OnBuy boss Cas Paton opens up about market disruptor challenges

Cas Paton, Founder and CEO at UK-based online marketplace, OnBuy, has taken to social media to discuss the most challenging time of his career.

In a LinkedIn post, he said: “We're nine months into re-engineering and everyone's asking when?”

“When are we pushing for more growth? When are you launching? When will I see it? When will we know?”

“And it's been tough to answer that question for a while, as the team have been working, planning, solutionising and sizing... which has brought up a lot of urgent things to do, even through an MVP lens.”

Building a good marketplace is not easy. It's also not cheap, Paton stressed.

“We took OnBuy from £0 to £100 million in sales with only a few £million of investment. Most of that investment went into marketing. Sounds efficient?”

“But OnBuy as a product, even including our core proposition, never had investment or time to mature. Why? Because we grew too quick!”

“Growing quick is the optical dream. But there's a painful reality when you tip into "too quick" (implying before you're ready): Hiring too fast brings hiring mistakes.”

“This is not quick to fix (from 14 to 140); Pressure from multiple business fires caused by the growth brings distractions; Good engineering is replaced with, do it quick and we will fix that later.”

“The net result: either keep going and crash or inflect and optimise.”

It’s a difficult balance, Paton said. “Because I honestly don't think we'd be here if we didn't grow that quick to prove viability, including market demand, at the start. This was a necessary path to take to prove the viability from the market.”

He added: “This period we are now going through is not stagnation, although, the numbers imply it, the traffic implies it, but that belief is misguided. It's shortsighted to think that way.”

“Right now is a period of optimisation, following strategic inflexion. It's 100% a strategic move, considering all of our learnings and the shift in the economy, and the voice of customers.”

OnBuy is “building like crazy, more than ever before”. The firm has five product/tech teams building out its  next wave of product evolution.

“We've listened to our customers, the market and our own team, we are improving our business from the bottom up,” Paton said.

“We've slowed growth, by choice (temporarily) but our efficiencies are flying upward. 400%+ YoY contribution growth swinging strongly into significantly positive. So that new growth can be 'healthy growth', from today forward.”

“We are evolving at a rate of knots, optimising and strengthening, every part of the business.”

He concluded: “When we deliver our core product enhancements and start to open the taps of growth again very soon, expect big things: healthy growth with huge consumer satisfaction, creating a strong business with a clear path to success.”

“Right now, this is high pressure! I just want to share the real side of growing a serious disruptor. It's not all fun and games, there's a lot going on 24/7/365. When we are shouting our next successes, at least you know it wasn't easy!”

Online marketplacesStaff WriterOnBuy, Cas Paton, Disruptors, Online retail, UK retail, LinkedIn, E-commerce, Online marketplacesComment