Transcription – [Fully Managed] Josh Burwick from CaratX Ep. 170

Daniela: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the first one hundred podcast. This is the podcast where we’re going to be exploring the journey of entrepreneurs, business owners, agency leaders and so many more people as they share with us the strategies, the challenges and the triumphs that have led them to secure those first one hundred customers. Today, I’m very excited because we have a very special guest with us, Josh Berwick from CaratX. Hi, Josh. How are you?

Josh: Hello. Good morning. I’m doing well. Thanks for having me.

Daniela: Thank you so much for being here, Josh. Very excited to have you on this episode.

Josh: Likewise.

Personal Background

Daniela: For everybody that doesn’t know who you are, to just kind of break the ice a little bit, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are, your company?

Josh: Sure. Absolutely. Yeah, thank you. Man, my journey has been crazy. I actually started in the automotive world and ended up in diamonds and jewelry. Such a long story, but CaratX is a great product marketplace. We help sellers all over the world go to market. We help them kind of get online, get moving, especially new businesses or people looking to get into the jewelry business. We get them going and get them moving and teach them about the business.

Daniela: So I think that it’s really interesting that you said you started in the motor business and then somehow ended up in diamonds. That’s like a huge shift. Can you tell us a little bit about how that came to be? How that journey sort of that path made itself?

Journey from Automotive to Jewelry

Josh: My gosh, it’s crazy. So I actually started in the automotive business washing cars. That’s actually how I learned a lot of Spanish that I speak. And sometime around two thousand seven, I met with a supplier in India and he gave me products, bridal engagement rings. That’s all I did for a while. And I resold them in the US and that’s how I started.

Daniela: Oh wow, so like it was very sudden then.

Josh: It was, yeah. Well, so it was weird because I identified this opportunity and there was just a gap that needed to be filled, affordable engagement rings, right? So that’s what I did. I met this guy and I asked him hey you know if you send me some great product lines like I’d love to resell them and he was like yeah sure and it just started right away and that’s how I got into the business and then that turned into the CaratX marketplace where we have jewelry products from over sixteen countries now.

Daniela: That’s amazing. So what I’m curious about is that you sort of started selling jewelry, selling more affordable engagement rings and then it sort of started to grow and snowball into CaratX. How has the mission or everything changed since its inception, since the beginning towards where it is now?

Evolution of CaratX 

Josh: Oh, my gosh. Well, so when I started, I was just on a very small side of the business. And the more relationships I made, more of the supply chain kind of started to open up, and we started to identify other areas where we could help. There was kind of a crossover in around. I headed sales for a Silicon Valley VC backed startup, and we raised a couple million dollars and sold software to auto repair shops. What happened was I learned how to build really good software. So that led to us building CaratX.

Daniela: Oh, wow. So like feel like your life or well I guess your professional life has just been this series of just like events that you had no idea that would just like lead to this other big thing.

Josh: Honestly I can’t remember all of it like I have a long like notepad full of all the stuff that like just the journey there’s so much crazy like you overcome so many problems and you have to think on your feet and you have to hire great people and you learn as you go and you know I’m a part of many other communities where I help people and entrepreneurs and other businesses and you name it it has been a wild ride.

Getting the First 100 Customers

Daniela: So first one hundred is about like how you got those first one hundred customers people clients people purchasing your product so I have to ask How did that happen for you at the beginning? How did you actually start getting enough clients to make this a sustainable business for yourself and eventually scale it, start to get employees? I think I talked to a lot of people who tell me that’s like the hardest step is always transitioning from like this idea and having all of this to actually getting customers or clients or whatever it is that they want.

Josh: Yeah, well said. Yeah, you’re right. I mean, the first one is just as hard. The short answer is reduce friction. The easier you make it for your customers to like sign up and get going and get moving, and the more value that you add to their lives, especially businesses, like we deal with a lot of jewelry businesses of different types. And the more pain you take away and the more friction you take away, the happier they’re going to be. So it’s really just a simple formula of get them in quickly, listen to your customers, make sure that you’re continually adding value. And then I like to say, you start with a product, you build it, and then you iterate, iterate, iterate, iterate, and just pay attention to your customers. They will tell you what to do.

Daniela: I like the idea of quickly because I like in my own job, like I obviously do this podcast, but I talk to a lot of people to come into Penji to work with us. And I also feel like being there at the right moment is really important because I feel like nowadays people have such short attention spans that if you just like hesitate for a minute, they forgot about you already.

Josh: Very true. Yeah. And it’s really hard, right? Cause you are, you said it, you nailed it. You’re competing for attention. And yes, we generally have super short attention spans, right? Like you, do you ever do like I do sometimes and you get stuck on a doom scroll? Like I’ll go on my phone because I have to check the time and I do something completely unrelated. And then I realized I still didn’t check what time it was. It’s hilarious because my doom scrolls are usually like gems and jewelry and then occasionally cats and cute animals.

Market Saturation and Competition

Daniela: Oh, yeah, no, I mean, it’s true. It’s like we get distracted so easily. And I feel like it’s just like it’s an everything is an oversaturated market. Like before, I think there were certain like niches where they were still not that tapped into, I think. There’s obviously still sectors of marketing and commerce and a lot of different things that haven’t been tapped into, but I feel like it’s harder to find them because it feels like where before there was one cookie business in your neighborhood, there’s sixty now.

Josh: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well said. Yeah. It’s challenging, especially when you’re a business trying to reach your customers. I always tell people no matter what business you’re starting, like go where they are. Like I really believe in like being founder led and being front facing and like all of our customers have my personal number it’s dangerous but it’s true and well and that’s what you have to do that is just what you have to do you have to be there in front helping them move things forward and adding value.

Daniela: Yeah, it’s true. Personalization definitely helps.

Industry Challenges

Daniela: I also wanted to ask you about some problems that you think, because I know that you help a lot of your clients with reducing costs for jewelry businesses for the specific sector of the market. What are the specific challenges that you think businesses are facing in this industry and how do you help them address these problems?

Josh: Oh my gosh, don’t get me started. There are so many challenges in the jewelry business. You have everything from startup costs to what I like to say, these poor jewelry businesses get feed to death. You need software, you need marketing channels, you need support, you need sales. In fact, I think our co-founder, Keith Hawkins, he just did a post on this yesterday. You need to join associations, you need to find supply. It is so hard just to even know like where to start. And that’s one of the things that we help with is kind of carving out a path together. Right. Because we suffered too. We had to go through the same thing.

Daniela: Yeah. It’s like, I think foundation, building a foundation is always like that blank slate that you’re staring at. And then you don’t even know what to do with it is the worst part.

Josh: Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah. You just feel totally lost. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you have to multitask. I think a lot of people don’t realize when you start a business, you have to be everything. You have to be the marketing person. You have to be the bookkeeper. You have to be in accounting. You have to be all of it at once. Or you’re going to fail.

Daniela: That’s right. Yeah, you know. Well said.

Ethical Sourcing and Sustainability

Daniela: I also wanted to ask about sustainability and essentially ethical sourcing. I think they’re very hot topics in e-commerce, commerce in general, and in the jewelry business as well. So I wanted to ask, how does CaratX add some corporate values like these in your operations and your partnerships and the things that you do?

Josh: Yeah, great question. So yes, that is incredibly important to us and to our partners, to a lot of the people that we work with, a lot of the other businesses. There’s a number of tools in the jewelry business that we use every day, everything from certified stones to making sure that the suppliers go through a process so that they’re vetted properly. There’s actually an entire process now for diamonds so they have to go through a process to even sell polished diamonds into the US and we only work with people that are doing it correctly. And transparency, ethical sourcing is part and parcel of what we do.

Daniela: Yeah, ethical sourcing is also like a hot topic with e-commerce, I think, because we’ve seen the surge of non-ethical sourcing for a lot of products with sites like Timu and Shein and all of these sort of major e-commerce websites where you can sort of buy anything that you could think of, right?

Josh: Yep. Yeah you know we also work we work with a lot of small businesses right people in other countries small family businesses even that hand make things even. Yeah so it’s incredibly important to us to make sure that we’re dealing with reputable sources and using the proper tools to do that.

B2B vs B2C Strategy

Daniela: Yeah, no, that’s great. And I also noticed when I went over your website and all of your information that you guys cater to both B to B businesses and B to C markets. How do you balance the needs and the expectations for, I mean, they’re very distinct audiences and I think the marketing approaches and the business model approach is obviously very different. How do you balance both of these?

Josh: Good question. It’s challenging. The businesses often need a lot more help. Consumers often struggle with everything from just on the shopping side, especially for some gentlemen. It can be challenging to shop for jewelry. So we try and listen to our customers that buy and give us feedback. On the site, what’s difficult about it? What’s not working for you? Noticed you got stuck. How can we help? On the business side, it’s a lot of, again, where do I begin? How do I get started? How do I do this? How do I do that? And the savings that we the cost savings on the businesses we pass that on to the consumers and like I said we just keep iterating constantly so we’re listening to our businesses we’re listening to our customers and then we’re just tying it together and continue to get better and better and better and this is how we got to the first one hundred.

Daniela: That’s great. Yeah. No.

Lab-Grown vs Natural Diamonds

Daniela: Okay. Now I have another question, which might be a little bit interesting. I’m just dying to know about what is your stance on lab grown diamonds, which is a very popular thing right now in the diamond and jewelry industry.

Josh: It is. Yeah. Great question. Hot topic too. Yeah. So we support both lab and natural. The thing I always tell people is, is they’re two separate markets. It really depends on the consumer and what their preferences are. Natural diamonds are going to be more of an asset. They’re going to hold more value. But on the lab-grown side, there’s a large demand because of the sustainability, right? And the cost as well. The price points are definitely lower. But we support both. And when a consumer comes to us and they need help shopping, that’s what we do. We find the path that’s best for them. And that’s our job.

Daniela: I have a question about that. Is there like an actual difference in quality between a lab grown diamond than like a naturally sourced diamond? Or when you’re shopping for like a diamond ring or something, is it virtually going to look the same?

Josh: Great question. So chemically, they are the same. There’s two processes. There’s two different kinds of lab diamonds typically. But chemically, they are exactly the same.

Daniela: Okay. So it looks the same in terms of like a person who doesn’t know much about jewelry and they’re just shopping. You wouldn’t be able to tell a difference.

Josh: Yeah. Well, and sometimes people start with lab grown and they move to a natural diamond because natural larger, especially larger natural diamonds hold their value very well. They’re a wonderful asset class. So sometimes we had a customer that started with just a one carat radiant lab and they upgraded two years later to a two carat. And so, again, it’s entirely up to the consumer and we will support the consumer at the end of the day. If somebody needs to shop and they need our help, we’ve got your back.

Future Industry Predictions

Daniela: That’s interesting. Yeah, which I actually wanted to ask, because like with this whole lab grown diamond thing, I think with everything happening online with the surge of different technological things like AI and other things like that, what are the major shifts that you predict will be happening in the coming years for the jewelry industry? Or within like the next five years and how do you think you guys are preparing for that for all these changes?

Josh: Great question so I think that there’s going to be more new jewelry businesses than ever. Unfortunately during covid especially there were a lot of closures and that’s just because was a lot of business lost. But I think and this is part of our mission is if we reduce the cost and reduce the friction to get these new businesses started then there’s going to be more of them and more people will come into the business and I think the more tools especially ai the more tools that are out there where we can create all these beautiful things create renderings create pictures create content for social all it does is accelerate the pace at which you’re able to run and move and that’s what we want to support we want to support these businesses people that want to get started and get into the jewelry business and we want to help them run and fly.

Daniela: Oh that’s such a wholesome goal too I think that’s what we love.

Josh: Yeah we love our small businesses we absolutely do and that’s why we’re here.

Global Expansion

Daniela: I have a question also about sort of, you guys have expanded outside of local markets, right? You’ve sort of started to become global and scale to that level. How were you guys able to do that? I think once you start looking to things abroad, the game changes. There’s like language barriers, there’s marketing things. You need to start thinking of having a team in different countries, et cetera, et cetera. How was that process for you?

Josh: Yeah, it’s challenging, you know. Yeah, you have payment challenges, logistics, shipping, language barriers, absolutely. You have different cultures do business a different way as well. So we have to learn how they’re currently doing business, how they want to do business, how we can help them. But it’s funny, we got pulled into other countries they came to us and one of the first things that happened was a lot of small businesses came to us and they’re like hey can we list our beautiful jewelry on your platform and I was like yeah come on over and that just started happening all over the place and we realized like okay this is what we’re here to do.

Most Rewarding Aspect

Daniela: That’s amazing. So what do you think, out of all of these really great experiences that have been growing CaratX, what do you think has been the most rewarding aspect of this whole journey?

Josh: When I get feedback from businesses or our customers, when they either tell us that they love the product or something special that we did meant the world to them, or a business emails me and says, we got going so fast. Thank you for your help. We often do a lot of like co-op marketing across social media with the businesses on our platform. And when I get positive feedback and I know that we’re executing on that mission and we’re making people’s lives easier and putting more beauty into the world, that’s what we’re about. That’s what I tell people now when they say, what do you do? I say, I just put more beauty into the world. That’s all I do. I just put beauty into the world.

Daniela: More beauty into the world. Absolutely. Such a nice statement.

Advice for Entrepreneurs

Daniela: And lastly, Josh, I wanted to ask for all of those entrepreneurs watching us who are looking to innovate traditional industries like jewelry, what advice do you give them?

Josh: Great question. Start. Just start. Start and start running. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You can have a plan. You can just get started and get going. Get connected with people. Get connected with the customers. Learn from your customers. Learn from your industry. Just get started and get going. And I promise you, you will get there.

Daniela: That’s so sweet. Obviously, if anybody does need your help, they can go and find you. Before we close out the podcast, I did prepare a game for us.

Josh: Oh, yay. All right. I love games.

Rapid Fire Questions

Daniela: Yeah, it’s basically a rapid fire of twenty questions and we can see how many we’re going to get through. I’m going to set a timer on my phone right now.

Josh: Oh, gosh. OK, let’s see how I do.

Daniela: A lot of people kind of think about the answers too hard. So don’t, if you want. I think I had like the most, the most answered is like twelve or ten questions.

Josh: Oh, wow. Okay. All right. Let’s do it. Pressure is on.

Daniela: They’re not marketing. They’re not business related. They’re just stupid questions.

Josh: Okay, cool. Let’s do it. I’m game.

Daniela: Coffee or tea?

Josh: Coffee.

Daniela: Early bird or night owl?

Josh: Early bird.

Daniela: Favorite social media platform?

Josh: LinkedIn.

Daniela: Go-to karaoke song?

Josh: Oh my gosh, Hotel California.

Daniela: Books or podcasts?

Josh: Books.

Daniela: One word that describes you?

Josh: Driven.

Daniela: Dream vacation destination?

Josh: Bali.

Daniela: Most used app on your phone?

Josh: Axe.

Daniela: Favorite emoji?

Josh: Heart emoji.

Daniela: What’s your hidden talent?

Josh: Kindness.

Daniela: Go-to comfort food?

Josh: Ghirardelli chocolate.

Daniela: Superpower you would want to have for a day?

Josh: Fly.

Daniela: Who inspires you the most?

Josh: My grandpa.

Daniela: Oh, it’s time. How many did I get?

Josh: You got thirteen. That’s actually really good. I didn’t even ask. I had never asked the inspired question or the super powered one. I never get to. Yes. All right. I did it. All right. I was trying to beat twelve. I’m glad I did.

Daniela: You did. You did. You did great. I think you’re one of the best ones we’ve had because most people never know what to say when it comes to the karaoke song. They’re always like, I don’t know.

Josh: So I sang Hotel California one time at a karaoke place in San Jose, California.

Daniela: That’s good, though. You had an answer, which is better than most people have. Most people just kind of like get stumped and they’re like, I don’t go to karaoke. I know it’s a bad question. I should probably remove it.

Josh: No, I think it’s a good one. No, leave it there. Yeah, it’s a good one.

Closing and Contact Information

Daniela: Well, Josh, it was great. It was so fun having you today. We learned so much from you. Before I let you go, I do want to give you the space to plug anything that you want to plug. If any of the listeners or any of the viewers want to go to you, to your platform, talk to you, the floor is yours.

Josh: Awesome. Yeah. So Karatex.com is the marketplace. We have all sorts of beautiful jewelry on there and from sellers, from small businesses all over the world. If you want to reach me, you can reach me personally, Josh at Karatex.com. And we do have a phone number on the site as well. Feel free to call it. To anyone out there that needs help, wants to get involved in the business or is looking for something for that special person or multiple special people, we’ve got your back.

Daniela: Awesome. Josh, thank you so much. I will be adding all of this information and all of these links to the description of this video so that all of the viewers can go and click it. And if you’re a listener, go watch the video so that you can click the links. Thank you so much for doing this today, Josh. It was so fun.

Josh: Thank you, Daniela. It really was fun, really refreshing. I had a great time.

Daniela: I had a great time too. Everybody, I will see you on the next episode. Bye.

Josh: Bye.

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