Onboarding project | Wherehouse.io

Wherehouse.io - Overview

Product and Company insights

A detailed call with the founder of wherehouse.io to understand company stage, product roadmap, customer segments and more

Wherehouse.io was built on the hypothesis to create warehousing tech infrastructure that competes with marketplaces for D2C and omni channel brands. It aims to become the AWS of warehousing giving complete control and visibility to users.

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Wherehouse.io generally caters to two types of consumer brand segments currently

Brands that need a offline trade partner
Purely D2C brand

The top acquisition channel for both of these are referrals and warm leads through network

The focus for this project is solely D2C brands and their onboarding journey.

Referrals happen organically through WOM by network founders or other investor portfolio company.

Warm leads and reach outs happens while curating startups that are most suitable stage for wherehouse.io to cater where the founder himself is heavily involved.

Reach outs happen over Email/LinkedIn/WA

Customer concentration for Wherehouse.io( In order )

F & B (50%)
Apparel
CPG

Stage wise concentration

Growth stage 65% - Series A / 50CR ARR
Late Stage : 20%
Early Stage : 10%

Sales Funnel

Sales funnel is personalised and offline heavy
Use of google sheets mostly for all funnel tracking

Onboarding Flow:
1. Book a call
2. Understand the startup and their needs
3. How wherehouse.io can help them
4. Demo of tech infra
5. Demo of warehouses
6. Commercials
7. Agreements

All this happens over email/WA and phone calls

Customer Drop offs

Where do most people drop - commercials
Mismatch between nature of operations to be catered
Warehouse accessbility in a certain geography

On boarding process is intentionally not automated

Drop offs post usage

1. Warehouse operational side hiccups - very rare
2. Market conditions
3. Brands that grow from one stage to another - large scale volumes

Defining ICP
Total of 3 users calls done

	ICP 1: Pre-PMF Startup	ICP 2: Growth Stage	ICP 3 : Early Scaling
Title	Business Manager	Operations Manager	Founder
Age Range	25-30	30 - 35	30-35
Education	Graduate in commerce	Graduate in Tech	NA
Warehousing products used before	Amazon FBA	NA	Local service
Key Responsibilities (filtered by relevance)	Automate warehouses ops and efficiency	Manage, automate and scale all operations efficiently	Handling overall operations and growth
Role in Decision Making	Decision Maker, Influencer	Decision Maker	Decision Maker
Tech-savviness	9/10	8/10	9/10
Motivation: Innovate or Reduce Risk	To innovate at a fast speed	Reduce Risk	Reduce Risk
Vertical	D2C /vertical E commerce	F&B Brand	CPG - Oral Care
Annual Revenue	>3 Million	<10 million	NA
Total no. of employees	4	>50	26
Operations Team Size	No dedicated team for ops	2	2
Locations	Remote, (All manufacturing happens at Pune)	Gurgaon	Mumbai
Time v/s money	Time	Both	Time
Technologies used	Amazon Seller Central, Shopify, FirstCry Seller, Slack , Notion, Google Sheets	Shopify, GoSwift, Unicommerce	Shopify, Shiprocket
Goals for the next 3 months	NA
What are they hiring the product for?	Automate inventory management, order processing, RTOs, Analytics on Shipping, central order processing and inventory management dashboard ,	Outsourcing the warehouse management and operations system, Automated Batch processing based on FIFO for inventory due to shorter shelf life of product.	Outsource on-ground warehouse management to platforms that depth in experience
Solutions they tried before using the product	Amazon FBA	Used Wherehouse as the first product	Local Service Provider
What did you not like about the solution	Costly, only solved for one use case - marketplace	On -ground warehouse operational level problem - hiccups in smooth order processing	On- ground operational service issues
Core problems faced	Finding and selecting a warehouse	Dealing with the dicey nature of labour required in a self-owned and operated warehouse	Not having enough customer support and efficient warehouse management with 3PL providers who also provide WMS but its not their core focus
Solutions implemented	None	Outsourcing complete warehouse operations to a 3P WMS provider	Using a standalone WMS provider
Budget for such tools	15,000 - 20,000 per month	Depends on no of units moved per day	20,000 per month
Features that are critical for your business	Order syncing, missed orders auto sync, inventory dashboard, auto AWB links generation, delivery partner and sales channel integrations	Order processing, inbounds and outbounds, Inventory Trail	Order processing, inbound and outbounds, fulfilment, inventory trail and integrations
Features that you use the most	Order creations, Inventory Trail, order exports,	Order processing, inbounds and outbounds, inventory trail	Same as above
3 Things that could have improved/been better	Central inventory management, central order processing, Central tracking system for all marketplaces, reverse integration with Shopify	Efficiency of on-ground warehouse service, RTOs automations and integrations on DB, Tech infra that can support the high scale the brand is aiming	Seller Flex labelled warehouses (equivalent to Amazon FBA) Analytics Dashboard
Frequency	Daily	Daily	Daily
Product Retention	High Retention, difficult to switch , User for 10 months	High, difficult to witch , user for 2 years	High, user for 1 . 5 Years

Understanding user goals with JTBD

ICP	Functional Goal	Financial Goal
ICP 1	Automate the order processing (creation, dispatch, track, return) Better visibility on my inventory Levels Get easy access to cloud warehouses to increase storage capacity	1.Save money by decreasing The need of on ground staff for warehouse management
ICP 2	Achieve warehouse ops efficiency	Help logistics become a cost saver to boost channel margins
ICP 3	Make end to end fulfilment a customer delight	Help logistics become a cost saver to boost channel margins

ICP

Functional Goal

Financial Goal

ICP 1

Automate the order processing
(creation, dispatch, track, return)
Better visibility on my inventory
Levels
Get easy access to cloud warehouses
to increase storage capacity

1.Save money by decreasing

The need of on ground staff
for warehouse management

ICP 2

Achieve warehouse ops efficiency

Help logistics become a cost
saver to boost channel margins

ICP 3

Make end to end fulfilment a customer
delight

Help logistics become a cost
saver to boost channel margins

User Validation and Motivation

ICP	Why did they signup?	What was their expected Outcome?	Major Concerns	Why did they choose Wherehouse.io
ICP 1	To help scale orders per day by using an automated warehousing management system which streamlines the process for us	Easy shipment, tracking and visibility over order management system	1.Lack of crucial integrations in the plans chosen. 2. Some level of manual intervention is still required.	Recommended by ex PlayVerse Employee
ICP 2	1.Founder to Founder - warm connect 2.Outsource warehouse ops to focus on more imp business outcomes	Reduce the need of having a self- operated warehouse battling labour issues and automate Warehouse Ops	Less confidence on tech and ops infra to handle large scale movements	Founder to Founder Warm Connect
ICP 3	1.Founder to Founder - connect 2.Bring efficiency at warehouse ops	Reduce the need of having a self- operated warehouse and automate Warehouse Ops	Lack of analytics and Seller Flex Warehouses	Founder Network

Onboarding Teardown

Wherehouse.io __ Onboarding.pdf

Defining Activation Hypothesis and metrics

Who will be called an activated user?

Activation Metric 1

Number of inventory batches being dispatched by the user to cloud warehouses per month

Hypothesis : Sending inventory is the key to getting started on using Wherehouse.io as a WMS leading to early signals of retention and activation. Sending repeat no. of inventory batches simply signals the user is getting from the platform what is expected and wishes to continue on the product

Details : The user onboarding journey, aha moments and all feature usage is dependent on and starts with sending inventory to a cloud warehouse. As ICP is using the product as an outsourced cloud warehouse - the fuel to warehouses are inventory.

Activation Metric 2

3 Sales Channel integrated within 7 days of signup

Hypothesis : Wherehouse.io aims to become the preferred choices of warehousing solutions for the D2C brands. The ICP is selling through 3 different channels on the minimum. Hence choosing wherehouse.io as the WMS for my crucial sales channel will lead to retention and activation

Details : Wherehouse.io should aim to capture all warehousing needs required for particular sales channels for D2C Brands under it. This helps in twofold ways : The network of cloud warehouses catering per sales channels increase , and it gives wherehouse.io the input on what are the crucial sales channel integration it must have .

Activation Metric 3

3 Third Party Logistics Partner integrated within 7 days of sign up

Hypothesis : Wherehouse.io aims to become the preferred choices of warehousing solutions for the D2C brands. The ICP is selling through 3 different channels on the minimum. The customer delight for the brands' user happens only if the product is shipped correctly, fastly and to most no of locations.
Hence finding and integrating crucial shipping partners will lead to retention and activation.

Details : Wherehouse.io should aim to capture all warehousing needs required for particular sales channels for D2C Brands under it. Shipping and warehousing are like brothers from another mother and they work in tandem. User will always want to have more than 1 3PL partner to act as failsafe for any of its cloud warehouse.

Activation Metric 4

No of RTO escalation requests raised per 100 orders dispatched

Hypothesis :
The lesser the no of RTO escalation requests , higher the activation and retention

Details : ICP is treating wherehouse.io as an outsourced WMS while still having full control over the operations. A good no of activation per user is dependent on the qualitative aspect of on-ground service quality at the warehouse level. Most common problems are regarding RTO Escalations for D2C Brands i.e reason of return for a product. SOPs breaking at the warehouse level indicate the inefficiency of WMS.

Activation Metric 5

No. of TAT breaches per day

Hypothesis :
The lesser the no of TAT Breaches, higher the activation and retention

Details : Following SLAs and SOPs of sales channel is crucial for any D2C Brand. Turn around time for each order must be followed and shipped accordingly on a daily basis. TAT Breaches simply signals inefficiency of warehouse ops.

Metrics to Track for Onboarding flow

D30, D60 and D90 retention
Custom Integration feature request per user
New warehouses requests per user
Orders successfully processed per day
Inventory trail reports downloaded per month per brand
Avg TAT per order per brand
Avg time between onboarding agreement and shipping 1 order from warehouse i.e Avg time to go live on platform
Inventory inward per month
AWB Links generated
Avg delivery cost per order
Avg RTO cost per RTO order
Acquisition source analysis
No of integrations done per user
Calls done to warehouses ops team per day
Customer Order personalization request per user
Referral done to other founders per user