Interview with James Chillcott on ShelfLifeX

Hey, this is Steve Blum, and you are listening

to the Geekcast Radio Network. Hello and welcome

to this special GeekCast radio interview. I'm

your host Steve Megatron Phillips and joining

me today is the creator of the website ShelfLifeX

.com, James Chilcott. Hello James. Hey everybody,

how are you? Good, good. And before we get started,

why don't you go ahead and tell everybody a little

bit about your background and basically before

you got up to the point of shelf life? Sure,

fair enough. So I spent the last 10 years running

a web design and development agency here in Toronto,

Canada, working with clients of all types and

doing a little bit of work with the toy and design

industry on a regular basis. And through that,

really developed my love and passion for collectibles.

My living room is full of just as many date health

cases as yours probably is. There's a ton of

Transformers over here, some 3A Ashley Wood stuff,

a whole bunch of vintage G .I. Joe, Star Wars,

some Masters of the Universe, got a bunch of

vinyl framed and hung on the wall. Rare lithos

and prints, pretty sweet Black Keys poster we

picked up at Coachella this spring, and it needs

to be framed in the corner. Like the rest of

us, I'm always looking for... the sexiest new

thing that's on the market that is going to fit

into my collection. I've spent too many years

wondering when there was going to be an amazing

new site just for collectors and finally we got

fed up and decided we were going to do it ourselves.

What is the concept or idea behind Shelf Life?

The most basic concept is that we're trying to

give collectors the best damn site they've ever

seen. And how that really plays out in real terms

is that we're trying to, from a primary perspective,

replace eBay completely and just put a much better

technology stack up that is custom to the needs

of collectors, that focuses on their haves and

wants and the pricing that they want to achieve

and rolls up a lot of the price aggregation opportunities

from across the web to give them a complete picture

of what their options are. And largely when we're

talking to people about it, we talk about it

being some kind of mix between eBay, Wikipedia,

and Facebook because it's not just a marketplace.

Shelf Life is largely driven by the class of

users we call curators. Curators are like Wikipedia

editors and they take on a catalog at a time,

use their product. Knowledge and usually extreme

product knowledge is as super fans to fill out

all the relevant details And we're talking about

everything from release date to the MSRP and

we track You know, what's really special at Shelf

Life is we track every product down to the parts

level. So we don't just know that there's an

Optimus Prime. We know that he has 27 parts.

We know that there was variance on three or four

of those parts. And we make it really easy to

manage your entire collection by tracking all

of those parts, the condition and the completion

level of every product that you put into your

collection. And then what we've been working

on for most of the second half of the summer

is adding a huge social tool set to shelf life

so that collectors can create circles of trust,

they can connect to other like -minded collectors

so that they can have a special advantage of

being able to interrelate their collections and

find out who they know or who knows who they

know that can get them a good deal on something

or hook them up. We're building out a some really

cool stuff. We're calling the collector dashboard

and collector score That's still under wraps,

but will be unveiled in about four to six weeks.

Oh awesome so how will your your Explain how

the the the matches with the buyers and sellers

kind of works with Yep, the website. Yeah, I

mean to really fully Understand the power of

that you have to kind of go back to what eBay

is all about eBay is this massive website with

millions of users and millions of listings, but

that's just it. They only have listings. eBay

has no idea what we're actually buying and selling.

All they do is relate listings via keyword search,

and because of that, they've never been able

to track anything to the parts level. They've

never been able to effectively resolve conflicts

because they don't really know what it is that

we're buying or selling when we're on there.

And that's why everything's always been such

a hassle through PayPal, because the details

of the agreements are always so nebulous from

eBay's perspective. They know you bought an Optimus

Prime, but they don't really know what that means.

They don't know really what the expectation was

or who they can hold to what based on the details

that were in the listing, because the listings

are made one by one by all of us. If 100 of us

are selling something, we create 100 separate

listings, even though it's for the same thing.

Shelf Life changes all of that. So now we have

the curator setting up one central listing for

every product that has perfect information about

that product. And then when you want to buy or

sell it, you can go to that listing and then

fill out the details based on that basic information

set to set up what you're looking for. So maybe

you're just looking for two missing missiles

and a gun. And you can fill that out and set

a perfect set of expectations about the condition

you want to get those three items in and what

you're expecting to pay for it. and we call that

the want -have system. So you can go in and click

the want button and tell us everything you want.

You can go in and click the have button and record

your collection. And then because we're tracking

everything apples to apples, we can then automatically

match buyers and sellers. And there are a million

different ways we can make that pretty exciting.

Nice. And I noticed when I played around with

the site earlier, as I was adding things, they

were coming up asking me, like I was adding things

for my haves list, for instance. I was filling

out all the information and it was kind of cool

seeing how you can set the quality level of every

item or how many of every item you have as far

down as where you purchased it. And then when

you got done with it, it would tell you that

so -and -so wants this particular product at

whatever quality level that you have it at. Yes,

I mean you're getting immediate feedback. We

launched the want -have matching system just

over a week ago and the marketplace itself went

live in July. So we're building out functionality

iteratively and adding new layers all the time

and make the whole process more rewarding from

step to step. So you're getting that instant

feedback now that tells you as soon as you want

or have something, whether somebody else might

be looking for it or has it for you. And if they

don't, then you get to just kick back Um, you

know, like one of the things that's always driven

me crazy about eBay is if I'm not there to kind

of monitor what's going on, then I can't really

participate in the marketplace and I miss out

on things. And especially if you're looking for

something rare, you know, you're trying to find

a lucky time or something like that. That thing

might, might only come up on eBay once a year.

And if you're out at the cottage, when that happens,

you're kind of screwed. But one of the things

we're going to be launching this fall is you're

not only going to be able to get notified, um,

you're going to be able to pre. pay for and put

deposits in on things that you don't even know

where they're going to come from yet. Imagine

how powerful it is to know that there's a new

product line coming out. That line gets announced

at SDCC in late July, and we know it's coming

out in November. A curator gets that catalog

up about a week later, and you can go in and

go, yeah, I want six of the eight figures out

of the first wave of that. I'm willing to pay

this for them. And then what we can do is we

can aggregate that demand. So 450 of us might

put in our wants and prepay 20 % of it. We can

take that then over to a wholesaler and say,

listen, we've got $42 ,000 worth of demand. We

can hand you on a silver platter that isn't going

to cost you anything in terms of marketing expenses.

And it's going to smooth out your inventory management

profile because you don't need to think too hard

about what you need to bring in stock and how

much it's going to sell because we're going to

tell you exactly and we're going to do it upfront.

Then the idea there is that we would lead into

a group on or living social type purchasing situation

where the wholesaler might give the entire team

5 % off and ship everything together so that

we get those six figures all in one box. You

pay a little less than you would have paid for

them at retail and everybody's happy. That is

very, very cool. It's been a lot of work and

this is a huge project. We've got something like

4 ,500 programming hours down the well and we're

running a pretty top -tier team that handles

Ruby on Rails and MongoDB and the end result

is a really clean, efficient, smooth operating

site that almost never has bugs and that has

a hot new functionality that we roll out about

every two weeks. Yeah, that's definitely way,

way better sounding than eBay or any of these

other sites that I've been due to purchase product.

As far as as far as your catalog I noticed that

there are a lot of things missing obviously because

it's still in its kind of infancy So it's it's

based on independent people coming in posting

all that information Yeah for older or newer

catalogs. It's based on curators So the faster

we can spread the word amongst collectors that

there is this amazing new home for all of us

and to recruit more curators, the faster the

catalogs will get built out. It's the nature

of the beast. No team in Startup Land is going

to be able to handle the millions of products

we've got to get into this system. And so what

we came up with was this really great way of

getting the community involved by letting the

same people that are moderators and power users

on the various fan boards to come on board, take

on a responsibility to fill out a catalog for

their favorite product line. you know, call it

Transformers Prime or Generations or whatever

you want. And to fill out all the detail on that,

it usually takes somewhere between 2 hours and

10 hours depending on, you know, how extensive

the catalog is. And then the benefit is, you

know, a Wikipedia editor gets nothing. A shelf

life curator gets 25 % of the fees that are charged

on the catalogs that they set up. So right now

that means practically nothing because the volume

of activity in the marketplace is still relatively

low. But as we start growing and really ramping

up activity and we get hundreds of thousands

of users in this system, that's going to be a

fairly meaningful amount of cash that you can

then reinvest into your collection if you helped

build up the site. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's very

cool. That gives a lot of incentive to people

to come help out. Yeah, I mean, typically what

we see is we get curators that come on board.

Roughly half of them will get a few things done

and run out of time. A few guys will get one

or two catalogs done and then we get the, you

know, Top 20 % creme de la creme of Curator Land

will put together 400 or 500 products before

they run out of steam. And it really helps build

up the site. I mean, we've got 50 ,000 products

up there already. Huge swaths of the action figure

realm. We're starting to build out all the video

games. So all the Xbox 360 games ever made are

up there now. We're just about to get the PlayStation

3 stuff live. Working on a pretty cool system

that's going to pull in In an automated way without

curator assistance every Lego piece ever made.

Oh wow, just like 60 ,000 entries We're pulling

in Every magic the gathering card ever made pretty

soon. We just worked out the code for that the

other day and and so, you know through a combination

of smart programming and and curator action and

The site gets better and better all the time

So what kind of product will be featured on shelf

life? Ultimately, anything that could be considered

collectible will end up here. So that means that

we're dealing with a really massive site, something

with the same kind of SEO potential as Wikipedia.

Our target is that within three years we'll have

five million pages. So it's going to be a massive,

massive undertaking. But one of the really cool

things that makes every site feel like a smaller

community for the people that are using it is

that you can subscribe at any level of the hierarchy

to information. and updates on that part of the

hierarchy. So if you only care about Transformers

or you only care about GemDolls or you only care

about Xbox games, you can subscribe to that and

it will custom tailor the notifications you get

from our system. It'll custom tailor a personalized

nav for you that shows up on the left side of

the site so that you can get like one -click

access to the catalogs you care about most. It

will custom tailor what media information gets

fed to you when we get the we're gonna be setting

up a media aggregation system that pulls in all

the most relevant news from across the web and

puts it into a neat little like reading list

kind of like an RSS feed and for all of the collectors

that are using the site and The whole idea is

to just centralize all the information so you

have a one -stop shop to get everything you need

Definitely sounds like like a winner on that

whole area That makes me very excited because

I don't like having to Search all over the web

trying to find specific collectible items Exactly,

and I mean one of the other things it's kind

of exciting for in the podcasters and bloggers

and the media figures and stuff that are out

there and running their own properties is that

We're fully inclusive you can go in and if you

find a product that you know you were viewed

You know you did an unboxing or for something

last week You can drop a link to that content

and a title for your content into a product details

page and you get a link back and you enrich content

of that page by sharing your content and information

with the users and putting it alongside the central

listing, which means ultimately all the best

information about that product from all over

the web will all live on a single page. Oh, awesome.

So I know we've talked a little bit about some

of the future functionality, but what do you

see it doing within the next three to five years

in growth and in functionality? Sure, we like

to think things more in three to six months at

a time, because we're moving so fast and getting

so much done. The other thing is to plan out

three to five years in terms of functionality.

We have a general game plan. we know what we

want to launch. But really, we're spending a

lot of time listening to the users. We've got

1 ,200 users already inside the system that have

been helping out with the beta test. They've

got tons of feedback all the time. And we find

that we're adapting, evolving, adjusting our

plans week to week as we see what's working and

not working for the users. I mean, so far, feedback

has been overwhelmingly positive. But there's

always little things that bug people that don't

quite work the way they should have. And we're

very focused on being responsive to that and

showing that this is for collectors by collectors

that we fully understand as collectors who are

active inside our own system and what we're going

to need for this to work perfectly. And nothing's

ever perfect, but it's well worth setting the

goal and then pushing hard and not falling into

that profit slump that eBay does where they know

they've got your money and they just don't care.

I can agree with you on I love the fact that

it's by collectors for collectors instead of

some, like you said, money hungry conglomerate

that doesn't care whether it's one listing or

another. I do. I like the fact that your your

website. Skips all of the massive eBay, skips

the various collector club kind of. hassles,

it helps people that, for instance, like myself,

I'm on a very tight budget as far as what I can

afford and the fact that I'm entering in some

of my wants and haves in there and they're already

kind of popping up in specific price ranges,

it's kind of a nice thing to see. Yeah, it's

just nice to name your price and walk away and

not have to come back on the site all the time

to be trying to track that product down. there's

really no reason it needs to work that way. I

mean, eBay only does it that way because they

know that they have a higher overall yield and

a higher revenue if you're on the site all the

time. And so our premise is that, you know, we

want you on the site all the time too, but we

don't want you on the site doing pointless things.

We want you on the site learning more about more

products, interacting with other collectors,

rating things, you know, flagging things, telling

us, you know, pointing out inaccuracies on product

details pages and really like, you know, functioning

as a Happy healthy community. That's you know

just sharing a passion for the things we love

most And it doesn't it doesn't need to be any

more complicated than that Now do you guys plan

on having? Or I'm not quite sure if you do or

not, but do you guys plan on having apps for

the different portable devices absolutely yeah,

absolutely, so the site already works pretty

good on mobile browsers and but we're putting

together a mobile version of And then probably

in order, it'll be Android, iPhone, and Blackberry,

if Blackberry is still around by the time we

get there, since they're looking a little shaky.

But definitely iPhone and Android for sure later

this fall. and a mobile specific. And the great

thing about our mobile platform is it opens up

whole new opportunities. So I mean, we're really

looking to bridge the gap between collector activity

online and offline and make the whole 50 mile

radius search of your local target and Walmart

a much less painful experience. Because I think

we can all relate to hearing about a $10 deluxe

toy that comes out. and spending an entire Saudi

afternoon dragging our friends and family around

looking for this thing, wasting $30 in gas when

we probably should have just bought the thing

online. So one of the big functionalities on

our mobile apps will be the ability to scan products

directly into your collection by flipping them

upside down and scanning that barcode with the

camera on your phone. And when you do that, you'll

be able to report to Shelflife what store you're

at. and how many of those are still on the shelf

and at what time. The system will automatically

pass that information on to all of the collectors

in your trusted collector circle if they are

within range of those stores. So everybody will

be able to kind of set in their profiles how

far they usually drive to go look for stuff.

And the system will use all of that information

to triangulate and let everybody know if there's

an opportunity to buy it in a store who might

end up being a strategic partner of ours. Toys

R Us is a good example, rather than buying it

on shelf life. Potentially, we might get to the

point where the system can turn collector friends

into low -profit scalpers, where you're sitting

in the store. Whereas normally, in a traditional

model, you would go on to buy a trade thread,

which is utterly haunted by scalpers. The scalper

would show up and clear that shelf before anybody

else got a chance. But if you have limited release

for this information based on your circle of

friends on Shelf Life, then you have the chance

to have six of your buddies' wants automatically

activate and say, hey, while you're there, pick

us all up one, and we'll come pick it up at your

house later instead of having to make the extra

trek over to whatever big box you found the stuff

in. So there's a lot of opportunity to do some

pretty cool stuff that hasn't been, we've all

been leaning on PHP BB message boards for ages.

And the reality is that they just aren't getting

the job done. Well, and hardly anybody uses forums

at this point in time. I mean, I would argue

there's still some pretty strong forum communities.

I mean, Cybertron .com, TFW2005. You're talking

about sites with tens of thousands of users.

True. But yeah, I mean, forums are great for

discussion. They're not great for real -time

commerce. That's not what they were designed

for. It's not their forte. The technology is

here now, ready to be leveraged. The really big

unlocking piece was that we all have these phones

now that are basically magical objects. There's

so many great ways you can leverage that to make

things easier on us. like to kind of pimp out

or that you already haven't or I mean I guess

just to throw some love out at everybody that's

gotten on board early and that's been making

good use of the system you know every collector

that comes on board helps us get a little closer

to the goal so certainly anything any of you

can do to spread the word and tweet us and mention

us on Facebook and we also have an announcement

about our URL and there's been some questions

about why it was shelflifeax .com Simple answer

was dot com was not available. But we picked

up through negotiation a couple weeks ago shelflife

.net. So very shortly that will, our web searches

by name will be working better and shelflife

.net is gonna be the home, future home of shelflife.

We got a lot of great functionality coming up

this fall. All that stuff with mobile and further

upgrades to the automatic matching of buyers

and sellers. And we're putting together a really

cool program called Collector Dashboard that's

going to let you kind of get a vanity URL and

share your collection out to the web. And already

we have form signatures that are auto -generated

that show off parts of your collection and show

what you've got for sale or what you're looking

for. And we're going to be upgrading from that

to the ability to generate entire BST threads

so you can replace your micromanagement of your

text -based buy -sell trade thread with a fully

visual, super pretty and easier to parse visual

output of the parts of your collection you're

looking to sell. And that's all part of our ongoing

efforts to make Shelf Life kind of like the one

central home for your collection data. We're

even going to be integrating with Amazon and

eBay, so you're going to be able to pimp your

stuff out from within Shelf Life to eBay if you

so choose. And you'll have like, no matter where

you end up selling something, it'll Report that

back to your collection on shelf life and make

sure that your collection is automatically updated

So okay lots of great stuff coming down the road

awesome awesome so is there any way that people

can get a hold of you or or Get a hold of everybody

the team of shelf life yeah absolutely I mean

we're we're still small enough that we're taking

people's phone calls if they want to call up

and complain so everyone at shelf life x .com

that's everyone at shelf life x .com is the email

address to sign up as a curator to provide feedback

to ask questions and just generally kind of plug

into the team and make your voice heard because

ultimately we're making this for all of you.

So if you communicate and you tell us what you

want, then there's pretty decent chance you'll

get it. Cool, cool. So we'd like to thank you

once again, James, for taking the time out of

your busy schedule to chat with me this afternoon.

Thank you, Steve. Yep, and we'll be back after

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