By Nipapun Poonsateansup CFP® Independent Finance Planner and Public Speaker

One of the most leading online construction material providers among Thailand which most people will think of is “One Stock Home” which was established by K.Anawach Kimhasawad (K.Keaw) and K.Wachira Kimhasawad (K.Hoo). They further expanded from their primitive local family construction material seller to be on the online platform. One Stock Home is the online construction material selling service website which shows clearly all product price. This help customer convenience by knowing their wanted product price without calling or wasting their time to go to shops. This article shows One Stock Home story from interviewing with K.Keaw who is the CEO and founder of the company together with his team.

Why and how did you start One Stock Home?
 

It started from our primitive local family construction business which is located in Nakhon Ratchasima and I am the second generation. Back to 8 years ago, while my sister was working in Shanghai, she found that most of selling services were already go online and no one was selling online construction material at all. This was the starting idea to sell construction material online. In the beginning, we just created the website to support our storefront but eventually, it ended up as selling to support around Thailand.

What is the strength point of One Stock Home?
 

Since starting this selling business for 8 years, we found that One Stock Home has focused only on hard-to-delivery products such as brick, rock, cement, sand, and steel. This is one of our signatures because other e-commerce cannot provide and do like us. There are a variety of needs in this customer sector and mistakes or any damage is unacceptable. However, since the beginning, One Stock Home, our priority is to provide the best service and delivery. We assure the customer that products from us are good and safe.

What is the obstacle and problem?

we have to understand our customers first. In the beginning, all we want is to sell our products, but we forgot to understand customer needs. These days, to build a new business concept, we need to understand customer needs and wants more than create a product and try selling it. We must change our working way because to understand and find customer pain points took a lot of time. One Stock Home took about a year to find why customer still want to buy our goods. We have many business model assumptions, but we will not truly understand it if we do not actually try it with customer. Because the try-out takes time, so we have to quickly adapt and change whenever we have a new idea. After we receive feedback we must improve our system expeditiously to make our system the most productive with the best services.

How to propose this concept to the investors?

This is a big change for One Stock Home. Former, we were only a local SME with our storefront website as a construction material selling a business. One day, we have stepped into this digital world. That is why we need a business specialist partner and we met SCB. Also, we need more capital money to expand our business to satisfy customer needs. Therefore, we decided to join and be the first batch of “Digital Venture Accelerator Program” with SCB. We are the winner of this program and received some award money to expand and grow our company.

After joining the program, what did you collaborate with Digital Venture?

We intend to connect our ultimate service with our customer and SCB online customer. Moreover, we collaborate with SCB team whether marketing team, SME team, and digital team. We can improve our service including payment gateway via SCB.

What is the company next step?

Now our One Stock Home is the technology company. We see a lot of complex and unclear information in these construction raw material businesses. So, we will not stop only in Thailand market but also, our neighborhood countries which have a similar business environment and problem. We thought that we will improve our service online solution platform to solve these problems and expand our business to cover Southeast Asia region. The previous year (2018), we and our operation team searched for the effective and qualified partners with competitive price to improve our online business and to increase customers convenience with a cheaper price which can be directly ordered from us. In the future, we want to invite another selling company to join our platform to improve our online process. This is how we grow the proficiency of our supply chain system.

What is the future of online construction raw material selling business?

In these days, doing online business is the thing that we cannot escape from. I think that in the future we can buy and sell everything online and selling construction material online will not be strange anymore. No matter what you invest in the future, you can sell it online. Moreover, every company needs e-commerce or selling product or service online.

 

What is the factor that made One Stock Home success?

Our teamwork is our strength. We have a policy that we want to gather all talented and ambitious people altogether. No matter what department you are in whether marketing, customer service, or selling the unit. We want to develop our people to understand the customer and we have a career path for them. All employees are very important. We would not be here if they have not helped. It is because of our common attitude, vision and has the same goal that we want to be a success together.

 

How to manage different-age gap working team?

To deal with new generation people, as I am far older than them, we need to have an open-mind and sharing-attitude. We implement their ideas. Our employees have a right to share their ideas and no need to follow only boss order. It is better to collaborate their talents and increase their values to improve the company. We are ready for everyone opinion and comment.

 

What is the company goal in the next few years?

Previously, we focus only on the buyer but from now on we will focus on the seller too. We will be the platform that let buyer and seller meet. This will reduce processing cost and the buyer can get a cheaper price. The reduction of this cost will help increase other part value. This is a win-win situation.

What is the company goal in the next 5 years?

We want to solve the supply chain problem not only in Thailand but also in Southeast Asia. For example, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, or even Singapore which have a very similar economic to Thailand. So, One Stock Home will be the solution to all of them not only Thai people.

 

What is your success secret?

For me, I think flexible is important. I am an open-mind person. I am ready for every new idea and listen to every problems and comment from employees. This is the factor that improves and grow the company rapidly.

 

What is your advice for every new start-up business?

This is the most common question. I think a startup is only a product. The most important thing is you have to understand the customer. If you truly understand customer, technology may not be the answer. To create value without technology may help you more understanding the customer. Finally, technology will help your company system, and reduce processing steps and duplicated works. However, you must truly understand your customer pain points. So, I think in the first step you should not think much about technology, but you have to think about the customer problem and what you want to help your customer first.

 

What do you want to tell people that want to be success in life?

No matter what you want to be a success in, you need to be a problem solver which means that you need to solve the problem for someone. It may not affect a large group of people. It may be a few but I want everyone to start from having a helping-people attitude. This will affect something and maybe the beginning of new business which you can further develop to be one of sustainable business.

Wachira Kimhasawad, Chief Operation Officer; COO 

 

Could you tell us a story of One Stock Home?

Our father is the person who likes to develop a new business type and at that time I was in Shanghai. I found that many Shanghai people love online shopping. So, I was thinking that construction raw material business could go online and there is an opportunity to improve the business in the Thailand market. In the beginning, we just wanted to show a transparent-price on our website and bring some technology to improve our internal business. Then we met and has a chance to join Digital Venture campaign which made us one of startup business this far.

What is the obstacle in the beginning?

First of all, the obstacle is myself because, since the beginning, I was only a salaryman that in a growing-up step. This is why I could not leave and be a complete businessman. However, when I decided to be a full-time entrepreneur, there were a lot of problems too. For example, how can I persuade others to believe in what we do, and how to step up and do what we believe that we cannot do. This is the main problem that we all have which is the sound in our head that always says that “we cannot do it, let the others do’. Therefore, I need to change my attitude and push the limit which was created by myself. And after we accomplished it, I can see more possibilities.  

Moreover, doing business with my brother is another problem because it is a brother-sister thing and how to communicate and change my mind to start listening to my brother opinion. I thought that he is still my little brother and I am his big sister (I think I knew more than him). This is what needs to be crossed and I have to accept as what he is and his talent. I need to cut off the brother-sister relationship at work. Sometimes, some situation and some work I have to work under him (K.Kaew), and sometimes we do not understand the target clearly, we had a lot of fights. Eventually, we work easier and smoother because we knew each other better and share the same company goal. 

What is the job description of COO?

Due to startup is just a small organization that sometimes many unexpected jobs happen and make another process stuck. This position is to support, simplify works or make them repeatable and then transfer to the next talented person or specialist. This position is similar to a housekeeper that always keep things in their way. 

What is the company success factor?

The most important factor is the organizational culture because we work as teamwork. We communicate to all employees and make sure they understand the company goal. Also, we encourage them to change their repeatable manual jobs to automatically to help them and they can develop another process.

What do you want to tell the readers that want to be succeed as a startup? 

For anyone who wants to start a business, you must know what your goal is. However, in the beginning, it may be unclear, but you have to start doing it. After that, you will know what is ok or not and you continue in what is ok and give up on what is not. I encourage you to be brave and start doing what you believe in.   

In addition, I had some experiences in many jobs whether finance, shipping, and supply chain. At first, I did not know what I was working for and sometimes I also did not want to wake up and go to work. Finally, it was like connecting the dots. When I joined One Stock Home I started to understand how to improve our business from my experiences. So, I want to encourage you all that whatever you are facing right now whether it is good or bad, do not give up because eventually, it may bring what is right to you at the end.

Khun Achara Palayanan, Chief Data Officer; CDO 

 

How did you join One Stock Home?

I was once working with K.Hoo at marketing analysis company and I felt connecting because we have the same attitude and share the same goal. So, I was interested in working at One Stock Home. Since 2016, I was a freelance and then I became a permanent employee and responsible for data analysis for all necessary items on the website.

What makes Data Analytics role important?

In the past, when I was working at the research company, the only way to get a market trend or survey customer satisfaction is interviewing. But nowadays, it is easier because of technology. For example, we want to know what customer wants, we can find those data from the website and no need to interview them anymore. 

Moreover, we get these data real-time compare to in the past that we assume the customer interview from 2015 data is not ok and need to update customer trend. And then we need to re-interview them and that was wasting a lot of time. But these days, it is real-time that we can analyze what customers want and market trend immediately after we get their orders. Additionally, we can help our supplier demand-supply management system, so they can plan their products effectively.  

This is one of the company strengths that we can manage our decision effectively.

What is your advice for online business starter?

First of all, you need to know your business. Next is finding the market pain point which is the main problem of many business starters because they want to sell something, but they forgot to consider the market wants and that product problem. So, we need to understand what customer needs and find the right answer for them. 

Why data analysis is necessary?

In my opinion, I think it is very important to analyze the data first. It is more difficult to do business if we do not understand the market trend or data. For example, if we own a website, we can monitor the reach and what page they spent the most time with. Therefore, we can improve the strategies and have a better decision based on this data analysis. 

What is the ideal image of One Stock Home?

I want to see a self-improvement and learning environment because nowadays working environment and technology are changing all the time and our company has already been a technology company. Thus, we need to be alert and prepare for every change for example as Google AdWords. If we could not adapt ourselves, we may lose the market track. 

Khun Thawin Supainan, Chief Technology Officer; CTO 

How did you join One Stock Home?

I knew K.Hoo and after I talked with K.Kaew and K.Hoo, then I knew they were hiring the website and platform management person so I decided to join with them. My main responsibility is to take care of company website and platform.

What is your responsibility as the website and platform management? 

Firstly, we need to get involved in customer problem, then solve it, especially the recurring problem. We need to collect actual data from the customer including customer needs and problems. If the data is incorrect, it will affect to customer satisfaction with products. 

We have been trying to share a transparent and correct price to make our customer the most convenient because our website is the window for online and convenient shopping. There are 2 working processes which are we receive an order via the website and then the operational department will manage customer order and match purchasing order by using Data Science and Data Model program.  Most products on the website are related to construction structure which is about 40,000 lists. We are connecting supplier with our system and we also have a plan to connect the seller. Moreover, we have teamwork which Data Analytics team who will support customer data analysis that needs to be updated on our website. This program is developed on our own.

What is the key factor for One Stock Home success?

The main factor is our practical work and a spontaneous reaction to help the customer. Moreover, we have certain internal communication to make every employee understand the company target. 

What do you want to tell the readers that want to be succeed as a startup? 

Most startups often create a new product in the way they want and trying to sell in the market. Actually, we need to reverse this thinking way. We need to find customer pain points first and help them solve that. Eventually, we will find a way to build our own business. You do not forget to listen to the customer's voice as much as you can.
   

From 4 management members interview, I can say that One Stock Home is the place with a lot of visionary and inspired persons because they share the same target which is “Give the best try to solve customer problems”. So, to summarize the secret success factor in one sentence, it must be “Taking the best care of all involvement whether employees, customers, and partners and they will support each other the best as they can in return.”