Replica Power 2008-2012
There’s something about my online identity that few people know about. There’s the usual stuff. I use social networks. I appreciate a good meme. I read HackerNews and TechCrunch and generally try to keep up with new technologies.
But there’s something else.
For almost four years, I owned and operated an e-commerce store called Replica Power. That link was a screen shot of what the homepage used to be. As of today, the actual URL, replicapower.com, points to nothing.
More on that later.
Replica Power was my biggest side project during college. It never grew past the size of a hobby but it did teach me a lot about running a small business. I learned how to incorporate a business in the state of Virginia. I learned how to work with accountants, programmers, designers and freelancers. I learned what to say to a dissatisfied customer. I learned how to negotiate better.
Replica Power took me to Silicon Valley for the first time ever. Back in October, Princeton’s entrepreneurship club was organizing a week long trip to the valley. Close to a hundred students applied for the twenty spots on the trip. The only thing I had going for me was my online store so I featured it prominently in my application.
Long story short, Replica Power was my ticket to the promised land. We visited the usual suspects (Google, Apple, Facebook) as well as many well known startups like Nest, Path and Square. We met Jack Dorsey, Meg Whitman, John Doerr among many others.
At this point you may be wondering what Replica Power actually sold. Glad you asked! At its peak, I was selling movie prop replicas, video game replicas and medieval replicas. We’re talking Harry Potter’s wand, William Wallace’s Braveheart sword and that one sword that defeated Sauron the first time around. If it was geeky and had the potential to make the owner slightly embarrassed, I sold it.
At one point, I worked with 8 suppliers and had more than a thousand products online. I didn’t even need to own any inventory. Whenever I got an order, I would simply forward it to the right wholesaler and they would take care of fulfillment. My main job was to sell.
I tried many different things to increase sales over the years. I added a 1-800 number and convinced by girlfriend to record a message with her voice. “Thank you for calling Replica Power…”. I signed up for a UPS Box so I would have a credible mailing address. ”4196 Merchants Plaza” sounded much better than a P.O. box. I experimented with live chat and e-mail marketing. I tried Google Adwords, customer testimonials, free shipping, discount coupons. It was like playing with legos.
So what went wrong? There were a few things. As time went on I started to get worried about my product line. Early on, Paypal shut down my merchant account because they thought I was selling weapons. I called them right away and explained that they were collectibles, not weapons. None of the “swords” had a real edge. They were meant to be displayed on a wall.
But that got me thinking. Do I really want to be selling these things? What if someone got hurt? I got into the sword business not because I like swords (I don’t even own one) but rather because the guys I learned e-commerce from owned a sword store. It seemed like a viable niche and I didn’t know where else to start so I went for it.
Then there was the problem of time. Replica Power was a one-man show for most of its life. The problem was that I was also a full time college student. As much as I wanted to focus on cool side projects, I found that I couldn’t force myself to ignore academics. Sad, but true.
I would sometimes get calls from customers right in the middle of lecture. Orders would pile up during finals week. People would get mad. I solved this problem by hiring part time help from a virtual assistant in the Philippines. She was more responsive and reliable than I could ever be. Still, I felt that I wasn’t providing the kind of customer service that I have come to expect from top-notch companies. This bothered me a lot.
Then there was the issue of technology. Replica Power was built on Yahoo’s e-commerce platform. In 1995, Paul Graham and his co-founders started a company called Viaweb. It was one of the first (maybe the first?) startup to offer an end-to-end e-commerce solution to small businesses. No longer did small business owners have to spend a small fortune to be online. They would simply sign up with Viaweb and use their intuitive WYSIWYG interface to create their online store. In 1997, Viaweb was acquired by Yahoo for a good chunk of money.
I have great respect for Paul Graham and what he’s done with Y-Combinator. In its time, Viaweb was on the bleeding edge of technology. The problem is that the technology is now 15 years old. The Internet has been reinvented more than a couple of times since then. In Internet years, 1995 brings us back to the stone age. Viaweb predates Facebook, Twitter and Google. It’s easy to blame Yahoo about not keeping up with the times, but it’s kinda like the subway in New York City. How do you update your systems without pissing off millions of people?
Anyways, hindered by all of these problems, I slowly started scaling back Replica Power. I cut down the number of suppliers. I took down all anything that could be misrepresented as a weapon. I eliminated international shipping. After doing all of this, it didn’t make business sense to keep the store running anymore. That’s why I’m closing it down today.
Looking back, the most lasting influence from my e-commerce days comes from the people that I grew to admire while I was working on Replica Power. People like Scott Sanfilippo, Shawna Seigl and Rob Snell. Scott co-founded Solid Cactus, the company that did the custom design and programming work for Replica Power. Shawna also runs a company that specializes on building Yahoo stores. I never worked with her team but I used to listen to her e-commerce radio station religiously. Rob wrote the best book on Yahoo stores and he is a frequent speaker on the topic.
What I admired the most about them was the independence they had built for themselves. They all ran successful companies that focused on helping people. This allowed them to lead fulfilling and interesting lives. That, to me, was the American dream come true.
What I’ll miss the most about Replica Power is working with my customers. A couple of years ago around February, I got on the phone with a woman who was trying to decide what to get her boyfriend for Valentine’s day. She ended up choosing a replica of Gimli’s battle helmet from Lord of the Rings. She was concerned that the shipping she’d pay for wouldn’t get her the helmet on time. I upgraded the shipping at no extra charge and she thanked me profusely. She then wrote an e-mail to my “manager” explaining how helpful I’d been. That short, thoughtful e-mail made me happy for days.
Then, last month, when I thought no one cared about Replica Power anymore, I received this letter in the mail from a boy named Justin from Madera, CA.
I am always going on your website and saving pictures of your wands to just dream. I love your work you have an amazing gift. I have always begged my parents for them to buy me McGonagall’s wand and sadly, they won’t 
. And is the wand of Grindelwald just a stick, because that’s what it looks like (no offense).
I really like the constructive input he gives me on Grindelwald’s wand. Justin doesn’t know I don’t make the Harry Potter wands myself, but that’s not the point. The point is that a young boy in California used to check my website regularly to “just dream”. To just dream! That’s invaluable to me.
At the end of the letter, Justin politely asks if I can send him McGonagall’s wand because he can’t afford one right now. No worries Justin, I got you covered.
As I’m powering down Replica Power, I can’t help but think that this experiment could have been much, much more. Out of no where, I would get calls from TV shows like Deadliest Warrior and 30 Rock because they urgently needed to get one of my products. I sold a helmet to Deadliest Warrior but I didn’t call back the lady from 30 Rock on time (also, I can’t imagine what they needed). I was regularly approached by manufacturers from India and China that wanted to work with me. I got invitations to go to trade shows in Shanghai.
But no, I’m starting my first job in two weeks and I want to devote all my creative energy into that. It pays to know when to say no.
Lastly, there is only one thing that bugs me about the whole experience. All this time, I was extremely secretive about this personal project. This is the first time that I’m publicly attaching my name to Replica Power. The only people that knew about it before were my immediate family members and my closest friends. Everyone else was on a need-to-know basis.
I don’t know why I didn’t want to tell anyone. Was it that I wasn’t proud of my work? Would I feel vulnerable? Judged? Legally liable? I don’t know what it was but it was not a good feeling. From now on, everything I do will have my name on it. No more fear.
This post was much longer than I intended it to be. It has much more detail than you ever cared to know but I wrote this more for me than for you. It’s difficult to say goodbye to something you’ve done for four years.
