🟠 BrandLand #02. Marcos Bulacio, co-founder & CEO of PANGEA
🟠 BrandLand #02. Marcos Bulacio, co-founder & CEO of PANGEA
From $2,000 to $250,000💰 - from idea to launch in 3 months: How to master Kickstarter campaigns 📈.
BrandLand: We tell stories about impactful brands from around the world 🎙️
Welcome to BrandLand, a space where we have a chat with founders of impactful brands and we share them with the world 🌍 .
🎙️ Today it’s time for interview #02
Today’s e-com BrandLand guest is 🥁🥁 drums please 🥁🥁
He is co-founder and CEO of PANGEA Movement, an impactful brand from the USA that organises ocean clean-ups, river barriers and plant reforestations in Indonesia. Founded in 2019 by three travellers, the company has a product portfolio ranging from eco-friendly towels out of bamboo, to jackets and sunglasses made from recycled plastic.
Topics at a glance:
💬 Conversation topics
Quickly check what topics we discuss during the conversation.
✍️ Key learnings from the interview
Our personal key learnings & highlights from the conversation with Marcos.
🕑 Time stamps and topics
Skip back and forth to different topics, so you can select which ones are of your interest.
💬 Conversation topics
PANGEA raised over $250,000 in their first ever kickstarter campaign with as little as $2,000 in the bank. And he did it again in the following fundraising campaigns! What is his secret? During the interview, a part from spilling the secret for continuous successful Kickstarter campaigns, Marcos tells us…:
…the beginnings of PANGEA
…how he fixed his biggest fuck-up
…how they manage salary levels in Indonesia
…why bamboo towels?
…how having little money influenced their business decisions
…how they tested and improved their products
…in which marketing channels they are focusing on for the future
…which are good KPIs for their social ads
…how the company is funded and future plans
…which salary he pays himself
And much more!
✍️ Key learnings from the interview
Our personal key learnings from the interview are the following:
Identify a high demand product that is harmful for the environment, and offer a sustainable solution. Moreover, they use funds from their sales to clean the planet and recycle collected trash into new products. Chapeau! 👏
“Basically what we do at Pangea is we identify products on e-commerce that have a very high demand and sales volume, but that are harmful for the environment. So then we deep dive into the environmental problem that these products are creating to our planet, and then we replace them with unique sustainable alternatives.” - Marcos
Collaboration and teamwork: Marcos met his co-founders while traveling in Mexico. He highlights the importance of finding like-minded business partners and collaborating effectively to build a successful business.
Research, methodology, and execution: Marcos emphasises the importance of research and learning from successful individuals in the industry. He followed a systematic approach, breaking down processes and executing them to achieve success.
“I really have a methodology for whatever I want to do. I start by doing research, gathering information. And I do that by speaking with people who successfully lead something that I want to achieve. So I asked for half an hour of their time, I really deep dove, I asked questions to understand how they got there, to break down that algorithm - that process - that got them to do it.
Then, I read a couple of books about Kickstarter, which was basically gathering information, learning, and then compiling all those lessons into a task list. And that just leads into a process. So I understood and I broke down the process. And then I executed that process. And it basically worked.” - Marcos
Customer-centric approach: Marcos interviewed backpackers and gathered their feedback to create a towel that addressed their specific needs.
Kickstarter as a launch platform: PANGEA Movement found success by launching their products on Kickstarter. The platform provided a market fit and helped them gather a community of backers. He highlights the value of crowdfunding platforms and building a loyal customer base.
All-in approach and external funding: Marcos prefers going all-in from day one and focusing solely on the business. He believes in external funding to scale up the business faster.
Bootstrapping or external funding?: “External funding. You can you can scale up much more. I think it just accelerates the growth much more and increases the probability of success by enabling founders to just to go deeper right into it, and create a greater, better and more unique value proposition for the product that otherwise, we wouldn't be able to deal with bootstrapping.” - Marcos
Continuous learning and gathering experience: Marcos suggests gathering insights and experience in the industry before starting your own business.
Having full control of the supply chain: Marcos explains that managing timelines was unpredictable with their Chinese suppliers. That’s what pushed them to have their own production in Bali.
“We realised with Chinese suppliers, it's really hard and unpredictable to deliver. So that that's also why everything started to be working towards creating our own products, having our own innovation centre here in Bali, so that we have full control of the supply chain.” - Marcos
Overall, our personal highlight of the interview is the transparency from Marcos, even when talking about his own salary. Do you want to hear more about it? Spoiler: YES. Then click play 👇
Below you can find the exact times when discussing a specific topic. This allows you to move back and forth where you find the most interest. Enjoy it! 👇
🕑 Time stamps and topics
(00:00) Snippet
(00:26) Intro & beginnings of Pangea
(08:36) Team set-up at the beginning
(11:07) Kickstarter campaign & his key secret to be successful
(15:12) Yes or no questions
(18:15) Marketing channels (social media & social ads)
(24:41) Sustainable projects & how he manages them with the business
(29:36) Major fuck-up
(31:57) PANGEA’s current set-up
(33:02) PANGEA financial set-up (investment rounds, valuation, shareholders & investors)
(35:23) Most cost-efficient team set-up
Personal questions
(37:21) What salary does he pay himself?
(37:31) Personal biggest fuckup
(41:32) Marcos favourite brand besides PANGEA
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Jens Bergermann: Working in purchasing & sales of consumer brands for over 8 years.
Previously helped to scale DeinDeal.ch and Amorana.ch until exits. Passionate about branding and distribution strategy. Let’s talk!
Nicolas Huxley: Building brands on Shopify for over 9 years.
Previously founded Elephbo.com and Tauschtoni.com. Love to build and support brands with purpose. Happy to jump on a call!
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