“You are going where ?” How to run a booming business from the other side of the world
New Zealand views with Thomas Jacquart family @jacquart
“We either win or learn”
Thomas Jacquart is the founder of www.BDfugue.com, a growing, profitable French e-commerce website selling new and second-hand comic books and Japanese manga. It is France’s No. 1 specialized bookstore, and the third largest online comic book retailer after Amazon and Fnac (a leading cultural goods retailer). After three decades in the digital sector in France and England (including stints as head of marketing and product development at efinancialcareers), Jacquart moved to New Zealand. “My wife is from New Zealand and we wanted our girls to know their other country and spend time with their kiwi family.” They arrived just before the first wave of Covid hit in March 2020.
I spoke to Thomas about how – from nearly 20,000 kilometres away – he has managed his team, 70,000 B2C clients, suppliers and logistics.
1 - You launched your e-commerce niche website in 2010 despite the growing domination of Amazon in the book industry. Why did you make such a bold bet in a competitive and low-margin industry ? What was your North Star KPI at the outset?
Coming from a job-board narrowly specialized in banking and finance, I understood the power of niche. Back in 2010, the books market was totally monopolized by Amazon and Fnac, but there was no online comic bookstore. At the same time, comics stores were thriving offline. I thought there was an opportunity there.
I understood the power of niche
BD Fugue a Comics ecommerce site
We also benefited from specific rules and regulations. A law was passed in 1981 stipulating that every player in the book-selling industry – online or off – has to sell their products at the same price. Outside of the Anglo-saxon sphere, similar laws are in force in another 20 countries around the world. Yes, it’s a low margin industry, but that margin is fully protected since the price is the same for everyone. No one can offer discounts or do any dumping.
As for a ‘north star’ KPI, I it has changed as our business matured. To start, we were focused on growing customer registrations and orders. The key variable was sustainable visitors’ growth, so I pulled out the stops to attract audience (including paid ads on Google and Facebook). I realized that we would run out of cash if growth was the only KPI.
Five years in, we shifted our focus to profitability. We relied on organic growth, trusting that good service would bring new customers. We stopped the Google/Facebook ads, started a high-quality newsletter, and increased content production for long-term SEO. The outside world – suppliers and financial partners – judged us on our growth, but we never lost sight of the fact that our goal was profitability. And for that, we needed customer retention. Getting people to order once is an achievement, but the key is to get them to reorder.
We are now considering the Net Promoter Score as the new North Star because it seems the best criteria to fuel both retention and acquisition.
2 - You relocated 18,500 kilometers from your HQ in Annecy. What challenges had you prepared for?
“It’s all about managing expectations — with employees, stakeholders and clients (or users). I confronted the challenges head-on and communicated about them:”
In November 2019, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced to his stakeholders and the world that he would henceforth spend six months of the year in Africa. His plans were derailed, of course, by the pandemic, so we’ll never know how that might have played out. But I believe that such an arrangement can work. It’s all about managing expectations — with employees, stakeholders and clients (or users). In my case, I confronted the challenges head-on and communicated about them:
Time difference - Being on the other side of the planet is not really a problem, but the 12-hour time difference could have been. From the get-go, it was obvious I had to align my day with French hours as much as possible. I generally work from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. NZ time. I’ll spend the afternoon with my family, and go back to work after dinner, from 9 p.m. until 2 a.m.. That means I am connected with my team for two-thirds of their day, which is enough. So far, its working well.
I hold regular meetings with shareholders. I am also doing more frequent reportings – every month (rather than quarterly), a one-pager that explains what was achieved and what comes next. Even those least enthusiastic about my move have been convinced that it has not negatively impacted the company.
A key stakeholder is my wife. The golden rule is that family time is sacred, and it was the basis for my wife accepting this arrangement. I am 100% with the family from the time the children finish school around 3 pm until the dinner. We spend a lot of time together in the afternoon and no one is frustrated.
Managing remotely - The question hanging over my relocations was this: how would I continue to support them and not make them feel left behind? It is Important to show them that I am not on holiday – we’ re all on the job, and working side-by-side, albeit virtually.
Before I left, I talked to everyone and everyone reported to me. But I now have a manager leading the team, which has strengthened the organizational structure. I still have daily chats on some specific topics, but most operational issues are better managed by someone on site.
Stay focused - To keep the team focused, we have company-level KPIs. But Covid forced adjustments in the face of new challenges, such as some distributors closing down. Our goal become lowering delivery time – which had tripled, posing a threat to customer satisfaction – as much as possible. In addition, each employee has individual KPI, reviewed monthly.
3 - COVID hit hard in March 2020. What unexpected challenges did you face, and how did you cope?
On the positive side for a digital business, the Covid crisis forced everyone to work remotely with digital collaborative tools. I couldn’t do the quarterly visits back to France that I had planned, but I was always online just like everyone else.
We were in emergency mode, fighting to deliver and to make sure our customers would stay with us
On the challenging side, we had to deal with a lot of uncertainties – like waiting for the government to decide whether the comics industry could continue to operate! When the government finally laid down the conditions under which part of the industry could maintain operations, our single focus was keeping the business going. It was a daily fight to get the orders and serve them in a reasonable time.
At one point, our delivery logistics partner closed. We scrambled to find multiple, smaller delivery partners without knowing if they, in turn, would be able to stay open. Negotiating contracts and connecting our databases quickly with new delivery partners was a real challenge. We were in emergency mode, fighting to deliver and to make sure our customers would stay with us.
There was a silver lining for us. As we rebuilt our logistics, two-digit sales growth quickly became three-digit growth. People in confinement read a lot more to kill time. We had to monitor servers load capacity, and our client service team dealt with growing order volume and impatient clients.
Business Case : How to manage 20,000 kilometers from home
Need : Communications system that will allow me to manage my teams from a time zone 12-hours removed
Plan
Concretely I set up three types of exchanges via different channels of communication, each serving a different purpose:
- 24/7 continuous google chat – The team puts all its points in the chat, and I respond whenever I can
- Daily 30-minute video call – I conference with the team at 10 a.m. their time to deal with the points that could not be treated by the chat
- Weekly 45 min one-to-one meetings – With key personnel to evaluate what had been done and focus on upcoming priorities
Analysis : what worked, and didn’t work
It worked well, and the most important meeting was the daily 30 min video call because it reminded everyone that I was still there for them. However, the set up was probably not sustainable in the long-run. Remote management has limitations. In the end, a team – especially a young one – needs to be in face-to-face contact with its leader. I had set myself a maximum time of a year with a quaterly visit.
4- Any changes in the last year from a team management or personal growth perspective?
I am very happy and proud to have been able to overcome the challenges and work remotely. At the same time, I wouldn’t recommend the choice I made to anyone.
Working remotely with extreme hours wears you down bit by bit. Continuing to manage a young team from far away wouldn’t have be possible for much longer. In the end, you need to be close to your team. We had agreed on a one-year experiment, and now that is completed. Being a manager is about demonstrating the best possible behavior and reinforcing the company’s culture. That’s how you boost performance. The team needs regular face-time with their manager.
5- What do you do to give to others outside of your work and family time ?
As an entrepreneur, I love sharing my experience, I am a guest lecturer in a Masters program in marketing. Transmitting what I have learned to others is a driving value for me. Teaching also forces me to stay up-to-date with new approaches to marketing and helps me consolidate my knowledge. This is extremely valuable as we rarely have the time to reflect. Setting aside time from work to discuss and exchange with students is like a sanctuary for me. I also love being in contact with students to see the evolution from one generation to the next. And there’s network building too.
6- What is your favorite quote and why ?
Nelson Mandela said, “We either win or we learn”.
We must step back from any experience, whether defeat or victory. Defeat, in fact, can be another form of victory if we learn from it. We tend to overestimate ourselves in a victory and underestimate ourselves in a defeat. For the year of Covid, it might be tempting to claim victory because we so dramatically boosted sales, but in reality, we only reacted to a health crisis.
