Facebook, crowdsourcing helps vets’ business - Civilian Jobs, Military to Civilian transitions, Jobs for Veterans - Navy Times

Facebook, crowdsourcing helps vets’ business

It all started by mistake.

Erik Spalding was cleaning out some of his military gear when an old round fell out of a bag, bounced off the floor and landed next to his dog tags. It looked kind of cool — almost like a necklace, he thought — so he snapped a picture with his iPhone and posted it to his Facebook page.

Before he knew it, friends around the country were asking where they could get one of their own.

“They thought I had bought it somewhere,” Spalding says.

At the time, Spalding and Navy buddy Cole Evans were trying to get a business off the ground. They first met as Naval Academy midshipmen and became fast friends once they joined the fleet as explosive ordnance disposal officers.

After leaving the Navy in 2010, they decided to go into business together building Facebook apps, living and working out of their shared loft in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter.

“We were kind of throwing spaghetti against the wall when we first started out,” Evans says. “Honestly, we weren’t sure exactly what we wanted to do — we just knew we wanted to start our own business.”

The app-building venture wasn’t working out as they’d hoped, but with Spalding’s picture generating so much buzz, the pair wondered if they should move on to something entirely different.

“We were like, ‘Hey, maybe we could sell these,’” Evans says. Even better, they realized it just might be a way for them to give a little back to the military community.

It didn’t take long before they knew for sure.

They found a local manufacturer who could convert spent ammo casings into necklaces. Soon they expanded their line to include other ammo necklace varieties, T-shirts, bracelets, .50-caliber key-chain bottle openers and a slew of other products.

Last year, Bullets2Bandages did more than $100,000 in business. This year, they say it’s on track to more than triple that revenue.

Their secret: where it all started.

The new economy

As budding owners of a promising new retail line, they figured they needed to do what everyone does in the Web economy: Start a website. So they hired a Web designer on elance.com — a kind of Craigslist for freelancers — for about $4,000 to build a snazzy site and opened their digital storefront.

“We were so excited that first day when we went live. Call us naive, but we thought if we built a website, people would just magically show up and start buying stuff,” Evans says. Instead, he says laughing, “it was like crickets chirping. We built it, but no one came, except our friends and family. At that point, we knew we had a lot to learn.”

They tried to drive up traffic by buying advertising though Google, but “our stuff is so unique, people don’t know to even look for it. People aren’t out there searching for ‘bullet necklaces.’”

So they turned to Kickstarter. Designed to crowdsource financial backing for small businesses, projects and other startups, the fundraising site also can be a great way build buzz, they say.

It’s a simple enough concept. You lay out what you want to do and how much you want to raise, as well as what investors get for contributing to the cause. If enough people back you, you get the money. If you don’t meet your goal within a set time limit, you get nothing.

In Spalding and Evans’ case, investors would get bullet necklaces and the satisfaction of helping one of the military charities they had woven into the social side of their business model — the metaphorical “bandages” in their new Bullets2Bandages name — with a 15 percent donation from their profits.

They asked to raise $2,000. With the help of 37 backers in June 2011, they got $2,145.

“That helped us build some inventory, but also just helped us get our brand out there,” Evans says.

Facebook marketing

Rather than continue to throw money at Google for search engine placement, the budding entrepreneurs decided to throw their time and energy — and some money — into a guerrilla marketing campaign.

Like the door-to-door salesmen of yesteryear, they figured the best way to sell their product was to get out there and start meeting people. “We started doing events — air shows, boot camp graduations and music festivals. It helped sell a lot of stuff and kept the name out there.

Meanwhile, they hired a public relations company — another startup — for about $600 a month to help get their brand circulating with bloggers and local media. “That was a lot cheaper than Google advertising — where we could spend $3,000 a month easily — and worked better,” Evans says.

All that fed into the new cornerstone of their entire effort, building their Facebook following.

“It’s funny,” Spalding says. “Nobody goes on Facebook to buy stuff. They go there to socialize, so we are social.”

When they have a new shirt design, for example, they’ll put a mock-up on Facebook and ask people what they think. The strategy has worked. In about a year and a half, their Facebook page has garnered more than 100,000 likes and, more importantly, generated sales.

“We were amazed at what happened. You engage your audience, and that leads to traffic, and traffic leads to sales. It’s indirect marketing, and it’s really that simple. Now almost all our sales are through Facebook.”

And as their popularity grows, so does their reach. Their products are now being sold through the Navy and Marine Corps exchanges, and they’re soon headed to Army and Air Force installations and sporting goods stores.

“Every few days, another wholesaler comes to us asking to sell our stuff,” Evans says. “I always ask them where they heard about us, and they always say, ‘Oh, I saw you on Facebook.’”

In the coming months, the team will continue to expand their military-infused line with products including ammo cans converted into iPhone docking stations and messenger bags made from the canvas of old field tents.

Evans and Spalding acknowledge that their fast-and-loose, shoot-from-the-hip approach may not be for everyone, but they say they wouldn’t have it any other way.

“We’ve never had a business plan. We still don’t,” Evans says. “Planning is important, but really you just have to get out there and do it. And then be nimble enough to adapt as you see what works and what doesn’t. It’s a blast — we’re loving it.”