When Dario Baldoni’s dad Ed came up with the idea to create a proprietary snap away form for concrete countertops, Dario had no intention in getting involved very heavily. He was studying computer science and didn’t see the countertop business as a full time path. When he offered to help update the site, he had no idea he would end up being an integral part of creating a company that employs 16 people and runs more than 500 SKUs – but that is exactly where he is today.
Dario is now the VP of Technology and Marketing at online brand Concrete Countertop Solutions, an e-commerce site selling patented counterform products that has progressed into an all-inclusive store for DIY and professional decorative concrete needs. With a web strategy that largely includes providing tutorials and high customer engagement effort, Dario has helped his dad shape Concrete Countertop Solutions into a company that has taken the concrete world by storm.
Allow me to introduce Dario Baldoni…
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My name is Dario Baldoni and I am the VP of Technology and Marketing at Concrete Countertop Solutions. We are an e-commerce brand that has grown into a one stop shop for all decorative concrete needs. We were founded with the mission to make concrete countertops easier and more accessible to the DIY and professional community.
I was pursuing a degree in computer science when my father came up with an idea to make a forming system for pouring cast-in-place concrete countertops. He was a long time residential contractor who always had a knack for entrepreneurship. When he noticed concrete countertops gaining popularity at some of the national home and builder shows, he thought he would try to offer this to his customers. However, it was not long before he learned there really was not an easy way to build them. That is when he came up with the idea for a snap away form that would allow you to pour concrete countertops in-place right on top of existing cabinetry.
It started with a sketch on a napkin (as so many great ideas do). After a few long years trying to obtain a patent and find a manufacturer, Ed was able to link up with a PVC extruding company out of Florida who made the earliest version of the product. As a proof of concept, he used the prototypes (now known as Z Counterforms) to pour a kitchen countertop in a spec house he was building at the time. The countertops turned out great and photos of this original pour became our first marketing material. From there Ed knew he had a good idea, but wasn’t exactly sure how to begin selling them.
In 2009, after a three year patent battle that included one rejection, he was finally able to obtain his first utility patent. Shortly after he set up a corporation named Concrete Countertop Solutions and he was in business. Ed used a local website company at the time to build a rudimentary e-commerce site based on Big Commerce. He took the product to a few industry trade shows where it they got some traction but sales remained relatively low. At this point, CCS was a side hustle as Ed’s primary source of income was still building luxury houses in Northeast PA. This is where I come in. After graduating in a BS in computer science, I offered to help rebuild the website and started pouring a lot of time into SEO. At the time I saw it as a fun project, not a full time job.
In the beginning, the best thing we did was produce high quality and highly informative YouTube videos showing how to build concrete countertops from scratch using our Z Counterform System. At this time, we still saw this as a product for the professional contractor or concrete mason but YouTube changed everything. During this time (around 2012) there was a growing community of DIYers who were turning to new platforms like YouTube to learn how to do-it-yourself. It was these people who started finding our videos and purchasing products from us. It did not take long to realize this so we altered our marketing strategy to try and target the DIY customer online where they were going to learn. We started receiving tons of inquiries about what products people should be using (because at this time we only sold forms).
That is when we realized that a one-stop shop approach would allow us to greatly increase our AOV. We made a few strategic partnerships with private manufactures willing to private label all sorts of products such as concrete mix, stain, sealer, tools, etc. We listened to our customers and anytime there was an FAQ about how to do something or what product to use, we tried to plug that hole with either instructional videos or new product offers. This is when our growth started to explode. Since we came up during the e-commerce boom, we always tried to stay on the cutting edge of digital marketing and kept tweaking audience and segments until our online ads were seeing 25X+ ROAS. Finally we were an early adopter of UGC and it has helped us tremendously. We are lucky because when someone builds their own concrete countertop, they are proud and want to show it off. We receive dozens of photos and tags in social media everyday of our customers work. By resharing this content, it builds bonds with our current customers and it helps prospecting customers gain confidence in our products.
Today we are a company of 16 full time employees with over 500 SKUs in our online store. We have grown every year since inception and we feel there is still a lot of room for growth by expanding our product offering into adjacent markets. For example in 2014, we launched the Z Poolform System for creating concrete cantilevered pool coping and today this is our fastest growing market. A few years ago we added a full line of epoxy coatings and pigments for both countertops and floor coatings. We are also about to launch a new product line geared entirely towards the professional market at the end of this year and have something really exciting in store for next year as well.
It is important to come up with a business and marketing plan but don’t get set in your ways. Always be willing to adjust and adapt on the fly. When you are just starting out, there is no red tape so use that to your advantage. Listen to your customers because they will tell you what they really want and do you best to provide that for them. And finally, don’t overestimate good customer service. If you are selling a product or a service, keeping your customer happy should always be a number one goal. Reviews go a long way in this industry and there is no better way to guarantee good reviews then to make customers happy. We constantly have customers who have issues but when they can get on the phone and talk to a knowledgeable person who can help walk them through it, they will be much more likely to look past any minor nuisances.
If you are interested in learning more about our products, the best place is our website concretecountertopsolutions.com. We have galleries with tons of photos for inspiration and a whole library of instructional video content. You can also see our customer’s work by following us on IG @zcounterform.
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