1. Tell Your Story: Maria believes that behind every successful business is a story that resonates with customers. By sharing her story about the challenges of managing her father’s estate after his passing, she connected with people who ended up being some of her first customers.
2. Know Your Demographic: Every aspect of a business should be tailored to the target demographic. Understanding that Nokbox’s customer base are 50-70+ year olds, Maria focuses on a personal, hands-on customer experience to meet their needs and expectations.
3. Explore Business Partnerships: Maria recommends exploring business partnerships to establish relationships that complement the product and/or service you are selling.
4. Stop Fixating on Money: Maria doesn’t believe that one needs to raise millions of dollars of funding to start a business. If your idea and product are good, put it out there and people will respond.
5. Don’t Be Afraid to Pivot: Launching an E-Commerce business is full of challenges, both expected and unexpected. Maria used challenges as an opportunity to learn, pivot, and move her business forward.
When Founder Maria Fraietta posted the box that she used to organize her father’s estate after he passed away on a local Facebook page, she had no idea that her system would be at the center of a 30-million-dollar business 4 years later. Learn how Maria and Nokbox are connecting with customers, helping many navigate the logistical challenges that come with the passing of a loved one.
Meet Maria Fraietta, Founder of Nokbox!
The Nokbox is a system to organize your entire life, both physical and digital, so that your next of kin can manage your home, your pets, your possessions and your finances once you are gone. It's made up of 66 different folders, and in each folder is a check sheet. On one side, it tells you what to toss into the folder. On the other hand, it helps the NOK keep that item managed and accounted for. It's a system you can set up at any age--it's designed to use your whole life long.
When Maria’s father passed away, she and her brothers were left with managing his small estate. “We realized it was actually a very difficult task to do, so we created a little system to do it,” she remembers. “It was very simple – a box and folders with some directions we had given ourselves.” Within six months, they had managed her father’s assets with everything in order.
The experience prompted Maria to reexamine her own situation as a single parent. She had her will and trust set up but hadn’t given any thought to how someone would manage her ‘life’ if she was not able to. “They would have no clue where to begin,” she says and goes on to list questions about paying bills, house keys, and her daughter’s school. “All those details that people don’t think of. I realized there’s a huge need for this.”
Talking with others, Maria realized this is a universal problem that most adult children, spouses, and partners deal with at some point in life. She didn’t start the path to founding Nokbox with intention. Rather, she thought selling her formulated system on Etsy would help others facing loss while trying to manage the specifics of a loved one’s ‘life’ now that they were no longer there. After posting on the box on a local Facebook page, the response was immediate - Maria received 100 inquiries. Armed with bags from the local office supply store, she and 20 high school students hunkered down in her living room to fulfill that first round of orders.
E-Commerce and its potential to reach many people very quickly is very exciting to Maria. In fact, it was by sharing her personal story (along with the practical aspects entangled in someone passing away) on a small Facebook page in Littleton, Co that allowed her to use Nokbox to build community and ultimately connect with potential customers. “We kept sharing the story until it was nationwide. All those people heard it and responded to it, because everyone can relate to this problem,” she adds.
Operating from a private office in a shared workspace,the team at Nokbox is composed of 5 core members who are supported by independent contractors and vendors. The tight-knit, friendly spirit that started Nokbox continues to be an integral part of company culture. “It’s pretty simple,” Maria says while mentioning that their email marketing manager, who was also her sorority sister in college, works as a high school chemistry teacher by day.
CX Philosophy and Understanding Target Demographic
Nokbox understands the importance of being there for customers throughout their entire journey. Maria notes that their core demographic, which consists of 50 to 70+ year olds, makes them “mindful of technology.” She elaborates, “We try to make our website as user-friendly as possible, and we don’t use bots to answer questions.” And because grief’s timeline doesn’t have a definite beginning and end, a post-purchase Facebook page has been set up for customers to join. “We hear their stories all the time,” Maria says, noting that the group has 11,000 members. “We have a coach there. She supports them. We really try to take care of customers because of the nature of the product, and the processes that they will have to go through.”
When Going the Extra Mile for a Customer Pays Off
Some customers find Nokbox after unexpectedly losing a spouse or partner. Maria remembers a woman in her 40s with 3 children who, after losing her husband, was trying to make sense of the obligations (paying the bills, mortgage, car inspection) she was now facing. “She just didn’t have that information because they each took on different roles in the household.” Making an in-person visit that lasted 8 hours, Maria walked step-by-step with the woman, helping her to itemize and organize every aspect of ‘life’ into a Nokbox. “That was a great customer story. Since then, she has told 50 people about our product,” Maria adds.
Using Zoom to Educate Customers
Educating customers about its product is a key priority for Nokbox. Eschewing rigid online tutorials and automated responses to questions, the company holds online Zoom classes, offering about 5 each month. Maria notes that the classes are very popular with around 80 people in each one. “We walk through every folder, so people are educated and ready to approach the task more easily.”
The combination of low production/overhead costs, a simple product, and servicing a real need allowed Nokbox to be profitable right out of the gate. Despite immediate success, Maria continues to invest in her business to ensure future growth. “It has easily scaled itself,” she says. “Generating a profit meant that we could buy more (and better) materials and make more goods.” That Nokbox isn’t a technology-based product works to its advantage – no investment in research and development is required.
Business Strategies and Challenges in an International E-Commerce Space
Maria is honest about her journey as an E-Commerce entrepreneur admitting that she was often “responding and learning along the way.” She gives an example, “Oh, we need to use Shopify? It has since become our best tool.” Realizing that runs to the local office supply store wouldn’t suffice, Maria began sourcing products from overseas. She’s anticipating major challenges to business from the recent tariffs. What happens with Tiktok and Meta could also impact Nokbox. “We do a lot of marketing on Meta and there isn’t a lot of competition there right now,” she reveals while pointing out that “TikTok is a great competitor for Ad space for us. There’s uncertainty and we are curious to see what will happen in the next few weeks.”
How Nokbox Plans for Peak Season
Maria was admittedly surprised to see Nokbox’s sales spike during the holiday season from October all the way through January. It makes sense though – this is a time when families get together, triggering more serious conversations about managing households and planning ahead. Maria also believes that the product pairs well with the New Year’s resolution mindset ‘I’m going to get my life together.’ After the 4th of July, another family focused holiday, is also a busy period for Nokbox.
“We do believe this product should be a household name,” Maria says. Nokbox is working on bundling its product and partnering with companies in the ‘estate planning’ sphere. “We complement our partners, the financial planners, insurance agents, and lawyers, we don’t compete with them. We just support their jobs and make their clients’ lives easier.” While considering digital options, Maria underscores Nobox’s value in keeping important documents and information in a physical place for customers to readily access and manage.
Maria wants to dispel the notion that one needs a ton of money to start a business. Drawing from her own experience, she believes that you just need to make a product or offer a service that addresses a real need people are having in their lives. In sum, if you have a good idea, just get it out there and people will respond.
Can’t-live-without-tool? Our Shopify website. We are all in there 1,000 times a day it feels like. And this may sound silly, but I use my Nokbox every single day to keep my life organized. And being incredibly organized feels like the only way that I can keep running this company.
Key hiring trait? Currently, we’re looking for people who can help bridge the gap between what we have going now with what we may want to do with technology down the road. We’re also interested in people who can help us expand into other countries, which is a goal at some point. Ultimately, we are looking for people who can help us grow, who have creative ideas and skills to keep us pushing forward. We’re amateurs and are at a point nearly 4 years in to have some highly skilled professionals join us.
Favorite E-Commerce Thought Leader? Speaking more to our product rather than E-Commerce, I think of Marie Kondo. I use her method of ‘cleaning up’ all the time, even in rapid fire decisions – we don’t love that anymore, it’s gone. But it’s not just about your clothes. Thinking about what’s important, what’s essential. This is what we are working with in our office, our management systems. Anything that is extra or unnecessary needs to go. Marie Kondo’s principals are important for running a business.
Recent Book or Podcast? I listen to ‘How I Built This’ with Guy Raz all the time. I love to learn about other founders and their experiences. It’s interesting to see how I relate to their challenges. As a solopreneur, it is helpful to hear other people’s stories.
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