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FAIRFIELD — The retail industry has undergone seismic changes in the past few years. Customers across the country kept spending throughout the COVID-19 pandemic — but their habits evolved, highlighted by a jump in online sales.
A Fairfield-based startup, Knocking, has noticed — and capitalized — on these consumer trends. In the past few years, the company has significantly expanded its reach by leveraging a business model that fuses e-commerce and content creation to boost revenues for some of the country’s largest media companies and numerous brands. It has grown so precipitously that it ranked highest among Connecticut-based firms and No. 161 overall, with 3,232 percent revenue growth between 2019 and 2022, on this year’s Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the U.S.
Knocking co-founder and CEO Markus Reinmund, right, and co-founder and chief operating officer Brian Meehan make a point during an interview in the company’s offices at 63 Unquowa Road in downtown Fairfield, Conn., on Aug. 21, 2023. Knocking ranked No. 161 overall and highest among Connecticut-based companies in the 2023 Inc. 5000 rankings of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the U.S.
Ned Gerard/Hearst Connecticut Media“I think Knocking’s success is that we’ve really built a model that actually allows all parties involved to win,” Brian Meehan, one of Knocking’s founders and its chief operating officer, said in a recent interview at the company’s offices in downtown Fairfield. “That goes from our media partners, to us, to our brands, to the consumers. I think when you have all parties essentially winning, the sky is essentially the limit. That’s where our growth has come from.”
A fast-growing company
After surging during shutdowns at the beginning of the pandemic, e-commerce continues to grow. In the second quarter of 2023, estimated e-commerce sales, on an adjusted basis, totaled nearly $278 billion in the U.S., increasing 7.5 percent year-over-year and comprising about 15 percent of all U.S. retail sales in that period, according to Census Bureau data.
Having operated under its current framework focused on e-commerce and media since 2017, Knocking saw an opportunity to disrupt a status quo in which media companies still rely on long-established revenue sources.
“Media makes most of its money by selling advertisements,” Knocking co-founder and CEO Markus Reinmund, who co-founded a predecessor company of Knocking and previously worked at companies such as Aetna, New York Life and Siemens, said in an interview. “Then we step in and essentially work with media companies to build content that viewers like to see, and we bring in brands that have benefits to consumers that are real. And we vet them and research them. And then we offer pricing that’s attractive. At the end of day, we’re creating a new industry space by trying to help media and brands come together in the space of e-commerce.”
Knocking’s partnership with CBS, which began last year, exemplifies its business model. “CBS Mornings” and “CBS Saturdays,” for instance, feature segments that are produced at CBS studios through a collaboration between Knocking and CBS producers. Those segments showcase products sold on cbsdeals.com, which is a web store operated by Knocking. In a “CBS Mornings” segment posted on Knocking’s website, TV personality Gayle Bass gave a demonstration of a Calming Heat sauna wrap to “CBS Mornings” hosts Gayle King, Nate Burleson and Tony Dokoupil.
Knocking, CBS and the brands share revenues from each purchase made through cbsdeals.com.
In addition, Knocking films and produces segments for products sold on cbsdeals.com that run on local news shows on a number of CBS stations, including WCBS and WLNY in the metropolitan New York area. Knocking-produced pieces are not running now on the Connecticut-based CBS station WFSB, but they had done so when the station was under previous ownership.
“CBS is propelling us forward,” Reinmund said.
Only a small fraction of Knocking’s revenues that were factored into its Inc. 5000 ranking this year reflected its partnership with CBS because companies’ rankings on the 2023 Inc. 5000 list were based on their percentage revenue growth from 2019 to 2022. The minimum revenue required for 2019 was $100,000; the minimum for 2022 was $2 million.
Knocking also has revenue-sharing partnerships with Cox Media Group and Sinclair Group. Local news shows on a number of their stations run Knocking-produced segments about products sold on two other Knocking-operated websites, the Cox-associated localstealsanddeals.com and the Sinclair-related americasstealsanddeals.com.
“It’s been exciting to see our audience embrace the introduction of Local Steals & Deals across CMG markets,” Marian Pittman, Cox’s executive vice president of content, product and innovation, said in a statement posted on Knocking’s website. “Adding an e-commerce option and providing opportunities for savings on popular brands has been well-received. Steals & Deals provides a trusted patch for CMG consumers looking for a bargain from a trusted source.”
As to whether Knocking is competing with e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and shopping channels such as QVC, Meehan and Reinmund said that Knocking offered a different set of benefits to its media and retail partners and customers.
“Amazon is tremendously trusted, and that’s why it’s such a big company. However, when you go on Amazon, you have to figure it out yourself,” said Meehan, who previously built e-commerce operations for the likes of “Good Morning America” and “The Today Show.” “You have to look, read reviews and all that stuff. We’re not Amazon. However, we bring products that we show and talk about that are very trusted … That trust level, for us, is the second layer to a winning combination.”
Meehan added that, “QVC offers products and e-commerce only for audiences on their own channel and particular content format. Knocking is a content and commerce company that operates marketplaces for any media partner and a variety of content formats.”
As they mature, Knocking and other companies on the Inc. 5000 will face new challenges, according to experts on business management.
“E-commerce and media were two of the industries that saw the most growth because of the pandemic. Some of that growth has receded, but the demand for e-commerce and entertainment remains,” David Souder, a professor in the Boucher Department of Management & Entrepreneurship in the University of Connecticut’s School of Business, said in an interview. “Fast growth brings one set of challenges for a company and then an eventual slowdown brings another set of challenges.”
Meehan and Reinmund said that they anticipated much more growth in recent years — but it would probably show up more in the company’s revenue totals, as opposed to the percentage growth measured by the Inc. 5000. They declined to disclose Knocking’s specific annual revenues, but they said that the company was aiming to break $100 million in annual revenues in 2024.
“The bigger you are, the harder it is to grow at the same percentage rate,” Reinmund said. “We’re actually now at a size where we can be an Inc. 5000 (company) at the (No.) 4,999 level and could add millions in revenues because the growth rate could look small. But we’re growing from a pretty big base now.”
Knocking’s name reflects its founders’ optimism. It encapsulates the idea that “opportunity is knocking” for the company’s media and brand partners and customers. It also refers to a biblical verse, Matthew 7:7 in the New Testament, which says, “ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”
A presence in Connecticut and abroad
Knocking and the 44 other Connecticut-based companies on this year’s Inc. 5000 list are not only revenue generators, but also job producers. They have cumulatively created more than 2,100 jobs, according to Inc.
About 100 people worldwide work full-time or part-time for Knocking. Meehan and Reinmund — who, respectively, live in Milford and Trumbull — and several other people are based at Knocking’s offices at 63 Unquowa Road in downtown Fairfield, a block from the Fairfield Metro-North Railroad station.
“Here in Fairfield, it’s quick to the train into the city (of New York). We have a lot of clients in the city. They’ll also come here and visit us,” said Meehan, who previously lived 18 years in Fairfield and was born in Bridgeport. “Connecticut has really been a home base for us.”
A couple of states over, a number of employees are based at its production studio in Bloomfield, N.J. In addition, Knocking has employees based in Canada, which is the home country of its web store software provider, Shopify; Argentina; and Germany, the country Reinmund where grew up. Stefan Dippl, Knocking’s chief technology officer and other founder, is based in Berlin, Germany. Reinmund and Dippl founded a predecessor company of Knocking.
“If you’re very good at plugging in talent wherever they sit, you can get really great people up at different hours,” Reinmund said. “You can be up and running much more than other companies and build an atmosphere that’s just very free.”
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