Jeff Nobbs and Noah Auerhahn of Extrabux.com Reveal Their Entrepreneurial Secrets

By: Michael Dunlop     Topics: Blog

[podcast]http://buzzprofits.com/Jeff_Nobbs_Noah_Auerhahn_interview.mp3[/podcast]

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Hi Everyone

We have another podcast and interview transcript for you – this time with two remarkable young entrepreneurs called Jeff Nobbs and Noah Auerhahn from Extrabux.com

Extrabux.com is an amazing new development in the world of comparison shopping:

Extrabux.com is the first comparison shopping engine (CSE) to combine coupons, cash back and comparison shopping at one online destination. Through its free service, Extrabux.com finds shoppers the lowest possible price on millions of products while also granting cash back on everyday purchases at over 1,500 online stores, such as Petco.com and Macys.com.

Jeff and Noah have a lot of wisdom to share here and if you listen or read the transcript you will soon see what I mean. One thing in particular stands out for me:

Effort is never Forgotten

Listen / Read the interview to discover exactly what that means 😉

Enjoy the interview – I look forward to your comments

Best Wishes

Michael

Jeff Nobbs and Noah Auerhahn Interview

Transcript:

Barry Dunlop: Hello there folks this is Barry Dunlop at WebMakeMoney.com and I’ve got two amazing absolutely superb young entrepreneurs on the line with me from a wonderful website that I’ve actually just discovered this week. A website that sounds like an amazing name for a website, that’s extrabux.com that’s extra and B-U-X dot com. The two gentlemen on the line are Noah Auerhahn and Jeff Nobbs

Hi Noah, Hi Jeff

As I said earlier I’ve been getting to know your website this week and the thing actually, the first thing that struck me straight away and I don’t know whether it struck other people as well, you describe yourself as first comparison shopping engine to combine coupons, cash back and comparison shopping and in one online destination. The thing that got me immediately was that one it’s a fantastic idea, I mean because most of us are familiar with websites like, I use a website called fat wallet for example. And I think you know that’s great, I can get me coop from there I can find out what me discounts are, but it seems to me like why didn’t nobody come up with this idea before so, I going to ask you guys when did you have your, well what I call your eureka moment, if you like when did you get the idea of combining all of these things together and creating “extrabux.”

Noah Auerhahan: Well I can’t say it was like a eureka moment I think it was more we started this cash back and coupon website and we saw the same problem that a lot of consumers faced. Early on in the site where we were going to comparison shopping engines trying to find the lowest price and then grabbing coupons, cash back from extrabux trying to you know calculate the lowest price together and it was just so difficult, and we started talking to our consumers and talking to friends and family who were using the site and they were experiencing the same thing and so we start to work on the business plan and we end up winning the USC business plan competition. I would say that was more the moment of, it wasn’t a idea eureka moment, but a moment where we said we have to do this you know this we won this competition, and we were competing against grad students and we were only undergrads and I thing that kind of said to Jeff and myself that this is something that we… it must be a decent idea if we got this far

Barry Dunlop: And you were competing against grad students as well actually so that was … were you surprised you one or did you expect to win?

Jeff Nobbs: I’d say it was more of an expected surprise.

Barry Dunlop: This I’ve got to write that down “Expected Surprise” that’s Jeff said that by the way

Noah Auerhahan: The whole time we had thought that, you know, we could just make it to the finals and be able to present we think we’ll definitely win the Businessman competition. And so we made it to the finals and ended up presenting and the feedback that we got was kind of you know, “you guys did a great job, but you know there’s grad students here so they’ll probably end up wining.” And so when the announced that we won, we were of course surprised but we also you know I kind of expected that if we make it to the finals we could present and win.

Barry Dunlop: Okay I mean you’ve had the confidence, if you like that term, that you got that far, you believed you could go all the way. I like the energy I’m getting of you, Jeff if I may say that, cause I thing that is one thing that I found in entrepreneurs, as I speak to them all around the world, is that they all have sort of like, I wouldn’t call it a cocky energy, but they have a confidence if you like, that somehow you know there’s gonna work out okay and obviously clearly you had it.
I got to ask because one it’s a fantastic idea and I encourage everybody you know this is the place you guys need to go and I tried it out several times this week and it really works very well. Tell me you know when did you win this competition? What year was this what time or what month was out of that happened.

Jeff Nobbs: This was May 2008 when we won the competition.

Barry Dunlop: Okay and when did you have the site in like sort of an alpha or beta format.

Jeff Nobbs: We first launched extrabux.com in June 2006 and at that time it was just a cash back and coupon website and as Noah mentioned we kind of got all this feedback that consumers were first going to comparison shopping website figuring out where they wanted to shop. Then coming to extrabux’s to get cash back coupons or going to another cash back website to get cash back then going to a coupon website, so it was a pretty frustrating process. And we started developing our business plan before this three in one website and we… we won the competition May 2008, and just launched this new website on October 6th.

Barry Dunlop: October 6th of 2009?

Jeff Nobbs: 2009 correct.

Barry Dunlop: Wonderful. Okay now, if I go through the website one of the things that again struck me was, oh actually I have to go back, you know did you guys get any funding for this, I mean any state capital? How have you got this far?

Noah Auerhahan: Well we’ve raised a bit of money but it’s been primarily boot strap, using the revenues from our cash back and coupon website, and pumping that into development, because we had to hire a complete development team because it’s a pretty large project, we’re managing a lot of data we adjust about 76million project records every day, to keep our prices as up to date as possible. So we had to hire a new house team to do that, we raised some from private investors, friends and family, extensions of friends and family and then more recently we opened up an angel round which is about half filled and now we’re trying to fill up the remainder of that round.

Barry Dunlop: The development team obviously is a significant cost. Where did you go about recruiting the development team? Where these people you knew or are they people off sure in the U.S.? Where did you find your development team?

Jeff Nobbs: Well we originally interviewed people, we were originally in Los Angeles and San Diego and we found some people we really liked in San Diego, who got really excited about the project and I think in the start up your looking for people who are willing to come in a little below market value because they believe so much in it also adding equity to the deal, so we found some people who were just incredibly talented programmers. Some, you know one guy who thinks way outside the box and one guy who thinks really in the box and together they really lead the development of the system.

Barry Dunlop: Okay and basically the fundamental there was that you interviewed people you got a number of people if you like to come with their service and that’s how you did it you know. And their all local people in California, that are working for you there, it’s a local developing company?

Noah Auerhahan: All San Diego based people yeah we originally tried out sourcing people some of the development but we thought the project was too large.

Barry Dunlop: Yeah I would suggest that most people are going to do a project like yours, I think one of the most significant things you have to overcome in developing, is getting the development team on board and getting them if you’d like to take your brilliant idea which actually is the most brilliant is a very simple idea, but actually putting it out there and making it work is an entirely different thing all together. As you’ve clearly found out.

Jeff Nobbs: Right Yeah Barry this is Jeff. We actually, most of our employees, on our team, we found through a company who’s founder you’ve interviewed before, Craig’s List.

Barry Dunlop: Oh right, Great!

Jeff Noobs: We’ve found pretty much everyone through there, so it’s a lot of a sales job on our end where you need to convince the people your interviewing for them to come on board with no mention the under market value and be excited about your idea.

Barry Dunlop: Wow and Craig’s List is responsible for so many things actually so there we go again. The other thing that actually stuck out for me actually is you guys somehow persuaded some like 60%of the top 2000 online retailers to come on board with you. Is this a case where you signed up as affiliates for them? How does this work, how have you recruited them? Did you go to them direct or is it an affiliate type arrangement?

Jeff Nobbs: It is an affiliate type arrangement. When we first we getting started we definitely struggled in getting the top online retailers to work with us it’s kinda like the chicken and the egg problem. When we first approached them they wanted to see more sales from us, more traffic, more traction and so we would come back and say well we need you to get that traction but it took a while you know we got the traction they were looking for and now we’re at the point where retailers are coming to us instead of the other way around.

Barry Dunlop: Got ya. Can you share, actually both of you can do this, can you share some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned personally from setting up the business EXTRABUX as its grown and if you were to start EXTRA BUX again, and its been around in different forms since June 2006, what might you do differently?

Noah Auerhahan: I think in terms of just the biggest the most important decisions you make are the people you bring on to your team and put around you and that hiring process we interviewed a lot of people because we realized the importance of bring on the right people around you who are gonna make the best decisions so you don’t have to be over their shoulders and making decisions for them. So I think that was the most important thing we’ve done and will continue to focus on the people we hire.

Barry Dunlop: That’s awesome advice Noah I mean and it’s a reoccurring thing that I hear from nearly every entrepreneurs is the biggest lesson they learned is about hiring cause quite often we give it to a member of the family or a friend or something like that and don’t go through the proper… I think we’ve all done it…but any way that is a recurring theme I see as I speak to entrepreneurs hiring is where it is.
What’s next for EXTRABUX do you think, I mean how do you see sites like this developing like I don’t know in five years from now, I mean coupon websites have been around for quite a long time, since the internet have existed virtually. Where do you think EXTRABUX will go?

Jeff Nobbs: Well I think if you look at this market this industry there’s so many different players it’s highly fragmented. There’s so many different comparison shopping engines and a number of cash back websites and nearly endless amount of coupon websites. There aren’t many industries that are like that, so we see this industry consolidating. We think five years from now there’s gonna just a few top layers are going to emerge and so because we see that opportunity we’re kind of positioning ourselves to be one of those top players.

Barry Dunlop: Okay, and in your experience in your knowledge what is the biggest motivator is it cash back or is it is the discount out is it the both I mean a lot of people want the discount but are people also motivated by the cash back that will come back from you guys?

Jeff Nobbs: Yeah what we see consumers being motivated by is just at bottom line lowest price, so people don’t really care whether its cash back or whether its coupons, those two things together give them a lower price than anyone else on the web , that’s what really motivates them.

Barry Dunlop: Okay, comparison shopping engines have got a lot a lot more complicated since the first time I’ve ever come across the thing, the first time I ever came across them was actually a forum where people just shared their coupons if you like, these days it’s a lot more sophisticated. We’re coming back the developers here I suppose here I mean what’s the biggest challenge or what was the biggest challenge? I mean I think you told me earlier about the number of searchers or things done every day I mean what’s the biggest search in….. challenge in building an engine like that.

Jeff Nobbs: I think it’s the infrastructure you’re dealing with, if every processing piece that you do in your system takes a couple of milliseconds, those add up in ways that you really don’t think about, but when you have 76 million products your doing so much sorting and grouping and your buying your algorithms for that its time consuming, so I think that was the biggest challenge we faced with the infrastructure and the processing of that amount of data.

Barry Dunlop: Actually I’ve got a question I’ve got to ask it to each of you, both of you individually actually I’d like to start with Jeff if I may actually, I don’t know whether this is your first business or not but I mean what was your first business and what did you learn from running your first business, your first entrepreneurial attempt shall we say.

Jeff Nobbs: Well this is my first real business. I guess I’ve had a couple entrepreneurial endeavors in the past. One of which was preordering Harry Potter books off Amazon then selling them for an increased price on eBay.

Barry Dunlop: I like it.

Jeff Nobbs: But I never preformed a corporation for that or anything.

Barry Dunlop: Okay, and Noah what are you going to admit to?

Noah Auerhahan: I could never admit to all my businesses but I just think, we both were – knew we wanted to do something that was a little bit different we, neither of us were ready to walk down the investment banking path and were looking where everyone was steered when entering college cause they’re the ones that was making all the money back in 2005/2006. So I think we just wanted to see was there a way that you know we could maybe try a different path that was a little bit more exciting for us.

Barry Dunlop: Okay that’s great. Obviously I mean, I’m sure along the way there’s been some challenges and I’m sure you’ve had some setbacks and negative experiences. Do you have any suggestions for entrepreneurs, young entrepreneurs in particular, about how to cope with sort of setbacks.

Jeff Nobbs: I think this is, this is Jeff, I think that for young entrepreneurs and this is a mistake, but a mistake we learn from and in the past was you have to just think of the big picture. So when we were first getting started you know we expected to launch the site and went within a week have thousands of visitors. But you know when we started, I don’t really blame us for this because I think it’s a mistake most young entrepreneurs make, you just kind of you know see the short term, you know you want to get visitors to the site immediately drive up revenues immediately, but you have to kind of think everything , think of everything as one to two to three year plan, so just really think of the big picture, and every negative set back, you just have to take a step back and say am I upset because this is just affecting me just now, probably if it probably just does not affect the big picture.

Barry Dunlop: Do you want to add anything Noah?

Noah Auerhahan: Yeah, I think, first of thought is that Jeff’s thought is as level headed as it gets, so that makes it really easy since he’s my partner, I’m more up and down with my emotions sometimes, but I think what you have to do is you have to understand yourself a little bit, and you’re gonna have days that are really tough, your gonna have days that are really so exciting, when those tough days come around, you know I personally just like alright find myself get a little upset inside, and then relax, okay. And I think the best thing you can do is make a plan, I think the worst thing is when you get anxious when you don’t have a strategy for how you’re going to move forward from and rebound from this problem. So I think like after we’ll have a big problem, we’ll a setback we’ll ok let’s talk about it lets see how we’re going to move around this problem and then usually the next day you get back to work and you’re like okay we have a plan and we’re working towards it.

Barry Dunlop: Wonderful,I like it, cause one of you is very level headed and one of you is up and down and it’s basically your both more or less saying the same thing, just slightly different, it’s about getting on with it anyway. I think somebody once said to me, you know one think you have to learn about being an entrepreneur is that there’s no guarantee you know, there is no absolute 100% certainty about anything. And you guys are obviously copping with that. I’m going to ask a very personal question, you don’t have to elaborate a big thing about this, but I thinks a question especially when I meet co-founders I like to ask because this you know you are—usually I find co-founders work because quite often they’re actually quite different from each other, you’ve already alluded to that, but have you had—what I’m sure there must have been occasions when you’ve had some challenges working together personally or maybe you didn’t I don’t know but do you have any advice for people who are working together especially if they’re friends first of all and neither have been in business together is there a way that you cope with disagreements for example.

Jeff Nobbs: I mean the biggest thing, kind of like I alluded to earlier was that just taking a step back and looking at the big picture. There are of course times where we have disagreements we’re working for the same goal. So if we have a disagreement you know I think the biggest thing to do is just say ok so whats kind of the right way to do this what’s going to create the most value for the company. What’s going to be the best for EXTRABUX.

Barry Dunlop: Excellent

Jeff Nobbs: But there’s definitely a tone of value in, I think in having a business partner, in having a co-founder in a business. We’re constantly bouncing ideas back and forth so a lot of times we’ll kind of start an idea then we’ll finish it off or the other way around.

Barry Dunlop: Excellent. Excellent. Noah did you want to add?

Noah Auerhahan: Yeah I agree, I think there is a couple of things that are really important. You know the first thing is more internally which is, where is your moral compass? I think without being on the same page there you’re going to have issues, it will come up and you know I think we’ve seen different challenges with that, you know running the business bringing people on making sure they fit the same moral compass. Then also making sure your strategy for where you see the business is going like, where is the long run strategy for this business, are you guys in line and then the last thing is just communicating effectively. Jeff and I are not just business partners but we’re really good friends and I think when we have a problem with each other or we have a problem with how we approach something the other one is quick to just say, hey man I’m like I didn’t like and appreciate that you know how we had that conversation or how that interaction occurred, and we talk about it and then we move on, and I think that’s what helped us move forward from you know different challenges that we faced.

Barry Dunlop: Wonderful, I think that’s a tremendous piece of advice. Talking of advice again you could answer this individually. That would be really great. What would you consider the best advice you’ve ever been given? I mean maybe I’d go to you again first Jeff.

Jeff Nobbs: Can I pass it off to Noah and I’ll think about it for a bit.

Barry Dunlop: Course you can.

Noah Auerhahan: I would actually say it was from a friend of mine at USC, when we were talking about the business and he was just like “effort is never forgotten” and I think that really helps me when you think you’ve just did something for the last two weeks and your working on this project and it didn’t work out and its easy to get a set back and say man I just wasted my time or a lot of people say how can you take that risk on this business and is so much risk why don’t you take a more structured path, but I just feel like everything we’re doing working towards a goal, we’re learning so much, we’re building so many relationships with so many people that I think we’re moving forward with our careers each day. No matter how EXTRABUX works out and no matter how each little product works out we’ve learned so much from that our feelings is that we’ve really learned a lot from our experience.

Barry Dunlop: Great, I mean, “effort is never forgotten” I’ve got that right. That’s a great think I’m gonna repeat that. Jeff, you can just say efforts are never forgotten if you like

Jeff Nobbs: Well I do agree with that but yeah in terms of one piece of advice I wouldn’t say for me there’s any one piece of advice that’s been driving me or has been a big motivator for me I’d say it’s just kind of I wouldn’t say there’s any kind of one right answer for a way to do business or a way to do anything for that matter so I’d say the best advice for me has been from hundreds of people all giving their little tid bits of knowledge

Barry Dunlop: O good, good cause that was sort of one of the other questions cause we have so many bits of information coming from other people. Is there any entrepreneurial or it doesn’t have to be an entrepreneurial could be just an individual living or dead that you both look up to or you individually look up to. Anybody who’s been a particular inspiration in your entrepreneurial career for instance.

Jeff Nobbs: I kind of go back to saying just be kind of everyone sharing their little bits of knowledge and everyone has different knowledge that they can share but my role model would definitely be my dad who was an entrepreneur his whole life

Barry Dunlop: Wonderful

Noah Auerhahan: I would say that probably my role model we both had really awesome fathers, who I think helped to guide us from both a moral perspective and you know hard work. I also admire people like Bill Gates who you know just believed in their project and went out and did it and I commend them for that I look up to them for that and I think we take a lot of you know sometimes you get advice from people and you’re like they’re telling you you’re crazy and other people who think you’re doing the best thing ever so you kind of have to stay in the middle and just take every piece of information and really believe in what you’re trying to do.

Barry Dunlop: That’s great. Just a couple of more questions . Actually just 3 more questions, very brief ones they are. Based on your own experiences gentlemen, what advice would you give to young entrepreneurs starting up a business today. I mean if you could just say this is one thing you could remember above all other things what might that be?

Jeff Nobbs: I think you know that’s like you talking about look at the big picture and think of the business as a long term plan

Barry Dunlop: Wonderful

Jeff Nobbs: I would say read a research as much as you can, talk to as many people as you can because that’s what allowed us to develop this technology and to be competitive in this space, how much we’ve learned about this space, by just going out and trying to doing it.

Barry Dunlop: Wonderful, and what do you like best about the internet?

Jeff Nobbs: I like best about the internet that you really have almost all knowledge in the world at your finger tips, and you can find it in a matter of seconds.

Barry Dunlop: That’s an awesome answer I like that one. Noah could you beat that?

Noah Auerhahan: Just to say something about that, I think Jeff speaks to Google in a language that others can’t. Just in terms of, like Jeff could you find this piece of information and two seconds later he’s like sending me a link. I would agree in just in terms of opportunity and on the internet there’s you know every time there’s new innovation, there’s so much more innovation than you could build on – it is so exciting.

Barry Dunlop: It’s a slightly negative one. If there was something negative about the internet that you didn’t like, something if you could do it remove it what might that be?

Jeff Nobbs: Well your asking the wrong person, I really love the internet.

Barry Dunlop: You’re also a free thinker no doubt.

Jeff Nobbs: Although there is like I said a vast amount of knowledge available at your finger tips. There’s also some knowledge that’s impossible to get via the internet. So I think sometimes I and some other people as well rely on a little too much on it and kind of forget that there’s so much value in going out and networking and talking to people and having a real time real life conversation.

Barry Dunlop: That’s awesome.

Noah Aerhahan: I think that as much opportunity there is, it is easy sometimes to get diverted from your core business, so I think not allowing yourself to get distracted by every new buzz word that comes along is important and you should keep FOCUS.

Barry Dunlop: Oh yeah focus is a good word. Okay Gentleman I congratulate you and I thank you and I encourage everybody listening to this call to check out the site, sign up as a member. It is the future I certainly believe in fact that you know, no doubt about it it’s the future of comparison shopping and it’s been a real honor to have you on as a call, I really appreciate it and have a wonderful day in sunny California.