She Started a Business in College, Now It's Worth Millions
When Amanda Zuckerman was looking for bedding for her college dorm she was not thrilled with what was out there, and like any normal 18 year old (totally kidding, Amanda’s next level) she turned to her mom and said “we should design our own!”
12 years later Amanda’s vision has become Dormify, a cult-loved multi-million dollar brand, raising over $5.6M from some pretty incredible investors like American Eagle Outfitters.
Amanda’s parents were extremely entrepreneurial and ran their own creative agency. Their confidence and experience allowed Amanada to launch Dormify, the ultimate dorm decorating destination (say that three times fast), in 2011 while she was just a Junior in college.
Her first step in bringing Dormify to market was creating a simple blog site and publishing content from “brand ambassadors”. At the time they were friends of Amanda’s, but very quickly it grew to some 400 ambassadors that created blog content and promoted Dormify.
In their early days, Amanda and her mom/co-founder would do trunk shows at recent highschool grad’s homes.
They’d pack up a rental car with product and offer one-on-one shopping consultations, and found they really got to know their customers that way.
“If I were to start another business today, I would still do this type of thing.”
While Amanda started her business as a college student, she’s not one anymore, making staying close to her customers even more important.
Amanda’s tips to staying connected to her Dormify community:
Start your own ambassador group or group of highly engaged customers
Create specific focus groups. Every year Amanda will start a group chat with incoming college freshmen from her community to connect with.
Ambassadors have obviously been a huge part of Dormify’s strategy, and that program has done a ton of pivoting over the years. In the beginning, anyone who supported the brand and wanted to write articles for the blog were in.
Today, the program now goes for volume and lets in tons of ambassadors, but has a “VIP tier” with extra perks and requirements for their most engaged members.
“I think the key here is that anyone can participate. We don't exclude people, so it's very inclusive. But if you are motivated to go above and beyond, you have an opportunity to really soar to the top, get extra recognition, experience, and have a true resume builder.”
What do these brand ambassadors actually do? Their main goal is brand awareness and gaining customer insights, so that looks like posting on their personal social media and really becoming a vocal fan of the brand, as well as being a part of informal focus groups and giving product feedback.
