How PiAds and TheLuxScents Work Together: The Power of Building Your Own Ecosystem

Two Products. One Ecosystem.

Here's something most entrepreneurs don't think about early enough: your products can be each other's best customers.

#1a1a1a]">[PiAds.co is a digital signage monetization platform. It connects venue screens with advertisers who want to reach local audiences. Venues list their screens, advertisers book ad slots, and PiAds handles the scheduling, payments, and analytics.

#1a1a1a]">[TheLuxScents manufactures luxury fragrance vending machines with HD digital displays. Each machine sits in a premium venue — a hotel lobby, an upscale apartment building, a luxury gym.

See where this is going?

Every TheLuxScents machine has a digital screen. That screen can display ads through PiAds. Which means every TheLuxScents deployment is also a PiAds screen. And every PiAds advertiser is a potential customer who sees TheLuxScents machines generating revenue in real venues.

One founder — Yohanes Woldegerima — built both. Not by accident, but by design.

How the Ecosystem Works

TheLuxScents Feeds PiAds

Every TheLuxScents machine deployed in a venue adds a new screen to the PiAds network. This is organic supply growth — no sales calls needed.

• Machine goes into a hotel lobby → Hotel lobby screen joins PiAds marketplace
• Advertisers book ad slots → Ads play on the TheLuxScents display between fragrance browsing
• Venue earns ad revenue on top of fragrance sales → Double revenue stream makes TheLuxScents even more attractive to venues

The more TheLuxScents machines are deployed, the larger the PiAds network becomes. The larger the PiAds network, the more valuable it is to advertisers. The more advertisers spend, the more revenue venues earn, which makes them want more machines.

That's a flywheel.

PiAds Feeds TheLuxScents

When PiAds advertisers see that TheLuxScents machines are generating real revenue in premium venues, it validates the hardware. Venue operators who are already PiAds partners see TheLuxScents as a natural upgrade — instead of just running a screen, they can run a screen that also sells luxury fragrances.

• PiAds venue partners see TheLuxScents results → They want machines for their own venues
• PiAds advertisers target TheLuxScents locations → Premium venues attract premium ad spend
• Revenue data from PiAds validates TheLuxScents → Real numbers, not projections

Both products generate data that makes the other more valuable.

The Math: Why Two Revenue Streams Beat One

Let's model a single TheLuxScents machine in a hotel lobby:

Fragrance Revenue (TheLuxScents):

• Average transaction: $45
• Transactions per day: 4-6
• Monthly fragrance revenue: $5,400-$8,100
• Venue share (revenue split): $1,350-$2,025/month

Ad Revenue (PiAds):

• Ad slots per day: 8-12 hours of screen time
• Average CPM for premium venue: $15-$25
• Monthly impressions: ~30,000
• Monthly ad revenue: $450-$750
• Venue share: $340-$560/month

Total venue revenue per machine: $1,690-$2,585/month

For a venue operator, a single machine generates $1,700-$2,600/month in combined revenue. That $2,500-$4,200 machine investment pays for itself in the first two months.

Now multiply that by 25 machines across the DMV area by end of 2026. That's a network generating significant monthly revenue across both platforms — with each deployment making the ecosystem stronger.

Why Building an Ecosystem Matters

Most entrepreneurs build one product and optimize it in isolation. That's fine. But building interconnected products creates advantages that compound over time:

1. Shared Distribution

Every TheLuxScents sales conversation is also a PiAds sales conversation. "Your machine will sell fragrances AND generate ad revenue." That's a more compelling pitch than either product alone.

2. Shared Data

PiAds knows which venues get the most foot traffic. TheLuxScents knows which venues sell the most fragrances. Combined, both products can optimize placement, pricing, and targeting in ways neither could alone.

3. Shared Credibility

When a venue operator sees that the same founder built both a successful ad platform AND a successful vending product, trust increases. It's not two risky bets — it's an ecosystem with multiple proof points.

4. Defensive Moat

A competitor can copy PiAds. A competitor can copy TheLuxScents. But copying an integrated ecosystem where hardware and software feed each other is exponentially harder. The connections between products are the moat, not the products themselves.

Lessons for Entrepreneurs

If you're building a product, ask yourself:

"What adjacent product would make my first product more valuable?"

• If you built a booking platform, could you build a payments product that feeds it?
• If you built an inventory system, could you build a supplier marketplace that connects to it?
• If you built a CRM, could you build an email marketing tool that uses its data?

The best ecosystems aren't planned in a boardroom. They emerge from seeing how one product's output becomes another product's input.

PiAds needed screens in premium venues. TheLuxScents machines have screens in premium venues. The connection was obvious — but only because both products existed and the founder could see the overlap.

The AskQuala Connection

Both PiAds and TheLuxScents were built by the AskQuala team. This is what we do: we take ideas — whether it's a SaaS marketplace, an IoT product, or a connected retail experience — and build them into working products.

The ecosystem between PiAds and TheLuxScents isn't something we planned on a whiteboard. It emerged from building, shipping, and learning. When you move fast and ship real products, connections reveal themselves.

If you're thinking about building a product — or if you already have one product and want to explore what an adjacent product could look like — that's exactly the conversation we love having.

#1a1a1a]">[Book a call — we'll talk about your idea, your existing products, and where the ecosystem opportunities are.