We caught up with the brilliant and insightful MIchael Burns a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, MIchael thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I think everyones path is different, but there are certainly some key factors that have come up in each story I have experienced. Most of the successful people I have met in life (and let me first be clear, success can mean many things – besides financial success) have had a clear vision to reaching their goals, and with an obsession. You can add in the usual work hard, prepare, read and so on – but again the successful people I have met or read about did not let failure or setbacks get in their way. They were driven, goal oriented, resilient, patient and to some degree, lucky (one attribute to success that I feel is very much overlooked).

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

So my name is Michael Burns and I am one of the co-founders of Wedzee, a two-sided consumer marketplace – or more simply an online marketplace for wedding and events (think eBay meets Etsy). My background started in Sales right out of college, but shortly thereafter I went the entrepreneur route by starting a boutique recruiting firm. After some initial success, it crashed hard 2 years later but taught me valuable lessons in both business and life.

My second business was a DTC startup in the wedding industry called Kadlee, that focused on trendy, customized gifts delivered throughout the world. After 13 successful months in business we were acquired by a private company. As much as we could have scaled Kadlee, we knew all along that the real problem (and bigger vision) was creating a focused marketplace for the wedding industry – a one stop shop to buy or resell any new, used or handmade wedding and event items. This is why we started out on building Wedzee, knowing that there was no real direct competition in this vertical.

Wedzee has become incredibly popular within the wedding industry since we give our community an easier way to browse, shop and eventually resell their wedding items – all under one roof with our Wedzee Guarantee, which protects each and every transaction. What’s also really worked for us listening and talking to our users (our Buyer and Sellers), what they like and what could need improvement. Offering live customer service has been an edge as well, whereas Etsy and Facebook Marketplace have none.

Our team is incredibly proud of what of we have built with Wedzee – entirely bootstrapped by us with no outside investment, which is a feat alone considering a two-sided consumer marketplace is building a business on hard mode – even with investment!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

We took Wedzee live in late 2019, not having a great go-to market strategy in place. After faltering in the beginning we could have packed it in, but I started to do more outreach via Craigslist and we started to get initial success. Sellers were coming over to list with us and some periodic sales were coming in – nothing major but some traction. Then Covid hit – and the wedding industry went on hold for the most part. It would have been so easy to just shut it down and say we tried, but the vision, the goal was too big for us and we took the time to hit pause, fill in our foundation with some key Advisors and a partnership with Embarc Collective here in Tampa, FL which ultimately started us on an uphill journey – albeit one step at a time.

Through setting OKR’s, doing the outreach needed with marketing spend and tweaking the model we eventually got a solid roadmap in place for growth, and for the past year we have been growing almost 15% MoM overall.

It would have been so easy to say “marketplaces are just too hard to build and get going”, but we had faith in our team and our model. Through some patience and hard work we are starting to have some ongoing successes.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I had to pivot in life over 7 years ago lol! I was a mess of a person, dragged down by self loathing, insecurities and disappointment from past failures – which ultimately led to drugs and alcohol in my life. With my first daughter on the way I knew I had to change, drastically and soon, so I went off to find help and got sober in July of 2015 – one of my greatest accomplishments and something that has given me a great outlook on life and with building a business.

I take my sobriety serious and I’m constantly working on bettering myself, as I do with Wedzee – I just try to do my best each day for our online community, as well for my family.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wedzee.com
• Instagram: @shopwedzee.com
• Facebook: @shopwedzee
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wedzee/
• Twitter: @mikeyburnsie / @shopwedzee
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY5BiC3PEzRObp8LwRPGj9Q