Get to know: bloomRail
Simplifying scaled growth for Amazon Sellers.
Meet Allen Rogers and Will Hunt - brothers-in-law and founders of bloomRail and members of the Lighthouse Labs Fall 2021 cohort!
The Quick Hits
Founders:
Allen Rogers
Will Hunt
HQ: Richmond, VA
Industry: Information Technology & Services
The elevator pitch: bloomRail is an e-commerce SaaS provider, focused on automation, optimization, and scaling for online sellers. bloomRail’s mission is to create sustainable, long-term growth for users with their best-in-class Inventory Analytics software and services.
What inspired you to found bloomRail?
Helping online sellers, pure and simple. There are a lot of them, and they all seem to need help of some kind. The ability for us to work independently and provide opportunities to these online sellers led to us founding bloomRail.
How did your team meet and how do you divide and conquer?
Our wives are sisters so we knew each other for years. Coming from Amazon, Allen knows e-commerce well and helps provide direction and business domain knowledge as well as leads operations and design. I, Will, shore up the tech side of things and handle development.
What do you hope to get out of Lighthouse and acceleration?
We look forward to working on a sound messaging strategy, receiving help with execution, and gaining users (traction) in order to be in a good position to raise capital for growth. We also hope to receive help with marketing and sales best practices and strategy as well as fundraising strategy support during our time with Lighthouse.
“Weeks 1 & 2 have been a whirlwind, but we’re so grateful to Lighthouse Labs RVA for the opportunity to learn and grow with Cohort 11. Check this group out— there are some true All-Stars””
What have been the most exciting moments of your entrepreneurial journey thus far?
Getting our first client, getting angel investment, launching our initial website, having a working beta of our product, and selling our first subscription were all extremely exciting moments for us!
Other great moments for us include getting our first unsolicited trial signup and hitting targets while moving through the development process. Positive feedback from clients always makes a day good as well.
What is your personal approach to entrepreneurship?
“Be helpful and do good work.”- Allen Rogers
“I look at it both internally and externally. Having been employee #30 of a small business years ago, I loved the culture there and hated to watch it slowly disappear as the business got sold, then merged with another, and maybe even another after that. I'm not sure how many times it happened because I stopped caring. But I had liked caring, and feeling invested. I want our future employees to feel the same. I'd like to express and maintain similar values with our external relationships.
In a way a large number of our potential clients are like us - small businesses, trying to find efficiencies and ways to grow, and we want to help them with that in any way that we can. I would love for our brand to express and demonstrate values like these.”- Will Hunt
What founders or companies do you admire?
“At an enterprise level, I've admired Apple for being a (generally) well-principled company that does things in a way that they deem to be 'right.' At a smaller, somewhat local level, I've always kept half an eye on James Clay, who founded BimmerWorld. It's been decades now that he's managed to turn a passion into a successful company that still supports and interacts with the grassroots of where it came from.”- Will Hunt
“Cart.com, Flowspace, BoxedUp, CloudBees, Shopify”- Allen Rogers
How can we connect with and support bloomRail?
You can check out our website and reach out if you or someone you may know may be interested in supporting sustainable long-term growth for e-commerce sellers! We are also looking to reach customers who will try our product and give us feedback.
“Having been employee #30 of a small business years ago, I loved the culture there and hated to watch it slowly disappear as the business got sold, then merged with another, and maybe even another after that. I’m not sure how many times it happened because I stopped caring.
But I had liked caring, and feeling invested. I want our future employees to feel the same.”
