How to Balance Business and Relationships ft. Briana & Neils Olson

How to Balance Business and Relationships ft. Briana & Neils Olson Speaker 1: It could be a good product, but if you can't, like, think about how to sell it or market it, it doesn't really matter. I'll see her all the time when she's, like, thinking about a new product. She's already thinking about, like, how would you sell this? Like, what would a video look like behind this? Like, how would an influencer do this? And so it's like, that's already, like, it's not like, I have this product, now let's figure out how to market it. It's almost like this whole interwoven thought process. Speaker 2: You can get caught up in, like, oh, I love this product. I would use this every day. But then you look at your con- or you release it and you're like, oh, crap. And then you don't want to do that. It's like taking yourself out of it and being like, no, this core audience is who I'm creating for and knowing how much of yourself you can kind of insert into that. Speaker 3: Welcome back to another episode of Chew on This. Today we have co-founders Briana and Neils from Trio Beauty. They're going to be talking about their journey to building their incredible brand and how it wasn't the conventional way of just starting a Shopify store and just Getting the brand up and running. Actually, Briana had a pretty cool story of how she even got into the beauty space and I'm really excited to explore that. So without further ado, first of all, I want to thank both of you guys to be here, share time to tell our audience about what you guys have built. For the few people who may not have heard of you, may not have heard of your brand, maybe get a little bit of a background on both of your guys' end and just to get people caught up. Speaker 2: Yeah, yep. So I grew up in Tasmania, which is like the little island off the bottom of Australia, if everyone doesn't know. Speaker 4: Wait, wait, wait, wait. We gotta talk about this. So everyone thinks in Australia, there's just kangaroos everywhere. Is that the case? Speaker 2: Kind of, but it's kind of like, I call it like the equivalent of deer here. So they're around, but it's a lot. Speaker 1: There's a lot of kangaroos. I saw a lot of kangaroos. Speaker 2: Usually it's like, they just jump across the road and you hit them by a car and that's how you see them. Otherwise, yeah, they're in like little wildlife harks and stuff. Speaker 4: That's good to know for our viewers. Speaker 3: And do you have kangaroo signs because we have a lot of deer signs. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 3: Yeah. Unknown Speaker: Yeah. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 2: So basically I lived there up until probably 16 and then we moved to like the mainland of Australia. So that was, we basically moved because it was, sorry Tasmania, but like kind of boring down there, like super pretty, but like small town boring. But then we moved to the mainland of Australia and then after that I came in for college and ...to Utah and that's how my husband and I met. This is Neils. Hey guys, awesome. And so after college, I started a microblading clinic. If people aren't aware of what that is, it's eyebrow tattooing. So I built up a pretty big clinic there in Southern California and then when COVID hit, obviously the whole thing was shut down. So we had two small kids at the time and not only was that shut down and I was like super bored but then I was kind of itchy to kind of do something else and that's when the kind of idea hit me to create something that was like a product. Originally it was supposed to be a product that was for people between their appointments to come back and see me after the lockdowns had kind of ended. So it's called the Brow Trio Stencil Kit. So it's ultimately 12 stencils and A waterproof brow pomade and then a dual-ended applicator. So one for applying and then one for kind of blending. So basically it gives people the look of microblading or the look of perfectly filled in brows but without having to kind of guess where the shape should be. Like a lot of people that would come to me were kind of missing brow hair, missing pieces of their brow and didn't really know how to fill that part in. So that's why the product was created for that and when COVID would, when the clinic would, was able to kind of like open up In between like all those times it was kind of shut down and open, I would have it on my shelf and like it would sell, but we were like there because of the minimum order quantities and everything of what we kind of had to do, which were still pretty low. We still had a lot of product and basically Neils and I had the idea to start launching like a Facebook. It was just one ad. So we literally had one creative. Speaker 1: Just build like an online presence and just. Speaker 3: Really smart. Speaker 2: So we started a Shopify website and then we kind of ran ads, one ad to that Shopify store and it kind of just grew from there. Speaker 4: Really that first ad. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 4: Wow. Speaker 1: Yeah, Bri always breezes over it, but one thing that she like doesn't point out is during that time when she was running her like microblading clinic, she would just like be exposed to women all day, just like them talking about their makeup, like what was working, what wasn't. So I think like subconsciously or consciously, it was like really easy for her to like extract that and be like, I know what like, What people are like frustrated about makeup and so I think it was it was really like it came out in the product really early. Speaker 2: Like knowing why people were coming to me and the reason was because they didn't want to fill in their brows. They didn't know how and that was kind of like the why that they were coming to me as well as like I was just obsessed and still am with all things beauty products. Yeah. Speaker 4: So let's just go back to the product. So let's say I mean you probably have this idea that you wanted to create this product. What did you do after that? Was there a Did you talk to manufacturers, co-packers, like how did that go? Speaker 2: It was like really hard to and it's crazy how like your brain kind of changes into like oh this is actually possible in this other certain way but at first it was like who can even create like an eyebrow stencil and so I was contacting at the time at the very beginning it was like Business card makers that could make like those plastic business cards like in the US. Speaker 4: It's creative. Speaker 2: And they were like, yeah, we could do it. But like here in the eyebrow shape, like it gets kind of narrow and that's going to be tricky. And like the cost was just crazy. And I was like, this is not going to work. And so, yeah, as far as like creating the shapes, it was just me, like literally kind of like cutting out pieces of cardboard. And when I would microblade, like I would do it to myself as well as just like fill it in with this like cardboard template. Then just kind of using those little pieces on my clients and figure out kind of like what kind of set of stencils could cater to all brows. Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna sound like I'm like a big upping my wife the entire time Bree's like an incredibly resourceful like problem solver and like during that period it was during like the height of COVID in California So it was like days where I was still like in in the corporate world where we're just working from home So I would spend a lot of time out like front in the in the street with the kids playing like in the neighborhood and working and she would just be inside like working on trying to find like manufacturing and just Problem-solving. Speaker 4: And what did you think of the idea when she came up or I'm sure she came to you with it? Speaker 2: It's really weird. Speaker 1: Like when she says she's going to do something, it gets done. So it's never like, well, let's see. It's always like, if you're saying it, like it's probably going to happen. And I've seen it more and more where if she has an idea, it's like, don't doubt it. It'll just, she'll make it happen usually. Speaker 2: So I guess as far as like creating those other pieces or getting those other pieces created, it was just talking to a bunch of overseas manufacturers, figuring out what we could kind of customize with the minimum order quantity, because obviously I wanted things to look a certain way. And honestly, our first version of the product, like we always love, we're like, we can't believe people actually bought this. But I mean, you're going to start somewhere. But like I look back on those pictures of the first product, I'm like, What was I thinking? Like, you know, but yeah, just kind of iterating along the way as we kind of got bigger order quantities and stuff like that to make it how we wanted it. Speaker 3: That's really cool. First of all, I think building in the beauty space, right? I don't think you realize what you're getting into until you're in it and you're like, oh wow. And I think it's similar for us, right? Like we're kind of adjacent to beauty because it's collagen and it's hair, skin, nails, etc. And so I'm very curious on like When you're starting to build something, which is the beauty of entrepreneurship, you don't have all the noise around you. You don't have all these things that can deter you from the idea. But I'm very curious, what was that first moment? Maybe it was after your first ad that you ran or what was that first moment where you're like, all right, we're building a brand, right? I'd love to get that. Speaker 2: I remember it so I think I know you do too. So basically it was like we had that one ad running and it was this was back when meta was just like Exactly how I say it, but it was like exactly like that. And so basically as we made money, we just pull that back into ad spend and it would just keep going. And then it was like the actual moment that, that we realized, Oh, we actually have something like the old crap. We have a brand, not just a product was like, we were driving to Arizona from Southern California to visit my parents. And it was like when we're telling my parents like what we've done basically, what we created and they're just... Kind of confused and I was like I Both of us said we're like, what are we doing? Like I think we have something and we're like just printing We were printing labels in this like Airbnb and like this huge long thing. We're like wait this whoops like what? Speaker 1: We were printing like we would do orders in our bedroom like after the kids would go to sleep We would like fire up the printer. Yeah, it was exhausting. Like we're just cool. I got the side of our bed just like labeling stuff and packing it and. Speaker 2: Not to get all emo, but like there was a moment that I was still like microblading at the time and then packing orders and parenting two kids and all of that stuff. But I remember this one night in particular, I was just like crying packing orders and I was thinking in my head and I even I think said it out loud to him. I was like, I'm gonna like I'm crying. This is so crazy. But like I'm gonna look back and like laugh one day and think remember when I was crying about like creating successful business like yeah. Speaker 1: That's amazing. To add to what she was saying, there were a couple times too. I remember one time we were actually like driving through like a Christmas lights thing with our kids and I think we had like sold through that very first order of like the sponges. And we still had no idea what we were doing, but the manufacturer wanted a minimum that seemed like a ton. We were just like, we are net. There's no way we'll ever, ever get through this. And we were just like, well, we should just go for it. And I think that's when we put that last order on a credit card. It was like, what do we have left on our credit cards? We'll just throw it on there. And then I remember not being mad, but talking to her and just being like, we better figure out how to sell these. Unknown Speaker: We've got to sell these. Speaker 1: There's that one. Remember we were like kind of working on a little bit of like a software paperwork idea for your microblading. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And you were juggling. Speaker 2: Like an app. Speaker 1: Yeah. And I remember we had a conversation where it was just kind of like, what are we doing? You need to get rid of one. Like one is taking off. It's time to like really like double down and like, and like commit to one. Speaker 3: It's amazing. Speaker 1: It was, yeah, pretty clear moment. Speaker 4: I feel like that's a very common founder story where you're, you almost, you know, have these parallels of things going on and at a certain point you got to just triple down on one thing. Speaker 3: 100%. That's inspiring. Maybe now you can give us a little bit of color. You told us about the concept of how it got created, how you were juggling multiple things and realized that this is the brand you're going to build now. Fast forward to today. Give us a little bit of the trajectory. Feel free to share numbers, revenue. What's the growth been like? Then we'll get into the ups and downs of things. Tell us a little bit about the overall scope of growth. Speaker 2: Yeah, so basically like we started the business with like $3,000 and no knowledge, no outside mentors, nothing. Speaker 3: And just you two, right? Speaker 2: Just us. Us and like Upwork people and stuff like that that we kind of figured that we needed. But yeah, just literally no knowledge, which I think there's a good and bad to that. I think our naivety kind of served us because it was more about like I don't know, gut intuition or like what's actually working as opposed to the outside noise, which I think came along with the growth that does get the outside noise and you've got to figure out what to listen to. But yeah, we started with $3,000. The first year we did $6 million and then the second year we did $12 million. So it grew super fast and Neils... Speaker 1: It was awesome but it was a curse. Speaker 4: Yeah. Speaker 1: It was crippling. Speaker 2: What's the story you say about like some car driving down a freeway? Speaker 1: Oh yeah I mean like midway through that second year it was, we always talk about this, but it was like trying to drive like a Honda Civic like 120 on the freeway and just like everything's breaking. Speaker 4: Everything's shaking. Speaker 2: And trying to change the wheels while you're doing it. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 1: I think like if we had, if we had like, I mean if that was our second or third time we would have been able to Avoid a lot of stuff, but we literally went from zero to that. We learned how to run our own customer service, our own fulfillment, everything. We were obsessed. On top of just trying to manufacture good products and stuff. It was so much with kids. It was a lot. It was heavy. Speaker 4: At what point did you go from packing your own orders to getting probably in a fulfillment center now? Speaker 1: We still do our own fulfillment. Speaker 2: Really? Speaker 4: Wow, that's awesome. Speaker 2: We kind of like it that way for now. It's incredible. When there's like shortages of certain colors, so basically all of our product comes now, like for the Hero product, it comes like pre-packed with a certain color and a wrap, but it gives us the opportunity to kind of like, oh, we're out of You know, this color in this pre-packed one, but we have like a loose pomade that we can kind of switch. Speaker 1: Yeah, it's given us like almost like a modular ability to manage our inventory a little bit, which has allowed us to like flex a little bit more. And when you're like low on certain colors or whatever, so that's been one of the things we've... Speaker 2: Yeah, but he handles more of like the management at that side. He's not actually packing, but yeah, as far as like We've had like a bunch of college kids packing them. It's in a warehouse now, but it was, so when we moved to Arizona and bought our house, it was run out of two bedrooms. So we had... Speaker 1: We went from our bedroom in California to one bedroom in a rental when we very first moved to Arizona. Then two bedrooms, our garage, and like some storage units when we bought our house. Speaker 2: There were like six College students or something in our house. Speaker 1: It was getting weird. We were like redoing our house a little bit. It was getting weird. Speaker 2: It was fun though. I look back on it and I'm like, it was crazy, but it was really fun. Speaker 1: There'd just be random people in and out of a side of our house all the time. Speaker 2: Music going, people just ripping labels. Speaker 3: It's amazing. I think that's the stuff that many of our viewers, we have to remind ourselves, it doesn't always have to be super convenient because I think that's also somehow, sometimes you get caught up in Some of the things that are not cost control, some of the things that you don't realize, like, because you're just looking for like, oh, let me just go and sign up for all these tools, agencies, 3PL. And the next thing you know, you're like one or two bad months. You're like, my business is not going to survive. So tell us a little bit about that mental model. Like, you guys have Are doing that not because you can't go and get a 3PL. It's just as easy potentially but like there's a little bit of this like inbuilt scrappiness whether you guys were at you know trying to juggle two jobs and or to six million dollars to twelve million. You guys have had similar mental models like where does that come from and why do you guys kind of follow that? Speaker 2: I mean, you could say it's like fear of letting go, which I think comes down to like, there's certain parts, especially like as you're growing the business, you're like, oh, but I only, I only know this part so well, I don't want to hand it off. But yeah, so that's been like challenging for me is to like, be like, I'm, I'm so busy with all of these different things. I just need to find the right fit to take this part kind of like off. Speaker 1: But yeah, there's, I mean, there's two good lessons there. And just from observing, like, Bri is very much the magic sauce of like the business and it's like finding that right balance of like you don't want your magic sauce like tied up responding to customers. Speaker 2: HTML coding. I've done it. I've done it. Speaker 1: Bri, to her benefit and detriment, loves to learn everything and be involved, but it's also understanding what your weapon is and really freeing up that weapon. Speaker 2: Yeah, double downing on that weapon. Speaker 1: Then the other thing I would say is it's almost like stupidity. Maybe I'll quote this wrong, but I read something one time about the original guys, the PayPal Mafia guys that founded PayPal. They could disrupt the financial industry because none of them came from finance. And so I think we had a little bit of that where we just didn't come from. Unknown Speaker: Fresh eyes for all of us. Speaker 1: We had no idea how you were supposed to do it. It was just like, oh, we'll just solve this problem the best way we think because we don't have mentors or anything. We're just in a vacuum. Speaker 4: I feel like that is also such a common founder story is when you enter a business or an industry that you have no knowledge of, You're competing with people who are probably all doing the same thing. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 4: You're gonna be doing something completely different. And you know, I feel like a lot of times, that's the way to go about it. Speaker 3: It is 100%. I agree. I think so much of it is like, also, you don't really understand how much you need to learn, until you kind of get in the seat of like saying, Oh, well, like, this is something that I think we need. And you compare it to just the cost to get it done versus the cost to figure it out. It's actually a huge spectrum. So that's amazing. Speaker 1: Bri can give a little bit more color too, but even that idea of we started falling into it. Once we started getting a little bit of success, it was kind of like looking at other people and being like, they're doing it that way. We need to do it that way. And even the way Bri started thinking about products for a bit until she kind of like, and maybe you can talk about that. Why, like how you figured out what products work with our customers versus like what you like and so on that balance. Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So I like all beauty products. So, you know, releasing anything for the brand was like It needed to really be what is the consumer here for, like what do they love about the stencil kit, how can we kind of like copy paste this into other areas of beauty, which really the magic of the stencil kit is making your kind of beauty routine so easy and simple that you don't really, it's kind of like taking the guesswork out. Basically, it was like me looking around all of these other beauty brands which aren't doing, don't have that kind of like, you know, wording or message or whatever, but still being like, okay, to be a successful brand, we have to be like, you know, I won't name them, but like all the other ones that are doing this and oh, they have this PR company. Oh, they're doing, you know, the posters in New York. Yes, in order to be a Insert brand here. We need to do all of these different things and we did get caught up with, you know, made mistakes like that where we way overpaid by crazy for an influencer, which I don't even think drew like traffic at all, but it was just like nothing. And we both just looked at each other like. Speaker 1: And even like when you, because I remember when you were like expanding like our like SKUs or like our line of products, there was a time where it was kind of like, okay, where do we go? And you even like took a step back and had to think of like, what is special about our original product, like about the stencil? Is it because it's like a high quality pomade or is it this or that? And it could be all of those, but like really thinking about like, what is special about that and how does that correlate to the rest of your products? And I think You like really nailed that once you thought about that and then that helped you like expand into like the blend by numbers or whatever. Speaker 2: Yeah, so originally this goes back to like how it kind of started and us starting like a product and then realizing we accidentally started a brand was the whole company name was The Brow Trio which was just the stencil kit and so As the brand grew, it was the brow trio, but then it was kind of like confusing, like, okay, but now you're really, you're in the brow space. So we were like, okay, what can we do that's more, that's in the brow space that we can kind of tack onto these, onto the stencil kit that's still brow related, that makes sense. And then we kind of hit a wall where we're like, we've done so much brow stuff. We think there's a way that we can kind of like expand and copy paste into these other areas, but we need to do a name switch. So that's why we switched to Trio Beauty. Very cool. That was also terrifying as well to do the name change because Google, you're dead for a day and stuff like that. Speaker 3: Starting almost fresh in some areas. Speaker 1: What was the lesson you learned at the Brow Kit though that like correlated into Blend By Numbers and such? Like why was it popular? Speaker 2: I don't want to use the word hack, makeup hack, but a classy version of that, whatever that is, but basically the idea of we're not just handing you the products and like, hey, figure it out, but giving you some sort of a tool, whether it's a stencil or a guide or like matching eyeshadow brushes with the eyeshadow and like a diagram inside a box or something like that, that kind of gives you like a cheat code into your makeup routine instead of just like people to know what to do, which I think is kind of like an Unserved market in a way because there's a lot of people that either don't walk into a Sephora because they're just terrified or they walk in and they're like, what do I need? And then they just bring it home and they never use it. Speaker 4: It's so true because I mean for us as well, we started selling a system recently and when you tell people exactly how to take it, when to take it, where to take it, that is so much better than, hey guys, here's a bunch of product and you go figure it out. Speaker 3: Chew on This is sponsored by. If you want to build a profitable e-com brand these days, then you need retention. Lifetime value is the lifeblood of your brand, especially when cacks keep going up. Being first purchase profitable is great, but you only really start to print money when that customer comes back over and over and over again. It's why subscriptions are such a big piece of our strategy here at Opti. There's a big reason brands, no matter the size, are using a tool like Recharge. What we like is that they're not just adding a subscribe button on your site, they're a complete subscription engine, helping you convert buyers to subscribers, preventing cancellations, winning back churn customers, and they're even driving more revenue through smart upsets. That's why big brands such as Dr. Squatch and even Vital Proteins are using Recharge. So if you're looking for a powerful, all-in-one subscription platform, head over to Get Recharged today to see how you can pump up your LTV for your brand. Now, let's get back to the episode. Speaker 1: Yeah, like, I had no idea after, like, working with her, like, there's plenty of women who, you know, are 30, 40 years old who want to be into makeup, want to be into beauty, but they're just, they're not on TikTok, they're not watching these tutorials, so they just never get started because they just, they're just overwhelmed. I have no idea. Speaker 2: Nor should they have to watch a tutorial. It's fun if you want to get, like, extra with it, but, like, I don't think that, like, your beauty routine needs to be that way. Yeah. Speaker 3: That's a great call out. I'd love to get into a little bit of the tactics, especially whether it's in the last three to six months. What are some of the core places you guys have been focusing on? If it's meta, how is that looking? Are there certain challenges you're facing? If you've started to explore TikTok, I know there's a lot of other new platforms now, the app-lovings of the world. Give us a little bit of color because you guys are obviously very, very tuned in and very close to all the systems you're managing. Give us a little bit about the growth side. How have things been going there and what have you guys been focusing on? Speaker 2: Yeah, I think mainly organic growth, which I think from the beginning, like we really didn't focus on because we didn't know what we were doing in the beginning. But yeah, we like in the beginning for the first maybe two years, it was just because ads were working so well, we didn't really see the need for the organic side. And it was just working so well. So that Email and then just meta, just making sure we have like a bunch of different, just testing all the time because usually, I don't know. Speaker 1: Just thinking more like holistically and not just thinking like we're just gonna pump money into meta but it's more like, you know, if you pump money into meta and maybe you don't see an instant like profit from it but like understanding how you can just like create an ecosystem to just like Scooper up everything. Speaker 2: And then, yeah, TikTok Shop as well. And then working with affiliates has worked really well as well. Speaker 3: Touch a little bit more on the organic piece, because I think that's the one piece that we probably get the most inbound for, like just questions. Speaker 4: People want organic. Speaker 3: People want to understand how to go about it. What does that system look like? How did you guys even crack that? Is it consistent? What do you have to do to make it consistent? Go a little bit deeper there. Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So we have someone that runs that side. And it's really just kind of, I mean, because the BrailleTrader stencil kit itself is like such a good like before and after people want to share that. And so that itself is like, great. To kind of like have that organic kind of like sharing but really just like a lot of gifting and which means you need to have good margins and so yeah just a lot of consistent gifting, making sure you're gifting people. Speaker 3: How many people are you guys typically reaching out to in a month and gifting to? Speaker 2: 50 to 100. Wow. Yeah, which we could up that for sure. But yeah, like we and then just kind of like checking back in with the people who we've gifted to and like, how do you like it and just kind of encouraging you to post. Speaker 3: Out of 100 people who get it, how many people actually post about it? Speaker 2: 15 maybe. Speaker 3: I think that's the piece that's hard to stomach for people. Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't force anyone to like, and nor do you want them to, because otherwise it's not going to be, it's not going to feel organic and people can tell. So yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. I think one thing that we learned as well, and once again, this was Bri that called this out, is understanding what products work in what spaces. So Bri will be like, this is a TikTok product. There we have the lip. Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a color-changing kind of We call it the pink potion. Speaker 1: Yeah, but knowing like, hey, this does really well on TikTok videos. There's a good like before and after. There's kind of some magic to it versus like, maybe this product's better over in this area instead of just being like mass launching your products into every thing, but being a little bit more thoughtful of like what products work on different platforms and such. Speaker 4: Yeah. Speaker 1: So there's a little bit more of a thinking behind it, I guess. Speaker 2: Yeah. I think also knowing like, yeah, like you said, like what products kind of belong in what space, what products are kind of like upsells Because you can't just launch a meta ad for a $15 brow gel and expect a return. So for that, knowing what's an upsell, what's an email product and so on. Speaker 1: I think one thing too of just having to learn every aspect of the business, and I see this in the way Bri develops products now, this reverse engineering of knowing like it could be a good product, but if you can't if you can't like think about how to sell it or market it, it's like it doesn't really matter. And so now I'll see her all the time when she's like thinking about a new product. She's already thinking about like how would you sell this? Like what would a video look like behind this? Like how would an influencer do this? And so it's like that's already like it's not like I have this product now, let's figure out how to market it. It's almost like this whole interwoven thought process when she's thinking through a product. Speaker 2: As well as kind of taking yourself out a little bit and being like, Because you can get caught up in like, oh, I love this product. I would use this every day. But then you look at your consumer or you release it and you're like, oh, crap. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: And then you say, you don't want to do that. I was like, yeah. So just knowing, taking yourself out of it and being like, no, this, this core audience is who I'm creating for. And knowing how much of yourself you can kind of insert into that. Speaker 1: Yeah. We were talking about that. Speaker 2: Sorry. Speaker 1: We were talking about that on the car ride over here. It's almost like a Venn diagram because it's like you want to create products that you like and you're passionate about because that's like the whole point. And if you don't, like if you're just creating products that you don't care about, you're just kind of like, it's hard to like be excited about. So it's like this like overlap between products you're passionate about but also products that like also your consumer wants, your customer wants. That's a really big challenge actually. Speaker 3: It's hard to actually solve for that. I'm really curious on like, once you've now, you know, you guys talked a little bit about the growth, you talked a little bit about the tactics, organic piece is awesome. Once you've acquired the customer now, right, especially in the category of beauty, There is just an immense amount of competition. You have the Altas and Sephoras. You have tons and tons of content happening in beauty. You know, you're seeing an environment where it's actually very hard to sometimes keep your customer, even if you've created a great product, sometimes hard to keep the customer because they just want something new or they want something that their friend got and whatnot. Especially, I think, Someone said this is like beauty has the least amount of loyalty and it's not because it's bad product, but it's because there's so many options, right? Even like lipsticks and lip gloss. Speaker 2: My handbag can back up exactly what you just said. So many, so many. Speaker 3: So many, right? And so I'm just curious like What are you guys, how are you guys thinking about solving for that, right? And I'm sure it's an ongoing battle because you're looking at retention. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 3: And sometimes like, wait, I can't make my product better. What is it? Speaker 2: Right? Speaker 3: How do you build loyalty? How do you guys solve for that? Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think first of all, like creating something that's unique and differentiated, which duh, but so that piece, but then also because it's unique and different differentiated, there's something that needs to be replaced as well each month, which is like the applicator and the pomade itself. So how we're kind of doing it is the subscription on the website, but then kind of in the checkout as well. They can also upgrade to a subscription and then just email flows. Speaker 1: There's a couple, as far as women and their beauty routines, it does seem like there's at least maybe two, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but maybe two, three, four core products that's the base that they will always use. Once you get into that, you have them. And then they'll add like different customers like they'll constantly be shopping a different lipstick or whatever but it's like maybe it's a foundation or something but what if you can crack into like being one of those core components. Speaker 3: So you have the foundational products and then there's other things that create became variations and stuff. Speaker 2: You can kind of dabble in those other areas knowing that that's that's like kind of an add-on it's not gonna be your hero product but like yeah just knowing what your hero product is and hopefully you've created something that's you know replenishable. Unknown Speaker: Which we did. Speaker 4: So I'd love to know if you guys have a community or. Speaker 2: We call it Team Trio. Okay. Speaker 4: And where is that hosted? Speaker 2: Not hosted. No, it's up in space. But basically that's like our affiliate program. Speaker 4: Oh, okay. Cool, cool, cool. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 3: I think it's the community piece and the affiliate program piece. I think it's like really important on how much emphasis you want to put on it because you're going to get out of it what you put in. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 3: And it's tricky because it's like, Sometimes you don't see the results of that stuff right away, but it takes time to build up It's always interesting to see how people go about that. Yeah I'd love to understand, you know throughout the journey. We've all also gone through a lot I mean most recently we've gone through tariffs. We've gone through iOS changes. We've going through You know consumer behavior changing What are some maybe like mistakes you guys have made along the journey? Good, big, small, whatever mistake. I think everything's a learning. It's not really a mistake. Maybe you can share a few of those just that as for the smaller brands that are looking to build today. What are some of those things that they should be watching out for thinking about? Speaker 2: Yeah, yep. So basically like when we launched we didn't really have a choice whether we wanted to kind of like customize the product and make those really big minimum order quantities. So we didn't really have a choice anyway, but I would say just just launch something because I think a lot of people get stuck in this thing and they're on and off and oh I've been thinking about this thing for a few years and it's like no just just release something. That's good enough that people won't shred you for. And then, you know, iterate on it. So I think that that would be the first piece. And then I think as we started kind of growing and getting into those bigger numbers and had more of this like cash to kind of like put back in, it was honestly like a lot of emails and stuff that we would get from PR agencies or stuff like that, that we'd be like, oh, like these brands are doing... Speaker 1: Saying yes to too much. You just want to say yes to everything. Speaker 2: Yes to everything that comes in because you're kind of like, oh, like, You guys notice me like, you know, like you see something in the business that we need like, thank you so much for helping, but they actually don't care. They just want to make money, you know, so I think and we kind of went through this recently is like when you kind of like hit a point where it's like a cash flow issue or something like that, you kind of Which was what we did is just kind of look at everything and realize what you really need and what you don't, what's actually doing something and what's not. So just scaling everything back and being like, oh, actually that did nothing. Like why have we been sitting on this for two years? Speaker 1: It'll surprise you how little you need when like, it's so easy to get caught up in all these, like the new shiny tool or the new shiny whatever. Speaker 2: Or like a massive staff or whatever. Speaker 1: Or like even to her point, when you are, for us, like just getting into this and suddenly people are like noticing us. It's like oh this feels good to do this but it's like that feels good for a certain point and then you start realizing like but what's this doing for the business? Is it doing anything? So like those two pieces, we just really, once we like went through that year of 12 million and it was just like chewing us apart, it was like Chew on This the podcast. We had to like really think about like personally, like what are we saying yes to that's not moving the needle? And like where are we spending money that's like just not even, like we think we see other people that are doing it, so we think we need it, but like what is it doing for us? And just like having that confidence to be like, we're going to do what's best for our business, not what's we're seeing other people that's doing for their business. Speaker 2: Yeah, as well as thinking about like, why are we saying yes? Is it just because we're trying to be like this other bigger brand? And it's like, if that's the reason, then it's a no, you know? But yeah, to touch on like the tariff thing, I think for us, It really kind of opened an opportunity to have kind of conversations with our manufacturers to be like, hey, this is going on. They know, you know, you don't have to be like, this sucks. So it's like, but to open the conversation to be like, hey, we got to cut down on costs here, which is what we did with our manufacturers. Like we kind of cut down costs, honestly, like 30% in some cases, which is amazing, because hopefully if all goes according to plan, the tariffs are going to They're going to be where they're going to be, but I would say for people to at least try and have that conversation with your manufacturers that are overseas because there's a great time. Speaker 1: You can always get stuck in the poor us or poor me. Flipping the framing of it and just being like, well, where's the opportunity? Where's the leverage? How can we use this to our benefit? And to Bri's compliment, she's a savage negotiator. And so the second she sees something, a moment of just unsettling or disruption, there's a light bulb that goes off in her head that's just like, OK, how do I get in to get some leverage here? Speaker 2: So it doesn't hurt to us. They're not going to be like, oh my gosh, you said that? We're dumping you. Speaker 3: A no is a no. So we at least get the no, right? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 4: I'd love to talk about, you know, we've talked about a lot of direct-to-consumer here. Have you guys thought about retail at all? Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, we have but we also the people who we've spoken to about retail are like it's a whole different beast. It could completely break your business. You need a whole team for it. So I think yes when the right time comes because I think there's there's always this thing like before you know what you know is if we can just get into retail like how amazing like what a trophy like I'm in retail. I have a brand that's in retail like that can be kind of like a vanity metric maybe. And that's kind of what's kind of like broken us I think like down a bit is like realizing that like that could be like the thing that actually breaks your business if you don't do it right. And so it's like having the right team eventually to do that. I think is our goal and not just being like, yay retail, but then the whole thing breaks down. Speaker 1: While you guys were talking to, while we were waiting, you were doing the other filming or whatever, you were talking about like the 10 years, 10 years to have a brand or whatever. And I think it was probably around two years, like after that second year of just craziness, Where like we were making decisions based on like three to six month time frames, and it was almost like what's the next cash grab? And it was like we had a we had a moment where like we're so new to it. We're just like oh, this is and then like We step back and we're like, are we in this for the long haul? Like, is this a long-term thing or is this like a quick cash grabbing out? And once we realized like, no, we're in this for like years and years, like this is a long haul. Speaker 3: That's awesome. Speaker 1: That's when like our whole decision process, decision making process like changed a bit to be like, we're not gone in six months. Like we're gone in years and years into the future. Speaker 2: Once you're in that like panic growth, which I think we were for like those two years, is when you can accidentally take money that you shouldn't for bad terms and stuff like that because you're like growth at all costs, like you just need money to make this next order and it's like and then you're just constantly chasing and it's like, yeah. Speaker 3: It's a great, great call. I think, first of all, you guys, for a business that's not been around for 10 years, you guys are extremely mature and I think probably have made better decisions than 95% of the business we've even talked to because I think part of it is a lot of the vanity chasing, a lot of it is the Me Too, a lot of it is the They're doing it. We should do it. FOMO. There's so much of that that gets involved. And it quickly, it's almost a celebrity of the brand, right? It's like when you become a celebrity, it's like all this other stuff that wasn't there when you took the journey to get there starts to take your time up. And I think, I mean, we still get caught up in it sometimes. But I think it's like, I think the one big piece in there though is like this conversation that has come up a lot is like, how long are you planning to run your brand? And I think people are starting to digest the fact that like, you know, like if things are running well and I'm able to keep this going, like, There doesn't have to be this notion of like, I gotta exit, I gotta exit, I gotta, like, yeah, like, that would be, it would be great to exit. But I think putting like these time bound measures that so many people do out of the, when they start the business, like, in three to five years, I'm going to exit my business. Like, you have no idea what you're going to do. Speaker 1: And you build different. When you're thinking like that, you build different. Like your decision making is just, Building a company to exit in two to three years versus building a lasting brand that, if it makes sense, will exit on your terms, you just think differently about. Speaker 2: Not to get woo-woo, but also having such strict time, things take the intuition and the flow out of everything, which you need. You don't know what's going to happen. Speaker 3: I couldn't agree more. I know we'll come to a wrap soon, but I'd love to get a couple of thoughts around the space of influencers and gifting a little bit. I know we've touched on it a little bit. There's also just a lot of noise there, right? Even the people who you guys are gifting to and whatnot, are there certain criteria, certain things you're looking for? Because I think the world of beauty, I'd have to say, is probably the most hard to know who's real, what audience is real. You have no idea, but the flip side is with beauty, you get that before and after effect instantly, right? I'm doing this so I can look like this. And I think it's like the best testimonial, right? For us, like for our weight loss products, it takes months to get that testimonial. But when we get it, those videos go great. That content is amazing. So there's a power to the content that's in that beauty category, but then that means there's also a lot of noise. How do you guys like craft through that? I'm really curious because there's so much that can probably be like, oh, yeah, let's do this. Let's work with this person. How do you kind of pick and choose? Speaker 2: I think like scattering it in all different areas and knowing that you're gonna use it differently in different areas. So there's a lot of like organic The posting that happens with like the before and after products, but knowing that like, hey, we can gift this product for free, not pay this person, they'll post and then maybe we can ask them if we can use it for an ad, stuff like that. So just knowing that there's, even if it is just like an organic post that you're just reposting or like, hey, they don't have many, you know, followers or whatever, but like we can maybe use it for, yeah. So just knowing that you can use that content for different purposes. But yeah, just scattering around and hopefully not putting all your eggs in one basket, which we did one time. But yeah, unfortunately, yeah, big lesson in like the macro influence or whatever. Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. One thing in beauty too is there's almost two kinds of content. There are two kinds of influencers. The influencers who are like entertainers, and we made the mistake with that one, is they're not like, I hate to use this word, like tastemakers, but like people watch them to be entertained and just like see what new products are out there. They're not going to necessarily buy this. Speaker 2: They're just like being informed. Speaker 1: Versus like, and I don't know what the more updated term is, but like some of these mommy blogger Instagram, like they have a following. Speaker 2: They have like an emotional connection with their followers. Those are the ones that kill it. And you can, it's crazy because they can have like, you know, 50,000 followers, but they're so like ride or die with these people that they're like anything that you post, like I'm buying it. And so just really, and you can kind of tell now, um, by just like kind of going through the comments and stuff and just knowing who these people are watching their posts for a bit, like who are going to be those people. Speaker 1: But those people are much more picky too about what they post. Like they're not, and that's why they can move product is yeah, because when they post something, they actually are, just doing it because they like it. Speaker 2: So, I mean, the best thing is like when one of these, like we call them unicorns, but like when like a really kind of someone that had like an influencer that has like a smaller following, but like a super loyal following post organically. but they don't link anything and you're like panic like you know messaging them being like here's a link like post it again so yeah those are the best ones yeah it's hard to find it's an insane feeling when you find it though. Speaker 4: We have like two or three unicorns that we've just had for a while and the second you find another one you're like oh my god we got another one. Speaker 3: And they don't know how great they are too, which is what makes it beautiful. I know we're coming on a close here. One thing we like to do at the end of each episode is give our viewers something to chew on, one thing to take away, one thing you'd want them to go and work on their business today. Neils, we can start with you. What's that one takeaway or one thing to chew on for our audience? Speaker 1: Bri will probably say something similar, but just start. There's no perfect time to start. There's no perfect situation. Young, old, kids, no kids. In theory, we probably started the business at the worst time ever. We had two extremely young kids. It was middle of COVID. Everyone was unsure about their jobs. Speaker 2: Maybe that helped because people are just like, I just want to feel something, I'm going to reply. Speaker 1: But if you want an excuse to not do it or to give up, there will be an excuse literally every day. So you just need to start and don't worry about the perfect situation. Speaker 2: Let your mindset shift around that. Speaker 1: Perfection will just cause you to procrastinate. Speaker 2: Yeah, I think for me, yes, same thing of like, just start, but also, like, knowing that your first product's probably not going to be like, the best, unless you're a seasoned entrepreneur that has, you know, different, you know, companies or funding or whatever, but yeah, just, just to start and knowing that what you think it's going to be is not going to be the same experience. Speaker 1: Like crazy stuff happens, but I'll give one more real quick that might be unique to us too. Like if you start a company with your significant other, find that right balance. It took us a while to find that and just like taking care of yourself and like making sure that at five o'clock you're not... because we would talk business all day, every day. It was like it became all we talked about. Speaker 2: Especially when I'm on the phone at night talking to manufacturers and stuff like it just it for like honestly that the first two years it took over everything to the point where that's all we talked about because that's all that was going on. There was no other hobbies that we had like we dropped everything for this and it's like so I would say Just keep that balance. Like there's times that you can kind of do this and be like the business needs me. I've got to like you know really focus on this but I think just knowing when to back off and when things are getting kind of out of balance. It's just a step back and get some hobbies. Speaker 4: Chew on That. Speaker 3: That was awesome. Wow. Speaker 4: If you want more from us, follow us on Twitter, follow us on Instagram, follow us on TikTok and check out the website ChewOnThis.io.