Inspired Entrepreneurship

developers as we branched out into all the different categories. Now we do it for every category and every Amazon marketplace in the U.S., China, Mex- ico, Canada, every marketplace is on there. But in the beginning, it was just the .com store. Our plan was to be the best at every- thing we do. Create something new and be the best at it and continue to evolve. We are much more sophisti- cated in our process now, but in the beginning, it was just like, let's make something great and go from there.” HCOB: How did you fund all that development work? Mercer : We bootstrapped it all and have been profitable from day one. My husband pre-sold the original

HCOB: So, the business is humming along nicely, but you wanted to try something else. How did the idea for Sleek- form come about? Mercer : I found a design for an ergonomic chair on Amazon that was selling well, but it was getting poor reviews, which I found really interesting — a prime opportunity. So, I said to myself, “What can I do differently? What can I do better?” I’ve always had a love for everything wellness related. So, I visited a few of the factories that produced the original chair, made a few tweaks to the design, and started making and selling that first product for Sleekform. Entrepreneurship takes all forms. Liz, Greg and their team, now headquartered in Austin, Texas, with 45 people there and another 50 in Vancouver and an office in China, started out as a totally remote-worker based company.

extension. We were members of several Amazon's groups — a retail arbitrage group, private labeling groups, etc. We told fellow group members, “We’re building this tool that can help you do what you’re doing now, but with the data you need to back up your decisions. If you're interested, and put your money up now, you’ ll get one of the first licenses. If we don’t make it work, we’ ll give you’re your money back.” That’s how we raised the money to pay for the original devel- opment work, and it just progressed from there. HCOB: Did you have a formal business plan at that point? Mercer : Not really. Our plan was to be the best at every- thing we do. Create something new and be the best at it and continue to evolve. We are much more sophisticated in our process now, but in the beginning, it was just like, let's make something great and go from there. HCOB: So today you have around 150 employees at Jun- gle Scout, right, and you have offices around the globe in addition to your remote workers, right? Mercer : Yes, we’re headquartered in Austin, Texas now, with 45 people there and another 50 in Vancouver. And there's now a Chinese office, and we still have some remote employees, too.

Liz Mercer found a design for an ergonomic chair on Amazon that was selling well, but was receiving poor reviews, which she considered a prime oppor- tunity. “ I asked myself, ‘ What can I do differently? What can I do better? ’ That insight formed the impetus for her second company, Sleekform.