How She Went From ZERO To $2M in 18 Months

How She Went From ZERO To $2M in 18 Months Speaker 1: March 2023, I got laid off from my tech job. That's really all I knew my whole career. So I was like, okay, what am I going to do next? Speaker 2: Two years ago, Elina had no business. Today, she has a multi-million dollar business. So you were living off of savings while you were building the business. Speaker 1: Savings and then pulled like my 401k money out. Speaker 2: You were hanging by a thread. Speaker 1: Pretty much, yeah. Speaker 2: Were you scared? Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I was so scared. It's weird because you really don't know what's going to happen like ever when you launch a product. Speaker 2: Elina is a case study of someone who came through this process and now has a seven-figure business that allows her to live life on her own terms. Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine like having the life I do now and I'm not like falling with a Rolex or anything. Speaker 2: That comes when you sell a company. Today, I sit down with Alina to go through her business. How she built the audience of customers that wanted to buy her product before launch day. Where were you collecting the email? Speaker 1: In order to join the group, they put it in. Speaker 2: Oh, that's freaking genius. Wow. Elina. Speaker 1: Hi Ryan. Speaker 2: Hey, tell me what your life was like two years ago. Speaker 1: Two years ago, my life was quite different. So, um, March, 2023, I got laid off from my tech job and that's really all I knew my whole career. So I was like, okay, what am I going to do next? Speaker 2: And what were you doing in tech? Speaker 1: I was working at this AI company. And so I did like project management. Which is probably the most useful skill for entrepreneurship because you have just a ton of moving parts at the same time. I happened to find a book called 12 months to 1 million written by some crazy guy that I didn't know. Speaker 2: Sounds like a scam. Speaker 1: And so I was like, 12 months to 1 million. Okay, like, let me let me see what this is about. Started reading it and just the framework really made sense to me. And I was like, okay, well, I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur. And this gives like, I started to give a good blueprint that I felt actually made a lot of sense and I knew it was high level. Speaker 2: You knew you wanted to be an entrepreneur? Speaker 1: Yes, that I did know. Speaker 2: Your whole life? Speaker 1: Internally, yes. However, my family immigrated here from Ukraine when I was three and so the way that a lot of immigrant parents, well at least mine was, it was like the number one thing they want is safety and so going into entrepreneurship I never even like really thought about it even though looking back like I've always wanted it to be an entrepreneur but what was important was like having a stable job, having you know like income that you know is going to come to you so I Be an entrepreneur was a little bit like against the grain or the norm. Even in college, I had an internship, but I was flipping robot vacuums that I bought on Craigslist. I was flipping them on eBay. I'm like, this is making me way more money. So, I definitely always had that in me. Speaker 2: Terry Vaynerchuk once told me, that's the tell. If you can go back in your life and you find a time where you thought it was more fun to be shoveling driveways than it was to be having snowball fights or flipping vacuums was more fun than going to parties, that's the tell. That's when you know that it's just in you. It's in your blood. So your in between jobs was kind of your permission to explore that itch. It sounds like, is that right? Speaker 1: Yeah. I, I spent a lot of time like walking around and probably listening to your podcast. Uh, and I came to this one that we're on right now. Yes. Speaker 2: It still sounds like a scam. Speaker 1: A little bit surreal. Um, but it almost like I came to the conclusion that this was the universe just It's like if you're not going to do this, I'm going to force you to go this path. And so that's what it almost felt like was happening with when I got laid off. Speaker 2: You said that the framework made sense, but there's still this jump that has to happen from logic to, okay, I'm actually going to do this. I'm actually going to take the risk, put up the capital. I'm going to take a sale. And that is a different moment than when it clicks logically. So when did it click for you that you were going to put both feet in the water? Speaker 1: There was just at one point I decided that, because at first I was building the business and looking for a job and then I got into the final round interviews of some job and I was like, if I get this job, I really don't want this job. Even if I get this, this sucks, is what I was thinking. At that point is when I was like, okay, you know what? If I'm going to think like this and I just have to, I made a decision then to believe in myself because that was the hardest part in the beginning. I think for a lot of entrepreneurs is that it's really hard to believe in yourself when you have Like no track record of it. So I just like would tell myself every day, like I believe in myself and I basically force myself to believe in myself. And then once I saw traction going, then I actually like truly felt and started to believe in myself. Speaker 2: So there was a space there where you kind of had to have faith until you actually did believe in yourself. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: How did you develop that? Speaker 1: Even if I get this, this sucks, is what I was thinking. At that point is when I was like, okay, you know what? If I'm going to think like this, I made a decision then to believe in myself because that was the hardest part in the beginning. I think for a lot of entrepreneurs is that it's really hard to believe in yourself when you have Like no track record of it. So I just like would tell myself every day, like I believe in myself and I basically force myself to believe in myself. And then once I saw traction going, then I actually like truly felt and started to believe in myself. Speaker 2: So there was a space there where you kind of had to have faith until you actually did believe in yourself. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: How did you develop that? And I don't see most people get through that. Most people quit there. Most people have the logical methodology in their brain, but they don't actually believe that they can do it. That's probably the biggest place where people just quit is right at the beginning because they believe some doubt that they can't do it. You went through it. Now you got a million dollar plus business. So how did you get through that period of faith? Speaker 1: Well, at first it's literally just like telling myself like every day, like almost like an affirmation. Like I believe in myself and I, and just doing the things every day that I learned, like, you know, and I mean, most of the things I learned of building my business was in the 1%. So just, I'm like, okay, I'm doing this. It was really nice having the community there and people just like supporting you. The coaches there like seeing like, Hey, if you just keep doing this, At that time, having the outside validation from the 1% community really, really helped because if there are certain things that people don't even know that they said to me, like little things, or like, wow, that was such a good video or great job with this email that at that time, I really needed to hear that because I was really, really doubting myself. And so hearing that from a community and having other people believe in me too, helped me in the beginning also believe in myself, even though I was seeing like nothing going in the beginning. Speaker 2: Other people's affirmation of your quality of work was the shot in the arm that you needed to keep doing the work. That's what I'm hearing you say. Speaker 1: Yeah. Like especially at certain points. It's funny to think that these people have no idea, like this one little thing that they might've said to me, I still remember and I'm like, wow, like that. I might've quit then if I didn't have a community. Speaker 2: Can you think of one of those times? Speaker 1: Yeah. So we're in Austin and so a couple, like a handful of us meet in Austin and so I'd spent all day recording this video. It was like my founder story is here's how I quit or here's Why I quit AI to start a dog company or something along those lines. That's a good hook. There's some sort of hook like that. And then I went to that meetup that evening and I was just so exhausted. I'd been recording and editing this video all day. I was just really exhausted. It was really stressful back then. And Julie was like, oh my God. Julie is someone in the 1% and I was like, oh my God. She was like, oh my God, that video is so good. This is going to be Like I can't wait to see where you are in six months. Something just like simple like that really kind of was what I needed to hear then. Speaker 2: And at that point you were exhausted, doubting if it was going to work, doubting if you were going to get any traction. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: And that comment was, okay, I'll keep going. I'll give it another day. I'll give it another week. I'll keep doing the work. Speaker 1: Yeah. And looking at my bank account and seeing all the, My savings go down, so that's... Speaker 2: So you were living off of savings while you were building the business? Speaker 1: Savings and then pulled like my 401k money out. Speaker 2: Wow. Speaker 1: From my inventory, yeah. Speaker 2: Were you scared? Speaker 1: Oh yeah. I was so scared. So I started kind of building the audience in May and then when I launched the product in December, I had like one month of rent left. So I needed it to work. Speaker 2: You were hanging by a thread. Speaker 1: Pretty much, yeah. Speaker 2: Okay. I didn't know that part of your story. So you started planning and building in May of 23, right? Speaker 1: Yeah. So let's say I found your book in the framework, the 1% community in March. I started thinking about it for, you know, like a month and a half. And then I started really like starting to, I think I made my first video end of May, 2023. And for six months I was, you know, documenting the journey, building the audience until launching in December. But because I was building the audience, I felt pretty comfortable that I could at least get one time sales. I wasn't sure about repeat sales, but I knew like I had enough people I've built enough like awareness and enough of a community that at least some people would buy one time. Speaker 2: Six months is a long time to stack the deck. It's a long time to build the audience and the waiting list of people. Did you intentionally do it for that long or is that just how long it took to get product ready to sell? Speaker 1: Um, I don't think intentionally, but I think intentionally probably. Yeah, yeah, that's kind of how long it took to figure out because I, the way I built it as I, um, I. I went to different Facebook groups and was like, what are your challenges of having a doodle, which is what my brand's for, and then I started building that community. It took me a bit to figure out what they wanted and then actually find a manufacturer. Then there were delays. Speaker 2: It just occurred to me that I have not asked you what the actual business is. So why don't you give a quick overview of how you chose the product and how you chose the name and what the business does. Speaker 1: So my e-com brand is called Dood Woof. It's for, it's for doodle owners. So any dog mixed with a poodle is a doodle, which is basically an unlimited amount. And so the product that I have right now is a doodle detangler spray. And so the whole brand kind of focuses on solving challenges for that specific dog breed. So doodles get, they have different hair than most dogs and they get matted and tangled really easily. So when I was talking to my audience and asking them like, what are your biggest challenges of having a doodle? They said it was really hard to brush their dog, kept getting mad, so kept having to get shaved down when they went to the groomer. And so I went to ChatGPT, put in that challenge, and then said, what are some good products to create? And then so one of the products I came up with was detangler spray and I looked at what existed in the market and I saw that the products that existed were filled with like harsh chemicals and just ingredients that I couldn't pronounce. So I, my product is like all natural human grade ingredients. Um, and that's like the big differentiating factor between others. Speaker 2: And you've been in business taking sales for a year and a half. Is that right? You launched in December of 23. What was the audience like right before you? We're before you took a sale because you're at one month's rent left in the bank. You spent six months building up this audience. You've heard this crazy dude on the internet saying you can do it too. And you have a community of people who are giving you feedback. But again, you got a month's worth of rent in the bank and you're about to take sales. You got a lot riding on this thing. So what was the state of the audience and what was your mindset like in December of 23? Speaker 1: Um, mindset, stress, like overwhelmed for sure. Um, excited. Like just, I was like, once this launches, it's going to, whatever happens, it's going to be a relief. And it's, it's weird. Cause you really don't know what's going to happen. Like ever when you launch a product, even if you have a giant audience, um, right before, because I knew this had to work, I spent a lot of time like finessing my launch strategy and, Like how I'm like thinking about how am I going to tactically do this? Like what emails am I going to write? How am I going to prep the audience beforehand? Speaker 2: You were basically project managing your launch. It sounds like you were taking your old skills from the tech world and planning out the entire system that you were going to use. Speaker 1: Uh, I feel like that's one of the best skills I could have had being an entrepreneur. Speaker 2: A lot of my best success stories have a project management background. It's funny how that works. Speaker 1: Yeah. There's just always a million moving parts going on. And so knowing what is the most like impactful. So I spent a lot of time figuring out like, how am I going to, prep this launch, make sure it's successful, make sure the audience is ready. Don't hear that much from the audience before, but like there'll be comments on my Instagram like excited, a couple like responses to the email, can't wait to buy. And then what really What was really neat to see was the day that I launched, I guess my coupon code didn't work for some people, but I got so many emails being like, Hey, just want to let you know that, um, the coupon didn't work, but I just wanted to buy this to support you. And I got, yeah, I got, and that's when I was like, that's when I realized like how important it is to, and how, even if people don't say anything, like, There's a ton of people watching and there were just so many people that were excited to support me just from documenting the journey as someone who doesn't know e-com, building it up. It was Instagram. It was going into other people's Facebook groups, doodle owners' Facebook groups. Every day I'd search for posts that were people struggling to Like with brushing their dog out and whether this is allowed or not, I would comment and be like, hey, well, I'm creating this product here. You should follow along if you're interested. And email, sending them to my email. And I would email like once a week until the launch and then I'd email them. Speaker 2: Perfect. So how did the first launch go? You released the first product. You have no idea what's gonna happen. You had a month's worth of rent in the bank. What happens? Speaker 1: I was able to pay rent, so that's good. The launch, I think it was like, it wasn't humongous right away. It was maybe like 5K that week. Speaker 2: 5K the first week ain't a bad week. Speaker 1: Yeah, a couple hundred sales. Then it was really interesting how quickly because you build that audience. You talk about this all the time and it's so true. You build the audience. They start buying, you start emailing them and asking for reviews, et cetera, and then it really just snowballs. So by month four, I was pretty steady on like 50k per month. Speaker 2: Okay. So one, two, skip a few 50k a month, but month one you launch, I think I remember you did just over $10,000 in sales the first month. Does that sound right to you? What was your mindset like at that point? Are you excited? Are you disappointed? Are you, what's going through your head when you do $10,000 a first month? For reference, back in my day when I was coming up through the ranks, the dream for most internet marketers is making $10,000 a month. That was the four minute mile for a lot of people. So people would work years hoping to get to $10,000 a month. Now we have people who launch a product, get to $10,000 a month, literally their first 30 days and it's nothing. So I'm genuinely curious, are you excited, pumped, disappointed? What's going through your head at that point? Speaker 1: I was a little excited, less than I would have wanted. Like looking back, I wish I was more excited because that's such a, like it is such a good milestone. I think I've just felt more of like a sense of relief because I, that year was like a pretty stressful year for me. And so just that was like, um, a milestone, like launching the product was the milestone. And then after that, I just, could at least breathe for a little bit. Speaker 2: Um, you're not worried about this being a big failure and being pushed up against the wall at least as much. Speaker 1: Oh, I still was. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 1: Uh, but at least I lost. Yeah. Speaker 2: You're an entrepreneur. Your back is against the wall for the first year. Speaker 1: But at least I like launched the product and that was like, okay, I did what I could, you know? And so getting that 10 K, um, felt good. It's not all profit, obviously. I think any entrepreneur in the way that I was thinking back then was like, okay, well, what's next? Like now I have to get reviews, a hundred reviews, et cetera, et cetera. So I wish I spent a little bit more time just like enjoying that milestone. Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Now that I'm building my supplement company for the second time, I am enjoying those milestones. Just as much if not more as I did the first time, which is kind of, it's weird because the business was starting over at zero again. Well, you know, I, I already sold this company for $16 million. Why am I getting excited about the first $3,000 day? But I, but I know that I'll look back and those are the most fun days. So squeezing the juice out of every one of those milestones is, is something I wish I had, I'm thankful I get to do the second time around. You're one of the rare case studies where you didn't seem to slow down after launch. Most people will launch and there's a dip And there's a lot of mindset coaching that happens in that dip because they get the surge of momentum from the launch and then the work starts. Then they got to climb back to consistent sales and profitability. You were at 50K a month, four months later. So was there a dip for you where you had to throw more into it to get it moving again or did you Just start to snowball week over week. Speaker 1: Um, there, I believe there was a dip like after launch, right after launch, maybe the next like one and a one and a half ish months. And so I think though, like because I was able to build that community. And so my next focus after launch was reviews and the more reviews I got, the more, Like they were coming in pretty quickly and then more organic sales came. So I had like, you know, 20 reviews within, let's say the first week. And so 20 reviews is enough to kind of put PPC ad spent going. Um, and then I was focused on creating a user generated content. So yes, there was a dip, but I think it was maybe a little bit smaller because I had like a raving fan base that was wanted to, um, continue supporting as much as they could. Speaker 2: There's, there's a few moments in which an e-commerce entrepreneur realizes that, oh, this is happening. First is when you take the first sale, which was you December, 2023. Then when the reviews start trickling in from strangers, And they're positive. That's a really important point. And then when you see sales start to grow and you get repeat customers, that's another point where you realize, oh my goodness, something's happening. What were those moments like for you? Do you remember the first few reviews and the repeat orders as they kicked in? Speaker 1: I remember the first reviews. That was really neat to see. And I remember my first, uh, one star review just as well. Um, but the five star, like it was, it was, it was great. It was, well, actually I'm remembering when I launched, um, people reach, my audience reached out to me, some people and said they got leaky bottles. So that was a little bit of a, I was like, oh no, it was my business. Do I have to shut everything down? Speaker 2: This was fun while it lasted. Speaker 1: I need to go back on LinkedIn now. But because, again, building that community, they emailed me and I was able to send them a replacement. It wasn't a one-star review. And so as soon as they got the replacement, I could ask them for a review. Now it's going to be a five-star review. And so getting feedback from the audience and them being like, I love it. Someone telling me that she has cancer and so she is like bedridden and so she was really worried because she has to take her dog to the groomer and she doesn't really have the energy to brush them out, but the spray helped her so much. Like it's, I know the detangler spray is in like a world changing product, but if I, it's so like nice to hear that I could even make someone's life even a little bit easier. Speaker 2: Yeah, it's, it's weird when you realize that. And I think that is the, it's the magic that people miss when they only think about selling product on the internet and they miss the community behind it and they miss the person who is buying it. They miss all of the good stuff that gives you energy and life to keep building the business. At some point in your business, you started building the audience more aggressively. We call the strategy the traffic triangle, but you started building a Facebook group and building your email list more intentionally, and that seemed to be a big lift for the product line. Would you share a little bit of how you built that audience and what it meant for the long-term growth of the business? Speaker 1: The next kind of phase, like the growing phase, what really helped with the growth was the Facebook group. So what I did there is I just created a Facebook group, Dood Woof, a community for doodle owners. And so the point of that Facebook group was just to bring my audience into that group. And so in order to join the group, you have to list your email in there. And so now it's, and then I started running ads to it, to the group. And so I'd get like with, for like $10, I'd get like 70 emails or something. Wow. Even more, probably maybe like a hundred. Actually, I think it was more. Um, and so I don't, that doesn't mean they're all, it doesn't mean they're all buyers, but I know that they're all like doodle owners. Speaker 2: Yeah. That was like part of the community. Speaker 1: They're part of the community. And I don't know if they all like, not all of them have problems with brushing their dog out, but I do know that they're all, Like the niche that I'm targeting. Speaker 2: I'm just curious, tactically running the ads to the Facebook group, are you sending them to a, like, is that a Facebook lead ad or is, what's the mechanism for what you're running ads to the Facebook group? Speaker 1: So I think there is a way to do that. The way I did it was I created just a post on my, like through my business account was like, are you, this is what it said. Are you a doodle owner? Join this Facebook group for doodle owners. Speaker 2: Copy's amazing. Speaker 1: That's what it said. And then. Speaker 2: And you got 50 cent email leads from doodle owners. Speaker 1: Probably. Yeah, probably cheap. Speaker 2: That's absurd, Elina. Oh, my goodness. Speaker 1: It wasn't rocket science. Speaker 2: Elina even says this is not rocket science, and it's not. It's eight steps. You choose your person. You put 100 people on an email list. You'll launch. You get 100 reviews. You get to 25 sales a day. You put 100 people on an ambassador list. You launch more products and get to 100 sales a day. That's the process, and we put entrepreneurs through that process inside of the 1%. That is our community for helping entrepreneurs launch and get to 100 sales per day. A good next step for you if you want to follow in Elina's footsteps is to just download our free resources at Capitalism.com slash playbook. That's where you will get our systems and our methodology for building million dollar businesses. And if you want to work with us in the future, we have a community that mentors entrepreneurs on their road to a million dollars. It's the same community that Elina went through when she was launching her business and growing it to the first million. If you want to follow in those footsteps, a good first step is to just download our free resources over at Capitalism.com slash playbook. Now back to the show. Where were you collecting the email? Speaker 1: In order to join the group, they put it in. Then there's a plugin that connects to my Clavio. So every two hours it takes that, it accepts them into the group and then puts their email into my email. Speaker 2: Oh, that's fricking genius. Wow. That's so hot. I haven't heard 50 cent email addresses on targeted traffic in a long time. That's really fun. So the Facebook group was a big deal for building the email list and for building engagement And spreading the name recognition as well. Sounds like that was a really big lift for the business. Speaker 1: Yep. And people just, honestly, like that's something this year that I want to dive more into is like how to utilize my Facebook group. Because right now I'm just utilizing really the email part of it where I got their email. But I mean, it's like people post like hundreds of posts a day of like their dogs or questions. Like people are really engaged. And yeah, they always see the name Dood Woof in there. So that was a big part for scaling. And then the second part was when you started talking about TikTok shop, I was like, okay, I need to get on this. Um, so a big part of like my strategy now is I do use TikTok shop. I have a lot of creators that make videos and then the videos that work. So first of all, I drive sales on TikTok shop, but like the main thing is that the videos that perform well, um, I then run them as Facebook ads to send them to Amazon. uh, like landing page Amazon. And then, so that's like, it's, that's very nice. Cause I constantly have an influx of UGC content and, um, that's been working really well. Speaker 2: We were on a coaching call in, I don't know, early 2024. And I think you were at maybe 30 or $40,000 a month. And you asked me the question, when can I start paying myself? And I said, Elina, in six months, you're going to be in such a different place. Please keep as much in the business as possible because this is your best performing asset. And six months later, you had a million dollar business. I'm curious if that conversation changed your approach. Or if you adjusted anything about the business after that conversation, cause I know it was not the advice that you wanted to hear, but you did cross a million dollars within about six months. Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh, you're right. Actually he told me to Uber. That's what he told me. Speaker 2: To drive for Uber? Speaker 1: Um, so I did, I kept as much as I could in the business. That's true. I also learned about inventory financing because what that conversation made me realize is that I also need to figure out how I'm going to get more inventory as this business is growing. So I started learning about different funding strategies, etc. Inventory financing was the best thing I could have done for my brand because I already had a proven track record of sales. I feel comfortable. The interest pays for itself with buying in more quantities. But yes, I think having that conversation definitely pushed me to keep more in the business. And the reason I was even able to pay myself a little bit is because building an audience, I was able to have my product is double the cost. Of the competitors. Uh, so I had, I have like the little bit of margin or I have a decent amount of margin and I could take some of that out, but only because I was able to build an audience that will buy at a premium price point. Speaker 2: Yeah. Most people will try to be slightly cheaper than the next competitor. If you build an audience, you can and should be two to three times the price of the next competitor. Because you're making the product specifically for them. You're not trying to extract from a platform. I remember you sent me a Facebook message the first day you had a hundred sale day. It's maybe July of 24. Am I remembering that right? Speaker 1: That's probably pretty exact. Speaker 2: What was that like for you? Your first hundred sale day? Speaker 1: That was definitely exciting. Speaker 2: Okay. That one gave you some dopamine. Speaker 1: Yes, that one gave me some dopamine. Well, what's interesting is I was like, okay, this is it. This will forever continue. Um, that's, that's what I was thinking then. Speaker 2: Um, I've made it. I'm a, I'm a multimillionaire now. Speaker 1: Uh, but no, that was definitely exciting. What that showed me is that, so the reason that happened is because one of those UGC videos that I talked about, one of the Facebook ads started getting a lot of traction and there was some organic stuff that also helped. Um, But what that made me realize is I was pretty much stuck for a while at, I forget the units, but maybe like 50 units a day. And I was like, well, maybe I need to, maybe like this is it. This is the plateau. Like there's no more doodle owners per day buying doodle detangler spray. And so I started thinking about the product, the next product. And actually you told me to try to wait To launch my second product until I hit about 100 sales. Speaker 2: I told you that. I vaguely remember that. Yeah. Which is not the advice that I give most people. But I think you had consistent growth month over month. And most people are so ready to get the dopamine hit of the next launch, the next launch, the next launch. I have to just get them to wait to 25 a day. With you, you were compounding so quickly that we'll let this ride, like ride the hot hand. So I do vaguely remember that. Speaker 1: And well, that was a hundred sale day. Um, so, but that also made me realize that there are more than that. There are a hundred doodle owners at least per day that could be interested in the product. Speaker 2: So, so then you started to realize the, The market size. Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. Speaker 2: And it didn't stay at 100 a day consistently. But you had your first one and then you came back to about 50, I think, and had to start working your way back. Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's kind of probably like a week of double what I usually would expect. And then it went back down, maybe not all the way to where it was like a little bit higher than maybe it was like 60 sales a day consistently. Speaker 2: When did you finally break the plateau of a hundred sales a day slash a hundred grand a month? What was that milestone for you and what got you through that threshold? Speaker 1: Um, partially just doing the consistently doing the same things over and over again. I think like the benefit of having one product is that I now have like really good frameworks in the business. I have frameworks for getting reviews for everything that new products. I can just launch products and they can easily come into these frameworks. So just like consistently doing those things, building those frameworks up. Also what pushed it over I don't know why I didn't do this sooner, but I, that I was running ads and they were getting a decent row ads, but I was nervous to scale them. And so I just started putting more money into those same ads. And I was like, wait a second, if I, if it has a, if it has like, I'm getting five times the return and I put more money into it, that means that like I'll get five times that return. Speaker 2: So you started doing more of what was already working? Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good strategy. Find what works and do more of that. What was the timeframe from going from zero to the first hundred K month? Speaker 1: So it was January 2025. Okay. Speaker 2: So it was 13 months to 1 million instead of 12 months to 1 million. Do you plan to sue me for false advertising? Speaker 1: Uh, not today. Speaker 2: So we're now sitting here in spring 2025 and you're looking back two years when you had no business. You had no entrepreneurial experience at all. And now you're sitting on, what, a $2 million a year business? About? Speaker 1: Probably at the end of the year. Speaker 2: So how does that feel? Speaker 1: I'm really proud of myself for just sticking through it and just following, like, even when I wanted to give up and was like, oh, this is going nowhere for just believing in myself and being like, okay, I know I'm doing the right things. Like if I just keep doing them, this will, um, I know something's going to happen. And then it also, it's, it's just, it's life changing. Like truly, like, having like found finding your work and just like building this business. I mean, my life is. I couldn't imagine having the life I do now. I'm not balling with a Rolex or anything. Speaker 2: That comes when you sell a company. You can ball with a Rolex in four years when you sell the company for a whack ton of money. You might not see that now, but you're right on pace. Speaker 1: But I do have the freedom in my life. That's what making money is. That's why I want to make money is to have freedom in my life to be able to do what I want to do when I want to do and having your own business like gives you, you don't have to take PTO off. You don't like, you just, yeah, it's, it's nice. Speaker 2: The thing that I loved hearing you say there was that you feel proud of yourself for doing the thing when it was hard. You didn't say I'm proud of myself for building a multimillion dollar business. You didn't say I'm proud of myself Thank you for being able to sleep until 10. You didn't say I'm proud of myself for being able to travel to this place. You were proud of yourself for doing the thing when it got hard. And it reminds me of what you said at the beginning of this conversation of there was a period in which your brain's freaking out looking for safety and you just chose to bet on yourself and train yourself to believe in yourself. And that was the hardest part. And that was both the hardest part, the most necessary part and the part that you're most proud of. Would you comment on that? Speaker 1: Um, it's, it's true. Like I, I feel like being an entrepreneur has, it's the best like self development practice. Like I, I could, or anyone really could ever do. You just, again, like learn to believe in yourself. You have to, you have no other option and you just, you just learn to trust yourself and trust that you'll like get out of, If something is not going as well, you'll figure out how to get out of that situation or make it better. It's just the best self-development tool ever. Speaker 2: Can confirm. What do you want to do now? For a lot of people, crossing a million or two million is making it. I view it as The first is for the first threshold. Then the game changes and it becomes a little bit more creative. You can build in whatever direction you want. What do you, where do you want to take the company? You haven't even launched the second product yet as we're sitting here, right? That's wild. Speaker 1: So I'm excited to launch the second product in like three weeks or in April. Um, so I'm excited for that. I'm definitely going to launch a third product. I already have an idea of what it is at the end of this year. And then stabilize that and then see how that goes. And just like my long-term vision is I want Dudewolf to be the brand. Like if someone gets a doodle, they know that they can go to Dudewolf. So what that means is I'll need to have trainings on my website. So partnering with like doodle trainers, doing like affiliate partnerships with them. It could be like acquiring other smaller brands like supplement brands for dogs to bring them into my The business for my doodle community, but I do want when people get a doodle, they're like, okay, I know I can go to Dood Woof for the best quality products and the best training, the best resources for my dog. Speaker 2: It sounds like the community that you built. Might be the most valuable asset that you had in the business. It sounds like that's the nucleus of everything that you're doing. You can buy a supplement company and plug it into the community. You can launch another product. You plug it into the community. You need reviews. You go to the community. You need user generated content. You go to the community. It sounds like it all came back to the Facebook group, the email list, the content that you had created. Is that, is that a fair, Assumption. Speaker 1: 100%. That's why it would make more sense to like My brand to acquire like other brands because I have that like brand recognition and that community that wants to buy from Dood Woof specifically versus putting it on like my products under like getting acquired by another one. I see it working better with Dood Woof acquiring other brands. Speaker 2: When you started this process two years ago, going from zero to a million dollar run rate in about a year probably seemed unattainable or unreasonable. Now you've done it. The next milestone that I tell people is that they can have a multimillion dollar exit, maybe an eight figure exit. Do you see or believe that yet or does that still seem way out there? Speaker 1: Eight figure exit seems kind of way out there as like, as the business grows, it feels closer and closer, but it still feels like kind of out there. Now can see the path to getting there. It just seems like such a big number. Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's a big number. $10 million is a lot of money. I don't care who you are. $10 million is a lot of money, but it's, It's totally doable, especially once you cross that threshold of about two million bucks. It's like, all right, I can definitely double this, and if I can double it once, I can double it twice, and then I'm right there. And at that point, okay, I'm like four years away from 10 million bucks. It'll be really interesting to see what happens after you launch the second product because you've accomplished so many milestones with just one product. And now you can take those systems and apply it to the second one. And the business may grow 25% or it may triple. You don't really know until you launch. So you might have a slight improvement in sales or it might just blast off into the next level. We have no way of knowing. So it'll be interesting to see what your mindset's like. So one year in, your goal was we build a community, launch product, get it to 100 sales a day. Your second full year, what are you shooting for this year in terms of the objectives that you want to hit? Speaker 1: Um, so I want to, I'm launching the second product. I want to get my third one launched. That's a big kind of milestone cause it took me so long to launch my second one that I want to launch my third one. Uh, I want that process to be shorter. Uh, and then I starting to like, I, I have an EA now, so starting to kind of like turn this into a not just me business. So kind of the operations-y side of things, like having SOPs written and just making this into like an actual business that can be sellable, where it's not just me running everything. By the end of this year, that's a big goal for me. Speaker 2: What do your parents think now? Speaker 1: My parents, they're really proud of me. They still don't really understand like what happened. Speaker 2: I've been doing this two decades. My parents still have no idea what I do for a living. Speaker 1: Yeah. They're like, yeah. My dad's like, wait, how did that happen? Speaker 2: Do they know that you have a multimillion dollar business? Speaker 1: Um, I think so. Unknown Speaker: Maybe. Speaker 1: I don't get into the specifics. Speaker 2: Do you feel like a millionaire? Speaker 1: I'm not really sure what that feels like. But I feel Like comfortable like in the way that I'm living and I'm happy with my lifestyle and I feel like I have a lot of freedom in my To choose my day in my life how I want it to be which is Like the most important thing to say for the most important thing to me in life Well, I want to put this in your brain just so you're aware on paper. Speaker 2: You're now a millionaire. On paper, now, of course, you can't buy your lunch with paper wealth, but this business is probably worth at least $1.5 million. If you were to do a capital raise, you could probably raise it a $3 or $4 million valuation. So on paper, you're a multimillionaire. And for me, that changed my mindset about how to think about my business. Once I started honoring that, I started being like, Oh, I'm, I'm a millionaire now. I have a, I have a business worth seven figures. Now I'm going to start thinking and treating and operating it like that. And sometimes you just need to hear somebody say, Hey, guess what? You've done good. You have a multimillion dollar business. So I'm curious how that feels to hear that said, at least on paper, you're a millionaire. Speaker 1: It feels, it definitely feels good. It feels like I should think about this more often in the way I operate and like the, um, the way I think about growing my business and, um. Speaker 2: Because you don't feel it from day to day. Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, you don't feel it, but. Speaker 2: You just see the problems. Speaker 1: You do see the problems. Speaker 2: Tell me about one of the worst days recently because it's easy to look at the highlight reel and say, cool, Elina read a book two years ago and now she's got a seven figure business. Tell me about one of the dark days. Speaker 1: So most recently, actually I brought it up when we were at that Capitalist, the pigs meetup. So I had one of my influencers had a video go viral and in that video he talked about, he mentioned something about groomers that he was It was really he was just using it as a hook. He doesn't even think that, but it was not the best well-said thing about groomers. And then he said, use this product instead. So he was promoting the product, but the groomer community got very upset and mad. Speaker 2: Trigger alert. Speaker 1: Yeah, it triggered. And so they started giving like there's one star reviews all over like my website and there are some on Amazon and a ton of emails. And so that was, I honestly, this was like three weeks ago. I thought I was going to have to shut everything down. Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Speaker 1: But it all, yeah. Speaker 2: Irrationally, right? You're not sitting there calculating, okay, I've got to shut this down. But, but it was your first bad PR day. Speaker 1: Yeah. It's just like the initial like reaction of, Oh, no. Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. I mean, that stuff really eats at you, makes you unable to sleep sometimes for a couple of days at a time. How did you respond to that? How do you handle that? Speaker 1: Well, first of all, it's really, again, like back to the community that I'm a part of, which is, you know, like the 1% community and going to that, uh, the pigs meetup. So talking to people there and, uh, they helped me like craft an email to the groomers. And really, I just said, told the truth where it's like this, I don't really have control over what people post on Tik TOK. Um, I definitely don't think any, like, I love groomers. I take my dog to the groomer. This is meant to be used alongside, um, Go into the groomers as product and then I sent an email to my list and I got so many at the end of the email. I basically was like, I'm getting a lot of a lot of one star reviews. If you could take 30, if you love the news, the product, if you could take 30 seconds to write a review, it would mean the world to me. And then I got like, so many five star reviews on Amazon from that. So it honestly, yeah. So it, again, going back to now the community that I've built, it's, yeah, I feel like community really is the theme. Speaker 2: So I have to ask, did sales go up after that? Speaker 1: After the video? Speaker 2: After the bad PR, but then going to the community, like all in all, did that situation become a net positive? Speaker 1: I don't know if sales went up, but it definitely became a net positive, just even from people responding to my email and being like, I'm really sorry you had to go through that, like in the sense of it built connection and humanized my brand more. Speaker 2: Probably increased your loyalty, the customer loyalty and the bond that they had with you. It probably increased that. It's interesting. There's kind of an underlying theme in a lot of what you're saying of Bumping up against these challenges and then growth happening as a result of going through them. It started with you had six months of cushion and you didn't believe in yourself and you got through that hurdle and then you were down to a month's rent and you were worried about launch and you got through that hurdle and you were proud of yourself for growing through that. And then in this case, you have a dark day, but you stick with it and now there's a net benefit on the other side of that. I think that might be the best summary of entrepreneurship. It's just running head first into a wall saying, ow, that hurt. And then trying to run again and you get better at it. And you get through bigger and bigger walls as you crash harder and harder. Speaker 1: Yeah. Maybe you're running into it, kind of freaking out for like a day. Unknown Speaker: Yeah. Speaker 1: Thinking everything maybe needs to shut down. I mean, like, wait a second. Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only person who thinks this is all going to go away tomorrow as a result of this setback. Speaker 1: Sometimes, yeah. Speaker 2: When you launched and did $10,000 in sales the first month, that's a big milestone. But after that, Then you got to start doing the real work of growing the business. And this is where we have to build that bridge of getting to 25 sales a day. You obviously can't launch a new product all the time. You got to build the system and getting to 25 sales a day. So what did you prioritize and what did you focus on after the launch to start getting the consistent sales and eventually the 25 and then 50 sales a day? Speaker 1: So I knew that no one's going to buy a product except for the audience that I built without reviews. And I needed people that weren't part of my audience to buy the product. So prioritize definitely going to my audience and getting reviews and asking them to post pictures and videos of the product. Just figuring out how I can maximize the value of that one customer, even though I didn't have another product to sell, but you can still continue to maximize from that one customer as much value that isn't necessarily another sale. Speaker 2: This is a genuine question. I'm not tooting my own horn. Did I tell you to do that or did you do that intuitively? Because the language that you're using of maximizing the value of that customer, not in just the way of getting another sale, but turning them into a review,