She Disrupted the College Shopping Experience from Her Own Dorm Room, Amanda Zuckerman, Founder of Dormify
Dear FoundHer...Real Founder Stories for Women Small Business Owners
Lindsay Pinchuk
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 August 2024
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
“Just as I carefully choose my outfits and accessories every day, I put the same thought into how my room would look,” shares Amanda Zuckerman, co-founder and president of Dormify, a leading retailer specializing in college dorm and apartment essentials. This week, Amanda joins Lindsay Pinchuk to dive into the importance of truly listening to the community around a brand—a practice that has been central to Dormify’s success.
Amanda’s entrepreneurial journey began in her own college dorm, where she identified a gap in the market for stylish, functional decor. This insight sparked the creation of Dormify, a thriving business now partnered with nearly 900 colleges and universities and supported by a vibrant community of over 1,000 student ambassadors. But what really drives Dormify’s growth? Amanda emphasizes the critical need to understand and connect with Generation Z, the company’s primary customers.
Reflecting on Dormify’s early days, Amanda recounts how they built their brand from the ground up, starting with a WordPress blog that engaged college students and their families. This focus on content and community laid the foundation for their success and allowed them to seamlessly transition to emerging social media platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok. A pivotal moment came when they embraced a TikTok strategy, inspired by advice from Gary Vaynerchuk, leading to a significant boost in their following and engagement.
Amanda shares practical advice for aspiring female founders, emphasizing the power of networking, finding the right strategic advisors, and staying in tune with your customers.
Quotes
- “As our customers and their content consumption habits changed and evolved, we followed suit. We were very much the type of brand that jumped on every social platform as soon as we learned about it. We had to just experiment and gain traction.” (12:56 | Amanda Zuckerman)
- “If you have something you want to talk about and content you want to put out there, just start doing it, no matter what is holding you back.” (16:59 | Amanda Zuckerman)
- “Community is really important to the brand. As I mentioned, we position ourselves as a big sister to all of those college students. That means going above and beyond, with customer service at a really high level… I often refer to our customer service team—or rather, our customer experience team—as therapists in a way.” (39:02 | Amanda Zuckerman)
- “Staying close to our customer is probably the number one thing that differentiates us from any of the competitors in our space. No other competitor understands the customer like we do, and that’s because we’ve made it a priority.” (41:11 | Amanda Zuckerman)
Connect with Amanda Zuckerman:
http://www.instagram.com/dormify
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi guys, it's me Lindsay Pinchuk, founder and host of Dear Fountain. And in a few minutes, |
| 0:06.2 | you're going to hear me talk to today's guest, Amanda Zuckerman, about the importance of listening |
| 0:11.3 | to the community surrounding your brand. It's your community who will tell you exactly what you |
| 0:16.8 | need to be selling to them, which brings me to an important point. You have told me that you |
| 0:22.8 | want to get together in person with the Dear Fountain community, which is why we started hosting |
| 0:28.1 | live events last year. And after a hiatus this summer, we're back, both in person and online, |
| 0:35.0 | starting the last week of August. It's because of you that I can say, |
| 0:40.3 | Dear Fountain is way more than just a podcast. It's a community. For nearly three years, |
| 0:45.7 | we've been building this community not only through our podcast and social media, |
| 0:49.2 | but also through the live events that we host. And this fall will be adding more workshops, |
| 0:53.9 | seminars, and even more live events, all with. And this fall will be adding more workshop, seminars, |
| 0:54.3 | and even more live events, all with the goal of helping women 40 plus to build businesses |
| 0:59.6 | through simple strategies. There is no gatekeeping around here. As you know, I insist that we're |
| 1:05.1 | better together. If you want to stay in the know about everything coming your way as well as |
| 1:09.6 | when our events will take |
| 1:10.9 | place, make sure you sign up for The Dear Found Her newsletter, which is also getting a facelift. |
| 1:16.0 | You've shared a ton of feedback with me and I took some time this summer to put all of my |
| 1:20.4 | resources into play. You can click the link in our show notes and make sure that you stay in |
| 1:24.8 | touch as there's so much more coming your way and very soon. |
| 1:28.9 | Now, onto today's episode. Amanda Zuckerman started Dormify out of her dorm room with her mom |
| 1:36.8 | when she couldn't find the betting that she wanted for college. Long before social media was |
| 1:41.8 | a thing, Amanda did what every great business owner and marketer |
... |
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