costs and your down the road costs significantly less. And so, you know, if you have an average product, it's really difficult and expensive to sell that. If you can make something that, that's differentiated and really solves the customer pain points, it's so much easier to sell that product. And so build, take the time and build marketing into your product.

That is fantastic. That's plainly what you've done with your air filters over at Airansi. Peter Mann, if we want to find out more about you and the company, how can they do that?

Sure. Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. So if you just search Peter Mann, M-A-N-N, and then our website is oransi.com, O-R-A-N-S-I.com.

Peter, thanks so much for joining me and sharing with me what seems to be really a textbook way of building a brand that's bringing a lot of value. The time has really come too. Slightly unfortunately, I'm afraid, isn't it? I mean, you're there to solve a problem and this problem is getting bigger. So thank you very much for sharing. How you sold it.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, enjoyed it.

Me too. Well, it seems to have been, uh, so quick. We've heard so much in such little time from Peter Mann. If you've enjoyed this show, do please share it with a fellow unnoticed entrepreneur. If you have time, please review it on your favorite player. Really, really helps. And until we meet again, I just encourage you to keep on communicating. Thank you for listening.