00:00:00 - 00:00:57

all right sweet let's get right into it so um I want to start with Tik Tok shop because it's been so relevant how many people here actually shop on Tik Tok or have bought something from Tik Tok shops raise of hand show of hands okay so like 30% of the room um are are are you guys leveraging Tik Tok shop in terms of your marketing strategies like are you thinking about it as like a large channel to drive gmv and revenue yeah I think we just launched uh in the market in September um and I've largely been

00:00:28 - 00:01:23

leveraging kind of Instagram RAM and Shopify but for 2025 it's definitely a huge Initiative for us um obviously as you know more than anybody up here I think you have to make a concerted effort really build uh content with other creators Affiliates kind of you know really do really spend on Tik Tok so honestly we're kind of in the midst of developing that strategy and learning how to leverage it um we're also going to be launching on Amazon uh in January which I think you know kind of launching

00:00:56 - 00:01:53

those two together I think makes the most sense from from our standpoint to build that visibility um we are up on the shop we are on Tik toop shop now uh but it hasn't been a main focus kind of initially for us in the launch but um we're kind of putting that strategy together as we as we speak so hot sauce is obviously it's you know retail native like you're buying hot sauce you know either actually at the store or on Amazon how do you think about like the revenue mix for your business it's was it always meant to be

00:01:24 - 00:02:27

retail first I mean you guys also launched on Shopify too though yeah no well I'm like you know a funny person to be on the panel just because I'm all I'm always been kind of a retail first person I think Brooklyn has almost like 16 million followers um and you know we were frankly a bit worried on how that converts to to Ecom or you know really putting Ecom first uh wanted the ability to kind of build awareness across that Community um but have someone be able to go into a store and purchase it so I've

00:01:55 - 00:03:02

actually was pleasantly surprised um our e-commerce really kind of blew up uh with the launch both in the US and the UK because we launched in both both markets um so I think you know we are kind of in the process of kind of doubling down on that and um you know again leveraging the community he's built on Instagram he's building on Tik Tok right now but for us the revenue mix I think you know with cpg or you know consumer products it's just hard I think retail is always from a scale standpoint

00:02:29 - 00:03:22

going to be so much easier to get it out there but I think you can create really cool and unique experiences like I think you showed a picture of it but we had you know we've created a really beautiful box um for the yeah you can kind of see it there with Brooklyn's hands um really beautiful box it's a very like giftable item um obviously our packaging I think is one of our other than the product itself is one of our our big um uh you know benefits you know the custom packaging we did but kind of

00:02:55 - 00:03:51

building a unique e-commerce experience that kind of is giftable um and then I think we're yeah we're kind of deciding how we double down on the e-commerce piece because we've seen such a good return on it um as well as leverage that into Tik Tok that that return though off the launch is that just through uh Brooklyn's audience is that Creator content um or is that more paid driven no so we did no paid to start just because you know we want to I like to kind of get a baseline for what you know

00:03:24 - 00:04:25

how it's going to move it's mostly Brooklyn and his community obviously we did see some very big uh bumps when when David and Victoria both posted about it because Amplified it with their audiences um but uh yeah I think that um but we've seen it sustained kind of or you know order volumes uh across the time period and um yeah it's exciting to see and it's I think it' be fun and I think you know we've leveraged Merch online as well which I think is something interesting we've seen moves

00:03:54 - 00:04:51

uh quicker than I again quicker than I expected but are you thinking of it so like I mean that dub Tails nicely into shops then if most of your Shopify sales have been driven by creators influencers you think that there would be amplification on Tik Tok have you guys dued it like have you tried it a bit yeah we're trying it a little bit I think the the other thing I was going to mention is we did a lot of collaborations with kind of top tier chefs so L laav you know Evan funky uh noou yamama Mo there's a couple coming

00:04:23 - 00:05:23

out Yamamoto um so we kind of focus on a lot of culinary content that um you know with some really amazing chefs uh and I think that's kind of going to be our entry we've kind of used that on Instagram and I think we're going to kind of use as our entry into Tik Tok collaborating with them and then also kind of getting out to smaller you know more micro influencers and Affiliates I love that n what do you think hi guys um thank you for having me here um so from our experience I think I think the same

00:04:52 - 00:06:00

our first Focus was uh Shopify and Amazon that we kind of organically start selling there uh when it comes to TI I think it's definitely the future because um you know see a lot of things happening there and I think that Tik Tok was able to combine entertainment and seamless shopping um but for us we still learning um and what I also see from other creators or from other brands usually the founder Le content that's like behind the scenes if you're really good on camera you have Charisma I think

00:05:27 - 00:06:30

you can build a million dollar business just on Tik Tok shop so I think for us it's still something new we're still learning about it we ran some ads they come out a little bit too expensive than uh regular uh Shopify or even Amazon but for us it's still kind of like a new new territory yeah um David I definitely want to hear your thoughts I think from what I'm seeing just in the marketplace is like if you want to scale Tik Tok shops you need a pretty intricate strategy a lot of Affiliates 400 to 500

00:05:58 - 00:06:53

Affiliates a month produce in content for you but the spillover effects for Shopify are pretty big because you can leverage all of that content now from those creators for ads which previously you know a lot of Our Brands have had to pay for they're going out paying creators thousands of dollars a month for ad creative for meta um now through Tik Tock shop they facilitate all of those transactions you work with those Affiliates you leverage that back for your meta um what I'm seeing for a lot

00:06:26 - 00:07:24

of Our Brands is like Tik Tok shop isn't necessarily like super profitable but um it's a halo effect they get a ton of Impressions content goes viral that spills over into Amazon that spills over into Shopify both of which you guys are selling on um but yeah most of the conversations we're having it's very similar to what Forbes and Nik said it's like people are starting to think about okay how can we be successful on Tik Tock shop uh we need to bake that into our budget and we need to we need to

00:06:55 - 00:07:53

figure out a strategy because it's live shopping and it's very affiliate heavy and then there's the marketplace function which by the way uh the Shopify Tik Tok integration is is really good uh and that's definitely the way to do it over over Amazon for right now um David you're launching well first let's talk a little bit about tiami and then we can talk more about how you're thinking about Tik Tok shop if it's relevant for for for your business yeah sure um so I

00:07:23 - 00:08:51

I think I look at things a little bit differently because I've been down this road before and uh just a quick word about Lisa um Lisa did $27 million in its first year 78 million in the second and 128 million in the third year and um that was that that was a decade ago and um it you know we it was it was relatively inexpensive to acquire customers um our average transaction was $96 so um I um uh can show a lot of things that we did right and a few things that we did wrong but by 2019 I was I was chairman

00:08:07 - 00:09:26

no longer CEO and I was screaming at them to start exploring Tik Tok and finally I invested in a um a Tik Tok um creative agency and persuaded the owners of Lisa now to give it a try and they doing pretty well on it so it's a good test bed for me um so um uh on on the 15th of January which is 10 years to the day after I launch Lisa um I'm launching a new mattress company called tiami and uh later tonight um I'm going to um post a little bit about it and are you sleeping on the mattress yet

00:08:47 - 00:09:59

not yet because we've only just finalized in fact we're not 100% uh fixed it we've got an extraordinary mattress and uh it's $2,500 $3,000 um when we're not going to do any promotions at all other than um people that know people and then they can get 15% off but we're going to try and do things a little differently here I'm not in a rush either which makes life very different and is totally self-funded um so it it it it it changes things a little bit I've spent the last four

00:09:22 - 00:10:32

years um mentoring and investing in um young Founders I've learned an amazing amount from them and I've been fortunate I was the first investor in wha which is one of the largest um Creator agencies um and I've invested in a bunch of AI um things some that have gone wrong some that are going extremely well so I'm trying to bring all that to the four and as it relates bring it all the way around to the question of Tik Tok you know Tik Tok is um sort of extraordinary in a way because the audience is uh is

00:09:56 - 00:11:12

created by the creators and so um um you can't look at Tik Tok and say oh can I go on Tik Tok and make this work so so I've I've I've got the uh I think she might have been the number five or number six employee at Tik Tok helping me and it's it's all about first of all can you sell a $3,000 product on Tik Tok I believe you can um because I see people of my age like watching Tik Tok videos all day you know so um I'm 62 too by the way I've been around a while um did my start first startup here in the

00:10:34 - 00:11:42

US in 1994 and sold it in 1998 so um so I'm um you look great David by the way sorry you look great so I'm I'm uh I'm I'm now um I I I believe very strongly that all we do as marketers is create anticipation so ultimately the experience of the product is everything because we live our lives on this Continuum from anticipation to experience to memory everything we do coming to tonight you you anticipate you know and if it's better than you expect the experience then when you commit it

00:11:10 - 00:12:08

to memory you share it with people and you tell people so I'm focused on the quality of the product and the experience that we're going to give our customers and everything that we're talking about today is how do you create enough anticipation that people will pull the trigger so I think we can create anticipation sufficient to pull the trigger on Tik Tok if we find the right creators and if we test carefully and we see what happens and that's what we're doing so um we it's definitely in

00:11:39 - 00:12:43

our consideration set along with you know the dialogue on Reddit that takes I mean it's just it's up there in terms of what what we're trying um but ultimately we're building a business um where we can recommend the product to our friends and family and we hope that our customers will do the same and so yes to Tik Tok absolutely it is an just an unbelievable scalable it's like Amazon but you both tell the story you you do the marketing and the selling in the same place so you don't have to spend

00:12:11 - 00:13:07

the money to get people there hopefully by spending the money with the right creators you get them there and they pull a trigger all in the same place so I've got very high hopes for it but we time will tell thank you um so I think you know we have a pretty long question here how did we get here from social Brands evolving from Community tools to fullscale Ecom ecosystems let's let's talk let's start with you David because I think it's interesting when you think about like 10 years ago when you

00:12:39 - 00:13:43

launched Lisa it's like you know you pretty much it was meta right it was Instagram and Facebook for the most part and that ad ecosystem was totally different because um I remember when I first got Instagram it was like onetoone connections with your friends you weren't discovering random folks random people which is totally different from Tik Tok Tik Tok your served content that you know is from people you don't even know like it's promoting organic content uh which previously was really only

00:13:11 - 00:14:09

possible through paid uh on Instagram the way you discover new content is through ads and with Tik Tok and now with reals it's through organic content so that changes the way that people are discovering products brands people and the type of content that they want to interact with but you know I think how did that change Howes how is that changing your your your go to market strategy uh with tiami I mean you just mentioned it's going to be for the most part like if you know you know like I

00:13:40 - 00:15:02

guess yeah yeah um so thanks for sending me the question in advance I still found this one confusing by the way but like how do this um uh but what I um the the way that I thought about this didn't come up with these questions um really how how has it happened that media companies have become transactional platforms that's really the question here and what does that mean to us and you know quite honestly every media um business in history made the transition from Pure readership and media into transactions I

00:14:21 - 00:15:30

had a business called media Brands several years ago and I was taking unsold newspaper inventry and selling products off the page um and then I built online stores for the you know the the St Louis Post Dispatch and Atlanta Journal Constitution so I was buying products like digital cameras and 400 thre count sheet sets and creating 53 different ads and sending them out the newspapers and building a store for them that was basically a transactional platform on a media plat on on in a media environment and

00:14:56 - 00:16:00

eventually everyone that creates audience sees the fact that they can either sell the content on subscription they can sell advertising or they can sell products and so what we're really and and you have to basically find your opportunities within that so every single media platform eventually I think what it and and so um I'm looking at Reddit right now because all of the conversations taking place there in terms of reviews and understanding product and you know I've got to find the fastest way from a Reddit question

00:15:27 - 00:16:28

to selling a product and that's how my brain gets around those kinds of problems so I think it it happened because everyone since the beginning of time has tried to get customers from unaware to aware from aware to interest interest to engagement engagement to trial trial to repeat and then Along Came social media and we were able to take those customers and explode them by having the megap I call it the the mouse trap and the megaphone so the megaphone is now how do you get them to share it

00:15:58 - 00:16:55

we used to keep like we the list of customers in the early days of direct Commerce we used to call them golden lists we didn't tell anybody who our customers were nobody because if we if we let them know who our customer was they would go after them themselves because all you had was their address and their name and anyone could get that today you want your customers to share their experience through socialization so the what comes after socialization is basically the media giants that are created through this process getting

00:16:27 - 00:17:18

into Commerce and you've just got to be there so my view is test everything cuz you know there's there's there's an economic solution there's a there's a there's a unit economic Solution on every platform if you can find it it may not work for your product but you know it it doesn't work not all products work on every platform but you have to try them all you have to test them all in my opinion and that's really what we're experiencing here it's just Evolution I

00:16:53 - 00:17:56

think that's actually a great point because for both of your products Nik and forbs not every social platform is gonna like have the right unit economics you know what's your aov on the hot sauce side our aov right now is around $40 but we we we did that you know we only sell two packs online and because I think it's interesting historically for food and beverage Brands you know really e-commerce and social commerce is a place for Discovery I mean Brands I've launched on D Toc you know large D 78%

00:17:24 - 00:18:23

of it be a variety pack you know which typically doesn't sell in retail people typically want to go to retail buy you know what they know they want but e-commerce I think I've seen a lot of it be a lot of trial and Discovery and I think it's interesting you know I was involved with a brand previously called Dirty lemon um it was interesting to watch The Evolution there because you know that brand re we you know built about a $5 million brand on Instagram previous to sponsored ads all that kind

00:17:54 - 00:18:54

of stuff back in the day when you would just kind of do what we're talking about doing on a bigger level here with Tik Tok but go find some influencers you know write them a $500 check have them you know post some some posts with the product and it was kind of you know meant to be like you know this isn't an ad and then obviously it moved to the sponsored ad it kind of evolved to that and meta ads and in the beginning you know we really boosted sales with meta and Instagram ads um or you know

00:18:23 - 00:19:23

Facebook ads and Instagram ads back then um but then you saw the customer acquisition cost and the cost of those ads just Skyrocket to you know $60 $70 and you know with a price point you know in D in David's um case you know you can sustain that and really drive that but in for cpg products where your average order value in our case back then it was like $60 you know you have to get a lifetime value out of someone you know three or four orders in order for it to make sense so definitely I think like

00:18:53 - 00:19:49

you know not every platform works perfectly for it but I think it drives trial it drives awareness you know you're really getting it in people's hands um you know so that's kind of how I think about it's been interesting Evolution especially with I think specifically food and beverage and kind of lower aov type products yeah I think we see the same thing like consistently there's only so low you can get your CPA on meta on paid channels and that's just a function of the ad auction and

00:19:21 - 00:20:25

platform saturation and like how many people are bidding for the same ad space um so low aov products I mean I didn't realize your aov was that high uh but you can make d2c work I think 40 you figure out how to get your aov up to 50 60 bucks like you're in a good spot when I think too I tell a lot of people because I think everyone always wants is worried that they're going to be priced too high for e-commerce and I think like let the you know Shopify or let kind of maybe even Amazon or or others you know

00:19:53 - 00:20:43

be somewhat of a lower price point but I think if people are going to go to your website go to your Shopify site are going to Eng with your brand I think they just want killer experiences you know I don't think you know someone can walk into Whole Foods and buy the product for $4.99 but I think you know what we try and give is a is an experience to them you know something that's very giftable that has a high value prop you know so you can take it to a dinner party it's a conversation piece it's something like

00:20:18 - 00:21:10

that and I think like I try and tell people don't be scared to go to build better experiences in e-commerce um even more expensive experiences because I think if people really want to engage with the brand on that level going to purchase it yeah it's an opportunity for you to tell your story I think it comes through in the cloud 23 branding like you guys are clearly trying to differentiate from an aesthetic perspective in the hot sauce category I'm just curious how you know what other

00:20:44 - 00:21:43

how how else you view that that category it's it's obviously there's a lot of players in there like what's your strategy in terms of is it is it on taste is it other pieces like talk to me about that yeah I mean obviously hot sauce is a very crowded category um and a lot of like Unique Products a lot of unique bottles you know unique you know flavor profiles and things like that I think for us you know the white space we saw was you have Brands like truff and flyby Jing that have done a really great

00:21:14 - 00:22:10

job of Premium you know being a premium or super premium product in the category um but they all are you know either are Niche to some degree and so what we tried to do is create a uh you know we have two two SKS one's a sweet jalapeno which has a little bit of um uh brown sugar in it and then we have a hot habanera which is more of your traditional kind of American hot sauce but tried to create something that you know was ubiquitous could be used across a lot of different um Cuisines a lot of

00:21:42 - 00:22:44

different dishes was kind of high use but in terms of the packaging I think we really wanted to go you know it was really Brooklyn's vision of you know doing something that's Prem super premium but different um you know we get a lot of comments that it looks like perfume um or something to to the to the case but the um you know the it's a custom bottle that we had made um you know expensive bottle yeah meant to look like you know kind of a decanter and the you know I think the labels kind of cut

00:22:13 - 00:23:03

across a lot of the simple modernization that's been in cpg for the past like four or five years where people have just gone to like very simple straightforward branding it's a little bit more maximalist and is kind of inspired you know a lot by his tattoos and kind of his tattoo style um you know so I think we're kind of leaning you know in cpg in retail at least you know it's really about getting someone to buy it first and I think the packaging engages people from that and then it's the

00:22:38 - 00:23:30

repeat purchase which the product it's all organic no stabilizers no anything so it really you know I think delivers on that and and you know we're excited to to get it in more hands I think that's such a good point I think for everyone here who's how many people are launching businesses and cpg Founders apparel Founders like what are cpg maybe okay A bit yeah like I think figuring out where your product's going to sell is the most important thing when you're thinking about design so like you can

00:23:04 - 00:23:56

see with Cloud 23 It's Gonna Stand Out on shelf which is really what you want to do when you're in a crowded category like you want to get people to say what is that and then they kind of dive deeper it's like them opening the the you know a chapter the first chapter of a book and then they try and then to your point earlier David that's trial and then if you have a great product they repeat um the beautiful thing about D Toc is like you have so many other marketing touch points to tell the brand

00:23:30 - 00:24:32

story so that's the Shopify website I haven't been on the cloud 23 website yet but I'm sure it's beautiful um and then you have all of the other marketing material from like your product photography you know other ways to tell the story um so I think for the founders in the room like figure out where you're going to be selling your product whether it's Amazon also has a lot of touch points Tik Tok has an entirely different medium of creative it's influencer creative it's working with creators that

00:24:01 - 00:25:03

align with your brand I'm sure for cloud 23 when you're working with creators it's going to be like yeah like your no you know matsuhisa noou like high quality chefs like that's part of the brand so I think that's important to consider when you guys are thinking about creative Nik what's your most fun marketing activation to date yeah I think the most fun we did it's uh we did five months program run Club in New York city so essentially we would run um we work with a person who was who helped us

00:24:32 - 00:25:31

to run the club like twice twice a week I'm sorry twice a month and uh I think throughout the five months there's a thousand people participating in those runs and we were able to get our product to them and let them try it we launched a couple of new products as well we tested them you know get the feedbacks from people as well so I think that was was that your own run club or do you partner with someone yeah we just partnered with someone and we had those like uh like bi-weekly rounds interesting yeah

00:25:02 - 00:26:16

run clubs are becoming so popular in the city it's like there's a new one every every other week um David what about you here oh gosh uh there have been so many um I think the one that I didn't know about was probably the most fun um because we um had a in the early days of Ball Sports we were the mattress partner they we did a a lot with them we helped them they helped us and um we did a they did I didn't do it the team did an activation in Boston on moving day where they had someone dressed as um

00:25:39 - 00:26:57

Santa Claus being dragged around on a truck that we had a bunch of mattresses in and handing them out to students and um I I pretended we weren't on Ball Sports but it's a very interesting um uh example of what we're talking about here because I think the second year we did it it went from like 300,000 to 700,000 they wanted for the sponsorship and I said um if you can show me that we're doing $3 million of Revenue I don't care cuz no one I know has ever told me they've seen bore Sports CU I mean I I

00:26:18 - 00:27:16

wasn't there nor nor any so and that's the whole thing about and Tik Tok in particular and the way the algorithms work now as long as you can find an audience and you can find someone talks to that audience then um uh then then then you can play there because they don't overlap very much and I one of the things that I was going to ask is you know I was always every single Channel um expert that I had on my team would come and tell me we've sold this much through the channel but the halo effect

00:26:47 - 00:27:51

is like three times and I'd add it all up and it would be like 10 times our actual sales that that everyone was claiming but there definitely is a halo effect and I think that if you can find um creators who um not only love your product but but shop at Whole Foods and can Rec can can easily Rec then then I think that there's it's got to be a win for you I mean there is a there must be a halo effect of all this that you're selling you know the direct is just one small part I don't know what I you don't

00:27:19 - 00:28:09

need to share but but I'm but I'm sure you your retail business is very important yeah yeah no I definitely think there's a halo effect and I think to one of the most interesting things I'm looking forward to digging in deeper is I think when you launch a product you I've formulated and launched a lot of products and I you know I know a lot of formulators who are kind of tinkerers you know they like they want to get it perfect before they launch I'm more of like let's get it 80 85% there because

00:27:44 - 00:28:36

you don't know who it's going to resonate with and so I think Tik Tok is a huge opportunity to access a lot of what you're talking about those kind of I don't call Micro audiences but different audiences and every time I've ever launched a product I've been surprised by you know some of the audiences that really embrace it whether it's the bar stool sport example so I think one of the powerful things I'm looking forward to a Tik Tok is just seeing what some of those audiences that

00:28:10 - 00:29:06

really resonate with the product that you wouldn't even you wouldn't be able to think about or plan ahead of time um and getting just some of the feedback but definitely a halo effect I think having that awareness it's the same we see with the celebrity side of things which I know we're going to talk a little bit more about but um you know just just being able to get the word out it drives people to retail secondarily yeah I think the the major concern I have right now on the on the shop side

00:28:37 - 00:29:48

is like the the margin is just so slim so I think you have to be thinking about it as almost like a a marketing channel like for you whereas like Amazon it's a pure demand capture platform it's like you are looking at your contribution profit every single week and you're trying to maximize that as much as as possible with Tik Tok you've got the affiliate fees you have the marketplace commission you have your uh uh fulfillment costs like cogs agency fees there's ad spend on top it's like it

00:29:12 - 00:30:21

just continues to compress things so the brand you're putting me off it very quickly but the halo effect no I think it's a genuine it's a it's a real concern though but like I mean you've run these correlations you do like a P value correlation or an mm and you see T when products go viral on Tik Tok they sell on Amazon um and you know there's definitely an effect on on Shopify or retail too so I think that's going to get worked out I think the unit economic piece is still like the Market's trying

00:29:47 - 00:30:47

to figure that out um but yeah defin certainly like we know Brands doing millions of gmv on Tik Tok shop and they're not profitable channels for them yeah so I I'm really interested we've had like two different office hours about community building and I think that's like very much in Vogue in the consumer space like are you like our our brand is community-driven I think I heard Nik say Community Driven um and the question is like what what is that actually mean like how do you quantify

00:30:17 - 00:31:29

Community um David how do you think about that because obviously tiami is going to be Community Driven yeah I mean I I I have a lot of touch points into measurement and um through through various activities that I'm involved in and I I measure everything I mean Maggie's here she's worked for me uh before she she joined me on when we launched the fascination and sold it and went with the sale and um so I you you know me measurement is absolutely critical so if we can't measure it we

00:30:53 - 00:32:09

won't do it that's is that simple and I think that what I'm seeing anyway through the whaler lens actually is that um just using fairly traditional measures of you know reach Impressions that's that's helpful but you know ultimately businesses have to make money and so I'm looking for a route directly into sales and actually contribution and um and so you know I'm I'm measuring ultimately Community performance by what did it what does it cost to build and how much money does it

00:31:31 - 00:32:26

generate ultimately but you've got to you got to you got to have some staying power in the early stages and some belief in it n what do you think about Community like you guys have obviously done a ton in New York City how do you think about the ginger Community yeah so I think for us um we seasonal business like ginger shots obviously Everyone likes them during the winter time summer slows down and I think this summer we had pretty strong summer as well in terms of sales so I think this I can

00:31:59 - 00:33:02

contribute towards that so why is that though people just like their Ginger shots you know Ginger shots they more for immunity you know it's like cold and flu season obviously people buy more summertime I I guess those just like hardcore Ginger shot lovers you know they continue to consume them uh so like I said we had very strong summer this year so I think we can contribute to some of those activities but also at the same time you know we start our meta ads recently essentially like July um so I

00:32:30 - 00:33:37

think that's also contributed to extra sales so I think that's one one way to measure it and then obviously you can build your email list from all this uh Community engagement and um you know send some of the sales and see how people going to purchase you you have a pretty interesting story so tell us a little bit more cuz you bootstrapped Ginger yeah so essentially when we first started it's uh 2020 um we about to launch a product in March and Co happened we had $150,000 in the bank not a lot of money

00:33:04 - 00:34:05

and um you know we essentially launched during lock down so we went that was that uh Ginger shots Ginger shots yeah so it was just 2020 like there was no distributor you can even talk to them because like no one even there was no emails you know it was like complete lockdown so we went from store to store to store and product just kind of like took off and uh within the first like 6 month we had 400 buying stores and um you know we generated Revenue immediately and um kind of like for us we the retail first that was kind of

00:33:34 - 00:34:40

like our approach especially during 2020 during lockdown everyone went to directed consumer so I think for us that was kind of like the winning strategy we actually went at the retail and we buil very strong retail and then we only went into directed consumer and like I said we've been in the business for four years five years and we just start our directed consumer how did the uh Co like how did did Co impact uh the consumer Behavior around Ginger shots well I think I mean like postco like right when we first started even

00:34:08 - 00:35:06

talking to some investor they're like oh you know it's just the trend you know people going to just drink ginger shots and then it just because like immunity was just hot right everyone was talking about immunity and digestion all that stuff right so and then some investor told us you know just Trend it's going to go away but we just see that people continue to consume this type of product because we you know 10x hour business from 2020 so and um you know I think people became more aware of this type of

00:34:37 - 00:35:34

product especially with the social media Tik Tok like nowadays everyone makes his Ginger shots and whatnot so I think it it's going to continue to grow yeah so I guess so like Starbucks they launched a ginger shot competitor like how do you how do you like anticipate some of those moves that are going to happen and retain you know your brand retain your ster how have you guys thought about that again kind of going back to the region of the story it was like 2019 right when I kind of had this idea you

00:35:05 - 00:36:00

know we always going to have cold and flu season so it was summer 2019 so I had no idea there's going to be covid right and while I was building this product and we B to launch Co happened so it was just kind of like you know I would say right product at the right time right and then once we launched the product really took off from like day one product start selling and probably knowing the beverage and industry it's extremely hard to you know get your product on the Shelf that's going to

00:35:33 - 00:36:32

move right away it takes like six month even a year just to start seen some movements so for us it was just like a perfect storm but then we started with just single product but then we start adding different type of product like digestion energy just kind of like expand our portfolio and just continue with the some upand cominging Trends you know yeah how have you tested so frequently I remember every conversations we've had here like check out energy like check out digestion yeah so for me it was more like you know once

00:36:02 - 00:37:06

I see the trend so I saw the trend for vitamin D I'm like okay so vitamin D it's becoming like a Hot Topic so I'm like let's launch this product so and we launched it we see the traction product is moving so I will kind of like you just have to stay on top of the market I would say so just see what's going on and then when did you raise you guys raised a round recently we had Daniel on the panel he led the round right right so we raised uh so we bootstrapped for essentially three years and then this March we close

00:36:34 - 00:37:46

our seed round nice and now you guys are expanding tell us more yeah so uh this like I said this year was pretty strong so we double out our business uh this year so I hope my investors are happy with the results um so I think we did pretty good job and um it was a lot of learning obviously it was our first uh VC investment and it took me sometime to realize that we actually you know VC bag um but um you know I think as we learn the business it just you know we become like more comfortable in what we're

00:37:10 - 00:38:30

doing so that's awesome let's talk about live shopping uh has anyone bought anything off a live shopping ad no me either but I've I am yeah there we go historically um you know going way back to the beginning of uh director consumer um I launched shopping on the Travel Channel on Sky travel in Europe and I was live on Thursdays so I've done super live like you know on you're the you're the live it wasn't me I wasn't the talent because even in those days you wanted like real talent on on but yeah

00:37:50 - 00:38:48

and then I've so I'm I'm a huge believer I will be trying live shopping because I've experienced it through all its incarnation Home Shopping Network QVC but it's again I mean the thing that people misunderstand is that these platforms create audiences and the audience has to be your customer you know QVC had about half a million customers that were their customers like it was like there were people that went to Nordstrom and there were people that shopped at QVC so if they were your

00:38:19 - 00:39:09

audience and you got the right host you could sell a lot of stuff and it's going to be no different in in live shopping if the host talks to that people who need interested in have a need for a product like yours then it'll work and if they don't it'll flop and I'm sure you've heard stories or maybe you haven't most of you're too young so how do you deconstruct that then is that like if you're a brand you're trying to are you trying to plug your product into

00:38:44 - 00:39:48

a host that has an existing audience um or and let me just impart my own what I'm seeing in the market is I'm seeing Brands build their own live shopping apparatus where they have like 24-hour live shopping facilities and they're just pushing their own products that's how we're going to look at it we're going to see it as our own platform just like you know we had a store a street away at Leisa you know we will try live shopping as a place to build an outlet for our product to make it available

00:39:16 - 00:40:18

there and um so we'll you know we'll we'll see you know our intent is to try every new that's how we succeeded um so I always have a threshold of what I'll spend on a test and I don't care if it succeeds or fails because I I don't measure it I I look at it all in total but I allocate budget to test so we we'll test everything and and if it works we'll roll it out and you know that's how that's how I did it last time and that's how I encourage people to do

00:39:47 - 00:40:52

it so I think for you I mean it's kind of tough live shopping for hot sauce right I think um you know we're going to be doing our first live with actually through Amazon when we launch um nice launch B yeah ex yeah exactly um so but I think there's some interesting opportunities to you know buildin cooking kind of culinary you know showing B's going to be cooking live oh yeah he's cooking uh with with I won't say who it is people January 17th um but he's cooking with a with a chef live um

00:40:20 - 00:41:17

but I think you know he's a good cook he he is a good cook I've I've eaten lots of the things he's cooked I've just heard um you didn't try this stuff at cam no he was on we saw him at uh he he did I think was a pasta at Amazon Port yeah no but I didn't try I tried the sake I tried the sake it was good nice yeah but I mean I think we think about it how do you create experiences from live that show people how to use the product you know and get them excited about not only

00:40:48 - 00:41:45

you know what they can what they think they can do but showing you know easy ways to use the product you know engaging them with culinary Talent you know um and some of the names we've been able to attract um so yeah I think we're gonna definitely lean more into it with Tik Tok specifically um but it'll be interesting to see kind of the feedback we get from that and again we've shot for social content we've shot a lot um with uh different chefs but I think we're going to you know try and do some

00:41:17 - 00:42:12

live things with other influencers um and and other culinary Talent as well and just on that note too so what's it like tell us the Journey of how you guys got to a place where you know you were working with Brooklyn did he originate the idea and then you you guys partner on it like because I think a lot of folks that I speak to in the consumer space there's always the alert of like working with the celebrity so unpack that for us yeah this I mean I really like the experience because it's

00:41:45 - 00:42:48

a little bit different I know a lot of you know have a lot of friends in the industry who started Brands and um you know they start it and a celebrity comes on and you know is given Equity to come on or or to partner in but you know the fun part about this is it really was originated with Brooklyn and I was kind of brought on um to you know help kind of execute that Vision um so I mean Brooklyn is the main shareholder um you know he during covid um really love cooking for his wife and uh they kind of

00:42:16 - 00:43:12

developed the basis of the hot sauce themselves and kind of again the unique branding which I like because honestly The Branding that we created you know I feel like sometimes it's hard when you've been in the industry a long time you kind of get narrowed into what the trends are what you've seen a lot of and so I think it was a really unique perspective so it was fun to see it kind of come to life and put you know I've been in the industry for about 15 years to put that expertise behind kind of a

00:42:44 - 00:43:40

really unique vision and kind of execut it against that yeah I mean like what what is what's the value I mean obviously Brooklyn's creating a lot of content he's got a ton of followers like having gone through it off the launch like is it there's a CAC reduction like is it Revenue like how do you think about it uh I'll be honest here I'm actually uh annoyed how much easier it is with a with a celebrity than it is to do on your own not that you can't do it on your own but you know we were able to

00:43:12 - 00:44:19

secure a national Whole Foods roll out um I don't think that would have been something we'd be able to do without Brooklyn um I think even if you talk to retailers like Whole Foods Sprouts even the Walmarts and the targets of the world um they're seeing the halo effect and that influencers are driving and and people with you know communities and social media audiences are really driving sales for a lot of the brands in store again you know not all are created equal um you know I think the level of Engagement

00:43:45 - 00:44:48

of the of the celebrity Talent um and really having it be an authentic kind of story kind of like what we have really helps make the difference but you know again with Amazon you know unlocking a lot of you know kind of some of the you know unlocking some of their um you know different tool kits that they're willing to do in order to help support celebrity driven Brands so it definitely you know makes a difference you know I would be lying if I said it didn't and I think um and then also just having that initial

00:44:17 - 00:45:21

reach and you know I think a lot of times it's not only you know again in brookland's case he has a family and an ecosystem of people that also have a huge following so we definitely saw that Amplified as other people uh posted about it and kind of having that built-in Network that just amplifies the reach from 16 million to 100 million um you know really is helpful both from the you know driving people to Shopify organically um you know helping drive people and a lot of that for us came

00:44:49 - 00:45:44

from Instagram and even just stories um and also driving people to retail yeah I think the partnership stuff is just it's a huge unlock on the marketing side when you have a celebrity you can create these media Partnerships with Amazon with Tik Tok and they're just much more willing to give you free marketing spend which is like it's currency it's it's it's huge when you're launching a new brand to Market what I will say though assuming most people aren't starting

00:45:16 - 00:46:16

celebrity Brands because it's rare and tough um I think the best thing that you can do though is invest in your brand um and be really intentional about it when we've been negotiating with an Amazon or a Tik Tok for new brand launches like acting more like a distributor they're yes they're interested in Brooklyn Beckham and the Nicki mines of the world and like those folks and are G them going to give them special treatment but they're also giving special treatment to uh new brands that are doing something

00:45:47 - 00:47:02

different that are telling a different story that have their brand identity dialed in um we're seeing that a lot so that would be kind of my advice to to those of you that aren't thinking about the celebrity route but are thinking about the brand route um so tiami we talked about it a little bit but yeah um yeah thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about it um you know I I uh got out of the mattress business in 2019 um but stayed on as chairman of the company and uh a decade ago um the

00:46:24 - 00:47:37

mattress industry which is a huge industry 15 16 billion dollar a year was like the Wild Wild West at retail and uh we came along and made it easy to buy online we we launched about the same time as Casper we did not raise a ton of money we made money actually in our first year um and um uh you know we did it uh we we got ahead of ourselves a little bit at times because we did raise some money and that really wasn't a great experience cuz when you raise it spend it and not wanting to get technical but if you're in a positive

00:47:01 - 00:48:10

working capital business and you raise money and they expect you to spend it you're going to lose money because you didn't need the C I mean it's just it's just kind of the nature of it unless you unless you're growing unbelievably quickly so um uh so 10 years on what happened was the uh in the the reviewers came in and took over every generic term and many of them some of them are genu ly reviewing mattresses but as you probably know some of them are just media businesses and they they recommend

00:47:35 - 00:48:43

the company that pays them the most money and um so now today nobody really knows what mattress to buy if you if you're in the market for a new mattress you have no idea and my co-founder um Jamie diamondstein builds the most unbelievable mattresses and I and I said you know I I have a friend or family member every week I've had two this week tell me they're buying a new mattress what do I recommend and I just didn't know what to recommend and I said Jamie if you can create the best mattress on

00:48:09 - 00:49:18

the market for around $3,000 let's do this again and so three of us who launched Lisa got together with actually one of Maggie's um colleagues from my next startup that we built and sold the fascination and the four of us um uh are building this business the product is Absol absolutely extraordinary the inspiration is really um the waves the the idea of looking at the ocean or the Mediterranean and seeing the gentle waves and can you create that Serene feeling of of rest that you get just

00:48:43 - 00:49:56

from staring at water at waves can you create that in a mattress and we've we take that thinking into everything we do from the cover design which is 100% natural cotton through to all the creative that we're doing um the way we think about everything even the music that we uh looking at to put with our brand and um and we're trying to deliver that expectation and that feeling so we're kind of thinking of tiami as more than just a mattress it's a feeling and we want people to share their tiami

00:49:20 - 00:50:27

moment so we're building Community as well and saying you know if you're if you're walking along a beach or if you're sitting on a beach and there's just two of you there and you're looking out at the ocean that feeling is a tiami moment that's how you want to be when you get into your bed the the other thing about the product is it's very very confusing um our bestselling mattress in my prior life I had the same number of people saying it was too firm as too soft in the returns and that's

00:49:53 - 00:50:53

because the idea of a firm mattress or a soft mattress is a myth um and choice is paralyzing so we're only creating one mattress and we've got the right support the right rejuvenating layer and then the right Comfort on top so um I'm I'm incredibly excited about it as you heard we're going to try lots of different channels um to get there you know we're we're looking at creators as well and maybe trying to find the right Creator to work with I do want to say one thing

00:50:23 - 00:51:30

about celebrities I've had very mixed experiences from EXT ordinary relationships with Ali Raisman for example coming out of the Olympics and she um everything that I do and we will be doing with uh uh with tiami as well has social impact attached to it but it's table Stakes now and I at least or I didn't talk about what we were going to do I talk about what we did and we donated one mattress for every 10 we sold and during my tenure we donated 40,000 mattresses across the AC to shelters all across the US and we've got

00:50:56 - 00:52:02

some something similar planned here but and Ally bought into that like unbelievably she came with us to donation events and and yeah Michael Phelps was also paid an awful lot of money to have him and um and and it's complicated you know when you work with celebrities like that you know private jets and that you don't really budget for and and stuff like that and so when you choose celebrities I I like what creators are doing today people are already got a following and they come out with a product that's relevant to

00:51:29 - 00:52:34

who they are um makes an awful lot of sense to me and I would support any anyone trying to do that but just going out you know it didn't work in politics it's not going to work in Commerce either celebrities unfortunately um didn't do the well I shouldn't I'm not going to get political here but um but um uh so just just just be careful so look I'm excited you can go to ti.com you can see a welcome page um uh what other questions did you have here all unfortunately we're I'm getting

00:52:02 - 00:53:09

the signal that we're at time here so I want to go to move into open Q&A if you guys don't mind so uh I'll either give you the mic or I'll go ahead um you know we use clavio and really kind of try and hit touch points of um you know driving people to review the product a lot you know uh and tell us their experience because I think that's one of the big things with DC for food and beverage products in particular is the kind of that close feedback loop you can get with your customers and

00:52:35 - 00:53:43

getting that feedback which is a huge piece um you know I think it's probably because I personally hate being tapped on too many times but we you know we have a whole kind of marketing cycle usually it's a couple days after someone's received the package and then we typically um one month after kind of you know uh kind of tap on someone to see if they they need more um but I think you know we we try and be a little bit light touch but kind of also feed people um content you know we have a big recipe

00:53:09 - 00:54:04

database that we're building again some of it's with you know really well-known chefs some of it's just some of our own recipes and and things we've built but I think trying to build that Community also show people how to use the product also just helps do that as well I I'll add to that to you sorry go ahead ni yeah I think in now case um you know we have a such a product it has high repeat purchase you know if you into Ginger shot any Wellness product you would probably consume them on daily basis

00:53:36 - 00:54:50

right uh from our experience I think about 50 to 60% of the first time purchaser they subscribe already and for us we also use cavio and we send some educational material to if you're a first-time purchaser and then obviously we also offer discount if you want to you know for the second purchase um um so yeah that's kind of what we do um yeah so with a big ticket item like uh a mattress they're not going to buy it that often anyway but um you know this is the truth when I first got into

00:54:13 - 00:55:04

the business I was scared to talk to a customer because they had a 100 night free trial and I was worried that they might not like it and they they might send it back so I didn't know what you know because I went into the unknown jumped straight in you know with both feet um borrowed $100,000 actually in our first month personally because I couldn't get it through the business at the time so you know I had I was screwed if we didn't sell mattresses in the first couple of months it would have

00:54:39 - 00:55:30

been all over um so I I really didn't want to talk to anybody today we're doing it very differently we want people to talk about it's not so much we want them to buy again but we want them to talk about it so we're going to be sending a gift out within about 3 to four weeks completely unexpected um we we're sending out the well we haven't fully decided yet so I won't talk about it yet but but our intent is to send a gift out we built it into our cost structure and I did that

00:55:04 - 00:55:56

years ago in in in my travel business actually I did the same thing so um we're going to try and surprise and Delight them and we're going to give them a really strong incentive um to share their experience with their friend not for themselves but for their friends because there won't hopefully there won't be any discounts available um uh just people searching for a discount they won't find it when we're not going to promote a discount other than six times a year so they'll have the

00:55:30 - 00:56:26

opportunity if they really love it and we hope they will to be able to say to a friend that's looking for a mattress you know I can get you 15% off because I'm in the friends and family Network I have friends and family a friends and family code myself so we're just trying something different as my partner said to me this morning don't commit to it too much because it might not work we might have to go back to the old way of doing things but um we've got very high hopes that by launching a luxury product

00:55:58 - 00:57:01

we can do things a little differently and that after I mean it's all about the experience everything I I I I can't emphasize enough that these guys have done an amazing job at delivering an experience that exceeded people's expectations and when people commit anything to memory you know like I I've just had the most extraordinary work week with a reunion of my my team from 30 years ago in London and then a re time with my my mother and nieces and and nephews in England I've been in a

00:56:30 - 00:57:26

different place every night for the last week and I'll end up in Denver tonight and um just these experiences if you and I've had some really bad customer service in the last week and I'm telling people how bad it was with the United and how bad it was funny enough with black Lane the car service that I used but I still got them picking me up tonight although I swear I'd never use them again um but everything you commit to memory every experience if it's extraordinary when it gets committed to

00:56:58 - 00:57:52

memory and people share it it's good and people that that's that's the bet that's the way you bring your acquisition cost down everything else you do is secondary to delivering an unbelievable experience once you got a customer yeah I'm going to steal that um anticipation experience memory just I'll I'll I'll tribute it to you well as as it's as Lucas knows it's actually a big part of the book I'm writing at the moment so uh you can steal it but please please credit

00:57:25 - 00:58:22

biographyedit me un unbox is the name of the book um's what's the product by the way I'm just asking oh yeah I I will say too I think referrals you know you know promoting where you're not just blanket promoting but promoting and giving people who have already engaged with you and to to pass it on to their friends I think is a huge part we haven't done any of it yet but we're we're looking to do that and I think to David's point I think if you create a good value

00:57:53 - 00:58:55

proposition and something that engages people then you know it'll they want to share it and then giving them the extra kind of ammunition to share it is is really powerful and I've seen it be very powerful in the past yeah like to summarize I think some products to n's point they just like have repeat baked into it it's like are you consuming it every every day or on what frequency and then make good experiences you know I think the unboxing experience is huge other questions a couple of the things

00:58:25 - 00:59:31

that I'm seeing talking at early stage Founders one like it's really uncomfortable to make content like I've been running my business for seven years I just started making content six months ago it was the most uncomfortable thing ever I like doing you know I like having meetings I like doing deals I like uh you know strategy Business Development Partnerships you know all the things that go into actually building I like building um what I've seen just starting to make content around around the agency

00:58:58 - 00:59:57

business and and and our community it's been insane so I've just made it a habit like and it's taking time but I think every single consumer brand every single person I've had on this panel that has started making content um they've every single one of them have said I I wish i' I did it sooner and if you're talking about how to do it on the tightest budget the most costeffective way is making content yourself all you're investing is your time so I would just say you need a get over that like mental

00:59:28 - 01:00:27

Gap and just start making it a part of your routine cuz guess what like the over the next 10 years most consumer businesses are going to have content creators embedded within them or most of the founders are going to be making content themselves that's the only differentiator you have really it's like brand and content creation so I would say try and figure it out yourself we're doing a session with Shopify in January right at the start of the new year um All About That how you can be a founder

00:59:57 - 01:01:00

and make content and we're bringing like three other professional content creators up so we'll make a lot of content around that um other than that like there are services that like match content creator Matchmaker Services uh for your brand uh I actually introduced David to one of them but they're expensive you know so and you have to pay the content creator own video yeah you can do your own video look at look at all this imagine just how visual that cont is right like yeah I'll play

01:00:29 - 01:01:25

Devil's Advocate a little bit because I I hate hate content luckily I have a celebrity brand where he does all the content but um but no I think like to you know I don't think it's a terrible thing to you know as David suggested whether find a partner or find someone who is an avid user of the brand and just really believes in what you're doing I think one thing too about engaging with customers is you'll find that like there are these Avid users that you know love to help and love to

01:00:56 - 01:01:56

you know naturally kind of amplify the brand and I think I think it's fine to find um I've seen this a lot specifically on Tik Tok find people who that's really their comfort zone and is kind of like your company or your brand ambassador that does that content and is kind of the face of your brand you know you know for that for that Channel or for social media in general you know I also think it's better I've seen a lot of people and Lucas can probably speak to this but I've seen a lot of people

01:01:26 - 01:02:26

are you know talk to a lot of co-founders who will go and kind of just go to a bunch of influencers at once and you know they don't see a ton of return I think it's better to have kind of someone who's consistent and is you work with it's a consistent face of the brand to start and then you know put your budget towards something like that and see if there's a way you can incentivize them in some way um but I think you'll I think there another option I think if you you know engage whether friends or

01:01:57 - 01:02:57

you know Avid users I think you'll find people you know you'll find someone who really enjoys doing that and you know will be happy to be the you know help you to be the face of your brand other questions yeah I I didn't share that part of the strategy um you know uh one of the things that the only one of the only things that a major competitor did when I had Lisa was get into West Elm I wanted to be in West Elm so badly cuz it was such a brand fit for us at Lisa and they made a mistake my competitor

01:02:27 - 01:03:38

they sold part of their company to Target and I contacted this the president of West Elm and literally sent him a on line LinkedIn message it said um based on targets investment in XYZ company um would you be interested in talking and six weeks later we kicked Casper out of every one of their stores and took took that space because West Elm didn't want to be associated with the company that was being sold in Target so so um because of the way they do their product so it just one of my goals in launching tiami is to have

01:03:02 - 01:04:00

retail exposure there are very few furniture stores left that are highend that don't have a strong um relationship with the mattress brand but there is one and I can't tell you who it is but they have stores in all the major cities and will be concurrently launching well it may be like two months afterwards just because of their calendar but we're going to launch on July the 15th but we're already they've asked us to take over one of their own Brown mattresses and we're already supplying going to be supplying

01:03:31 - 01:04:34

that basically as soon as we can get it to them which is this is all happening incredibly quickly but yeah I I do believe that that retail is is critical I think these guys are you know one went you went direct first and then into retail you went retail first and then direct yeah we we it it's really really difficult but not impossible I think creators can do it I think creators can can build direct only if they've got the right product um but I think that if you're trying to build a a long-term

01:04:03 - 01:05:00

brand that isn't Associated just with one individual um who is prepared to do all the creative then I think that ultimately people like shopping particularly at the higher end and I think that that you know I always say Millennials created the Beast that they're trying to get away from now because they all want to go into stores now highend stores and have great experiences and so we're going to try and do which we're going to try and do and I think to another channel that we didn't really talk about that we think a

01:04:31 - 01:05:31

lot about is um kind of on for us in food it's like on premise and and Food Service CU for us that's a similar to what you know someone goes to a West Elm or to whatever future retailer will be carrying tiami and can experience it I mean I call it like the asop model you know you went to you know a a rest nice restaurant you went to a hotel they had asop you know you want something nice at your house what are you going to buy asop or you know one of the other similar Brands but so for us you know we

01:05:02 - 01:06:05

have a couple Hotel Partnerships launching we'll be doing in room service with it also at the restaurants um at the at those on premise and then doing a lot of collaborations um with a number of like qsr um or sorry lingo stupid lingo um fast casual like pizza places sandwich places things like that and I think um I'll actually a shout out to a competitor I think zabs which is a hot sauce has done a really wonderful job of of doing that and getting in some of those places you go to a high-end

01:05:33 - 01:06:25

sandwich shop you know they have a billboard in there and I think that stuff can be expensive and should be done like lightly but I think for Discovery and trial it's you know some really unique places like whether it's a hotel that carries your mattresses just have you have you um looked at first class on airlines yeah so yeah we're talking to Emirates and and Delta right now cuz I I'm I was an early investor in just enough wine and that their revenu is just taken off cuz they got United

01:05:59 - 01:07:03

they and T Tip Top the caned cocktails they did 20 million on Delta the first year yeah so yeah and there's there's some interesting channels I call it the alternative Channel side of things that you can find they're huge people don't realize yeah they can be really big and also people are more likely to buy you than in your traditional Channel side too we got time for one more question yeah um I've done both um and I've had businesses go that I've had to close down um I think today right now I mean I

01:06:32 - 01:07:45

you've heard I've made a bunch of Investments I've probably invested in 40 or I think 50 maybe just over 50 consumer um uh enabling um Technologies and consumer Brands and there there haven't been any exits for a while so it's tough tough place right now and everything's focused on uh on profitability so um if you're not profitable you need to have a um you you need to be on have a plan to become profitable and I will just say this and and by the way I'm rushing out afterwards I would

01:07:08 - 01:08:20

normally stay and and answer any questions but I've got a flight to Denver that I've got to get to so um but if anyone wants to contact me for for anything like this but um you know control your destiny that that's what I would say I've lost control of mine a couple of times in in my career and it's just too painful like it's just it's not it's not where you want to be it's not worth it so profit allows you to control your destiny so um so I would say um be careful sometimes you need money I

01:07:43 - 01:08:48

invest in people who need money um and I've needed money as well but just be really really careful with it and don't don't create it as a reason not to strive for profit so but you know profit profit is more important than growth that's what I would say yeah I think I've definitely been in both and had some heartaches with with businesses that lost a lot of money and I think a lot of times you know I've had friends in in the industry as well that have gone slower more organic growth and it's not

01:08:17 - 01:09:18

as sexy at first or you can't go around and be like oh I doubled my Revenue this year and yada yada y but it's really easy when you are on when you're losing a lot of money or trying to be hyper growth it's really easy to have to go sideways pretty quickly and I think you know you I've Just Seen A lot more stability and people who maybe they take in a little bit of money but they have the path to profitability they kind of wait for that opportunity to really you know Le you know leverage that and have a more solid

01:08:47 - 01:09:37

foundation to leverage that and then the one thing I'll say the biggest thing I've seen in talking to to Founders is whichever way decide to go because hypergrowth certainly is an option know which path you're on because I think that's the biggest thing is I'll talk to Founders who they want hypergrowth but they don't understand what that means they don't understand that when you ra your raise your seed round you better be thinking about your series a round you better be thinking

01:09:12 - 01:10:12

about your series B and you're kind of jumping from lily pad to Lily Pad um whereas you know it's just know which path you're on you can't really be hypergrowth I mean you can be can be in certain ways but um it's harder I think particularly in food and beverage where you you're fighting against a naturally depressed category or the larger companies are holding prices down I mean the amount we buy our food for in grocery stores isn't truly reflective of kind of what the true cost should be

01:09:42 - 01:10:34

even with inflation and all that stuff recently but it's hard because you you're going to have a dip you're going to you need to get to scale now I'd say know which path you're on and also you know I'd just be really intentional with like what sales you get like get to a certain level of sales know where you have to get in order to get your cost down in order to get to the next level of sales it's really a to me phasing your business in the sense of where are the smart sales I can get at

01:10:08 - 01:11:03

this cost where I'm making money then I can go optimize my or optimize my costs and I can unlock that next tier of retailers it's going to be you know a more compressed margin or compressed price point I think even our businesses that are Venture back they're always talking about profitability so I think you want to be profit you profit focus first no matter what you do if your break even you have unlimited Runway just remember that like that's something that you shouldn't take for granted uh

01:10:35 - 01:11:42

there is a time you know there's a timer when you're unprofitable so um you just one more thing as well just on a personal level if your company's losing money and you've got investors like we one of the reasons why we work is for the nice things in life and you you you you can't even buy them when you're losing money even if you've got the money because your investors will be looking at you so I I I've got a lot of nice things and I never bought them when I was losing money I can tell you so if

01:11:09 - 01:12:11

you want to enjoy you know the good things in life um like houses and stuff and and and and be able to put your kids through college with it without any debt which I was able to do you're not going to do that if your company is losing money I just that's it you know um thank you all for coming I really appreciate it for everyone who came and the speakers let's give them a hand um we'll stay around for a little bit for Q&A I think David might have to leave but uh thanks so much for coming we'll we'll be

01:11:40 - 01:11:43

doing this more