If You Build It, They Will Come

March 10, 2023 By E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

By bodiaphvideo @ Shutterstock.com

This is how you create a great business. Discover a need, tell the truth, and the business will come. Here’s the story of one man who did just that, Randy Nonnenberg, creator of the automobile auction site, Bring a Trailer. Ben Cohen writes of Nonnenberg in The Wall Street Journal:

Bring a Trailer has become the place for enthusiasts like Mr. Felker to buy, sell and geek out over their dream cars. The platform auctions hundreds of cars every week, spanning thousands of makes and models from Ford to Ferrari and projects under $10,000 to beauties over $1 million.

The site’s popularity has less to do with the cars themselves and more with the way that Bring a Trailer tinkered with the underlying mechanics of a business—and it’s worth popping open the hood of the company to see how it works.

A hybrid of Craigslist, eBay, Reddit and Sotheby’s that facilitated $1.37 billion in sales last year was not quite what Randy Nonnenberg had in mind when he started a car blog with a college buddy as a hobby.

“It’s been a long road,” said Mr. Nonnenberg, BaT’s co-founder and president.

Mr. Nonnenberg, a 45-year-old car guy since before his feet could reach the pedal, grew up in the Bay Area riding his bike to the local 7-Eleven to read classifieds in the latest auto magazines. After graduating from Stanford University in 2000 with a degree in mechanical engineering, he worked in dealer-business development at BMW of North America by day and went treasure hunting at night, sifting through online car listings to discover hidden gems. He was so fanatical that Gentry Underwood, an entrepreneur and his college friend, suggested that he turn his private recommendations public. They founded a blog in 2007 as an excuse to hang out more.

The internet has always been a great place to find people who share your obsessions. Before long, readers were sending him their own finds, and Mr. Nonnenberg went from scouring listings online that deserved attention to curating his inbox. “That changed my whole world,” he said.

It changed again when members of the BaT community began asking him to list their cars exclusively and he could start charging $125 when they sold. For the first time, the site made money. Mr. Nonnenberg left BMW to focus on BaT in 2010, and the company took off when it entered the auction business in 2014.

“I’ve always been a firm believer that if you build the right products, the market will come,” he told me from BaT’s garagelike offices in San Francisco this week during the final minutes of the company’s 100,000th auction.

Action Line: If you build something the right way, for the right reasons, the right people will come. Click here to subscribe to my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter.

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E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zildjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West (RIP JB) and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com To sign up for my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter, click here.

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