Connecting Local Makers to Shoppers with Shop My Porch

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. You want tech and tacos, tacos and tech you know we got tacos and tech is on smash border green guacamole keeper countins counting beans Contador Quentan frijoles found us trying to raise some queso la vida San Diego school of rappy rapping fire tortillas round jalapenos in these modern times a crappy beer and coffee my coding yoga posse fold the body origami we be surfing coronado eating tacos El gordo, the taco stand in pesto lucha libre and sombrero Got a shout out to cost angels by the ocean watch the sunset la Hoya shores Entrepreneurs trying to get funded when San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside, the Tijuana esti be full of hustlers from couch surfing to penthouses right on the beach. Tech leaders who you believe stars are within reach we interview and founders who be shooting for the Moon SDTechOS with your host, Neil Bloom. Startups get the party, startups get the.

Welcome to the Tacos and Tech podcast where we discover cutting edge San Diego technologies and the builders making it happen. I'm your host, Neil Bloom, San Diego's tech ambassador and together you're going to put a face to the name of today's tech leaders with our own blend of local lifestyle. This segment is brought to you by Cox Edge. Our longtime partnership with Cox Business has helped their engineering teams develop new tech products for small businesses and startups. Cox is investing in Edge capabilities and working with developers and engineers across the ecosystem to deliver ultra low latency compute solutions, helping customers to improve application performance and to reduce cloud transport and on premise infrastructure costs. Interested in hearing more about Cox Edge? Please visit coxedge.com and mention Neil Bloom or freshbroodtech.com for our partner discount.

And welcome back to the Tacos and Tech Podcast. I'm your host. I'm thrilled to have the Shop My Porch team here. Phyllis Hong, founder and her co founders, Peter and Priscilla. Hey guys, thanks for joining.

Thanks for having us.

The whole story itself. Phyllis, do you want to give us the quick one minute overview of what Shop My Porch is? Sure.

So ShopmyPorch is the only social commerce platform that connects makers with shoppers in your local communities. You can think of it as Etsy meets Facebook and Nextdoor. All in one.

Okay. All in one. Love it. Very cool. Gotta imagine this came to you from a whole number of the Universe talking to you. But where'd you grow up? Like, how'd you get into this industry? I imagine this wasn't what you were born to do originally.

I'm originally from la and I came down to San Diego for school at UC San Diego. You know, I've always just been in sales and marketing. I was on the med school track. I hated science. I hated math. Not good at it. So it wasn't really for me. So I went into marketing and sales and did that for 10 years and then started consulting for brands. And then my husband built one of the very first wedding apps out there for the App store back in 2007. And so that was called my wedding concierge. And what we did was we created a search engine for wedding blogs. So back then, Google was very, let's say if you're looking for a white bouquet, you get all kinds of white bouquets. So you get like the budget bouquets all the way up to luxury bouquets. And there was like no filtering. And so what we did was we focused really on the very best wedding blogs. And so it was just a search engine of eye candy. And so we did that. But then we realized real quickly that there was no money to be made because bloggers didn't make much money. But during that time, we met a lot of really cool people. We were one of the first ones out there. We were in Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, sent a whole team out to talk to us, interview us. And so it was a lot of fun. But then very quickly we realized there's no money to be made. And then so I created a company called Lux Finds. And Lux Finds Ben Silberman from Pinterest. He discovered me and he's like, hey, if you will help me build up Pinterest with your curation and your knowledge of the retail industry, I'll help you build up an audience. So we built it up to, I think 300 odd thousand. And during the holidays, I had a reach of between 10 and 20 million people per month. And so I worked with all kinds of brands from Nordstrom to Disney, BMW, Ferrari, you name it. All those retailers out there I've worked with. And it was a lot of fun just curating eye candy all day long. And so that's how I learned how to work with influencers. I learned how to work with brands. And then something called retargeting campaigns came about. Say Nordstrom was paying me 10%. If Priscilla came to my site, saw that pink dress, clicked on it through my site, I would Normally get the 10% commission, but say that she had to leave her computer for whatever reason came back. These retargeting campaigns now charge these retailers pennies on the dollar. So Nordstrom would be paying pennies to bring her back. Even though she was my client, I now no longer own that commission. And Nordstrom would be paying pennies just to get her to come back and buy that pink dress. So that pink dress would be in her Instagram feed, her Facebook feed, run of site, in her email. And so I stopped doing that, stopped doing all the affiliate marketing for. For Pinterest. And I went into experiential marketing campaigns and events. From luxury wedding market to having worked with brands and influencers, I just basically combined everything and created really amazing events here in San Diego. And I was really one of the first people to do so. And so I created experiential marketing events for BMW, Porsche. We did work at the lot down in La Jolla. We did events for Califino Tequila, for STK Steakhouse. So a lot of fun events we threw on for them. And then Covid shut me down. And so after Covid shut me down, I was bored. And so I decided to use my laser machines and make things. I had laser machines because it was easier and quicker to make stuff for my events than to outsource everything. And so we did that. And then I was making pandemic ornaments, I believe, back in August, and I was just selling them on Facebook groups, you know, just for fun. And then one morning, I believe it was November 8, I woke up at 5 and I told my husband mine, can you get me five Christmas trees down from the loft? And he's like, are you crazy? It's November 8th. And he's like, what do you need all five for? I'm like, well, I'm going to deck out the porch and sell my ornaments on the porch. And he's like, as long as you stay out of trouble, I'll get them down for you. And so he got him down. I set up the whole porch. It looked like a boutique. And then I did a post on three of the local mom Facebook groups, knowing full well there's nothing to do out there. All the craft fairs were closed. Shipping's unreliable. Just put it out there. I said, you know what? My porch is open for business. All the ornaments that you were previously purchasing and picking up from the Facebook groups is now open for shopping. I sold a thousand ornaments that first weekend.

Wow.

It was a lot. And we had line of women down the street waiting to shop on the porch because I told them, I said, use hand sanitizer, wear a face mask. It's a safe shopping experience. It was a success. And so the next week I asked if three people want to join me, and we had 30 makers. And then it just skyrocketed. It kind of picked up a life of its own.

Wow. Incredible. So you were advertising still on the Facebook group, but saying come in person to pick it up or buy it is kind of how you're using both.

Okay, yeah. Well, Facebook groups, they only let you advertise kind of once a month. They don't. They're not. They weren't like buy, sell groups.

Okay, got it. So. So you had, you know, the essence of a business because, you know, people wanted to buy things. How'd you know it was a scalable business? Like, what was the thinking and how did it go from your porch and beyond?

So we had 30 makers after the first week, and then after that it just kept growing by word of mouth. Everyone's like, oh, my gosh. If you're a maker, set up a porch. And then my hu. Husband built like this. This website overnight.

It.

It was horrible looking, but it was done overnight. It was templated. Definitely not his best work, but it was done in like, literally a weekend. So we had maps, and people would just look on that map and say, oh, okay, so this porch is open from nine to one today, and then this one's open from one to three. So these women had a notepad and a pen, and they were writing down who's selling what and whose porch is open, what day. And they. They had a great time. And, you know, people were making money, there were no fees, and it was. It was fun. And then Priscilla, she texted me one day. She's like, okay, so I need all of these things. I'm like, who is this? And so she was ordering things for Thanksgiving, and then she was ordering stuff for Christmas, and she's like. And then I think that's when she told Peter about Shop My Porch.

So that's where the co founders come in.

Yeah, January last year, December was December is when you're ordering stuff.

No, she started ordering mid November.

Yeah, for Thanksgiving and then for holiday gifts, I started ordering. And Peter's like, where is all this stuff coming from? Like, from Shop My Porch. And he's like, what is that? So then that's how. That's how he started it. Piqued his interest for sure.

Got it. I love the name. That was the name. Got me was the first hook.

And Peter, you have a background in law, right? Helping a ton of startups on the legal side, how did you kind of start joining in on this area?

Yeah, and I've been a corporate lawyer for years, but I also with investing and running a fund on the healthcare side. So I've dabbled in a lot of areas all touching on startups. So it's rare to hear one that gets piques my interest right off the bat. And this one, it was like I said, first thing was the name. It's such a elegant, perfect way of describing what it does and I hadn't heard it before. Plus it's just like there's so many. The word porch is so evocative. It's a warm place. It's like family doesn't exclude anyone. It sort of crosses all sorts of demographic lines and political. Like it's just a word that everybody loves. Who doesn't love shopping and shopping on a porch? And then when you know, heard about the plan, it was just fun, right? Like, oh, wow, there's nothing really out there. There's Etsy for makers, but it's. That's really more about, you know, makers building something and shipping it to someone else. It's not really connected to local communities in the way that shop my porches. You know, I had not seen anything like it. The more I looked out there, there wasn't anything like it. And you know, you had two amazing women who are wanting to start this, push this company from a Facebook group. And you know what, what Phyllis is porch, right? To something that could be regional and super regional and national and even like as we discovered, even international. So it just was really cool. That's awesome.

So that's what, over a year ago now. What's 2021 been like for the team here?

We spent almost half a year building out the app. Okay, well, finessing the app and building the groups, we ended up with I think a little over 200 city groups. Some are international, but the app is US based until we figure out international expansion.

Does someone act like a market manager, someone within a city kind of help organize within their area or how does that part work for within the app?

So right now it's. We are focusing on growing out Southern California first and then organically moving up from San Diego into Inland Empire and la and then Orange, Orange county and then la. But we do have people on the, on the app all over the nation.

So you can, from what I saw from experience, you can both be a buyer or seller, right? Using the app in that regard, I'm guessing a lot of people are both. Right. People who are selling their stuff and then buying things from other people too, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, the best buyers are usually generally makers too, because they understand pricing, they understand what it takes to make it, and since they're on there selling things, they're constantly seeing the other cool stuff that other. Other makers are making.

Yeah. How are you splitting up the duties between, you know, three co founders?

What's.

What's everyone's focus?

Well, really there's four co founders. Phyllis's husband is the. Our developer, so he gets all the fun stuff. Phyllis does most of the marketing and she's very good at thinking outside the box. Obviously, we're working with limited capital, so she has a lot of great ideas on how to reach a lot of people with using very minimal funds. Peter does all the legal work, and Peter and I on our day job also work hand in hand. So I work with all of his clients as well. So I usually take care of all of the HR and operations side of things. So from communicating with stripe, setting our account with them, making sure that all of the makers get paid, making sure that our employees, we have work qualified, we have everything down legally, everything pretty tied up in a bow.

That's great. Lots of whole bunch of startup. Startup between the two families going on just living the startup life. Because isn't Phyllis, your husband also was working on his own mental health startup too, I believe, right?

Yes, a lot. He has startup called Juva Juva Health.

Yeah.

Focus on migraine.

That's right. A lot going on. That's. That's fun to be around so much startup world. So take us through phyllis. What does 2022 look like? Where do you think you're headed?

2022, we are heading towards just really owning Southern California. Lot of community outreach. We're sponsoring a lot of little league type.

We want to get more involved with the community and to make sure that we also give back. That's very important too. I think that's part of the shopping porch mission is not only do we want, you know, the makers to get to meet their neighbors by being able to sell to them and supporting locally, but we also want to give back and support our. Our schools or organizations. Youth leagues.

Yeah, a lot of the little leagues. I found out that a lot of families actually can't afford little league fees. And so by sponsoring them, not only do we get a lot of exposure, which is great for us, but you're also allowing a lot of children to be able to play a sport.

That's great.

And it's super on brand because it's like one of those areas where we're constantly bumping into people who've used ShopMyPorch before anyway, like in the stands when the parents are talking. Priscilla and I have found even last season that a lot of people that we were meeting already knew about Shop by Porch, already bought something from Shop by Porch. So it's just a logical place for us to kind of have our name out there. So one more touch point where people can see about chopmyporch. Hey, what is that? Oh, it's a San Diego thing. Go try it.

Yeah, it seems like such a growing area of businesses a lot that started in the free by Facebook groups and then now the kind of the commerce side too, the e commerce maker movement. It's pretty cool to see that what comes from a feature or a product within say meta has become a whole category of startups. So congrats on experiencing and seeing that as a need. Tell us where people can can go and find the app and website.

They can find it in the Apple App Store, the Google Play Store. The website is a work in progress. Those three places.

Well, we all know that now you can shop on your porch. What you've always been able to do is eat on your porch. And people got to eat tacos in San Diego on their porch. Do you all have a favorite taco spot? Starting with you, Phyllis?

Taco stand and Encinitas.

Hard to beat except for the line, but yes. Priscilla, how about you?

The Lucha Libre tacos. So that would that. I mean, it has my heart because I love Nacho Libre and that really reminds me of Nacho Libre.

Yeah, they're also really good.

Also always a line too. The original, the original lined taco spot. A great one. Gold wrapper. Can't miss it. Peter, how about you?

I do like Miguel's in 4S Ranch, but honestly my favorite would be sneaking across the border and getting street tacos in Tijuana.

You can't beat that. It's almost a cop out, but you get it. We love it. Well, thank you guys so much. Is anyone selling taco themed things on Shop my Porch? Curious.

Yes.

Okay.

Anyway, all right, good.

Good to know. Maybe we'll need a mascot for the podcast we'll find on there. Awesome.

Well, you know what sets us apart from every other e commerce platform is that you can make a request. Hunting for section allows you to make your request. So if you wanted a taco stuffed animal with tacos and tech embroidered on there. Someone could make it for you use. But what your budget is, the timeline, your location and what you're looking for and makers instantly respond, oh that's great. I'm off.

I'm doing it as soon as we get off the pod. Well, thanks guys so much. Congrats on everything you're doing. Looking forward to our audience diving in if they haven't already becoming Shop My Port users and makers. And here's to a big 2022. Cheers.

Awesome. Thank you so much.

Bye.

From Couch Surfing, thanks for joining us.

On the Tacos and Tech podcast with Neil Bloom. Thanks again to Cox Business for helping make possible by expanding the reach of the San Diego tech ecosystem. Big shout out to School of Rap for our rad intro music and this podcast is edited and mixed by Patrick Norton at citizenrecording.com you can find Neil Bloom on Twitter eelbloom and on LinkedIn as well as well as fresh brewed tech and tacos in tech pod on Twitter too.

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. You want tech and tacos, Tacos in tech. You know we got it.

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