Be Fulfilled is a full-service tech-enabled platform operations company that helps creators bring product dreams to life by developing, sourcing, and fulfilling product orders, and managing the e-commerce website, taking product photography, addressing customer service matters, etc. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Be Fulfilled CEO John Brown to learn more about the company.
John Brown’s Background
What is John Brown’s background? Brown said:
“I’ve been an entrepreneur, in one form or another, my whole career. I almost failed out of college in my final semester because I missed a final exam to close a deal for a startup. I explained to my professor that I had started a company, and he kindly let me retake the final exam.”
“I started my career in sales for an innovative import company in the early 2000s. I enjoyed creating new products that were needed in the market. I also learned the power of good marketing and relationships in those ten years I spent as the VP of Sales. After two venture capital transactions, I decided I wanted to venture out on my own.”
“After leaving that initial import startup in 2014, I joined my wife’s booming online clothing brand. As the COO, I learned the ins and outs of e-commerce fulfillment and operations. In 2017, the company was honored as the 18th fastest-growing company in Utah and then in the top 100 again in 2018. We spent a lot of time on vision, strategy, and understanding the market. The company was growing quickly as we had embraced influencer and affiliate marketing early.”
Formation Of Be Fulfilled
How did the idea for the company come together? Brown shared:
“In 2015, my wife and I joined a mentoring program to invest in our personal and business development. We focused on our vision and how to execute on strategy, creating alignment within our team and growing our sales.”
“As part of the mentorship program, we were introduced to Rob Ryan and learned his strategic ‘Sunflower Model’ in several intimate settings. The general concept is clearly understanding your company’s core competencies as you develop new opportunities to grow and expand.”
“Through the Sunflower Model, we realized our unique genius lay in working with influencers, our operational eCommerce efficiencies, as well as utilizing my long history of product development. Our unique competencies created an opportunity to utilize our already existing infrastructure to offer a package of services to the booming influencer market.”
“From that idea, we created a division of the company and eventually spun off Be Fulfilled, a SAAS commerce enablement platform that allows influencers and creators to easily start their own online product brands.”
“Influencers own their power and helping them create and elevate their brands is something that I am passionate about. Our platform enables creators to own their influence instead of taking the crumbs from brand deals and affiliate sales. This is what Be Fulfilled is building, a company that creates space and financial independence for small business owners.”
Favorite Memory
What has been Brown’s favorite memory working for the company so far? Brown reflected:
“The longer I am in this space, the smaller the world becomes. This past weekend, Taylor Swift wore a tennis skirt from one of our clients as she was promoting her much -anticipated new album. The landslide of orders in the system on a Monday after a viral moment always makes me smile.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Brown explained:
“We have three main products. Subscription. Physical product. Fulfillment. This triple monetization approach has allowed us to bootstrap the build-out of our full SAAS software as we begin our transition into our full SAAS offering. We charge a monthly subscription to access our software and services, and our customers pay for the product we help them create. Our fulfillment services are world-class and specifically designed for e-commerce to get their products to their followers as quickly as possible.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Brown and the team faced in building the company? Brown acknowledged:
“Growth, in American business culture, is often touted as the only thing that matters. Be Fulfilled has grown significantly over the past five years, and I have been challenged to balance healthy growth, profitability, and capital needs as a bootstrapped company. It was challenging to seek outside capital to keep my growth trajectory while finding the right partner who shares the vision and values we hold. After five years of doing it without a capital partner, I was grateful to find Decathlon Capital Partners, a company that not only believes in Be Fulfilled but also shares our values.”
Evolution Of Be Fulfilled’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Brown noted:
“In 2018, we started the company with spreadsheets, ASANA and hand sketches. As our customer count grew, we encountered many challenges in our technical systems. In 2020, we experienced 400% growth, and I knew we needed to invest in our own success.”
“In early 2021, I met with friend Chad Ingram and pitched the idea of taking all of our processes and services into a SAAS model to meet influencers where they live: on their phones. Chad saw the vision, and he helped me put together a development team that turned my platform dream into a reality.”
“We had several customers conducting deals in the millions of dollars over text message confirmations, clearly heightening risks. As we built our platform, we knew we needed to mitigate these risks and make it easy for our customers to track their development progress and easily confirm details, progress, and metrics.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Brown cited:
“2020 was a wild ride. We went from furloughing all employees at the beginning of the pandemic, thinking we may lose it all, to finishing the year with 400% growth YOY. I’m forever grateful for the resilience of my team and the work they put in during those tumultuous times.”
Funding
After asking Brown about the company’s funding details, he revealed:
“We self-financed Be Fulfilled for the first five years and reinvested every profit dollar back into our own future, taking the company from $0 to $8 million in revenue. As we grew and the growth ate our cash, we saw a need for a capital partner to help us continue our growth. Decathlon Capital saw the vision and believed in what we were doing. That infusion was critical at a stage when we had just launched our internal MVP SAAS Platform.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Brown assessed:
“I have yet to find a credible TAM for the market we address. The global influencer market size has more than tripled since 2019. In 2024, the market is estimated to reach a record $24 billion.”
“As global internet access and adoption rapidly increase — over five billion internet users worldwide — the number of people making purchases online is ever-increasing. In 2024, retail e-commerce sales are estimated to exceed 6.3 trillion U.S. dollars worldwide, continuing to reach new heights in coming years.”
“As the ecommerce market has grown in the past few years, privacy protocols have disrupted the traditional paid ads models most brands used to grow and reach consumers, many brands have turned to Influencers to promote their products. This has positioned Influencers as the power brokers of the internet, but they only make between 1-15% commission on a brand deal. Owning their own eCommerce brand can lead to 40-70% margin opportunities, in addition to their company’s equity growth, allowing them to build a more secure future for themselves.”
“Be Fulfilled is the solution for Influencers to start their own brand and stake their own claim in this digitally native world.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Brown affirmed:
“We offer a tech-enabled platform to provide efficiency and transparency throughout the process. We currently don’t take an equity stake in the brands we work with. It is a fee-based model. This creates better alignment between Be Fulfilled and our customers. We offer a full-service process from beginning to end.”
“We also offer a top-tier fulfillment service that has allowed our customers to ship globally from day one, leveraging our volume for discounted rates they could otherwise not get. We also offer photography and customer service to operationally support our customers as they grow. In eCommerce, customer loyalty is key to brand success and therefore, our success. Operational efficiencies and streamlined services are often not taken into account in new e-commerce companies. Our clients are able to utilize our two decades’ worth of e-commerce knowledge and efficiencies as their own.”
“The key to our success is alignment. We empower our customers to do what they are already good at, sales & marketing, while we take on the operational and development lift. This allows us each to create from our genius spaces. It also allows our clients to do millions in sales with Be Fulfilled and a team of one or two.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Brown pointed out:
“As we roll out our customer-facing MVP, our goal is to be the #1 destination for Influencers looking to create their own brand, with a mission to enable 100 $1,000,000 e-commerce brands.
We are in the process of raising our Series A. We are positioned to be the market leader in this space.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you would like to discuss? Brown concluded:
“Influencers are too often looked at as a joke or even with disdain in our current culture and business environments. When in reality, they are moving our economy forward in this new digital age. Small businesses reach millions of customers monthly. They are the creatives of our generation with voices and staying power.”
“Be Fulfilled has only begun to scratch the opportunity that lives in this market of digital influence. A solution positioned to help our modern-day small business thrive.”
