The Hi-Fi Brand Built by a Non-Engineer
"I don't have any really relevant credentials or qualifications when it comes to this sort of thing."
Noam Sugarman got fed up trying to find a stereo system that looked good, sounded good, and didn't require an engineering degree to buy. So he built his own. With no audio background, he launched Dum Audio, raised $75K on Indiegogo, then ditched crowdfunding platforms entirely to run pre-order campaigns on his own Shopify store, where he saw better return on ad spend. Five years and $300K+ in sales later, he's shipping hi-fi turntables, speakers, and amps direct to consumer.
We talk about pricing in a market where a stereo can cost $100 or $100,000, why his self-run Shopify campaign outperformed Indiegogo, and how 60% of his crowdfunding buyers added a subwoofer upsell he only expected a third to take.
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The Unofficial Shopify Podcast is hosted by Kurt Elster and explores the stories behind successful Shopify stores. Get actionable insights, practical strategies, and proven tactics from entrepreneurs who've built thriving ecommerce businesses.
Kurt Elster • 00:00.001
This episode is brought to you in part by Swim. Here's the thing about wishlist apps. Most of them just sit there. A customer saves a product, and then nothing happens. Swim actually activates that data. When someone wish lists a product, you could trigger price drop or back-in-stock alerts and feed that intent directly into Klaviyo or your CRM. You're not guessing what people want because they've told you. Plus, customers can share wish lists for gifts, and your team can view them to offer personalized service online or in store. And unlike card abandonment, wishlist data is permission-based. These are people raising their hands saying, hey, I want this. Just not right now. Swim's been around for over a decade. It powers 45,000 stores and installs in about five minutes You can try it for free today at getswim. com slash Kurt. That's G-E-T-S-W-Y-M. com slash Kurt Today in the unofficial Shopify podcast, we are discussing Hi-Fi audio systems. Turntables. Yes, turntables are back. Even last Christmas, one of my kids asked for vinyl records in a turntable for Christmas, and you know what? I was happy to get it for him. Anything, you know, that gets them back to analog devices and off their phones for a moment. So I should take my own advice and get off my phone as well. And you know, our guest today, uh, is Noam from Dum Audio, who has sold uh well geez, I believe his Sold in pre-orders and crowdfunding campaigns, over three hundred thousand dollars in hi-fi equipment, turntables, speakers, and amps. It's quite credible. And he started this like many of us now, I think. uh over the pandemic. And so Noam Sugarman is going to join us and walk us through his journey over the last five years with Dum Audio. It's on Shopify. He sold a a ton of of turntables and gear and pre-orders through Shopify as well as uh some crowdfunding platforms. And so, man. When I I came across this recently, I ended up chasing Noam for several months because I'm like, I want the story on the podcast. I want to hear this. And so you, like me, are hearing it for the first time as well. Noam, welcome to the show. I'm happy to have you here.
Noam Sugarman • 02:21.340
Thanks. I'm happy to be here.
Kurt Elster • 02:23.180
The okay. So you know what man, you manufacture original audio equipment like hi-fi audio gear. Something I I think really cool and would never attempt myself. W you uh what's your background? You know, engineer, audio producer, what
Noam Sugarman • 02:40.820
Uh none of the above. Um I don't have any really uh relevant uh credentials or qualifications when it comes to this sort of thing. Um I might you know I have a career in business development uh and marketing and um But uh yeah, so no, I I don't have any of those uh credentials which you'd think would would hinder me and and but but not yet.
Kurt Elster • 03:04.540
Okay. The It it got more interesting. So I'm guessing uh five years ago, you something happens and you're like, you know what? I should build my own stereo. What take me back to that moment, because I know it's there
Noam Sugarman • 03:20.440
Right. Um yeah, it's a bit of a strange story. So we uh, you know, I've always been into music, a huge music fan. I'm a bit of a musician. Um And uh I've always had a pretty decent record collection as well. Um and then for for several years, you know, I I I you know, I had a kid in twenty thirteen and after that, you know, I slowly but surely ended up listening more and more to music just on a portable Bluetooth speaker and just streaming all the time and hardly ever touching my my records. Um and then in 2020, uh we were just getting ready to move into a new house and I thought, okay, it's you know it's time to actually get a proper stereo system. I've I've always had decent, okay ones, vintage ones that I just picked up second hand but I never had like a a really really good one that was new and that I really uh that I picked myself so Uh I started the the process of of searching for one that that I liked. I wanted something that was um easy to purchase, you know, nothing overly complicated. I wanted something that looked good. Obviously it needed to sound good. Um uh and uh unfortunately I just couldn't find anything. And it was really frustrating. They're st just doing research for for days upon days and trying to figure out if this pair of speakers is gonna go with this amplifier, if uh, you know, on a technical level, m let alone a stylistic level, and not really being sure and feeling really a lot of uh a lot of uh imposter syndrome as I'm trying to navigate this stuff. So eventually I just got the idea in my head, well, what would it take to to put together a system. You know, this is all established technology. It's nothing uh it's i i I don't have to invent anything new. Um what would it take to just uh to just uh design something myself, uh, you know, hire the right people, uh find a good manufacturer and you know, one thing led to another and before I knew it I was I was doing it. I was in the thick of it.
Kurt Elster • 05:21.800
The man I don't know. One thing led to another is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Yeah, yeah, I I think I could go from having no background in it to establishing a Stereo company. Yeah.
Noam Sugarman • 05:35.540
There's just a lot there. Well, there's a lot of um probably some some hubris and um you know, naivete and all that stuff. Uh you know, y I I just I just started poking around online, um and um, you know, I d I I didn't I didn't even know where I would have to begin, but eventually it occurred to me that, you know, I I would need like an industrial designer and and an engineer and and and a manufacturing partner and uh and and you know in in at the especially at that time and and perhaps even more so now, you know, uh direct to consumer and e commerce. Um it's just taking over our lives and and uh I think there's a lot of downsides to um you know, the ubiquity of of of the di of digital uh everything, everything becoming digital. Uh but but it is good that it it it enables entrepreneurs. Um Because it allowed me to connect with the people that I, you know, needed to collaborate with relatively easily. It allowed me to gain the the knowledge of what I needed to do and um and uh and it allowed me to connect with eventually to connect with my customers
Kurt Elster • 06:46.260
2021, you start a crowdfunding campaign to pre-sell it on Indiegogo. And then you also have dumaudio. com, D O M Audio. com. That uh that's your Shopify store. Um But how do you with getting the initial first orders? Yeah. Coming off the idea is one thing. Manufacturing the product is really tough You know, that's another. And then getting those first orders, like I think that's the biggest hurdle, you know, once you've done the others. So tell me about that process. Where do we start?
Noam Sugarman • 07:15.360
Yeah, well, um I think the the the start was having a great uh product. Um I think that that really is the most important thing, you know. the number one job uh in uh th or the number one uh criteria of a good salesperson is having a good product to sell. And I was very fortunate. Uh a lot of these uh a lot of these stories I'm not gonna I I'm not gonna say success story just yet 'cause it's still early, but a lot of these success stories are um you know uh there's a lot of luck involved. And I was lucky enough to find an industrial design firm uh called uh design momentum. They're based in Ottawa. Um and they were totally in lockstep with my vision. And they designed a product for me or you know with me. Uh, that was exactly what I wanted aesthetically. Um, they introduced me to an engineer um also in the Ottawa area who really understood what I wanted. And uh and and so that was really the the main thing. Having a product that had a a certain visual appeal uh that you know that that was um that was job one and you know I just uh took a chance, you know, I jumped off the cliff and and and uh luckily I uh uh it it w it worked out. I you know I just started putting the message out online and and you know people were responding. So um I don't know. There's I I I don't it it just as easily could have not worked, I suppose. But uh but like I said, having a good product I think is the most important thing.
Kurt Elster • 08:51.900
And you're right, it is it's visually striking. You know, it's like a um I just look at this turntable. It's wood with silver accents, and then it has orange LEDs under it, so it's got like this this cool glow. It looks really neat.
Noam Sugarman • 09:05.860
Yeah yeah, thanks. Yeah. And again, like these are products that uh you know they're in your living room. Uh they're basically furniture. You're gonna look at them uh you're gonna look at them more than you actually listen to them So it's crazy to me that so many uh stereo systems or hi-fi uh products are just so ugly or you know at best kind of plain Um in the audiophile world, it seems like it's almost a badge of honor to make a product that's ugly. Um and uh and I just have had no interest in that. You know, I I I I wanted I want to uh I wanted to make a product that you can enjoy even when it's not on.
Kurt Elster • 09:49.120
And I think you did that. I mean it's just it's It's really good looking. Um and the so our bundle price, I'm looking at it. I pre-order it, it ships. If I pre-order today, it ships next week. And I get a a discount for ordering. Obviously, okay. So when this publishes, it'll have already shipped. $1,100, $1119. Man What's it just audio equipment is like, you know, buying a car. The prices are all over the place, right? I could spend $100,000 on a stereo system. I could spend $100 on a stereo system. So how do you settle on in a in a space where pricing is often quite subjective, how do you find the right price?
Noam Sugarman • 10:25.400
Yeah, it's a good question. Um I think a lot of it has to do with getting, you know, as close to the point of diminishing returns without going past it. Um and uh And and I also see the audio space as it you you mentioned cars, but I I think it's more like wine, you know, so you can buy a a $25 bottle of wine and and it'll be a really good bottle of wine And you can buy a $50 bottle of wine and it'll be a maybe a little bit better, but it won't be twice as good. And you can probably buy a $500 bottle of wine. for most wine drinkers, they might not even notice a difference. Now there might be certain people that do that are like, you know, just real wine experts, but most people on a blind taste test won't know the difference. And I think audio is is is the same. Like we make a really great product. It sounds amazing. Um we could have easily um invested significantly more money and created a product that costs significantly more uh but the but the return on that investment would have been very low. So on the other h hand, uh, you know, we also didn't want to sell a cheap product, right? This is you know, there the market is flooded with with just, you know, very rudimentary, kind of weak sounding, weak looking products uh, you know, that are full of gimmicks and all that and and And and we wanted a product that legitimately sounds really, really good and also um has the the feeling of a very good product, you know, uh it's it's got weight to it, it's got uh it's got visual appeal without being, you know, kind of um you know, like I said, gimmicky. So pricing goes into all of that. Obviously the the margins need to be there and everything, but from a marketing point of view You know, the price needs to convey that it's that it's really good, but it's not but it's still targeted at, you know, at your typical consumer. It's not targeted at some elite um rarefied uh strata of consumer.
Kurt Elster • 12:44.740
Yeah, it it is accessible without being absurd. You could spend ten grand on a pair of speakers if you know, you're you'd if you're into it, right? Even if you had the money, you'd have to also be like really into it to do that. I don't know how many people would versus All right, you know, this thing, you know, this really nice stereo system, if this is my hobby, I'm into it. Like, I mean this will cost less than a gaming PC and plenty of people buy those. What's fascinates me about selling high-end audio gear, especially like, you know, almost entirely online where, you know, high-end audio stores you know, where you could go listen have really largely gone away. You know, there were like small independent ones that in the last several years have seen them just disappear in my area. Um and you know with cl the the tough part with clothes selling them online is like, well, how do I know if it fits? How do I know what it'll look like? With audio, how do I know what it'll sound like? I have no way to audition it. So you know, what's the like what's the the workaround there or the thought process? How do we communicate it? How do we get people to accept it and try it?
Noam Sugarman • 13:45.200
Yeah, so obviously that was a major concern for me when I started this and but but I also, you know, I I was seeing that one of the biggest uh product categories in direct to consumer, or at least from what I could tell, was mattresses. And uh and and and there were so many companies entering that space and a lot of them, you know, seemed to be doing well. Um and you know, I figured, you know, if if you people are gonna buy a bed without trying it then they'll buy a stereo system. You just have to you just have to meet them on their terms, right? And their terms are I'll I'll try it, I'll take a chance, and if I don't like it, you better give me my money back. And and I think that's totally reasonable. So that's why it's you know, we offer a very generous return policy. We'll even pay return shipping because it really is asking a lot of people to buy a product like this at the price point that it is at um without the opportunity to sample it. Um, so you know, I I think it it's it's uh it's it would be ridiculous to to offer anything less to people. Um And I also think it's better that people can try the product in their own homes as opposed to in a showroom in a store with a salesperson kind of peering over your shoulder, you know. This way, you know, it's in your house. You can take the time, take, you know, take a month, take six weeks. Uh, and you know, if you don't like it, then you don't like it, you can you can get it back, send it back and get a refund.
Kurt Elster • 15:17.100
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Noam Sugarman • 16:38.720
Yeah, yeah. So w uh that's always there's always uh especially after like a big um campaign launch where we're sending out, you know well over a hundred orders, you know, there's that kind of period where thinking, oh god, I hope people are gonna like this. But But it's gone well. You know, it's uh like I said, you know, uh at the beginning, having a good product is job one and luckily we do.
Kurt Elster • 17:04.079
So initi like the the first round when you did this, I think was 2021 and this was Indiegogo. And what did you raise in Indiegogo? Like a a hundred thousand?
Noam Sugarman • 17:15.559
I'm looking at Yeah, I I can't honestly I can't remember the exact figure. It was it was a little bit less than that.
Kurt Elster • 17:20.760
75,000. I just found it.
Noam Sugarman • 17:22.560
Yeah, that was uh that was our first campaign. It to be perfectly honest, it was not a good experience. Um Oh jeez. Yeah, the number sounds impressive, uh, but and so yeah, it w it was a learning experience, let's just say that.
Kurt Elster • 17:36.820
You know, the listing looks good. You did make sales and then you transitioned it to a Shopify store. The Shopify store looks great, is really, you know, bolstered by having great content that helps explain it. You've got y video and just great product photos and lifestyle shots. It It tells a story for sure. Tell me about like getting that set up and then you know you transitioned to selling direct through the store or doing pre-orders, I would imagine.
Noam Sugarman • 18:03.220
Yeah, so when I was just kind of in that uh pre-launch phase, um obviously one of my one of my jobs was to get the storefront built out I had w I hired a um an advertising agency, um, like uh based in Toronto, and they were doing a lot of that work for me. Um I actually uh It was it it was actually a bit of a mistake to to do that. Um you know, it c ended up costing me a lot more money and get and I got very little out of it. I mean I'm not gonna I you know, i again that's that's kind of on me. That was uh just a bit of naivete on my part. Um but they built out the store, they were kind of like managing the campaign. And um and and we r I you know, we really poured a lot of resources into that and uh the launch was kind of it was okay, but it was, you know, not great. Um and um toward the end of that month long campaign, um, I actually talked to a friend of mine who's involved in marketing and said, you know, just give me some advice here. What do you think? And, you know, he looked at my campaign page and he looked at my website and he says, I don't understand why you're using this platform in Dgogo, um, you know, they completely hinder your messaging. You know, everything is so uh you know, confined and constrained, you know, you have to really adhere to their formatting and and he says, you know, if what are they offering you that you can't do on your own website where you have all the freedom to craft your message your way? Uh and I thought that was an interesting insight. Um so when the campaign ended, I ended up uh just launching my own kind of rudimentary pre-order campaign. I won't call it a crowdfunding campaign, but a pre-order campaign on my own store. And it actually performed better than Indiegogo did from a return on X Bend point of view. And Yeah, so that was a real eye opener.
Kurt Elster • 20:05.420
Hmm. And so but at that point, like you have an audience, you have a list, you have people you can access. I think the idea is you know, with a an Indiegogo or Kickstarter versus starting from zero in your Shopify store is you've got like Indiegogo and Kickstarter are essentially promising like, well there's already we already have customers. It works like a marketplace. They'll just discover you. And of course, you know, it isn't the case. It's like 30 days of like really promoting versus I, you know, on the Shopify store, okay, you are for sure a hundred percent responsible for getting everybody to that store. And so like that's the trade-off, but you know what your real experience says otherwise.
Noam Sugarman • 20:44.780
Yeah, I mean shop of uh sorry, uh Indiegogo and and Kickstarter and You know, and I'm not here to to to to you know cast dispersions or anything like that. I mean, i i I think it those those platforms might really work in certain contexts. But in my case, um I just didn't see any evidence uh that whatever they were doing, you know, whatever network effect or You know, whatever whatever it is that they were offering, you know, that I was actually getting any benefit from that. Um, you know, most of my orders was coming from my own ad spend. Um I was driving a lot of that. I was building my own mailing list. So I saw very, very little, you know, really at very little hard evidence that being on those platforms um was a benefit to me personally. Now again, that could have been just a bad fit. Maybe it was a bad fit for my product. I'm not gonna I don't want to spend too much time speculating on that, but I just know in my case, you know, I was much better off uh on my own on my own uh on my own website The okay.
Kurt Elster • 21:51.960
And then once selling on Shopify, like for sure, I think that the generous return policy with free return shipping, that helps. I mean, that really de-risks the the purchase for the customer. It's like, hey, I could try this. the chances are I'm gonna love it, but if I don't, I could send it back and I'm not gonna eat the shipping cost. And that I think that for a thousand dollar, you know, twelve hundred dollar product, that's really important because that shows you are confident in it as well. Um And it it helps. Uh but all right, so you know, having left the platform, now how do people find you, right? It sounds like the answer is uh a lot of your own advertising, which I would imagine is meta.
Noam Sugarman • 22:33.320
Yes, yeah. A lot of advertising and uh some word of mouth and uh you know it's funny like I'm always exploring alternative uh strategies for uh for promoting store. Um But it seems like all roads feed back to to Facebook and Instagram. You know, uh it's just so far it's been the it's been the most effective for me. uh, you know, affiliate advertising and uh, you know, uh even my newsletter, you know, there's diminishing returns there. Um so I uh you know my next thing I'm gonna be looking into is uh the shop platform and advertising there. I don't you know uh I I'm I'm gonna probably do a deep dive into some of your resources. to learn about that, but uh but um you know we'll we'll see if there's uh there's anything there. Uh um but but yeah Facebook, Instagram, there hasn't really been anything uh that's beat that yet.
Kurt Elster • 23:31.800
The Yeah. No, that that meta advertising, it's just they have they have scale that every other platform does not. Because with Meta, it's like, all right, well now I I'm advertising on Facebook, Instagram, and threads. like I'm getting it across all these surfaces. It's just a lot of eyeballs that you know other platforms don't necessarily have. Google Shopping works as well. TikTok can work, but it seems to be like you have to have a particular product and you know messaging that lends itself to it. And if but shop campaigns, that one's just such it's so easy to set up. It's such like an easy um you know, maybe middle of funnel uh campaign to just bolt on to existing successful campaigns. I like it. I think it's it's worth exploring.
Noam Sugarman • 24:14.360
Yeah, that definitely that's that's that's on the on the docket for me. It's the the whole social media thing for me, it's it's a bit um It's a bit ironic that I'm I'm selling a product that has, you know, very little, if well really no digital kind of you know, uh bells and whistles, right? We we one of the things we promote is that, you know, there's no apps, uh, you know, no screens, you don't need Wi-Fi. Uh it's kind of really very much an old school uh stereo system. I mean you can connect with Bluetooth, but that's pretty well it uh to the to the speakers or or the amplifier. But um and and we always try to promote, you know, like one of the great things about listening to records is that You know, you put the record on and you're invested in the experience. So you're not on your phone and you're not on Spotify just, you know, swiping to the next song after ten seconds. So it's uh, you know, it's always kind of struck me as a little bit funny or or ironic that uh that I get, you know, that that advertising on social media uh has been so effective. It's almost like people see it and they say, hey, this is a way to to spend less time on this very platform.
Kurt Elster • 25:20.680
Uh absolutely. And I've like I I have been now for years seeing articles about, you know, Gen Z's obsession with older, you know, not connected devices. Even j like digital cameras. It's a digital camera, but it's not connected to the internet. You know, it's not on my phone. um, you know, in and retro game consoles, uh like just saw an article about VHS being rediscovered. VHS. Oh man, that's not upgrade.
Noam Sugarman • 25:45.920
I know, I I d I'm I'm I'm I'm almost not surprised. Uh if anything I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner.
Kurt Elster • 25:51.660
The you know my I like Laserdisc, like if we want to just get into old weird formats. Laserdisc fund, mididisc, that's real ridiculous. I like that one. Yeah, yeah. Yep. Yeah. The okay. So you did the initial you did that initial launch approximately five years ago, Indiegogo, then moved to pre-orders on your site, then you know, selling direct through your Shopify store. And now last year and is still running now is the vaudeville. You've got a new you know turntable. You've got a new setup called the Vaudeville Collection. And that you skipped uh using these other platforms and ran this campaign right on your own website, right?
Noam Sugarman • 26:32.700
Yeah, that's right. I mean initially I was actually um cons considering uh using uh Kickstarter. Um I guess uh my previous campaign had been far enough in the past that I'd temporarily forgotten some of those early lessons, but but yeah, I mean w You know, crowdfunding is a real challenge, but it's a it's a really a necessity for small businesses uh like mine. because it's so hard to find financing. Um so in order to fund new product development, you know, a bank's not going to lend you any money. Um and uh y you know, you can raise money from investors, which I was able to do, but you know, y that only goes so far and also you don't wanna give away more of your company than than you have to. So so yeah, I I when I decided on this new product line, um I knew pretty well right from the get-go that I'd probably have to go the crowdfunding route.
Kurt Elster • 27:31.580
And so what is the I have seen I have an app, Crowdfunder, that does, you know, lets you make these these crowdfunder widgets for a Shopify store. Um, it works, you know, it's been around for years. It's not really it it's not fancy. Um, but I like it for that reason, for its simplicity. And you know, but what I've discovered is like the the format of crowdfunding campaign itself, you know, is not the hard part to nail. It's like, okay, you set a a deadline, you set goals, and then you're able to communicate those. As long as you, you know, outside of like the compliance, you know, making sure you actually deliver on what you're saying you're going to do. I find, you know, the hard part to it, of course, is marketing it, right? Because it's like a 30-day sprint with these things. How long was your campaign?
Noam Sugarman • 28:21.380
So it was technically thirty days, um, although we we extended it. Um, you know, these things are often very arbitrary. So you say, yeah, it's a 30-day campaign, but then that 30-day period elapses and You say, Okay, well, you know, w we're we're not ready to fulfill orders yet, so we might as well keep taking pre orders which so we we did that Well I was just gonna say I mean it's just, you know, you the a big part of your marketing um leading up to and during your campaign is, you know, get in get get your order in during this thirty bay window because you know that that'll be the best pricing and and you know you're guaranteed to be at that at the front of the line in terms of order fulfillment. So you know there is a little bit of uh um messaging around that 30 day period.
Kurt Elster • 29:05.440
And then the it sounds like you were able to fulfill on them. I mean looking at the site now, it says, you know, it looks like sounds like orders fulfill pretty quickly.
Noam Sugarman • 29:13.019
Yeah, yeah. We uh so I I mean I learned a lot like I said before from my early campaign and um I think um my first campaign I I launched it probably before I was ready Um, you know, I think I it not that I knew I wasn't ready, but I thought you know, I thought things would go more quickly than they did. Obviously the supply chain issues during the pandemic um was a big part of that. But also again, it was my own kind of inexperience. Um and uh and and so this time um when I when I was preparing, I I you know, I I knew I wasn't gonna launch until I had a much higher level of confidence that I would be able to fulfill orders within a particular, you know, reasonable time frame.
Kurt Elster • 29:58.540
What what gave you that confidence? You know, like trying to figure out that that manufacturing timeline is so tough. What I I wouldn't even know where to begin.
Noam Sugarman • 30:10.060
Yeah. Well, I've been working with my same kind of manufacturing partner for for you know five years now. Um so you know we understand each other better. Um and I had uh my my financial planning was was better, you know, um before, you know, I I I was just I I I was just ready um to get production going um probably before I even launched my campaign and and and the crowdfunding was kind of gonna be what got me over the hump um and help with some of the other kind of fixed costs uh relating to to a production run like this. So um, you know, I I was I I was able to uh to uh leverage that um and and and uh and and it went and worked out
Kurt Elster • 31:00.860
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Noam Sugarman • 32:32.019
Yeah, yeah. Excuse me. So yeah, the original product line was very much designed to mimic, uh or maybe that's not the right word, but to kind of emulate the uh the type of stereo system that like people like me and maybe people like you we had in our living rooms when we were kids, you know, like the the big speakers and the and the you know, people called it a tuner, but like a you know, a an amplifier. Yeah. And uh and often a t uh a turntable. So it was like that kind of like three piece system. You know, I was really keen on developing something like that Um, I thought that would really resonate with people a and it did. Um, but uh but it's also a little bit niche. Um you need to have a decent, you know, living room or den or you know listening space to accommodate a product like that
Kurt Elster • 33:24.019
Um it's a lot of when you think about footprint, it's a lot of stuff. And then it's also going to be competing for, you know, depending on where I set it up. It might be competing with like an office, you know, computer setup. It might be competing with an entertainment setup. Yeah. Yeah, I can consider that.
Noam Sugarman • 33:39.980
And it's more expensive. I mean, uh, it's just it's it's uh It's a bigger, you know, more powerful, but also more expensive uh and uh larger footprint product line. So it really did well, um, but I found um that it was a little bit niche and and I still love that original product line and we're we're sold out of it now but we are gonna be replenishing that you know this year. So that'll always be a mainstay But uh at a certain point I made the decision that for this business to really take off, uh I would need to scale up Um to scale up, I would need a product line that appeals to people who live in smaller homes or condos in big cities. You know, the original product line is not for them. Um, and basically that means I'm cutting myself off from, you know, tens, if not hundreds, of millions of potential customers, right? Um so So I made the decision to come up with the uh this new the product line, the vaudeville system. Um, you know, smaller footprint, um, you know, a little less expensive, a little less powerful, although it still packs a really good punch And uh and and again it's it's so far it seems to be.
Kurt Elster • 34:55.600
Yeah. We go like f retail's fourteen hundred on vaudeville and concert hall retail's twenty two hundred. So I that has to make a difference I mean, you're getting like, all right, I'm not getting a subwoofer, maybe it's less powerful, uh, but you know, functionally, I'm getting something extremely similar for quite a bit less. And so you're right, it becomes more accessible.
Noam Sugarman • 35:15.880
Yeah, exactly. And uh actually it w it it gave me a bit of a it presented me with a bit of a dilemma because when I rele now that I'm releasing this new system it you know I I need to when I when I uh re release the the original system I have to make sure that there's enough value there that people are going to be willing, if they're interested, to spend that extra uh those extra dollars on the larger system. So we're actually upgrading the amplifier. to to include some more features. There's gonna be a built-in CD player uh and a few other things um that uh that make it a little bit more uh appealing because I'm very mindful of the of the fact that um, you know, I don't want my two product lines competing with each other.
Kurt Elster • 36:02.619
Yeah. And that's tough when, you know, they do really similar things, right? They both play records. So like fundamentally they do compete with each other.
Noam Sugarman • 36:10.760
But if you're maybe competing with each other's not the best way to to think about it, but but it but y you know, there needs to be needs to be very obvious what what the difference is in terms of functionality and and who it's for. You know, they're both great products, um, but you don't want people going to your store and thinking, well You know, why would I get that one instead of this one? You know, it has to be very obvious.
Kurt Elster • 36:37.400
So with a a Shopify store I'm always fascinated by like the crazy questions you get from customers. Like the stuff that you just that throws you for a loop that you didn't expect. Um what uh any of those?
Noam Sugarman • 36:51.660
Oh, that's a good question. I'm trying to think. I gotta be honest with you. Uh nothing really springs to mind. Um, you know, people ask me, you know. you know, if if I'm gonna release a cassette player. Um you know, but Does it seem wild? No, I know, but it's like I'm I'm really
Kurt Elster • 37:14.940
I think I'm surprised they want a cassette player, but you know.
Noam Sugarman • 37:17.820
Yeah, it's not nothing it's a a big I guess like I've just been, if anything, surprised by how eas how easily people have kind of taken to the product and uh and and it's resonated with them, you know, so uh yeah nothing no No weird questions like that that really spring to mind, you know, not nothing at all.
Kurt Elster • 37:42.120
That's good. No, that's excellent. Uh and then you know with an expensive product, does Is fraud ever an issue or like friendly fraud with customers? With the exceptional return policy, I imagine that mitigates a lot of it.
Noam Sugarman • 37:56.460
Um so what what do you mean by by friendly fraud?
Kurt Elster • 37:59.980
Friendly fraud. People receive the item that claimed they didn't.
Noam Sugarman • 38:03.099
Oh, yeah. I uh obnoxious when it happens. Yeah. So one thing that we do is we always um require uh a signature to receive the the item um because you know a product like this could get stolen very easily off somebody's doorstep Um and we actually had that happen. Uh we had to switch um couriers at one point in Canada. Within Canada, there's I'm not gonna get name phase, but there's one courier that we were using that's like really inexpensive Um and they were just dropping things off even though we had stipulated that a signature was required. So we stopped using them even though they were cheaper. Um but uh you know, by requiring a signature um You know, that we we haven't seen that happen. People can master waive that uh requirement, but then that they're taking that that risk upon themselves. So it hasn't been I haven't really had any issues like that.
Kurt Elster • 39:02.720
Signature required, you're not something we see often just because it doesn't like it it's just not practical on smaller orders. But on you you're selling an item that could be a thousand to two thousand dollars, absolutely signature required makes sense there. And yeah, that must r You know, you couple that with a A plus return policy. I imagine that really cuts down on a huge amount of issues for you. Hmm. Yeah. It's such a practical solution.
Noam Sugarman • 39:28.960
Yeah, it it it there I mean it's not totally uh um without uh a trade-off because um when you require a signature um You know, sometimes people will just miss the delivery and then they're not home. You know, reach they're reaching out to us. Why the hell are uh why the hell is UPS uh you know, bringing the system back to you. I d you know, you you didn't tell me a signature was gonna be required. I said, all right, I'm sorry. And uh um do you wanna wa you know we'll we'll have it sent back out. Uh do you wanna wave the or then they'll say, well if I knew it was gonna come requiring a signature, I would have had it sent to my work or whatever. So, you know, here and there you get little kind of uh you know uh issues like that that that crop up but it's It's just part of the it's part of the job. It's and it's not the end of the world.
Kurt Elster • 40:16.560
You know, I think you could do you communicate signature required. I'm just like thinking through this problem now. Like do you communicate signature required and check out? And then like obviously some people are gonna miss it no matter what.
Noam Sugarman • 40:27.140
Yeah, yeah. So that is something I want to implement and you know um uh is some kind of maybe like a a checkbox at the at the checkout process where you know they can opt out of the the signature requirement
Kurt Elster • 40:40.059
But you any chance you're on Shopify Plus?
Noam Sugarman • 40:43.420
No, I'm not.
Kurt Elster • 40:44.460
Okay. Alright, without Shopif with Shopify Plus, it would be like you could just put a banner or message in the checkout. Without it, you could either do like do the message in cart or like a checkbox that's like, I understand that this is signature required before they continue. Um, and I would even you could even do it like signature acquired protects you and you know helps us with our, you know, enables your 60-day return policy. Like Try and spin it as positive, which is true. Um, and then in or in the checkout, you do like two separate shipping rates and you're like signature required, signature not required, but then like signature not required, they gotta pay for to try and like signature required is the free one.
Noam Sugarman • 41:22.320
Yeah. Yeah. Those are or or or even just to say like sig s if you wave your um if you if you waive the signature requirement then uh you know, you're assuming any risk of, you know, of theft or or what have you. But it like I said, it's something I'm thinking about and but but but it's been again, maybe surprisingly, it's just been an issue so infrequently Um that it hasn't, you know, it's not it's not just not been on the front burner yet.
Kurt Elster • 41:50.079
The Okay. No, that's good. So what's what's next for Dum Audio?
Noam Sugarman • 41:55.980
Um so next for Dum Audio. Uh so we are developing a subwoofer uh to go with um with the vaudeville uh system. So it's a powered subwoofer instead of the passive one that that goes with our original product line. And we should be releasing that later on in the spring. And uh people had did have the opportunity to pre-order that as part of their uh um as part of their uh you know when we did the crowdfunding campaign in the in in the fall. And I think it's actually worth pointing out for people that are looking at crowdfunding campaigns is um having like an additional product that you can, you know, an accessory or something like that that you can add on. um to your purchase uh make could could make the you know could could make the difference between success and failure uh financially of your campaign Because, you know, when you think of return on ad spend, um anytime somebody buys that accessory, it's basically, you know, you're getting it for free in terms you're getting that sale for free in terms of advertising because you're already you've already won the sale with your advertising efforts and now you're getting this extra sale. Um so that really did you know I mean again surprisingly I thought maybe a third or so of uh people would uh would take the subwoofer. I think it was about sixty percent. And that was a that was a you know, that was huge for my campaign, like in terms of uh boosting my return on ad spend and and just the overall uh uh just really pushing that AOV up. Yeah, exactly.
Kurt Elster • 43:33.160
Do you do have you ever attempted post purchase cross sales?
Noam Sugarman • 43:38.039
So that's uh I have not. Um and uh that's something I I've thought about, but you know, I it's it's never been obvious to me, you know, with uh with a product like mine, which is meant to last, you know, for many years in one's in one's living room, how do you, in general, how do you continue to offer um value to your customers, you know, um with with apparel or something like that. Um, you know, if somebody buys a shirt, then you can try and sell them on a pair of jeans or another shirt or whatever, but with a stereo system, I'm not gonna sell some it's unlikely that somebody's gonna buy another stereo system within six months or a year. And we haven't we've looked at we've looked at kind of low uh you know lower cost items that we can add Um, but it all seems like we'd be doing it. Everything we've looked at, it just looks feels like we'd be doing it for the sake of doing it. We haven't really found a product. that uh that would be a natural fit.
Kurt Elster • 44:43.279
So um but we are like you could do the subwoofer as a post purchase say like if like if I see they have bought If they bought the vaudeville system minus the subwoofer, give them one last chance post-purchase to be like, okay, also get this, you know, you can get the subwoofer, add it to your order, and then you're not gonna pay shipping because it's part of this. You know, and oftentimes Once they've already made the purchase, it becomes like may as well. You're like, man, I'm already I'm in this deep. I may as well get the subwoofer.
Noam Sugarman • 45:11.160
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So we do we do do that with the subwoofer, but we'd like to, you know, sometimes you know, people will just get the subwoofer as part of the original purchase. And when they don't, I don't know, maybe i I just personally like to l let people get their order, get comfortable with their product, and then kinda reach out to them a little bit later about the subwoofer. You know, I don't want to I've I've never been one for coming on too strong. So um, you know, I I like the idea of just uh, hey, you ordered the product, it's an expensive purchase, I appreciate it. you know, enjoy it. It it's a great product even without the subwoofer. And once uh once somebody's had it for a little while, then I'll come and say, hey, by the way, we have that this uh this other product that could really um accentuate your your original purchase.
Kurt Elster • 45:59.660
I like that approach too. I do. Uh Noam, if I wanted to buy a really great turntable and speakers, where would I go?
Noam Sugarman • 46:09.040
You go to Dum Audio. com and uh click uh click on the vaudeville uh product line and and there it'll be
Kurt Elster • 46:17.000
The uh and one thing I I didn't mention, Dum Audio. It's Dum Audio because it doesn't have a bunch of smart stuff stuck in it, isn't it?
Noam Sugarman • 46:23.160
Yeah, yeah. Well the name came uh to me kind of as a placeholder really. Um And initially I was thinking, well, dumb technology, because smart technology was, you know, you know, uh you know, it taking over everybody's life. So uh and I was getting a little fed up with it. Um So I came up with I'll just call it dumb technology and then it just morphed into Dum Audio and then uh before uh before I knew it uh it stuck. You know, my w my wife who's an artist came up with the logo and uh it looked good and You know, I've had s I've had doubts here and there about it, you know, like um you know, you asked me about weird questions before. I think that's probably the number one when I think about it is people like, what's with the name or saying things, you know, like I would never buy anything with that name. It's like, all right, well that's fine. You don't have to. But um you know, it just it just seems to resonate with the right sort of people that that we want to appeal to. Uh it doesn't we don't take ourselves too seriously. um dumb it kind of sounds musical um and it does kinda uh in a in a in an offhand way kind of Tell you a little bit about what what we're all about.
Kurt Elster • 47:33.619
It's one of those names where you have to know more. You know, if I went, I'm a dog lawyer, you'd be like, okay, what's a dog lawyer? Right. That Dum Audio, when I saw that in my email, I was like, man, I wonder what this is. Like, oh. And I clicked through, like, oh, like this and then then, you know, the the lifestyle imagery immediately, like if you're in this market, catches you. And so I think it works. Like there's a curiosity element to it. And it says audio in the name. So it's like, okay, you know, you get you already have an idea of what you're gonna find. So I absolutely I think it works.
Noam Sugarman • 48:03.240
Well I appreciate that. Yeah, I again I'm I'm I'm when I do have doubts about it, I'm always worried. Like there are people gonna get it, but but they always you know, like I said, the uh some people don't, and that's fine. You can't please everybody, but More than enough people immediately understand what I'm what what we're going for and and it works. So all the better.
Kurt Elster • 48:21.280
Well, credit to you. You've done a great job. Uh Noam Sugarman, Dum Audio. Thank you so much.
Noam Sugarman • 48:26.560
Thank you, Kurt. It was a pleasure.
Kurt Elster • 48:30.960
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Kurt Elster • 49:07.279
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