Marc Hostovsky (Minoan) - How he's creating 'native retail', connecting ecommerce and in real life experiences to try out products

My guest today is Marc Hostovsky, founder of Minoan. Minoan connects people with products in spaces that feel like home. This is a concept that Marc calls native retail. We discuss what’s missing today when it comes to trying out products, the intersection of ecommerce and retail and what is actually native retail.

Here are the questions I ask Marc:

1. What was your attraction in ecommerce? Why did you want to work in ecommerce?
2. What were some of your learnings at Walmart that have impacted you?
3. What were you doing at Walmart?
4. The importance of pace and hiring
5. Hiring missionaries vs mercenaries
6. What was the insight that led to the founding of Minoan?
7. Why did you decide to build a product that wasn’t in ecommerce but was around physical retail or native retail?
8. Not really having products to shine
9. Why do people like shopping in stores?
10. Real world shoppable experiences - be in moments of use, integrating commerce
11. What are the use cases? Walk us through when and why a customer would use Minoan?
12. Is the goal to eventually to become an online retailer or stay as a marketplace?
13. What’s the customer experience like?
14. How did you first approach hotels, Airbnbs and other places?
    1. How do you partner?
15. How do you monetize? Is it a marketplace model?
16. How do you work with brands?
17. What was your approach to growth?
    1. What types of properties do you look for?
18. What was your approach to raising money?
    1. What was challenging about the process?
19. What’s one thing you would change about the fundraising process?
20. What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
    1. Why Buddism is true? By Robert Wright
    2. Competing Against Luck
21. What’s one piece of advice you have for founders?