Next week Jill Liliedahl, founder and CEO of SitStay, will be speaking at EntreFEST, Iowa’s premiere entrepreneurship event. She will be talking about how she revitalized her Lincoln-based ecommerce company. SPN spoke with Liliedahl over the the phone.
SPN: What have you been up to at SitStay since you left the StraightShot accelerator last summer?
Last December we did a weekly email where all the [dog] treats [recipes] had coconut oil as an ingredient and the open rates were double than we typical see, just crushed it.
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So we put together a blog post, “The Ultimate Guide to Coconut Oil for Dogs.” We sent that out on Friday and quadrupled our open rates, just flooding our site with traffic.
Somebody on our staff said, “Hey, we should sell coconut oil for dogs!” [And I was like,] “No, people can get that other places.” Within 10 minutes we had a customer calling us, saying, “I can’t find the coconut oil on your web site.”
I didn’t even have 10 minutes feeling like I was right about that.
We worked with a local printing company here to develop packaging and branding, and we launched coconut oil for dogs. That’s the first product we’ve sold out of under our new private label.
Within 10 minutes we had a customer calling us saying, “I can’t find the coconut oil on your web site.”
SPN: You’ve been doing ecommerce for 20 years now. What’s been most surprising to you about doing business in that industry?
The surprising thing for me as been on the inventory management side. There’s this sweet spot where you have enough for people who want to stock up on a product, but you don’t want have 3-6 months’ worth on your shelves. It’s a little art and a little science. We as a company have become a lot better at that.
SPN: What’s your best advice for entrepreneurs getting started in ecommerce?
I really love data, and I think paying attention to that is important. It may be easier or more comfortable to operate on your own hunch–and that plays a role–but it’s pretty dangerous to get away from data. Lots of businesses operate on hunches and lots of businesses fail. You need to have something more. That’s a common pitfall for a lot of people.
SPN: What are you looking forward to at EntreFEST?
When I was in Iowa City last fall I got to meet the Cedar Rapids accelerator cohort that was going through at the time. It was great to connect with another accelerator and another university town community, and to see the progressive things they are doing. It’s not that far away, but it’s far enough away that it’s not always top of mind.
I’m excited about connecting the Lincoln-Omaha-Kansas City area with what Andy [Stoll] and all those folks are building. I’m also excited so many people from Nebraska are going to EntreFEST.