The Secret Power of Organic Marketing...

The Secret Power of Organic Marketing... Speaker 1: I found out that she was going to be speaking at this event. And I was like, all right, well, I am going to book a ticket. Speaker 2: She's the wife of like the richest person in India. Speaker 1: They really are, you know, devout Hindus, and in variety of ways. So if she knew we existed, She would love it. There were like a bunch of security and I went to just one of them and I said, I have something for her that I would love to give to her. And then a couple of days later, someone from her team actually reached out to me on WhatsApp. And I literally just like put the phone down and I like caught myself like reacting. And that video has now gotten close to 7 million views. I've created videos where I like scripted the whole thing and I'm like, got my shots ready and this and that. Speaker 3: Welcome back to another episode of Chew on This. Today we have the co-founder of Modi Toys, Avani. Thank you so much for joining us. I know you had a long drive up here. But we really appreciate it. The product is a personal favorite of mine. It's in our family. It's part of my son's crib, and it's held a close moment for me, but I think you've impacted a lot of families. Before I tell your story, I'd love to get a little bit of what it took for you to build Modi Toys, why you even did this, and maybe just a little bit about yourself for our viewers. Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. So my brother and I actually co-founded Modi Toys, and our story began eight years ago when both of us became parents in the same exact week. So he was actually out looking for a toy, something that was rooted and represented our Indian heritage, and he found nothing. And we're just really grateful for being children of immigrants and being immigrants ourselves, that our parents really raised us in an environment that was fully immersed in our language, the food, the faith, the culture, all of it. And so that when we became parents ourselves, it was really important for us to kind of pass that on. But we realized very quickly on early on that they were growing up on pasta, watching Disney on repeat, and they only speak English. And so we realized that if we don't make an effort to preserve our culture, then who will? And so that's where the idea for Modi Toys began. Speaker 3: It's incredible. I love that. Speaker 2: What is your background? I know that toys isn't your background. Unknown Speaker: No, gosh, I wish. Speaker 1: Actually, no, I don't wish that because I think if I knew too much, I would have been like, nope, I'm gonna steer clear of that. My brother and I completely went into this blindly. We have no e-commerce experience, no toy experience, really completely new to all of this. So my background is in B2B marketing. Unknown Speaker: Kind of in there. Speaker 1: Yes and no. When I was working in corporate America, yes, I did website, web optimization, email marketing, all sort of basics, but it was never direct to consumer marketing. It was always B2B marketing. My customers that I dealt with were compliance officers and all these decision makers making multi-million dollar decisions. I can't really relate. I couldn't really translate all of that and bring those skills, like transfer skills, into the work I do now. But yes, I always knew the basics of marketing that I had to apply in terms of like you always want to understand your customers why. What are their pain points? When designing a website, what are some things to look out for? When doing email marketing, what's important? Stuff like that I was able to transfer over. You know in terms of doing DTC, even just how to like talk on social media, you know, you know create content. I mean and back then, you know, TikTok didn't really exist. Speaker 2: What year was this? Speaker 1: 2018 is when we officially launched and and yeah, so the world looked very different in terms of marketing then than it does now. So I've learned everything on the job. Speaker 2: That's wild. So, okay, you thought I want to do this. What was your first step? Did you find a manufacturer? Did you do some sketching? Speaker 1: The way my brother and I, we sort of divvied up our roles is that because of his consulting background, he sort of always gravitated towards doing the back end stuff, as I call it, operations, logistics, legal, manufacturing, all of that is his remit. Whereas for me, because of my background, I really focus on like sales, marketing, the front end side of the business. We just sort of naturally gravitated towards those roles. And it's great because I don't enjoy the work that he does and I don't think he would be good at the work that I do, so it's worked out. But our first step, if you go back to 2017, you know, so he, like we literally had this conversation, my brother, myself and my mom, we were all in her living room together and he comes home one day after another failed shopping trip and he goes, why aren't there any any plush toys, you know, that look like our Hindu gods, but when you squeeze their belly instead of singing the nursery rhyme, they sing mantras. And I looked at him as I normally do roll my eyes. I'm like, I'm sure it exists. Like, did you look online? Yeah, you know, it's so matter of factly. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 1: And and then so of course, we all get our phones out. We're like looking on Amazon, looking on Google looking everywhere. And we couldn't And so a week later, I went and had my first child. And then another six weeks later, I went back to my corporate job. So I forgot all about this crazy idea of his and I went on with my life. But then in about four months later, he presented me with a sketch. And it was like just literally drawn with a colored pencil and it actually looks I would say like 90% close to what you see here. Speaker 3: That's insane. Speaker 1: Yeah, so we didn't stray too far from you know where we started. And then again, I was like, okay, cool. You're actually still thinking about this. I forgot all about it. And then in December of that year, so our daughters were born in January. In December of that year, he presented us with an actual prototype that when you squeezed it, it played a month round. And so that's when I was like, oh, okay. I sat up a little bit. Like, okay, so you were legit thinking about this. Speaker 2: He couldn't sleep. Speaker 1: I mean, I couldn't sleep either. We're for very different reasons. That's true. But that's when I kind of put my marketing hat on and I said, okay, well, let me see if there's any merit to this. You know, we might think it's a great idea, but like, what do other people actually think? So, because I was naturally part of a mommy's group on Facebook at the time, I asked my local, actually Hoboken Mommy's group, which is very active. And, you know, the one thing about the internet, as I always say, people love to give their opinions, right? Whether you ask for it or not. And so I basically took a photo of my daughter who was one year old at the time sitting on a couch holding our prototype and I posted a very simple message saying hey, my brother and I have been toying around with this idea pun intended and would love to get your thoughts on like XYZ and I asked like a couple of questions like a At what age did your kids stop playing with plush toys? B, what would make this plush toy special compared to all the other plush toys you have? And I think like anything else, right? And they really delivered. I got so much great feedback. And in fact, that is where the idea for a book came from. So the feedback that we got was, well, you know, if it came with a corresponding book with the toy, then, you know, we can make it like a gift item. Or if it came in like at a different size as well, perhaps, you know. So I was like, oh, okay, and so our customers really became sort of like our focus group. Speaker 3: It's amazing. I'm curious. So when it comes to, you know, creating products, especially when you look at the DTC world, it's typically like supplements or beauty and skincare and Just simpler products to bring to market, right? This is something where you guys pretty much invented, created a product. Speaker 1: A brand new category. Speaker 3: Yeah, a whole new category. So one, you obviously don't have too many things to look at left and right, right? You kind of have to Figure it out on your own. So I'm very curious, especially because like you've had that marketing hat and I know you're just personally know that you're really really tuned into the organic side of building the brand. Tell me a little bit about like when this product came to market, that initial kind of growth that you had. Talk us through that a little bit and what went in with that. Speaker 1: Yeah, so I I don't even think I understood the term organic marketing. I just knew that I had no money to work with. And to this day, I still have no money to work with. So that's why I continue leaning so heavily into organic marketing. I'm just like praying and hoping that one day they just go spiral. But really, at the time, I knew that I'm my own key customer, right? So I figured that if I found other people like me, other moms to young kids, Maybe who are further along in their motherhood or maybe they're expecting any day now. And if I could just kind of sync up with them, you know, in any capacity and then maybe that will help get the word out. And really my goal at the time was really just to get the word out. Like if I, you know, if I talked to one mom and she told another mom, great, like that's still a win in my book. I don't need you to have a hundred thousand followers. I remember at the time, I mean, I'm still friends with many of the influencers who I reached out to back then and at the time, I think they had maybe like 7,000 followers and I remember if they ever like tagged me in their story, I was like, oh my God, they just tagged me in their story. It was amazing but really, you know, one of the things I did and I don't know if this is like a gatekeeping or not but like I encourage everyone to do this. Intentionally reached out to some moms who live locally, again, right, because I don't have a budget, who I knew were sort of like well connected. They had many friends or, you know, they were not creators or influencers, but they were somewhat had a bit of a presence online. And so I reached out to them and I said, hey, we just launched this product, or we're launching this product. I can't remember what phase that was in. But I know you have a daughter who's X years old. Would it be okay if I came into your home and just photographed her playing with our toy? And I just needed photography for my website, which I did. None of this was a lie, right, by the way. But there was a reason why I reached out to certain individuals. And so then this way kind of prompted them to also be like, oh, this is so cute, let me go share this. And this was... Speaker 3: So smart, find the right... Speaker 2: But it's also very ballsy, like going up to somebody and say, can I take a picture of your kid with this in your home that you probably... I don't know if you knew this person or not. Speaker 1: No, not well. That's awesome. One of them, or a couple of them, I was meeting for the first time in person. A couple of them I knew just sort of online. But we weren't close enough for me to really make that ask. But if you think about it, how could you say no, right? Like, oh my gosh, you created this amazing product. And to this day, I mean, I got some amazing shots. I still use a couple of those photos to this day. Yeah, because I don't do photo shoots on a regular basis, right? Speaker 3: I think what's really cool is you had a really kind of stumble into how to go after organic without really even trying, right? And then I think I recently saw you've also had a more recent stumble into the organic group with the White House campaign too. I'd love for you to kind of touch on that too and how that unfolded. Speaker 1: Oh, you mean when I was invited? Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I think I rubbed shoulders with the right people to get on that guest list. Speaker 3: I love that whole story. Like you were sending that bag to her. Speaker 1: Oh, you mean Nita Ambani? You're doing Nita Ambani. Yes, yes, yes. Speaker 3: Was that not at the White House? Speaker 1: No, no. This is Harvard. Speaker 3: Harvard. Speaker 1: She spoke at Harvard. Yes, yes. That's right. Speaker 3: Harvard. Speaker 1: I found out that she was going to be speaking at this event in December and I was like, all right, well, I am going to book a ticket. And see if I can maybe, you know, get in front of her. Speaker 3: One of the most powerful ladies in, like, Pac Asia. Speaker 1: And this, I think, when being so naive, like, really helps, right? Like, not knowing too much. Like, I think if I had gone in there, like, knowing she's gonna have, like, an army of, like, security around her and it's actually impossible to, like, get in front of her. Speaker 2: For people who don't know at home, she's the wife of, like, the richest person in India. Speaker 1: Asian, I think. And so the reason why, it's not because she's the richest, right? I mean, there are many rich people in the world, right? But it's because how devout her entire family is. And it's not just like they do it for the gram. It's not like one and done. Like, it's continuously they've demonstrated that they really are, you know, devout Hindus. And in variety of ways. So I just knew that being a grandmother to four little kids right now, I just knew that if she knew we existed, she would love it. So my goal simply was to get our products in her hands and expecting truly nothing in return. I mean, of course, at the back of my mind, I'm manifesting a lot of stuff, right? Because I don't want our story to end here. I want our story to begin here. Yeah, so I went to the event and Did you go from New Jersey to Boston? I did just because that event and hope just for her really like I mean out there were other great speakers Really? I was there for her session only And I flew in that morning, and I flew out the very next morning, so it was a 24-hour trip. And I, again, went into this naively, as I was saying, thinking that, okay, well, you know, when it's right before her session or, like, right after her session, like, I'll dash the stage and, like, I'll just be like, here you go. I don't even care for a selfie. I just want her to have, like, my toys. And I quickly realized that the auditorium was so packed that there was no way that I was going to be able to get to the stage in time. And in fact, it did not happen. So I'm so glad that I had the, what is the word, the forethinking. To get my product in the hands of someone in our team before her session, because afterwards it was like a zoo. It was mayhem. Like half this auditorium went on stage. So it was impossible. So right before she was coming on stage, you know, all her security, everyone's like on the stage. I sort of like had a quick Mentos moment, as I call it now. And I saw there were like a bunch of, you know, security and I went to just one of them and I said, Hey, I flew in from New Jersey this morning just to meet Nita Ambani. And I know it's gonna be possible to meet her and he said, yep, and I'm like, okay, great, we agree. But I have something for her that I would love to give to her and I know that she is going to absolutely love it. I know that she's got all the money in the world, but I guarantee she does not have this. And so he was like, hold on, like, let me get her guy, like, I guess she had another guy. And then so the head guy comes over and he's, I give him the same exact spiel and then he was like, let me see what you got in there. So like I pull everything out and then I pull out the toys and you know, He was not Indian, so I wanted to kind of over-explain, just make sure that he understood the significance of what I was gifting her. And then I also had brought in this book called Desi Davies, in which is an A to Z book featuring Indian women who do amazing things, and she's letter N in there, so when he saw that, he was like, oh, okay. So he recognized that this was something special. This was not just like something random something like, you know, like a crazy girl fan moment. And so I had already written a letter to her too because I knew that I wasn't gonna have like five minutes of like one-on-one quality time with her. So I had written the letter with the intent of like, oh, at least I'll have like a few seconds to chat with her before as I'm gifting her the gift. So my letter kind of began as like, as we had discussed. Unknown Speaker: But it's okay. Speaker 1: The important thing is that I ended the letter with my name, my number, my email. And then a couple of days later, someone from her team actually reached out to me on WhatsApp. And when I saw that WhatsApp message, I was stunned. And my heart was literally racing out of my chest. So I'm so glad I had this again, this thought and I feel like you have to start thinking like a Gen Z a little bit because I was like, what would a Gen Z do right now? They would put their phone in front of their face and they would just like kind of capture this candid moment reaction. And so I literally just like put the phone down and I like caught myself like reacting to this like crazy like thing that just happened. And that video has now gone close to 7 million views. It's literally like a five second video. Like the dumbest thing. Speaker 2: You got the content. Speaker 3: Even when I saw it, I was like, wow, that's insane. That's amazing. That's incredible. Speaker 1: So that's the thing. It's like sometimes you like, you know, I created videos where I like scripted the whole thing out. I like got my shots right and this and that is like crickets. Yeah. Speaker 3: Wow. That's so powerful. And now are you are you planning to like take that learning that you had and experience like are you planning to like We work that in different ways now and like maybe go after other people and what not or is this is this kind of like different maybe the part of this that is really cool is like it comes in moments and waves and you kind of have to just wait for the next inspiration. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I don't think you can really pre-plan this too much. I mean, I could have never planned, like everything, all the content that I actually had planned for that week, when I ended up sharing so much about Nita Ambani, it all got pushed to the side because then, like, the crazy just kept getting, the story kept getting crazier and crazier because first, you know, it was like the WhatsApp and then, like, Maybe the following day or the day after, then I got another WhatsApp. This time it was from the driver. And then he came and gave me a gift. And I was like, what is happening? Speaker 2: This is like Princess Diaries. Speaker 1: Exactly. So I was like, I can't talk about anything else right now. I have a thing going on right now. So yeah, I mean, I don't think I can plan too much but one thing that I do do a lot is I do spend a great deal of my time on social media and it's not just like doom scrolling but it's really like I'm seeking inspiration. Grabbing my attention because if something grabbed my attention, it's obviously grabbing other people's attention too. As a matter of fact, just this past week, another plush toy brand based in the UK called Love Before, they just went viral and I caught them like going viral like as they just like the ice What's the analogy I'm looking for? Speaker 2: The tip of the iceberg. Speaker 1: And so they had about 30 some thousand followers. They now have 105,000 followers in a matter of a week. And the video that went viral, it's only gone like three and a half million views. It's not even like Crazy amount, but because of the story, because of what their product is, I mean, like anybody could buy their toy, right? Unlike my video, which went viral with double the views, right? But it's such a neat, and also I should mention that video that went viral, it had nothing to do with my brand. There was no context to it, right? So I'm kind of relying on someone to like do the like extra click-through of life. Speaker 3: Right, right. Speaker 1: Exactly. But whereas the video that went viral, it was her brand story. So, so yeah, I, so that's why, you know, I, I'm still like holding out, hoping that there is a video that's actually relevant to our brand that goes viral. But I think it can happen. I mean, the craziest things do go viral. And I mean, I think you probably heard about this on TikTok where this author had just written a book and he was at Barnes and Noble. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He sold out. Now he's like the number one on every like list. Speaker 2: What happened? Speaker 1: So there was this author who had written a book and he was at a Barnes & Noble for a book signing, but like nobody went to his table. So this woman who was just sitting there, she just kind of took a video sympathizing with him and it blew up. And now his books are sold out. Speaker 3: I think those moments can happen at any time. 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. 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I want to understand more so When it comes to your types of products, right, you have this intermediary, which is the parent, right, in between the actual user of the product. I always find people who can market and build a brand with an intermediary to be, like, so impressive. Like, people who sell pet products. Like, I find this to be really impressive because it's very hard, right? Because you can't get UGC from pets unless the intermediary is there. You can't really get any feedback. Right and so like you kind of have to build with as much grace and as much you know presence as you can so I'm curious like what is that journey of how you've released multiple SKUs? How is your relationship with parents and then the actual child using it? How is it that developed and how do you spend time on that? Speaker 1: I will say that it's really beneficial being your own target customer. I'm always paying attention to what my kids are gravitating towards. I have three kids ages 3, 5, and 8. Obviously, the type of toys and books and everything that we have is quite varied in our home. The things that appeal to my 3-year-old no longer appeal to my 8-year-old and vice versa. So, you know, I'm always looking inward, but of course I don't, I'm not the voice of like millions of parents either. And every child is different too, even in my own home. So not only am I looking at what's happening in my own home, but I'm always, always, always like tapped into what our customers are saying, whether they're sliding into our DMs or, you know, giving us feedback in email or as a review. So much of the feedback that we've gotten from just customer interaction has actually gone into like our product development too. So for example, like we have a Bluetooth add-on for our toys that we had never even thought of until like one day a customer told us how they sort of like jerry-rigged a way to like get the toy to play something besides the mantras that comes by default. I was like, oh, well, we can do that. Unknown Speaker: We can provide you a Bluetooth speaker. Speaker 1: Why not? And so stuff like that. And then, you know, one day I was out shopping with my daughter and we saw a paint by numbers or paint by stickers or something book. It was like a sticker book. And she liked it. And so we brought it home. And then I was seeing her work on it. I was like, You know what would this be really great for? Our Rangoli. And then so the first thing I always do like I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm not just trying to be better than what's out there. I want to be new. I want to be innovative. So I really looked long and hard and I couldn't find anything like this. And then so I was like, And Digest gave me an idea. So really, you know, it's just always be listening. And I think there's... Speaker 2: That's so cool that you're just constantly getting product ideas at home. Speaker 1: Yeah, for free. But really, like a lot of it really also comes from our customers. And of course, you know, we do get more ideas than we can actually implement. So, you know, we've heard a number of times like, oh, well, what about, you know, products for Jainism and for Buddhism and Sikhism? And I just feel like we haven't really fully penetrated this as a Hindu market. I mean, there's like over a billion of us, right? So I just want to be able to walk before we can run. But I think just even within the sort of the category that we have created, there's just like so much more we can do. But our customers are very forthcoming. But one exercise that actually just recently started is And you'd be surprised I haven't done this in eight years of our journey or six and a half years. I've never actually We've defined who our core demographic is, and I got this feedback as I was speaking to another former CEO, and I said, well, you know, I can kind of make assumptions, like obviously, right? Like I know his parents. I know it's like they're in this age group. I know where our customers come from predominantly in which states and stuff. And he said, yeah, but do you know like why they're buying from you? And I said, well, not really until like I see photos and stuff. And so he was like, you got to talk to 100 people. And so I've now just in the past month started the cumbersome process of trying to talk to 100 people. And so I have two segments. I've made two lists. So one is obviously existing customers and ideally those who have purchased from us multiple times. So not just once, but at least twice so that we know that, okay, there's some loyalty there. And then those who have abandoned cart, because I want to see both sides. Like one, why do you love us? And secondly, like, why don't you love us? Why? What stopped you? Exactly. And so we have sort of similar set of questions, but you know, some obviously very key differences too. And he said that, you know, once you've talked to 50 people in both groups, then you will have a better understanding. And so I don't even think we've talked to even 10 people yet because surprisingly, it's really hard to like, you know, get people to say, okay, yes, I'll give you 15 minutes of my time. And it's even harder, as you can imagine, to talk to those who have abandoned your cart because they're like, yeah, if I have time to buy your product, I'm glad to give you 15 minutes. But that's kind of something that we're doing right now because I really want to understand what their key motivations are. Speaker 3: Incredible. Speaker 2: So as far as marketing, I know we've talked about organic stuff, but as far as paid, what are you exactly doing and if not, maybe not anything? Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I am doing something just not very well. Because a lot of us. No, no, you guys are doing a phenomenal job. Like I'm always... Speaker 2: I don't think anybody's doing paid well. Speaker 3: Yeah, there's always ways to do it better. And no one feels good about it. Speaker 1: I agree. Okay. So I think where my strengths lie is in the creative, I feel like I can produce You know, videos and static ads and all that stuff. But where I really am struggling is getting that delivered to the right people, perhaps at the right time. I just know that Meta, Google, even TikTok, which I haven't even tried, attempted, they have so much more capability than I have been able to tap into. And I am just such a newbie. I mean, so when I first started running ads, so I should mention that we grew organically in the first two to three years of Modi Toys. I didn't spend a single dime. Speaker 2: Which is incredible. Speaker 1: Because I didn't have a single dime. But afterwards, when I did start, you know, you always want to be able to do the job that you want to hire, right? Or outsource. So I said, okay, I'm going to try to do this on my own. And so I ran Facebook ads by myself, Google ads by myself. And I didn't know what the heck I was doing, but, you know, even with the role that I'm in, like, I didn't know what I was doing, but, you know, I was like, okay, I'll figure it out. And I can't even tell you if my ads were effective or not. I just knew that I had to now find new avenues to market. And then eventually I outsourced it, but I always maintained control of the creative because I was like, nobody understands. It's definitely not going to be someone who doesn't look like me, right? No offense. I've lived my story, so I want to be able to continue telling it. So I've always maintained the creative, but even when I outsourced the rest of it, I felt like we weren't seeing the kind of return that I expected. Okay, now if I'm adding fuel to the fire, why isn't a shift, a massive shift occurring? And that's been sort of the challenging that I continue to grapple with to this day. I've now, you know, that was back in what, maybe 2020 or so, but like I've changed agencies, I've changed freelancers and still. I think they all kind of become a little, I don't know if I should say this out loud, but lazy. They're comfortable. Comfortable, yes. Speaker 2: It's tough for somebody to care about it as much as you'll care about it. That's the people you need to find. I mean, there's great agencies out there, but I think what's always worked for us is Ash runs our performance and that's I'll do the creative and he'll run the performance and we're the only people who will actually give a shit about this. Speaker 1: You need someone in-house. I think that's really honestly the key because anyone else, you're just basically one of their clients. For them, it's like, okay, let me just see if I can copy and paste this formula and if it sticks, great. If not, whatever. I'll still send my monthly dashboard update at the end of the month. I believe it or not, just this. Last week I sent this email to my freelancer who's currently running the ads for me on Facebook and I said, hey, I get the sense that I'm really providing the kind of strategic guidance that I was expecting to come from you. Speaker 2: It should be coming from them. Speaker 3: Exactly. Speaker 1: And I was like, I don't know how to write this nicely, but I thought that was the nicest way to kind of say like, hey, do your job. Unknown Speaker: Makes total sense. Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I think especially when it comes to paid, especially over the last few years since COVID and stuff, I like to put the analogy towards like the job a weatherman has, right? Can always be wrong, but you always have a job. And I feel like that's how media buyers kind of are. Like they can burn money and it's like, I got to work with you the next day still. I still got to listen to you. I still got to do this. And it's like, it's the one piece that becomes really tricky because Nowadays, at least the brands that are being born today, they feel like they only can build through this. And then you have this other side of the world happening, which is like TikTok, where you've seen like, brands literally get born and build overnight. Speaker 1: Poppy. Speaker 3: Poppy, yeah. Poppy literally led to an exit since that last viral campaign. But it's incredible how some of these platforms work. One thing that's interesting and I'm curious because we do have a lot of viewers that are in niche buckets. Have you kind of felt like you've also had to stay in your lane of like, Instagram or like, how does a platform expansion work for you? Because there are people who are like, I'm already in a niche. I just need to master one thing before I start jumping into TikTok, Snapchat and all these other things. How are you looking at like all the different distractions and where you can spend money and, you know, do media? How do you look at those? Speaker 1: So I'm happy to spend money if I know that something is working, right? So if I knew that, I mean, everyone says that you have to be on TikTok, you have to be on TikTok. And so I tried running like some such minuscule campaign and like it did nothing. So I'm like, okay, I'm just... Speaker 3: Did you do organic TikTok too? Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. So I should clarify that right now, Instagram is really Where I have a community, right? So if I ever like go and look at any of the comments, I'm like, oh, yeah, like I know this person, you know, like you start seeing some familiar profiles pop up and on TikTok, I couldn't tell you who user 12345 is because like many of them don't even have like real names, many of them like Even their profile photo is not even of a person. So I'm like, I don't know if these are real followers I have. I don't know who they are. Speaker 2: Like Instagram, you have a grid. You can tell, you know, this person's a real person. TikTok, half the time, there's no posts. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 1: So on Instagram, that's kind of where we got our start. And so when TikTok was banned for like two seconds, I was like, good riddance, I don't have to worry about this. But then I was just so grateful that we still had Instagram and I was also so grateful that I had my community on email because we have a super high open rate. And I was like, you know, if I lose TikTok, that's not a big deal because we're not big on it. But what I've been really just doing is like whatever content I create, it's always with the intent of like, okay, this is like for Instagram, because I speak Instagram, you know what I mean? I don't speak TikTok. I don't know what would go viral on TikTok. It's what I mean. Speaker 2: It's scary. Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like the less effort you put in, the more likely it is to go viral is really what it comes down to. Speaker 2: You can't think about TikTok. Speaker 1: Exactly. You cannot have a script. You cannot have shot lists. You cannot have any of that. But so what I've just been doing, again, because I'm a lean team of one, whatever content I create for Instagram, I just repost it on YouTube and TikTok. I don't mess with other channels because I just don't have the bandwidth. And it's always so fascinating to me to see how something can go viral on one platform, but not others. I've literally had three different examples of where that Nita Ambani video that went viral on Instagram, nothing on others. But then I've had a video that went viral on YouTube, but barely anything on the others. Same thing. Stop trying to like understand it. I'm like, whatever, like, I'm just gonna like, you know, I'm just gonna roll the dice on all three and like see where it lands. And that's kind of what I do. But, but, you know, I do think that with that said, you do have to kind of make sure that you have something else outside of social media because as we've learned through TikTok, right? I mean, they can pull the plug literally any minute. And then what do you do? How do you talk to your customers? You know, like where do you go from there? So I really do think it's important to have an email list to begin with and not just like a list, like, but actually ongoing communication with them. And we switched over from MailChimp to Klaviyo at the end of 2021. But I would say that again, I didn't really maximize, you know, its true potential until very recently. Like I would say maybe last year and even, you know, this year. Because before it was always like, okay, maybe I'll send an email like once a month, like when we have a sale going on. It was very like promotional driven. And it wasn't until I realized, because going back to organic marketing, I do this series called Theology Thursdays. Well, it used to be called Theology Thursdays, but because I no longer post weekly on Thursdays, I had to kind of change the name. But people essentially understand, like, you know, that I post this type of content where it's like a series of, it's like a carousel post where I'll dive into any given topic. Like, so like, say, for example, Hanuman Jayanthi is coming up, which is Hanuman's birthday. And I talk about exactly what it is, why it matters, like how was Hanuman even born? Like, you know, how? And so it's really for, again, it was for me because, you know, I had this, there was a point in time when I started asking myself these questions because my daughter was getting to an age where I was like, okay, well, if I'm going to be taken to the mandir for Hanuman Jayanthi, I need to tell her like what Hanuman Jayanthi is. Of course, being the four-year-old, she's gonna ask, well, how was he born? He's a monkey and a god. And so I wanted to make sure that I had an answer. It wasn't just like, well, don't worry about it. Or give her some crazy answer that she... Speaker 2: Like our parents told us. Speaker 1: Yeah. And so I really wanted to kind of change that, be a cycle breaker, I guess, if you will. And so that's when I started creating these series of posts called Theology Thursdays. And then it turns out that the things that I was interested in learning about, so were others. And in fact, those posts became some of our most engaged Engaging posts, people would always look forward to it and save them. And that's the metric I then started measuring for as does Instagram now, right? They want to see how many shares and saves you get. And I'm really proud to say that people can come to our page and not only be entertained and see cute baby pics, but they can also educate themselves. The way we present the content is always in a very simple, digestible manner because ain't nobody got time to read a novel, right? If you want to do that, you would go and read the Gita, but you want the truncated version of it. That's what we've always done. When I started doing that series, it initially began as IG stories. It took me, I think, two years to finally move that to my grid. I'm like, wait, why am I not leveraging this? Yeah, because once the 24 hours, it was gone. I mean, I had highlights, but who wants to flip through all that, right? Two years later, I was like, wait, I'm an idiot and I'm missing out. So then I started moving them to my grid. And then again, I think it was another two years later where I was like, wait, why am I not emailing as if my entire audience lives only on Instagram? So then I started cross-posting. I put on our blog post and emailed about it. And so I just know that there's so much I'm probably still not doing. But this is what I mean by when I say I've learned on the job. It's not like day one I had a business plan of all the things I need to be doing. But you learn. Speaker 3: That's impressive. I'm really impressed with the fact that you're very aware of what you need to learn, what you don't know. And I think those make the best founders. This whole time-bound thing. I need to learn everything now. I need to know everything quick. It just doesn't, it never works that way. I'm really curious on one other thing. What do the next few years look like? Because we actually just had the founder of Lalo, which is like the kids' tables and a bunch of different products. Yeah, we do too. It's Michael's awesome founder. And one thing he mentioned which was really cool was they've obviously designed really cool furniture for kids and they've gotten into households and their whole thing has been Building product based on what their community wants and so now they're moving into subscription stuff and getting coloring books and this and that and so I'm curious, how do you look at product expansion now from the idea of subscription is important and getting people on repeat is important and trying to build that constant relationship where you're not just being thought about during one time or one moment, you're thought about every day and every moment. Tell me what the next three to five years look like in your vision. Speaker 1: If I'm being perfectly honest, we're figuring that out right now. We have not been too much of a forward-looking company. I'm just being honest. I know that makes it sound like we don't really have our ducks in a row and stuff. Speaker 2: I don't think anybody really does. Speaker 1: I'll be perfectly frank. When we first launched Baby Ganesh, my brother, again, my co-founder, he was like, well, we should now come out with Krishna and Hanuman. I was like, Who's gonna want all that? Nobody wants a whole collection of us and I'm so glad I was wrong because to this day, whenever we have a brand new collection launching, there's always a wait list. There's always people ready to hit add to cart when it goes live. But that's the thing. Our customers continue to surprise me. Daily. And so, now the question, you know, we're kind of confronted with is, okay, do we age with our customers? Meaning, like, obviously, you know, my brother and my daughters, they were one year old when we had the prototype. They are not exactly in like, oh my god, I love plush toys. My other two kids, very much so. Like, they love plush toys still. But now, do we try to cater to the eight year olds who once had our toys? Or do we just focus on the newborns, the infants, the toddlers? Because there are very different products that we can create for both. Like so this Rangoli with Sugar Roots book is a perfect example of something that we had created for my daughter's demographic in mind. So that's something we're still figuring it out. And the reason why we're figuring it out still as opposed to like, you know, saying like, well, this is what the next three or five years gonna look like, is because product development takes a lot of time and money. And we don't want to get it wrong again, because we have gotten some products that did not work. And so we are, you know, now in the process of clearance and all of that fun stuff. And that's why we are very intentional with our product development. We launch literally one. We publish one toy collection a year and sometimes we don't get our timing right. The book will come out first and the toy will follow or the toy will come out first and the book will follow. Books are typically easier to produce so those do come out first. But because of that, for now, for the time being, we've actually decided to pause our development for plush toys. One of the reasons is because we feel like we do have a good amount. It's kind of like the major ones. It's like the major ones, right? Like kind of covered. It's like, okay, Shiva, after Shiva, even if we had like, let's say the resources, right? I don't know if I would be like running to get something created because I'm like, well. Speaker 2: Do you guys do like limited drops at all? Like what if you made something and just sold out of it and never brought it back? Speaker 1: I mean, if there was a surefire guarantee that yes, I guess you would know. Yeah, only God knows. He sings but doesn't talk. Speaker 3: Yeah, my son loves to, I think there's a Lakshmi one. He loves to, he knows where the battery I think it's on the bottom. So you like now he's about to turn three. So now what he does at night, He'll take it out and just keep pressing the beeper and we have the nanette so we're also listening to the mantra constantly. Yeah, he's actually a huge troublemaker. But it's like now he just has graduated to, okay, I'm done playing with the plush toy. I just want to listen to the mantra. Speaker 1: It's really funny. Do you like the mantras? Speaker 3: I do. I personally like the fact that, like, I'm not very, like, we pray every morning in our temple and stuff because we have a son, but, like, before my son and, like, between when I grew up from my parents, like, doing it, there was a patch where, like, I don't even, like, I didn't even reference God or go to temple or anything. Now I'm like, hey, I want my son to have certain qualities. So, like, I take him every morning to the temple right by his bedroom and Say thank you for something, you know, and like just something small, but we don't still do any of the core practices. Speaker 1: This is why I think they say parenting makes you a better person. Yeah, because you want to be a role model for them. Yeah, and you really want to do right by them. And the reason why I ask you if you like the mantra is because I've actually been I have a long list of like reels that I like ideas as I get them and one of the ideas I had was like Finally, a musical toy where I don't want to throw the batteries out. And the reason why I thought that is because my son does have a toy he is obsessed with and that I absolutely hate. And I have contemplated either throwing the toy itself out or just take the batteries out, but he's too smart to know. He just needs two batteries. Speaker 3: That's us with Moana too right now, so it's a bit much. No, it's such a good point. I think it's one of those things that's like, I think what you guys have created, the brand you've built, it creates a lot of wholesomeness, but it also creates a lot of intention of like, if I'm getting this for my family or if someone's gifting it to me, it almost, there's a part of it that makes you feel like I'm doing the right thing, right? And proud. And like, , I think that that's something that like feels good. Like when he, He has his Build-A-Bear, but he also has his Lakshmi next to him, and it's like, all right. Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't have to be either or. That's the great thing about it, right? Speaker 3: That's a really cool thing, yeah. Speaker 1: I think the other great thing about toys is that you can never have enough. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 1: Because you're gonna have a set of toys when they are born. You're gonna have a set of toys when they're like one month old. I mean, that's how Love Every is built, right? Literally. That whole subscription-based model based on age group. And so the great thing about these toys is that they're ageless. They're sort of evergreen. Again, like we didn't know that we were creating toys for for adults until we started hearing from adults being like, oh, no, I bought this for myself. Or no, I bought this for my nephew, but I love it so much. I decided to buy another one for him. And I was so naive again, you know, because we went totally blindly. And now there's this term called cadult. Cadult. Speaker 2: Cadult. Speaker 1: Yeah. Unknown Speaker: I haven't heard that one. Speaker 1: Yeah, actually. So have you heard of this brand called Jelly Cat? Speaker 3: No. Speaker 1: They're a massive plush toy brand, also born out of UK. No, they're actually a couple of decades old now. Adults are their primary customer. And as a matter of fact, just this past weekend, I was at a toy store with my kids and there were some jelly cats there. And it was like the teenagers and like the there was like not a little kid. It's a teenager. It's like a teenage girl who was like, oh, this is a jelly cat. And I was like, wow, like as a marketer, I'm like, that's that's amazing, right? That's cool. And it's not like they have massive branding. Like you just look at like, you know, it's like a jelly cat. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 1: So, cadulting is a thing and I'm really glad that we're able to kind of ride that wave of having people of all ages kind of turn to them for whatever the reason is. Speaker 2: I think it's refreshing having a guest who actually built a brand on pure values versus technology. Speaker 3: So first of all, you've shared tons of tons of tactical things you've done, whether they're accidental, whether it's through learning. But this is, I think, really the essence of our show and what we're trying to share. But one thing we like to do at every episode at the end is if there was one thing you can leave the audience with, one thing to chew on, one thing for them to take away, what would be that one piece of advice for anyone thinking of building a brand or stuck building their current one? Speaker 1: I would say you learn by doing. Not by just strategizing. You can sit there and plan everything out down to a T, but you won't learn a single thing from that piece of paper until you actually put anything, something into action. Speaker 3: Chew on That. Speaker 2: 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.