Alex Levine wasn’t just a proponent of remote- and flexible-work models prior to the pandemic.
He founded a company based on them.
The CEO of Xebec Inc. said he has believed for years that work could be increasingly mobile and flexible, that “life can be more than just work. The flexibility of remote work is a big element of that.”
Then Covid-19 hit “and everyone was mobile,” Levine said.
Xebec makes and sells monitors that attach to a laptop, enabling work with multiple screens from anywhere. Its flagship product enables people to add two screens to any laptop. Levine said his goal is to “be the Yeti of computer accessories, to be the brand the consumers identify with. There’s a gap in this space. We joke about the brandless computer-accessory space.”
But even for a company founded on the idea of turning any space into a work station, a physical office can be helpful for strategic reasons. In roughly two weeks, Xebec will move into its new office at 500 San Marcos St., next to Wright Bros. Brew & Brew coffee shop in East Austin. Levine worked with Valerie Williamson of Pegalo Properties, which owns the space, to secure the lease.
The CEO has planned an opening party there on July 9. And this fall, Levine will unveil 1,000 square feet of free coworking space for the public. Borrowing a concept from Capital Factory, where Xebec worked for several months, it also will boast three smaller, “phone booth” rooms for those who need privacy at times.
“That’s the reason why we got this space,” he said, describing the business strategy as “experiential retail” to sell remote work. “We wanted to build out an area within the central urban district that was a space for remote work.”
The company has grown to 11 employees since Austin Business Journal in January 2020 profiled Levine and Xebec in its Office Hours series. Seven are based in the Texas capital. Two are in Chicago and two are in the Philippines. The company was founded in 2018.
Roughly $6.5 million in revenue since March 2020 has been fueling Xebec’s expansion, Levine said. The company has raised just $45,000 to date.
“We’ve been fortunate to grow organically and not rely on outside funding,” he said. Xebec has been profitable since June 2020.
The CEO said among his current focuses is making sure the company maintains enough inventory.
“We were on backorder last year on a regular basis,” he said. “We sold out five or six times in 2020.”
Levine said the most pressing hiring needs during the coming 12 months include recruiting a vice president of performance marketing and a vice president of brand marketing. He also expects to at least double the staff in that period. Positions to be hired include those in marketing, operations and mechanical engineers.
Xebec sells its products through its own e-commerce store, the CEO said. “We’re not on Amazon or Walmart.com.”
The majority of its more than 16,500 customers have been normal consumers. But the company also has enterprise customers including schools and government agencies, including the Department of Agriculture and military branches, Levine said.
Competitors include Massachusetts-based Mobile Pixels, which provides portable laptop secondary monitors, and Switzerland-headquartered Logitech International S.A. (Nasdaq: LOGI), which sells computer accessories and software.
“At the end of the day, our goal is to enable remote workers to handle all facets of what work means,” Levine said. “We’d like to be able to recreate your desk and fit it in a backpack.”
While some competitors use magnets and adhesives to connect an additional monitor to a laptop, Xebec uses “a tensioning mechanism — an elastic band effectively hugs the sides and the top of the laptop screen,” he said. Among other differentiators: its screens are non-intrusive and only 10 inches long.
“If it looks like Medusa coming out of your laptop,” people are less likely to buy it, he said.
