Jack Abraham had the entrepreneurial mistake from an early age. His father founded comScore, a publicly traded company, and was fascinated by the process of turning an idea into a powerful company.
At 23, Jack is following the same path as Milo.com. He attended the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, from where he left early for Palo Alto. It was there that he and his friend began to develop business ideas in the field of shopping. Soon Milo.com went from paper to reality.
Table of Contents
What is your background/history before you launched Milo.com? Previous work? Career ladder?
I fell in love with the idea of entrepreneurship at an early age when I saw my father start comScore. I loved the fact that he could take a strong idea, hire a couple of driven and talented people, and turn that idea into a company that employs hundreds of people and eventually goes public.
My desire to be my own boss combined with my interest in data, so I wrote software that scanned and analyzed arbitrage opportunities on eBay and traded products in real time when opportunities came up. My eBay arbitrage company was printing money before PayPal shut it down.
I also have experience in developing behavioral targeting campaigns for Microsoft and Drugstore.com.
First of all, could you please explain Milo.com? What is it and for whom?
Milo.com is a free website that allows shoppers to do online research and buy local products, providing the best of both worlds. Milo.com provides users with real-time stock and availability information, and essentially combines the benefits of an Amazon-like experience with the ability to touch, touch, and get products right now at your local retail store.
Milo.com is useful for anyone who is frustrated by the potentially negative aspects of both online and offline shopping. Shopping online means shipping costs, waiting times, and not being able to actually look at an item before buying. Shopping in a store is often complicated by low inventory levels and a variety of prices in retail stores. Milo.com solves this problem by allowing users to conduct online research and check local prices and availability to find the right product and be able to buy it now at a local store.
Could you explain the history of Milo.com? Where did the idea come from, how did you come up with it, what were the early days like?
I have noticed that there is a lot of innovation happening in social media and online video, but no one is innovating in shopping. It was still very Web 1.0. I realized it was a lucrative space, and also extremely beneficial for consumers, so I left Wharton early to head to Palo Alto—this is where all the big tech companies were built. I hired a friend to come with me, rented an apartment on University Avenue and started building. We worked and lived in an apartment, trying different ideas.
I knew that I wanted to do something in shopping because no one was innovative in this area. I had several different ideas (mobile apps, web browser options) before I realized the potential of focusing solely on local shopping. No one had good local sales and it made sense for businesses and consumers to have a local place to shop since over 95% of purchases are still made in local stores.
I met many entrepreneurs early on who were really helpful for both personal advice and business strategy. I was introduced to Keith Rabua (Slide) and hooked up with Javed Karim (co-founder of YouTube) and Kevin Hartz (Xoom, Eventbrite). They became mentors and helped us hone our value and make the necessary adjustments to our idea. Milo has become a destination for shoppers who search online but shop in the store.
About a year later, I saw 165 University Avenue for rent. I knew that I needed a place. The same building housed Google, PayPal, Danger, and Logitech. We moved and have since grown from 2 to 10 employees. Milo.com, which started as an idea in an apartment, now has over 1 million unique visitors!
Did you have any major setbacks while running Milo.com? If yes, could you please explain it?
One of the toughest things for us has been scaling up to keep up with the huge growth we’ve experienced. A little over a year ago we had about 2,000 monthly visitors to our site. We now have over a million and we need to keep up with this demand by increasing our site speed and adding new types of stores that cater to user needs. We are working to attract a few more clothing retailers and hope to increase our presence in specialty stores.
Why do you think finding it locally is so important? Isn’t Amazon good enough?
Amazon is great for a lot of things – it’s especially hard to find specialty items that you don’t mind waiting for. But for many other things — bulky household items, hot new video games, clothing, expensive TVs — people prefer to shop. They don’t want to send a large or fragile item because it’s not only prohibitively expensive but also risky, they don’t want to wait for a new game because they want to play it now, and they want to touch and touch items that have a variety of fits or are tall price tag. Milo.com helps all these shoppers by bringing together the best of online and offline shopping in one easy-to-use website.
“70% month-on-month traffic growth since launching in December 2008” on your site. Why do you think the site is growing so fast? What secret marketing strategies can you share?
All of our growth to date has been organic. The only big secret is to give people what they want. Research shows that nearly 90 percent of shoppers research online before making a purchase in a store, and there really wasn’t a single great place that allowed them to do so. Milo.com has become such a destination.
Milo.com has an impressive list of investors and advisors. What did you learn about pitching to investors? Is there anything to do and what not to do?
Learn to sell. As an entrepreneur, you must constantly sell yourself, your idea, your team, your product, your appeal, and your vision. Come prepared. Create a great presentation and make sure you’re selling something sustainable. I highly recommend that you thoroughly read and think carefully about Sequoia’s Elements of Sustainable Companies and a guide to writing a business plan.
Build trust. Surround yourself with great consultants, hire great people, and get referrals from trusted sources.
What would you say to a young entrepreneur who is considering raising capital? Is there a right or wrong time for this?
Not really. I would say never collect money when you need it. Always keep cash in the bank for at least 1-2 years. A good time to raise capital is during periods of rapid growth or when you are eliminating significant key investment risks (concept, team, product, technology, market, distribution, monetization).
Start with angels. The more respected/connected angels you deal with, the easier it will be for you to raise the risk later. Don’t waste your time with venture capitalists until you’ve created a product with high demand. Even with a good presentation and a great idea, VCs probably won’t invest in you because you’re young and haven’t proven yourself. Prove yourself first!
What do you think has been the biggest factor in your success not only with Milo.com but in general?
Constant striving and striving for improvement is probably the most important factor. I thrive on creativity and really think about what will make Milo.com and our community better, what services will improve our quality of life, and how I can push the boundaries of what we think is possible.
Do you want to brag? User numbers? Sales figures? Big achievements? Press?
We are very pleased with the growth of our traffic. On our first anniversary, we saw a 70% increase in traffic from the previous month, and in December we reached our goal of one million unique users per month. Big accomplishments for us also include securing our Series A in a challenging economy and reinvesting all of the original angels in a round that was hugely oversubscribed. We also saw a lot of interest from the press and have been featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, VentureBeat and Reuters, just to name a few.
What are your next steps? Either business or personal.
Our next step is to continue our mission of putting every product on every shelf in every store in the world at Milo.com. We are now starting to connect regional retailers in addition to national ones and hope to continue down that path until we have Mom and Dad stores on Main Street.
